Yang Qing took out his gold eagle medallion and formed a few seals with one hand, as he parsed the medallion over the certificate.

A gentle golden glow appeared on the gold eagle medallion which Yang Qing used to shine over the certificate.

Glyph patterns started appearing everywhere the gold light fell on.

Yang Qing was using the medallion along with a special mystical art meant to confirm the certificate was authentic.

All Order issued medallions came from the same source making it a suitable conduit artifact to use when confirming another judge's work, like the issued certificate before him.

Once Yang Qing had confirmed it was authentic, he rolled the scroll and stored it in the medallion.

The closer he came to the demotion the heavier his tongue felt.

For some odd reason, to him, it seemed like Wang Yi was much calmer than he was. One would even assume Yang Qing was the sect master of the Clear sword river sect while Wang Yi was the official sent to handle the demotion.

Yang Qing chalked up Wang Yi's current calm state he was in, was due to the short lifespan he had left and the unsalvageable situation he was in.

There was a special kind of release when you were at the end of your tether and there was nothing more you could do.

....

"Do you want to confirm how long you have to live?" Yang Qing cautiously asked."Its part of the procedures?" asked Wang Yi

"Yes, it is. Usually, when we are doing a demotion we confirm the remaining lifespan of the member maintaining the organization's rank to create a grace period timeline.

That grace period timeline is decided by your remaining lifespan. As long as circumstances change within that period, like gaining another foundation establishment member, the demotion can be rescinded and you won't have to reapply for a promotion or pay the costs that come with it.

You can visit any branch to have the demotion rescinded once they confirm everything is authentic. Then they'll update the status at the headquarters," Yang Qing patiently explained.

When an unranked organization got promoted, they usually paid a fee of 10 low-grade spirit stones. That fee increased the further up the promotion was. For example, moving from rank 5 to rank 4 the charge would be 10 middle-grade stones, and from rank 4 to rank 3 would be 5 high-grade spirit stones.

A grace period was introduced to help cushion the blow to those struggling to maintain their ranks.

Most organizations in a similar situation to the Clear sword river sect, would pour every resource they had into ensuring they didn't get demoted. Those, who by some miracle end up pulling it off before their grace period is up, end up with nothing to their name at that point since they have used every stone and resource they have to survive and prevent the demotion.

Asking them to pay 10 low-grade spirit stones for another evaluation, is like asking a mortal farmer to produce milk from a stone. They'd have to stay as an unranked organization until they got enough spirit stones to pay for the evaluation cost, then they'd have to wait patiently until they get slotted. If their luck is horrible, it would be a year.

With how unpredictable the cultivation world was, a lot could happen within that year, such as the death of the member they cultivated to ensure they remained a rank 5 organization.

That reality wasn't an impossibility since Yang Qing had seen it happen a few times, whereby a sect files for a promotion, only for the member supposed to be evaluated dies before the evaluation is done, nullifying the evaluation process.

...

"Master Yang Qing you must have noticed the state of the sect, right?" Wang Yi said with a bitter smile.

He left a few things unsaid but Yang Qing knew where he was getting at.

Excluding him, there were 11 more people within the sect. Of these 11 people, only three were in the qi refinement stage and none of them was past the 3rd level.

The majority of the remaining eight were in the body refining realm and it was the weakest rank at that, the iron stage.

Bar anything unexpected, it was almost impossible for any of them to reach the foundation establishment realm in three months, which was the lifespan Yang Qing roughly estimated, Wang Yi had.

When Yang Qing's thoughts reached this point, he didn't know what to say. He couldn't in good conscience tell him that something could happen in the few remaining months he had left.

While there were tales of fortuitous encounters happening that made one leap to the skies in one step, those tales were few and far in between and most of them happened in perilous places like abandoned mysterious realms and grottos or the millions fold treasure ocean.

They didn't just fall from the sky or fell into someone's lap while he or she was sleeping and it wasn't just anybody who got them. Those who did, despite their backgrounds, all had an absurd amount of karmic luck enough to rival that of a rank 3 empire that has had good ruling for thousands of years.

Luck, just like time and space, was an ultimate Dao rule. However, unlike the latter two, luck couldn't be cultivated or gain insight into. You could only be born with it and it had no rhyme or reason as to who would be chosen. You could be the prince of some big empire or a child born in a slave mine.

Despite their starting point, none of them grows up to be a simple character.

While it didn't grant invincibility due to the unpredictability of luck and how at times it went hand in hand with calamity. Those who survived its trials grew up to be big shots whose names shook the Southern continent.

Yang Qing had read of one such person, who was still alive today. He was the founder of the Bright pearl sect.

His parents were slaves to some dark alchemy organization. They were used as live cauldrons which was an insidious art where potions were brewed inside the bodies of said persons.

Those with special physiques were prime targets for this technique as the potions produced with them as cauldrons, would have special attributes because of their physique.

That founder's parents had a wood physique, and though it was nothing special, it had the effect of increasing success in potion brewing. Their physiques could temper volatile ingredients.

As luck would have it, their dear son, the founder of the Bright pearl sect, was born with a wood physique like theirs, except his' was even stronger, which granted him a body that was just perfect for the human alchemy cauldron art since his body could endure the damage the art caused and regenerate.

He was the perfect human cauldron and catalyst.