Daily life of a cultivation judge
Chapter 1191 - 1191: Quest to find her broken hilt

From the accounts she had read about the cultivation method, it was said that one generally needed to have 150 chrysalises formed to trigger a breakthrough to the palace realm, 500 for the domain realm, and 800 for the soul formation realm. Yet she had managed to beat that record by a third, thanks to the quality of her chrysalises.

Quality, in this case, wasn't just dictated by the grade of the item being appraised. A greater portion of the evaluation came from the story behind the item.

For example, a gold-grade craftsman might produce twelve ascendant-grade artifacts, with perhaps even half of them being top-tier within that rank. However, when it came to the spell's assessment of quality, the highest-rated item would be the one that helped the craftsman step into the gold-grade realm in the first place, with his first top-tier ascendant-grade artifact coming in as a close second.

Or take a kingdom with countless treasures—among them, one treasure might have prevented the kingdom's annihilation, led to its resurgence, or served as the very foundation of its rise. Such treasures, in the eyes of the spell, would be deemed high-quality items.

Any item that played a defining role in a cultivator's, organization's, or even a region's story, whether for better or worse, would be considered a quality item, so long as it was instrumental to that defining moment.

Because of the esoteric nature of her cultivation art and her ingrained habits as an appraiser, beyond just cultivating the art, she researched the stories around it. She went to great lengths to track down experience journals written by others who had cultivated the same technique. Fortunately, as a member of the Order, accessing those journals wasn't an overly difficult task.

Those writings proved instrumental, becoming the guiding force behind many of her breakthroughs and steady improvements in the art. Her ability to reduce the number of chrysalises needed to break through to the palace realm by two-thirds of the commonly accepted standard was knowledge she gleaned from one such journal. And yet, as impressive as her feat was, it still paled in comparison to what the author of that journal had achieved.

That cultivator had used only twenty-four, yes, just twenty-four chrysalises to break through to the domain realm. That number was nearly less than half of what Fan Mei had needed just to reach the palace realm.

The author had credited that monumental success to a single item. Just one.

The item in question was a sword hilt, broken off from a wooden sword. The material used in it was as ordinary as could be. What made it special wasn't the item itself, but the story behind it. Or more precisely, the person who once held that sword hilt.

It turned out that the owner of that sword had once been a sect master of the Holy Land—the Radiant Sword Sect. That wooden sword had accompanied him through his formative years, and surprisingly, he continued using it well into his time as a powerful expert.

Back then, during his time as sect master, the Radiant Sword Sect wasn't yet the Holy Land it is known as today—it was just one of many rising sects, slowly building its reputation and prestige across the continent.

However, an accident occurred that threatened to derail that momentum and potentially bring it to a permanent halt. During a treasure scramble, one of their members grievously injured a kin of one of the flood dragon tribes that inhabited the Bestial Churning Sea. That kin was like the human equivalent of a prince within the tribe, and the injury it suffered was so severe that it was no different from being crippled, given that its path forward had been completely severed.

Unsurprisingly, the tribe did not take this lightly. They soon came to demand a price for that debt, but the price they named went far beyond the life of the Radiant Sword Sect member who had inflicted the injury. They demanded the lives of half the sect, all its treasures, and its complete disbandment.

They intended to make an example of the sect, to send a powerful message to others about what would happen if they were crossed. Flood dragons were a tyrannical bunch, which was expected given the strength of their members. However, as tyrannical and feared as they were, their opponent this time wasn't one that would bend easily.

Those from the Radiant Sword Sect were cultivators who embodied the true spirit of sword cultivators. There was no way they would shrink from a fight or sacrifice one of their own just to stay alive.

So, as one would expect, a fight between the two sides broke out, with things not going as that flood dragon tribe had hoped. They had entered that battle thinking they'd use the Radiant Sword Sect as a tool to send their message, but things ended up playing out differently. Instead, they became the message. They became the whetstone and the sounding tool the Radiant Sword Sect needed to properly announce itself to the continent.

The fight had not been an easy one for the Radiant Sword Sect, not by any stretch of the word, as they ended up losing two of their only three soul formation experts, with the last sustaining grievous injuries that put him out of the fight. But even so, they managed to kill off all four of the soul formation experts from that flood dragon tribe.

This left the fate of whatever would happen next to be decided by those at the domain realm and below. With such an arrangement, many would have easily counted the flood dragons as the favorites to win that war. Flood dragons were one of the few beings known to possess the ability to level-skip in battle and take on opponents stronger than themselves.

They might not have been true dragons, but they possessed terrifying capabilities that made them more than worthy of having dragon in their name. Their bodies were monstrously powerful, and their command over the powers of the Grand Dao was nothing short of fearsome.

At the same level—or even realm, few could be considered their match. That was why most had written off the Radiant Sword Sect's chances. But things played out differently from expectations. Not only did the Radiant Sword Sect members hold their own, but they even exceeded those odds as a few among them stood out.

Most heroes only break out of their shells during unparalleled adversity, and the same held true here. Heroes rose within the Radiant Sword Sect ranks, and one of them was the owner of that wooden sword.

With that wooden sword in hand, he beheaded one flood dragon after another, despite their monstrous physiques, bearing bodies rumored to be as sturdy, if not sturdier, than the toughest top-tier ascendant-grade materials. Yet, tough as they were, they were cut down by a wooden sword made of middle-tier earth-grade Spirit Snow Pine wood.

Who knew how many flood dragons that wooden sword had beheaded? Its final act before breaking was the beheading of a peak domain stage flood dragon. With that act, it ushered in a new era for the Radiant Sword Sect.

Its wielder broke through to the soul formation realm immediately after beheading that flood dragon, triggering his soul formation tribulation in the process. He successfully transcended it, and with that, the balance shifted. The flood dragon side became the disadvantaged party.

That tribe would have been annihilated to the last member had other tribes not threatened to intervene if the Radiant Sword Sect pushed things too far. Their threats, in turn, forced other human-side organizations to step in and support the sect, especially since a few of those flood dragon tribes wanted to retaliate and wipe away the shame of their defeat.

A shaky stalemate was eventually established between both sides, though neither the Radiant Sword Sect nor the flood dragon tribes ever forgot the enmity between them.

That enmity has endured to this day. In fact, for a sect master candidate of the Radiant Sword Sect to officially inherit the position, they must present the head or body of a flood dragon they personally slew. The slain flood dragon had to be of the same cultivation realm and level as the candidate—otherwise, it wouldn't count.

That tradition has been upheld to this day.

Given the story behind it, it wasn't surprising to Fan Mei that a single hilt was able to propel the author of that journal to the domain realm. In fact, she even felt the achievement was lacking. Something like that should have been enough to push him straight to the soul formation realm.

After all, that sword—even if only a hilt remained—had borne witness to the rise of a holy land, and to one of its most powerful experts: the Snow Pine Sword Supreme, who had beheaded flood dragons with a wooden sword.

With such implications in mind, Fan Mei had no choice but to give her utmost in every appraisal task she received. She poured her entire mind, body, and soul into each one.

After all, who knows? Maybe, just maybe, she might one day stumble across her own wooden hilt.