Daily life of a cultivation judge

Chapter 548 A month passes by (1)

The obsidian serpents and one of them even beginning the evolution process to a flood dragon, who knew how many other dangers the Deer Mountain Range hid?

The territory was as large as a rank 2 empire and in certain areas, it was just as rich. But even then it was filled with countless dangers which was why despite the Deer Mountain Kingdom calling themselves lords over the territory for tens of thousands of years, they never had full control of it.

They did try it once, but it ended in their complete loss, and their foundations got fractured so they dared not try it again.

Yang Qing was slightly worried about what dangers lurked in the area. Xi Si's report gave him much-needed relief and as for why they didn't do it earlier, Yang Qing could more or less guess it had to do with manpower and also the nature of the Deer Mountain Range, more specifically its inhabitants.

The Order as long as there was no imminent threat would not pour countless resources and manpower to map out an area outside their jurisdiction completely. It would take too much time and resources, which they had a limited supply of, especially labor. They had the whole continent to monitor which usually left them little room for deep excursions and surveys. They would rather use those resources to make the branch as impenetrable as possible.

The other reason was the spirit beasts. If the branch had been in an area known to be a hub for a lot of human activity, then a deeper study would have been done by the Order, but in a wilderness range like the Deer Mountain Range, it was better not to spend too much time on it. Spirit beasts are extremely territorial and would rarely live in their sphere of influence, they therefore usually kept to themselves the more powerful they were not unless there was a sudden birth of a precious resource that would trigger a war amongst themselves.

But with the death of an inquisitor and the presence of members of the Blue Flame Soul Crow Syndicate, things had changed. An in-depth study was needed, especially to know why the Blue Flame Soul Syndicate needed the wisdom pearl of an obsidian serpent in the first place, and how they even knew it was there.

From its death, clearly, the syndicate must have scouted it for quite some time for them to be able to heavily injure it without creating so much commotion. 

The Order therefore needed to know what else lurked within those ranges in case some other fiendish organization was drawn to it.

"After everything has been mapped out, the occupants will not be subjugated, except for volatile elements, but even then, considering that there have not been records of them acting out, what we will do for now is place monitoring and alerting seals and arrays around their regions in case of any movement.

Though we will try to form a friendly or accommodative pact with them if we can, in case we don't, the Spirit Council has signed off on inlaying containment and suppression arrays to cover the whole Deer Mountain Range.

It will lay dormant most of the time, and the only way to trigger it is through a token that would be handed to the Branch chief. With that, they should be able to avoid any surprise attacks.

But because of the scale of such an array, I'm afraid by the time you take the post it will not be done yet.." said Xi Si.

"It's okay, having a clear picture of the whole range is more than enough.." answered Yang Qing in understanding, while inwardly he marveled at the Order's abilities.

Despite being here and seeing all they could do, they always had a way of subverting his imagination now and then.

He could hardly imagine the skills and the resources that would be required to lay a kingdom-wide array especially one the size of the Deer Mountain Kingdom, which was like the size of two rank 3 kingdoms combined.

The scale of such an array was enormous, to say the least. Other than the coverage, there were multitudes of other variables to consider.

Just laying down an array that covered the abode one had to consider the resource makeup of the area to determine the flow of their signature waves and their effects on the properties of the surrounding spiritual qi, then there was geomancy, which elements were most prevalent in the area, before one finally decided the type of array to lay down and the anchoring treasures to use, which will have to meld with the surroundings to not cause an imbalance and the last part, was it had to be adaptive.

The array needed to have enough strength and adaptability in its makeup to be able to respond to any changes that may happen to the surrounding makeup. This was why the best-laid arrays had a moniker to them, they were usually referred to as worlds within a world. A good array made good use of its surroundings to amplify its abilities, but it also needed to be independent of it. It needed to be strong enough to blend its surroundings into its framework, forcibly if need be.

Those considerations amplified the larger the scope of the area covered by the array became with an increasing number of variables to consider and blend. The probably of an array lay up failing as it was very high the larger the area it covered, and if it was laid it faced another problem of potentially imploding or malfunctioning due to adaptability issues.

For something of this scope, Yang Qing was certain it required the combined skills of at least ten gold-grade formation masters, though the number would be half that if a purple-grade formation master was involved. Other than skills, to cover something this large, the main anchoring artifact or treasure of the array would have to be at the saint grade for it to operate fully throughout the kingdom while the secondary treasures by Yang Qing conservative estimates needed to be at least four, and their grade needed to be top tier ascendant grade artifacts.

The costs and the skills required were the reasons why most rank 2 organizations even rank 1 rarely covered the entirety of their territory in one all-encompassing array. It was too demanding and costly to the point that some could hardly afford it, which is why they mostly opted to only cover the core regions of their territories.

Only organizations like the Order had the resources and skills to pull off something like this. Yang Qing couldn't help but sigh at the opulence showed by them.

They were willing to spend this much in a territory that wasn't even their own. Then how much guarded was the headquarters?

Despite himself, a small satisfied smile couldn't help but creep up on Yang Qing's face. The four elders all had bewildered looks on their faces on the sudden smile but they chose to ignore it as Xi Si continued with her explanations.