Yang Qing crazily spread through the remaining evaluations with the goal of trying to make up for the time he had lost when dealing with Su Liwei.

He abstained from even taking a break or even having a bite to eat, which he had to admit was harder than he expected. In the end, he even felt a bit faint, which he wasn't sure if it was from hunger or the fatigue he had gotten from using the gold-grade art to plant a mark on Su Liwei's backer.

His efforts and self-sacrifice finally paid off as he managed to finish the last evaluation at the five-hour mark. He had taken almost half the time it took him to clear the first a hundred batch.

Of course other than his extreme desire to make up for the lost two hours, there were other factors that worked in his favor during the evaluation of the second batch.

Unlike the first batch, the second batch did not have standouts in terms of bloodline or the quality of their grades. Most ended up with white grade pillars, while a few got red grade pillars and only one person among the hundred organizations had managed to form an orange grade pillar, and it was in the lowest tier at that, similar to the one Murong Yan had from the Murong family.

…

"Judge Yang Qing, are you sure you won't stay? Father has already prepared a banquet for you and also a place to rest for the night."

Prince Wenyan tried to persuade Yang Qing into staying when he saw him pack up the evaluation artifacts in preparation to depart.

"I wish I could stay but I have about 1,000 more evaluations to conduct and two and half days deadline to complete it by.

With how my schedule is, it's even hard for me to even find the time to say goodbye to the king despite how rude and unthankful it may seem.

But after everything is done and I get some free time, I'll make a point of coming back here. Your kingdom has the perfect environment for relaxing and unwinding. When that time comes, I'll be in your care," said Yang Qing.

"I guess it would be rather inconsiderate of us if we kept insisting. Please inform me beforehand when you do decide to come back. We'll make sure to arrange a grand tour and show you the best of what our humble kingdom has to offer," Prince Wenyan said as he handed Yang Qing signal call connection arrays for his communication talisman.

Yang Qing gladly shared his in return and then put his communication array away.

"Prince Wenyan, Captain Bu Zhe, I offer you my sincerest gratitude for the aid you rendered in supporting me in my evaluations. Please offer my thanks to the king too. Your help saved me a lot of trouble and time.

If any of you ever needs assistance with anything provided it's within my means, please don't hesitate to reach me, I'll be glad to return the favor your kingdom showed me today," Yang Qing said as he cupped his fists in gratitude.

"The pleasure is all ours," both Prince Wenyan and Captain Bu Zhe enthusiastically said as they cupped their fists in return."Take care of yourselves."

Yang Qing's voice echoed in the hall room as he disappeared in the form of grey smoke in typical fashion as he did in all the other places he had been to prior to coming to the Summerfield kingdom.

Both Prince Wenyan and Captain Bu Zhe collapsed to the floor a few seconds after Yang Qing had disappeared, with tired expressions showing on their faces. The pressure they endured throughout the day came flooding all at once the moment Yang Qing left.

"We have a long way to go," Captain Bu Zhe muttered as he stared at the floor Yang Qing had punched a hole through during his attack against Su Liwei.

"That we do," Prince Wenyan said as he sighed. He knew his talent wasn't the greatest when it came to cultivation but it never bothered him much since he had the resources to make up for it and his true talents lay elsewhere. He was always self-aware of what he was good at and what he wasn't, but today's experience made him realize how weak he was.

Were he the target of Su Liwei's attack, he would have died without even knowing how he died.

"We need to warn his majesty about the Dark Helminth Ghost sect but that will have to wait an hour or two…I never thought the day would come when I'd be so exhausted to the point of feeling unbearably drowsy.

When was the last time I slept?... I don't think I've done so ever since I stepped into the core formation realm.

Captain Bu Zhe, I'll be resting here for a while." Prince Wenyan said as his voice grew lethargic towards the end.

"Captain..?"

Prince Wenyan turned his head Bu Zhe's way when he didn't receive a response, only to see him with his back against the wall, his head plopped backward, eyes closed and his mouth mildly open.

"Seems you beat me to it," Prince Wenyan thought as he lightly chuckled to himself.

He removed a white neatly sown cultivation cushion from his storage ring and used it as a makeshift neck pillow as he rested himself on the wall next to Captain Bu Zhe.

Faint sleeping noises started echoing around the hall room.

…

"After meeting with the Spiritual temperance sect, the Blue Lotus kingdom will be the next evaluation point. By my count, they should have about 300 organizations within their territory.

That's a good number. If I finish it in good time, I may have some time to spare toward the end," Yang Qing gleefully thought as he crosschecked a few things on his map before he stored it away.

"Even though she steals from me all the time, it wouldn't be bad to reward her with a few samples of the magma koi fish coming in," Yang Qing mused as his gaze fell on Ellie.

Ellie was flying at a breakneck speed in the Spiritual temperance sect's direction. Although she could maintain her current momentum for two hundred days straight before fatigue kicked in, the three-day trip journey was sure to take its toll on her by the end of it.

During the journey, other than maintaining her speed, she had to be continuously on high alert especially when they traversed across dangerous territories like the Deer Mountain kingdom. Doing both those things at once would take a huge mental toll on her.

Yang Qing paused his calculations of how many magma koi fish to give her when he detected the energy fluctuations of a high-tier blue-grade formation ahead of him.

The area his gaze fell under was a large open space of land that had grass, a few trees, and a summer-white cloud over it. Even though that's what it seemed like, the view from Yang Qing's eyes was different.

His pupils turned black and white with a few indistinct scripts in their recess as he fixed his gaze on the land about a kilometer away.

From his view, there was a transparent dome covering an enormous area. The source of that dome was a semitransparent tree at the center of the dome. It was over 100,000 meters tall with a canopy that could cover the whole of the Summerfield kingdom with enough room to spare.

The dome seemed to be originating from the center of the canopy along with some blue-white runes that were produced along with it.

"It seems there's not much I can glean from it…the Spiritual temperance sect has a formidable formation master ...or is it some artifact?" thought Yang Qing as he shook his head in defeat.

Even though he could be considered a blue-grade formation master himself, he still struggled to decipher the profundities of the formation before him, though that was to be expected.

Even though he was a blue-grade formation master, just like alchemy, the scope of formation arrays was so wide that one couldn't say they knew everything within their sphere of expertise.

…

"Ellie, stop here. I'll be going in by myself,' Yang Qing said once they were about two hundred meters from the dome

Below them, there was a small courtyard outside the coverage of the dome. It had a few simple buildings, a small pond, and a garden filled with sky-rank herbs and a few monarch-grade herbs.

Even though the courtyard seemed bare and unprotected without the covering of the dome, it had a well-concealed short-burst killing array attached to it. Based on his estimates, Yang Qing deduced it had enough firepower to threaten the life of an early-stage palace realm expert like himself. But as for whether that array could successfully strike its target, was a different matter.

Inside the courtyard, there were three people. One was a peak stage core formation expert, another was at the fifth stage of the core formation realm, while the last one was at the first stage of the core formation realm, and based on the fluctuations she released, she didn't seem to have broken through very long.

Yang Qing lept off Ellie's back as he gently floated toward the entrance gate of the courtyard.

By the time he landed, the three cultivators were already on high alert. Yang Qing could already detect the killing array had already been primed for an attack and the three cultivators were releasing qi fluctuations typical of those preparing themselves for a battle.

"I mean you no harm friends, I'm just here to report something to your sect then I'll be on my way," Yang Qing gently said to try and ease the tension.