Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 986: Seeing things in a different light

The past four months had been anything but easy for him. He had spent the better part of his life resenting his mother because of how she treated him and also how indifferent she had been to him since he was born. He wasn’t sure if she even breast fed him, at least he never had any recollection of it even with the sharp memory afforded by his cultivation realm.

Where he lived, was a mountain. Its environment was peaceful and beautiful with verdant grass fields, a medium scaled forest nearby, and a winding river around it, and the spiritual qi in the area was pretty decent. He didn’t know what grade it was, but from what his mother had told him, it was sufficient to support his cultivation even within the palace realm.

Its density and quality had been one of the tools his mother used to chastise him when he didn’t improve to match her expectations. Claiming how there were many who would have long stepped into the palace realm if they had the support of the spiritual qi and the resources in the area.

Before coming here, he never took those words to heart and just played it off as her being vindictive and harsh to spur him on, but now seeing Yang Qing, he felt maybe she hadn’t been lying which only added to the list of things he felt guilty about where she was concerned.

For as beautiful as it was, Fan Cai was the only human there. The closest settlement to him were a few villages that were about 500 kilometers away and none of those villages had strong cultivators capable of making that trek, and even if there were, none of them knew that the mountain even existed.

It went without saying with how precious the environment around the mountain was whether it was the spiritual qi, or the living things it nurtured such as the forests and other vegetation, there was no way his paranoid mother would leave that place exposed and easily detectable.

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She had placed countless formations around it, one of which was a powerful illusory array capable of confusing even the senses of an early-stage palace realm expert. Her admission.

This meant that other than his mother, he didn’t get to interact with anyone else. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, he did get to interact with other living things in the mountain but that was an interaction he would have been all too happy to never have.

The mountain wasn’t only home to him, but it was also home to about fifty other spirit beasts. That was the number he had interacted with, and he was confident that there was bound to be more.

The mountain covered a radius of at least twenty kilometers, at least on the side he was on, which was on the southern side of the mountain. The eastern and northern sides had larger stretches that reached about thirty kilometers while the western had the least, at about ten kilometers but it was the richest, but also the most dangerous.

His mother had warned him not to step foot there because of the spirit beast that inhabited the area. It was a palace stage spirit beast. Its presence was one of the many reasons he resented and bemoaned his mother. Why would she leave her son in a place that housed such a terrifying creature?

Every once in a while he would have nightmares about being eaten by it. It was so intense that half the time he would get up looking to flee, but his mother conveniently locked him in place with the array covering the region. It not only protected the place from intruders, but it also prevented Fan Cai from leaving.

Fan Cai was only able to leave a year ago, during his last meeting with his mother when she handed him the contract. Along with the contract she also handed him the token used to control the formation array around the mountain. With it, he could come and go as he pleased.

With how distrustful he was of her, he figured it was a test of some sort so he dared not leave and only mustered the strength to leave when she didn’t make an appearance.

So all this time, other than her, what he had for company was a terrifying unknown palace realm spirit beast along with the other over a dozen or so spirit beasts that were in the core formation realm that had inhabited his side of the mountain. They were constantly fighting against one another for domination of the southern side of the mountain.

About the only reprieve he had in the area, which was what kept him sane was craftmanship. Thanks to the rich spiritual qi in the area, practice materials were never in short supply, and the quality was guaranteed. His mother had offhandedly handed him books on the various occupations from alchemy to talisman making, to craftsmanship, to weapon refinement, to arrays, so he could familiarize himself with them, and he took to craftmanship.

It was about the only kindest thing she had ever done for him. But now recalling all these things from a place of worry and concern, rather than resentment, he couldn’t help but feel he may have misjudged his mother all this time. His current state made him look at a few things in a different light.

For example when it came to that palace realm spirit beast, back then he assumed it was his mother’s way of torturing him so he could quickly improve himself under the fear of being eaten by it, but now, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was his secret protector of some sort incase the array failed.

After all, in all this time living there, not once had he ever interacted with it. With how territorial spirit beasts were, would it have left him alone? A half-human, half-spirit beast that could greatly contribute to its cultivation if it consumed him. There was a reason it let him be.

He had thought that maybe his mother may have threatened it, or it was in deep slumber but now he couldn’t help but think of a third option.

Just as he was getting lost in his thoughts, he was pulled back when he saw a fog filled with golden and pure white colors engulf Yang Qing. That fog didn’t seem to have appeared out of now but rather Yang Qing seemed to have been the one to exhale it from his mouth.

Despite being seated a short few centimeters away from him, the moment the fog engulfed Yang Qing it was like he had vanished. Fan Cai could neither see nor sense his presence be it with his eyes or spiritual sense.