"Was this something they decided on in the spur of the moment or was it something that had been stirring in them, specifically her?" Yang Qing muttered as his gaze lingered on the name Duan Qui.

"How did they manage to acquire the cooperation of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion? Though the coffers of the red maple spirit were likely to be substantial be it in terms of quality or quantity, could it be enough to draw the attention of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion or was there something else?" mused Yang Qing as he thought of a few possibilities.

There were a lot of questions surrounding the Red Maple Empire, especially when it concerned its formation during the early days.

When Yang Qing read through it, no matter how many accounts he read through, he always felt like the story had a lot of relevant missing gaps, and he didn't know whether that was deliberate or accidental.

After firmly establishing themselves as an empire, it wasn't long before the population problem resolved itself. They used the resources they got from the red maple spirit to quickly develop the territories they had swallowed up.

In a short two hundred years, it was finally worthy of its title as the Red Maple Empire with Duan Qui as the revered empress and Mo Li, Chen Fu, Gui Ling, Zhang Ren, and Gong Zhi rose alongside her as the heads of the five founding great clans of the Red Maple Empire. With the growing territory, more noble families were created but none could match up to the six families, something that continues to persist to the present.

But, even with the continued hegemony of the five noble families, from what Yang Qing read, back then they were all similar in foundations. When it came to power and accumulations there was not much distinction to one another, especially when they were starting up. Back then, so they were not swallowed up by the 'new nobles' they constantly supported one another as the founders of the Empire.

Their interests were intertwined with one another, and unlike Duan Qui who was a middle-stage palace realm expert and had nothing to worry about because of her strength, the same couldn't be said of the other five clan heads. They were still in the early stages of the palace realm, and while that put them ahead of the rest, who knew how long it would take for the new nobles of the empire to catch up to them.

They therefore constantly built one another, supporting one another and ensuring not one family was left behind as they put up a united front, but somewhere along the way in their long history that camaraderie disappeared and it wasn't long before they bared their fangs against one another.

lightsΝοvel The reports gathered by the two roaming inquisitors and even the Yellow Plains County branch showed the constant power struggle between those families which even seemed to have extended to the royal family. They were constantly trying to undermine one another at every turn with both overt and covert schemes which were as bloody as it could get where greed and power were involved.The scenes happening in Purple City were the clearest indication of it. Those families had gone to the extent of starting up gangs and even getting in bed with blood cultivators in their pursuits to either try and dominate, eliminate, or weaken the other party.

About the only thing stopping all-out war from amongst themselves was the threat posed by the Five Clovers Kingdom and the Duan royal family, and one could argue they were more wary of the royal family than the Five Clovers Kingdom.

In 75,000 years, the records showed Duan Qui didn't seem to have improved past the middle stages of the palace realm and the other heads were never able to catch up with her either, even with the resources of the red maple spirit as their support and the generations that succeeded them were unable to match up to them.

The Duan royal family was unable to produce another cultivator that was able to reach the same heights as Duan Qui, but with the resources she left to her by the red maple spirit which was greater than what the spirit had given the rest, the Duan family was always able to produce a palace realm expert in every generation which couldn't be said about the others.

When it came to the rest, some failed to produce even a single one after their founders passed. The Chen and the Gong family were prime examples of it, though it was easier for the latter to remain relevant even without a palace realm expert as they had the legacy of a blue-grade blacksmith to rely on. Their founder had managed to use the resources provided to him to create a refining legacy for his descendants that would continue to serve them long enough after his passing.

Thanks to his efforts, the Gong family didn't have to rely on the finite resources the red maple spirit had left them. The legacy he left behind created a path that would establish the continuity of his clan. While others tried to get into blacksmithing just like the Gong family, few could match their accumulation. This left the family in a unique position and it was also the only family that didn't seem to be involved much in the feuds happening amongst them.

But the same couldn't be said about the rest. The founder of the Chen family had proven his dao through martial comprehension, however, his descendants lacked his talents which caused them to veer off to another path. Because of the influence the red maple spirit had in its surroundings when it was alive, its territory was extremely conducive to the growth of spiritual plants which was something the founding families capitalized on greatly when they were establishing the foundations of their empire.

Each of the six founding clans had great reserves of spiritual herbs stored up over the years even if it wasn't their primary pursuit. The Gui family was one of the primary beneficiaries of the large supply of spiritual herbs and plants because of their founder, Gui Ling, who had been a blue-grade alchemist.lightsnovel

Just like the Gong family, the Gui family had been able to firmly establish its roots in alchemy growing to the point that it overtook the other founding clans, all except the Duan Clan.

When the Chen family failed to produce another gifted martial genius, they pivoted and decided to focus all their efforts on alchemy. They may not have had a blue-grade alchemist like the Gui family did, but with the vast resources they had when it came to spiritual herbs and plants, they did manage to produce top-tier orange-grade alchemists.

When it came to the Gui family, other than Gui Ling, they struggled to produce another blue-grade alchemist. They were well ahead of the other families when it came to alchemy, having the wisdom and accumulation of a blue-grade alchemist to rely on, but without a blue-grade alchemist, their gap from the rest was small, which was what emboldened the rest to try and replicate what the Gui family did and try and produce a blue grade alchemist of their own.

Whatever else might be said about the Red Maple Empire, they were lacking in many areas but that could not be said when it came to their reserves of spiritual plants, and the six founding clans had the highest reserves.

With such resources at their disposal, it could be understood why each of them felt that they could produce a blue-grade alchemist given enough time.

The feud among those families grew out of that ambition, the race to produce the first blue-grade alchemist, whoever did, would be the winner, and the price, it didn't take a genius to figure it was the entirety of the Red Maple Empire as for the loser, considering the vicious lengths that each of those families went to, it wouldn't be a stretch to think that the victor would seek the annihilation of the rest.

"Maybe this is the real reason they have not amounted to much in these 75,000 years, who knows in the next 1,000 years the Five Clovers Kingdom may completely overtake them, and then eventually there may not be a Red Maple Empire.." said Yang Qing with a sigh.

The Five Clovers Kingdom already had six palace realm experts while the Red Maple Empire had five. Despite the Five Clovers Kingdom having an extra palace realm expert when compared to the Red Maple Empire, as things stood the latter had an advantage over the former despite having fewer palace realm experts, and the reason for that was four of the palace realm experts of the Five Clovers Kingdom were all in the first stage of the palace realm and the one with the highest cultivation base only being in the second stage of the palace realm.

On the Red Maple Empire's side on the other hand, only one of their five palace realm experts was in the first stage of the palace stage while the highest had reached the third stage of the palace realm which gave them an advantage over the Five Clovers Kingdom.

But how long would that advantage last given how fragmented they were? of the five palace realm experts they had, three were from the royal family while the remaining two, one was from the Mo family and the remaining one, who was the weakest, was from the Zhang family.

If push really came to shove where they had to lay everything down on the line, could the royal family trust those two palace realm experts from the two families to have their backs? Or would they sooner drive a knife in their backs to give themselves an advantage?

The Five Clovers Kingdom on the other hand, didn't have such problems. They were united, fueled by the righteous ambition of reclaiming what they had lost which was why they worked tirelessly to achieve it and luck seemed to be on their side. They gained the attention of the Zou family, a rank two family, who supported them purely to spite the Golden Bamboo Pavilion that they had a feud with, but even still, whatever the reasons may be, the support they provided coupled with the efforts of the kingdom, they managed to catapult to where they are today.

A kingdom that didn't have a single palace realm expert now had six, and who knew what the situation would be in the next one thousand years?

Yang Qing may not know what will happen with the Five Clovers Kingdom in the future, but Yang Qing knew for a fact that the Red Maple Empire would be marginally weaker after the next few days.

"The Chen family it is.." Yang Qing said as he put one of the jade slips to the side, taking out his communication talisman to call Yu Gen to inform him of his choice on the first case to settle.

There were about twenty minutes before the appointed time which Yang Qing used to meditate slightly as he waited for Yu Gen to gather all the respected parties in his courtroom.