Daily life of a cultivation judge Chapter 1274: Cultivating geniuses

"Guest or staff, I wonder..." Yang Qing thoughtfully murmured as he reached out for the mungbean cakes, dipping one into the peanut chili sauce before taking a bite. He took a brief pause to savor the flavor, his thoughts gathering once more.

"As for Bai Chen..." he continued as he examined the floor again. The more he looked, the more it felt like this was likely the place where the exchange—or whatever it was the kidnapper wanted him for—had occurred.

The message left behind hadn’t told him which floor to go to when he arrived, which likely meant the kidnapper already knew exactly which floor Bai Chen would be taken to the moment he arrived.

Maybe the same thing that happened to him had happened to Bai Chen—that Madame Cai Shan or Sun Biya had told him he met the standards of the fourth floor and led him here. And once he was here, he would have realized how conducive this place was—at least where a ransom exchange was concerned.

thought Yang Qing, his brows furrowing slightly before relaxing once more.

He decided he’d bring it up the next time Sun Biya came around with the next set—something he increasingly felt was bound to happen sooner than he or she likely anticipated, given how unexpectedly flavorful the dishes were.

Out of temptation, he found himself deliberating another matter as he popped another mungbean cake into his mouth. After a few thoughtful chews, he made up his mind: he might as well order two more sets on top of the ones he already ordered.

Nodding to himself as excitement and anticipation welled up inside him, his movements came to a pause.

His attention shifted from the plates of food crowding his table to the go tile now pressed between his left fingers.

"Let’s see what they have," he murmured with a flicker of amusement in his tone as he playfully moved the tile from finger to finger until it finally came to rest in his palm.

Before pouring his spiritual sense into it, Yang Qing reached for the teapot and poured himself a cup of frost plum and osmanthus infusion tea.

The sweet scent wafted up gently, prompting him to take a sip first, savoring it... before finally turning his attention back to the tile.

"Mmmh!" Yang Qing hummed in delightful surprise after the sip. He pulled the cup away from his mouth and stretched it out in front of him, examining its contents with widened eyes. he thought, giving the cup another once-over, still filled with surprise.

That tea instantly ranked in the top four of the best teas he’d ever drunk. The food and wine were excellent, but it was the tea where the Velvet Orchid showed its true mastery. It wasn’t just the flavor that mesmerized him—it was the subtle powers of the Grand Dao flowing within the tea. The deeper he savored it, the more apparent those traces became.

he mused as the smooth-handed tea maker from the Thousands Flavors Restaurant flashed through his mind while he went in for another sip.

After the fourth sip, Yang Qing reluctantly set his cup down as his attention returned to the tile.

Following Sun Biya’s instructions, he poured his spiritual sense into the go tile. The moment he did, five rectangular wooden tiles immediately appeared in his mind. They were blank at first, but a second later, beautiful writing began to bloom across their surfaces.

As he looked at them, Yang Qing realized the writings were titles: and the last one—

Following what Sun Biya had told him, Yang Qing willed his mind to command the contents of the first tile to be revealed—the one titled

The moment he did, it burst into red-orange flames that congealed to form a long row filled with scrolls, arranged in a manner similar to what Yang Qing had seen in libraries.

In his mind’s eye, Yang Qing walked over to the shelf, and without even needing to touch the scrolls, the mere intent to know what they held caused an overview of their contents to appear before him.

The first scroll he approached was about cultivation arts, and the supposition that their prolonged use altered the environment and its occupants.

The author of the scroll hypothesized that if a certain type of cultivation art was practiced over a prolonged period in a specific area, that area would gradually begin to be affected by the lingering effects of that cultivation art. Over time, the environment would evolve in response to that influence, and the resulting adaptations would become so pronounced that they would start to influence the physiological makeup of the living beings within it—from plants to animals, and even humans.

In cultivation terms, this meant that spiritual plants and other natural treasures suited to that particular cultivation art would begin to emerge, born from the environmental changes brought about by prolonged exposure. These changes would even extend to the spiritual veins in the area.

Then came the human element. Just like the plants and natural treasures, humans living in that environment would, over time, undergo physiological changes influenced by their surroundings. As a result, they would naturally become better suited to that cultivation art, their bodies gradually attuning to it.

The author surmised that when it came to long-standing organizations—especially clans that had one mainstay cultivation art as their signature—the reason those clans were able to maintain their strength over extended periods of time was because of their foundation.

To most, the foundation here would be the strength of their cultivators and the accumulation of resources, and they’d be right to think so. But to the author, the foundation he was focusing on—while somewhat similar—was also different.

According to him, the true foundation behind the longevity of these ancient clans lay in a powerful cultivation art that had been practiced for so long it had altered the environment to suit its continued existence.

The resources produced by their lands could be traced back to that cultivation art. And as for their talents—like most clans, they prized their bloodline above all, claiming it to be one of the main sources of their strength.

The author, in his journal, agreed with that sentiment, but with a twist. In his view, the bloodline wasn’t powerful because of inherited genes from some ancient ancestor. Rather, it was because the cultivation art had so deeply influenced and transformed the environment that it, in turn, shaped the physiological makeup of the clan members who lived and cultivated within it.

Those ’geniuses’ born into such clans, he argued, were the natural result of that long-term environmental conditioning.

The more powerful the cultivation art—and the more skilled the practitioner drawing out its potential—the more pronounced its effects on the environment would be.

Sects, clans, and other organizations with powerful cultivators were able to produce talents not just because they had the resources or could train them, but, as the author proposed, because their presence—and the cultivation art they practiced—created an environment that birthed talent.

So, if an organization wanted to produce a talented genius, all they needed to do (according to the author) was find a decent cultivation art, practice that cultivation art diligently for thousands upon thousands of years, and as long as they did so faithfully, then at some point in that long timeline, a genius would be born. And from that genius, many more would follow—so long as the tradition continued.

"Cultivating geniuses," Yang Qing muttered in amusement. "A rather apt name for it," he added.

He chuckled again as thoughts of his clan surfaced in his mind.

Yang Qing thought with a trace of worry, quickly shoving those thoughts to the very, very back of his mind where everything associated with his clan members needed to be.

Yang Qing then proceeded to peruse a few more scrolls, each just as thought-provoking as the last, before finally exiting that token. He moved on to the others, skimming through a few until he reached —the one he ultimately decided to focus on.

While the other subject matters were interesting, and some of the information unique, much of it was still something he could find in the Order’s library if he looked hard enough. But ...

covered all manner of strange rumors and wild theories under the sun. Now that intrigued him. Just looking at the tile and imagining the potential within filled him with the same anticipatory excitement he always felt when combing through cultivation markets in search of buried treasures.

Bubbling with excitement, Yang Qing willed the token to reveal its contents. Just like the others, it burst into red-orange flames and reformed into a long row—this time with round compartments, each holding a scroll.

Unlike before, where he simply browsed, this time the very first scroll he reached for, he gave the command: he wanted to it. An instant later, an old yellow-brown booklet appeared in his palms, prompting Yang Qing to cut off his connection with the go tile as his attention honed in on the booklet.

With a delicate touch, Yang Qing opened it.