Putting his philosophical musings on the matter aside, when it ca to the contract and the whereabouts of the three mbers in ng Jiayi, Long Zhaozu and Liu jie, he could only assu;
A. They were alive and kicking and surrendered their roles to undertake new roles maybe supre elders or guardian elders, as was the practice with most sects.
When it ca to the high-ranking sects, those that were at rank three and above, while the position of sect master and elder was valuable, they almost always reshuffled the mbers in those roles.
Barring extenuating circumstances, they didn’t have lifers in those roles. They usually held the post for a particular period of ti and then surrendered that post to their new crop of cultivators, so they could focus on their cultivation.
These sects had a lot to lose. Every single one of them was a fat sheep wearing the skin of a wolf and to continue wearing that skin and keep other predators at bay, they needed to improve themselves and the sect.
The old ones would improve themselves so they could protect the young saplings, giving them room to grow, and once the young saplings are grown into powerful trees themselves, they protect the saplings that co after them.
This was the continuity and longevity these long-established sects, clans, and other organizations aid for. The passing of the torch so the flas of history, legacy, and ambition don’t die out.
This was what made these long-standing sects so dangerous. One never knew how deep their foundations lie.
Take the Starlight Lake for example. On paper it was said they had only four palace realm experts, but was that really the case?
Organizations like this were almost guaranteed to lie about things like this so they could hide their age.
Yang Qing once heard of a sect where one of its disciples beat up a disciple of another sect during so arranged competition among the various sects, clans, and other organizations in the region.
The sect of the beat-up disciple had been the host of the competition.
The fight was fair, but the beating the one disciple received made it seem like it and wasn’t. The beating had been so thorough that his master found it difficult to swallow, especially when one considered the ’known’ disparity between the two sects.
The disciple who gave out the thorough beating was from a sect called the Hidden Fang Sect, while the disciple who had received the beating was from a sect called the Dragon Koi Water Gate Sect.
As was known at the ti, the Dragon Koi Water Gate Sect was a rank two sect, even though the ranking system had not been there and the Order had been nonexistent. Regardless, the Dragon Koi Water Gate Sect had a domain expert at the ti and it wasn’t just one, from what the story suggested they had five, putting them heads and shoulders above the other organizations within that competition.
When it ca to the Hidden Fang Sect, it was a known wide fact that they didn’t have one, but they did have about a dozen palace realm experts which gave them a bit of repute and status in that particular region.
Still, they were no Dragon Koi Water Gate Sect.
As for what gave their disciple the courage to resoundingly beat up their disciple in said competition, it was because said competition was sothing that had been held for quite a long period spanning thousands of years, to the point it beca a tradition.
In that ti the Dragon Koi Water Gate Sect had conducted themselves in a magnanimous manner, worthy of admiration by organizations that participated in that particular arrangent.
They never used the fact that they had four domain experts and the other organizations had none to bully their results. It was quite the opposite. They generously rewarded the disciples who managed to defeat their disciples and the organization they belonged.
To them, it was a win-win situation. Anyone who could best their disciple was a talent and rewarding them, was their way of establishing positive karma with them and their organizations. One can never have too many friends after all. The other benefit was because of their rewards and attitude they were sure their disciples would get the much-needed pressure to temper themselves through the right, and if they lost, even better.
The sorest of losers always made the most improvent. Their disciples were sure to thrive under said losses.
With the attitudes of all sides, more so the Dragon Koi Water Gate’s side, of course, the disciple of the Hidden Fang Sect wasn’t about to hold back against the disciple of such a magnanimous and generous sect.
What had he trained so bitterly for? Wasn’t it to shoot for glory for himself and his sect and get rewarded for it while he was at it?
However, said disciple had grossly miscalculated how magnanimous the sect could be. He completely eviscerated the bounds of it with the beating he gave their disciple.
The arena was silent all except for the wails of said disciple, and the innocent encouragent of his opponent who thought his opponent was faking it and was begging him to use his serious moves.
It turned out the disciple of the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect wasn’t pretending. He wasn’t holding back. He had been giving it all only his efforts were tantamount to an ant trying to block an elephant, while said elephant was stomping on him, thinking he was holding back his strength.
One can only imagine the agony said disciple had been in. It was only after he had been beaten unconscious did the disciple from the Hidden Fang Sect, thought that maybe just maybe the disciple from the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect had not been pretending and in the shock of It he muttered sothing he should not have.
"Isn’t he a tad too weak? I barely used half my strength,"
That disciple’s innocent comnts shattered whatever face the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect had left and also shattered the rationality of one of their elders who had been that disciple’s master.
That elder instantly charged to the arena looking to murder that disciple, luckily the team from the Hidden Fang Sect intervened, saving the disciple’s life, but the matter didn’t end there.
That little intervention turned into a full-blown fight to the death. The other sects and clans chose not to intervene because of the strength of the Dragon Koi Water Gate. They couldn’t afford to and thus the Hidden Fang Sect was left to survive those waters by themself.
Because of the prestige of the competition, the Hidden Fang Sect, not only them but also the other sects and clans, always brought their prized mbers to compete. The rewards and experience brought by the competition were invaluable to them.
However, with a full-blown enmity triggered by one of the elders of the Dragon Koi Water Gate, the Hidden Fang Sect having their most prized seedlings around in such a confrontation was about the worst possible thing.
Those disciples were the lifeblood and future of their sect as such the team present ensured they did all they could to send them back safely and in the process, a few of their mbers were gravely injured while they in turn killed the elder of the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect much to the surprise of many.
With an elder dead, things had already reached the point of no return, and the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect imdiately sent one of its domain experts to destroy the Hidden Fang Sect, both root and stem.
Before the might of a single domain expert, the strength of even a hundred peak palace realm experts was useless, thus the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect believed sending one domain expert to handle the matter was enough.
What they didn’t expect and what no one expected was that the Hidden Fang Sect actually had a domain expert of their own who made an appearance and fought the domain expert from the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect to a draw, prompting said expert to leave, calling for reinforcents.
Their reasoning was simple, while the Hidden Fang Sect had a domain expert, they likely only had one while they had five.
Their hubris or maybe fear didn’t let them entertain the thought that maybe they had more.
Thus said domain expert from the Dragon Koi Water Gate, left and ca back with two more domain experts leaving two to guard the sect.
They thought, surely this will be enough, right?
They were mistaken. Hidden Fang Sect produced two more domain experts to match their numbers completely subverting the senses of the arrived domain experts from the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect, especially when one of the domain experts from the Hidden Fang Sect proved to be marginally stronger than the strongest domain expert from the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect.
Left with no choice, the remaining two domain experts were imdiately called whilst they engaged the team of experts from the Hidden Fang Sect.
The Dragon Koi Water Gate sect on receiving the news decided to even bring their ascendant grade sect guarding treasure to avoid any mishaps from happening.
Admittedly, it was a well thought out plan sadly their opponent was an abnormal one. When they arrived, five in all, with their top-tier ascendant grade weapon, making it a total of six domain-level experts, it still proved insufficient.
The Hidden Fang Sect produced five more domain experts bringing their total fielded domain experts to eight, and it didn’t stop there, one of them was a late-stage domain expert, her realm higher than all the domain experts involved in the fight from both sides and she too was wielding a top tier ascendant grade weapon.
This ant that the team from the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect was facing off against nine domain experts.
With the severe disparity between the two sides, it went without saying that those five domain experts and their treasure got buried permanently outside the gates of the Hidden Fang Sect, and with it, cultivators all around realized what sleeping beast the Hidden Fang Sect was.
Since the incident, many were left wondering,
Those eight domain experts the Hidden Fang Sect produced, was that truly the highest number of domain experts they had, or did they hide more? And if they hid more, how many could they have hidden? And how strong would those hidden experts be?
Going by what they saw in their dealing with the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect, so felt it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe they had a soul formation expert hidden in their sect sowhere.
After all, in their fight against the Dragon Koi Water Gate sect, every domain expert they produced was stronger than the last even if marginally so, and if they had a late-stage domain expert in their ranks, going by the logic that there were still more hidden, then it stood to reason that those hidden experts were likely to be stronger than the late stage domain expert they revealed in the fight.
It was hard to believe at the sa ti, the Hidden Fang Sect had done the unbelievable. They had fooled the entire continent for who knew how long that they didn’t have a domain expert when they in fact had at least eight of them that people now knew of.
It wasn’t strange to imagine that they may have hidden a soul formation expert in their sect sowhere.
That thought even unproven served as a sufficient deterrent to most who dared not test the waters and find out.
Since that mont, most organizations took a page from the Hidden Fang Sect and started hiding the number of experts they had, with so even spreading false information about the demise of so of their experts or hiding away talents.
This created a sense of wariness around the different powers especially the more established ones which oddly enough brought a sense of peace as it reduced the number of conflicts these organizations had with one another.
None of them wanted to be another Dragon Koi Water Gate sect.
These large sects and organizations were always the most cautious since they stood to lose alot at the slightest misstep.
As for the Hidden Fang Sect, a rather apt na for it, the sect still existed to date, though no one knew where its base was, and as per their registration with the Order, they were registered as a rank three sect but who would believe that now.
Just like the Hidden Fang Sect, the Starlight Lake Sect may have hidden the three sect mbers away as a hidden trump card. Thus one of Yang Qing’s assumptions was maybe they had left the lilight and their current strengths had grown just like that of their current sect master, Xie Yuan.
But if they have not...
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