Daily life of a cultivation judge Chapter 1509: Guard against fate and karma (2)

"Why do you sound surprised by that?" Yang Qing asked. "The coin belongs to an organization that had more than one mythical race among its members. It’s only to be expected that the affairs of such an organization would remain hidden, even long after they, and the organization they founded, had been lost to the dust of time."

Back at the Institute, when they were being taught the countless ways one could be tracked without their knowledge, the instructors had started with the more common methods, such as soul reading through acquaintances, the use of gu, spirit insects, and various tracking techniques and spells, before gradually moving on to the more esoteric methods, whose difficulty of detection and avoidance increased with each lesson.

Among those methods were tracking through karma and fate threads.

According to the instructors, one of the few reliable ways of avoiding such methods was to possess an overwhelmingly powerful cultivation base. The bare minimum needed for it was to be at the Peak of the Domain Realm.

Even then, to be truly safe, they suggested it was better to be in the Soul Formation Realm. While a peak Domain expert possessed enough sensitivity and strength to detect or even retaliate against attempts at divination, truly powerful experts who specialized in the Dao of Karma or the Dao of Fate could still track such cultivators without their knowledge.

Even just a Soul Supreme cultivator dabbling in those two Daos, without necessarily specializing in them, would be able to track them without them knowing it.

It was considerably safer to be at the Soul Formation Realm because, at that level, there were countless means available to guard against divination. One of the simplest was retreating into the void itself, where the deep layers of space naturally interfered with all forms of divination.

If one lacked the cultivation base, then the next best option was to possess a Saint-grade treasure capable of concealing one’s karma or fate; better still if the treasure itself was tied to either of those two esoteric Supreme Daos.

And if even that wasn’t an option, then the next best safeguard was to be a descendant of a sufficiently powerful cultivator. Here, being at the Peak of the Domain Realm didn’t cut it. The cultivator had to be at least in the Soul Formation Realm, and for the greatest protection, they had to be still alive.

Experts at that level possessed such profound sensitivity to karma and fate that they could sense attempts at divination even when the target wasn’t them, but someone who shared their bloodline, no matter how distant the branch of the family tree.

As long as even a single drop of their blood flowed within a descendant, they would sense the divination, and the power carried within that blood would instinctively interfere with and guard against it.

And if you didn’t have a powerful bloodline to lean on, then your next safest bet was to attach yourself to the hip of a powerful cultivator. As long as you remained around them, they naturally formed an umbrella of protection that shielded those beneath it from divination.

Sects with powerful cultivators relied on this.

Yang Qing, who had no powerful ancestor to rely on (much to his grave disappointment and frustration, as all he had was a family of lunatics who took unnatural pride in remaining at the Body Refinement Realm and looked upon anyone who dared advance beyond it with contempt), also didn’t have a cultivation base high enough to rely on himself.

Neither did he possess a Saint-grade treasure capable of guarding against karma and fate divination.

How could he?

He was poor. Dirt poor at that.

All he had were fruits and vegetables, a few birds and insects, a handful of rare treasures that merely held the potential of becoming powerful in the future, and a leech who ensured he’d remain poor for a long time to come.

So, without a powerful ancestor, a Saint-grade treasure, or an overwhelming cultivation base, the only option left to him was to hug the Order’s powerful thigh and seek shelter beneath its many experts, such as Ren Shu, from prying eyes.

Though one of the instructors had hypothesized that cultivators blessed with truly prodigious talent, even without reaching the Soul Formation Realm or the peak of the Domain Realm, became progressively harder to divine as their cultivation increased. According to that hypothesis, this seemed especially true for divinations involving fate, or attempts to tamper with it, because of possible interference from their future selves.

The theory only applied to cultivators who possessed the talent to eventually reach the Soul Formation Realm, barring any unforeseen misfortune. For such individuals, the latent potential of their future selves was believed to unconsciously interfere with attempts to peer into or manipulate their karma and fate. The stronger their present cultivation became, the stronger that interference supposedly grew.

Of course, it was only a theory.

Unlike the first four methods, this form of protection was neither complete nor reliable. It relied on the esoteric notion of a future self reaching across time to interfere with attempts at divination. This was the aspect that made it difficult to prove that theory true, given the profound laws and principles one would need to grasp to prove it true,

That was precisely why the instructor had advised Yang Qing and the others to rely on the four proven methods instead of gambling on the possibility that their future selves would one day come to their rescue.

It was then that the instructor added that, if they happened to be a mythical race, then their cultivation realm was largely irrelevant. From the moment they were born, even while still within the egg, mythical races were naturally insulated from divination. Their karma and fate could neither be tracked nor attacked through conventional means, and those same restrictions applied even when one mythical race attempted to divine another.

They were, for all intents and purposes, untrackable.

Of course, there were no absolutes in the world.

If one possessed their blood, or an overwhelming amount of information about them, and the scope of the divination was narrow and limited to a specific aspect, then there was still a chance of obtaining results. However, that chance hinged upon having an exceptionally powerful cultivator proficient in the Dao of Karma or the Dao of Fate perform the divination, and even then, success was far from guaranteed.

Which was exactly what Yang Qing was hoping to accomplish with Bai Chen’s potential kidnapper and enlisting Veiled Destiny’s help.

Veiled Destiny already fulfilled the most difficult requirement of: a powerful diviner proficient in the Dao of Karma. By her own admission, she could track the karma of an early-stage Soul Formation expert to a certain extent, which was something widely regarded as bordering on the impossible.

Aside from Veiled Destiny and her terrifying ability, Yang Qing believed he had already gathered enough information about his suspect.

What he intended to ask of Veiled Destiny wasn’t for her to uncover entirely new information, but rather to verify what he had already pieced together. Had the suspect truly passed through the places listed in the collected evidence? Were the various identities uncovered by the Flying Shadow Hawks all connected to the same individual? Were the suspicions he had painstakingly built upon that evidence correct? Even when it came to determining the suspect’s current whereabouts, he merely intended to ask her to calculate the likelihood that the person had been, or still was, within a particular area.

What he needed from Veiled Destiny was confirmation.

It was no different from a novice hunter asking a seasoned one whether the footprints before them belonged to the rabbit they had been tracking or to another beast entirely.

The map had already been drawn. All he needed was for her to illuminate it and confirm what was what, in that map.

He wasn’t asking her to conjure information from nothing, because if he did that, then even someone as formidable as Veiled Destiny would likely come up with nothing if his suspect truly was indeed a Treefolk.

wasn’t just a fanciful title.

And that was precisely why, even after handing Shitong the jade slip, Yang Qing hadn’t expected him to uncover much from it. After all, it concerned an organization founded not by one mythical race, but by

Of course, Yang Qing had expected Shitong to come up blank. That was precisely why he found it puzzling that Shitong seemed surprised by it.

Shitong opened his eyes, his gaze remaining fixed on the jade slip.

"This is different," he finally said, sounding more frustrated than before. "It’s less like there’s nothing there and more like... there’s a memory I should be able to access, except I can’t. It’s there, but at the same time, it isn’t."

He frowned deeply as he searched for the right comparison.

"It’s like knowing you’ve forgotten something important. Deep down, you’re certain there was something you were supposed to do, or something you promised yourself you’d remember, but no matter how hard you think about it, you can’t recall what it was. That’s the feeling I’m getting."

He lowered the jade slip slightly.

"Maybe if I had a higher cultivation base, I’d know."

With a frustrated sigh, he stood and slowly walked away, his thoughts completely occupied by that mysterious and frustrating sensation.

Yang Qing watched him leave before giving a nonchalant shrug.

"It’s his problem."

Even if Shitong were to suddenly unlock every mystery surrounding the Treasure Coin Palace or the mysterious realm recorded within the slip, Yang Qing certainly wouldn’t refuse to learn what he uncovered. His only interest in the matter was purely from the standpoint of knowledge, influenced by the historian’s spirit within him. But beyond satisfying that curiosity, he had absolutely no intention of acting on it.

Shitong likely wouldn’t either.

For a mythical race, he was just as cowardly as Yang Qing. Ever since he hatched, Shitong hadn’t so much as set a single toe beyond the gates of the Order. He hadn’t even set foot in Gold Eagle Town.

As such, Yang Qing couldn’t see him leaving the comfort of his nest to brave the vast world in search of the treasures of the Treasure Coin Palace, no matter how boundless or profound his greed might be.