The moment the carriage was a few inches from the gate to the Glowing respite valley both eagle statues opened one of their eyes. The one on the left opened its right eye as the one on the right opened its left eye.

The eyes flashed with a gentle white glow that covered the carriage and Feng Xin. There were ancient glyphs flashing from their eyes as the glow wrapped around the carriage.

"Confirmed: Order issued carriage number 9112.

Confirmed personnel of the Order:

Yang Qing: Employee number 2140.

Designation: Superior core court judge

Yi Jie: Employee number 2142

Designation: Chief inquisitor under judge Yang Qing.

ENTRY GRANTED."

The two eagle statues mechanically said as their white glow scanned the carriage, Yi Jie and Yang Qing.

"Who would believe that these two statues despite their aged appearance and small figure have enough might to kill a peak domain expert in less than five minutes," Yang Qing said as he sighed in admiration within the carriage."I'm curious which senior made it. Did Chief Song ever tell you who it was? With a creation of this level the creator must be pretty well known among their craftsmanship circle," Yi Jie said.

Creak

The gates started opening gently as they creaked like aged gates that had been beaten by storms over centuries.

"Chief Song said he still doesn't know who made it despite asking around. By his guesses, it may be one of the members of the spirit council or it may have been a treasure found in some ancient ruin of some bygone era and was retrofitted. He strongly supports the latter as the puppetry technique and inscriptions used on the statue haven't been seen or heard of in the past 10,000 years.

It might be the reason why despite them being so powerful they are not fully sentient and only function based on preset commands," said Yang Qing as the carriage continued on its merry way as the entrance quickly closed behind them as the eagles' eyes lost their white glow and went back to their gray marble look.

Those two eagle statues were among one of the many unanswered mysteries in the Order. They were the first line of defense to the Glowing respite valley, a valley that housed the living quarters of the Order employees and their families.

Though it was called the Glowing respite valley it was a valley in name only. It was roughly the size of a small kingdom standing at 10 million acres. The land was originally part of the territory of a fallen holy land, the Myriad beasts sect.

Holy lands other than having astronomical power also had vast territories that would put other sects, empires, and clans to shame in both size and quality. The current size of the Glowing respite valley was but a drop in the bucket of the territory the Myriad beasts sect owned.

When the sect got destroyed about 10,000 years ago most of their lands got gobbled up by the various cultivation sects, clans, and kingdoms around them. The two holy lands i.e the Radiant sword sect and the Flowing valley sect didn't grab the land as Holy lands usually gave each other a wide berth between their territories. The Radiant sword sect is located on the southeastern side of the southern continent with its territory bordering the celestial ocean that separates the southern continent from the western continent. As for the Flowing valley sect, it's located on the northern side of the continent right next to the churning sea that separates the southern continent from the central continent. Lastly was the Myriad beasts sect whose bulk of territory was on the western side of the continent right next to the Millions treasure ocean.

With its destruction, its territory got swept up by the powerful sects and clans right next to it with the two holy lands only grabbing the core treasures and cultivation arts collection of the sect leaving the buildings and the rest of the treasures, artifacts and other cultivation resources to be fought over by others. The ensuing battle that resulted from this was one of the major among many strings of bloodbaths to ever hit the southern continent. The victors from that war ended up forming the current rank 1 sects and clans. Even though the two holy lands took the major things the rest of what they left was still enough to support the growth of a few soul formation experts.

Rumor had it that the founder of the ghost blood hand syndicate was one of the beneficiaries of that war as he had managed to swipe something from one of the major branches belonging to the Myriads beast sect.

This was one of the reasons Holy lands were feared by other cultivators. Just a few scraps from them was able to change the fate of a few cultivators into powerhouses what about the main thing?

As for the present Glowing respite valley, it was originally the waste dumping ground that the Myriad beasts sect used. Ordinarily, spirit beast waste would be considered a treasure trove by alchemists and herbologists but the Myriad beasts sect mostly kept nefarious beasts of all kinds who had no small amount of danger to them from toxins to baleful air. This translated even to their waste. The dumping area turned into a place filled with miasma that would grant an early-stage core formation expert a quick but gruesome death if they dared to step into the outskirts of the area.

The area caused no small amounts of deaths during the war for Myriad beast sect territories. As it was filled with all kinds of arrays, most assumed they were used to guard a precious treasure. The tougher it was to break in the more their greed told them this was the motherload forgetting the fact if there was anything precious in there the Holy lands would have already snatched it.

What they got instead when they finally breached a small portion of the array was a painfully welcoming death followed by a stench that drove even middle-stage palace stage experts to insanity. The most powerful expert to fall victim was a seventh-stage domain expert who thought all the waste there was just a trap to fool others. He smugly ventured deeper thinking he had hit the nail on the head only to never come out.

The area got quickly cordoned off and the broken array was repaired as more were added a few hundred miles extra around it for good measure. The area soon became no man's land.

It was only 150 years later after the Order was established that they decided to grab the land that no one wanted, for themselves. They became a laughing stock to the rest of the continent for their attempt. But in fifty years they had thoroughly transformed the area from a wasteland that no one wanted into what it was now.

It was a blessed land whose qi was ten times that of any rank 2 sect and that was at the entrance of the gate where Yang Qing and Yi Jie were. The land that spewed death with its stench and miasma now had a verdant and vibrant look with fresh air that would leave any artist inspired for their entire lifetime and poets never lacking a stanza.

There was a spiritual river cutting across the land with banks filled with lush vegetation and herbs. There was no shortage of earth-rank herbs that any rank 5 sects would die to have. The grasses were green with tinges of blue as they produced a hazy blue mist around them. They were breathing out qi same as all the other plants in the area.

They consumed the unfiltered qi in their surrounding as they breathed out gentler and purer qi. The few sky-rank trees growing several meters apart further added to that qi.

With the abundant qi, the picturesque landscape, the misty mountains by the horizon, and the spirit beasts flying about, the area looked like an immortal's lair rather than the layer of hell it was before.

The seventh stage domain expert who had tried to force his way to the core regions of the area when it was a wasteland was later found by the people of the Order. He was knocking on death's door. His legs had dissolved, and his skin was sallow as it hugged his bones. He had scratch marks all over most likely self-imposed. He was delirious at the time as he weakly muttered 'death air' over and over. The Order rescued him and tried to send him back to his sect but it had long been destroyed in the five thousand years since the seventh stage domain expert disappeared.

With no other option, the Order decided to take him in and handled his rehabilitation and care since he had suffered extensive damage not only to his physical body but even his soul got poisoned from the long-term exposure not to mention the mental trauma that came with it. They were even surprised the domain expert had survived that long. It was only due to his exceptionally sturdy domain that he managed to survive that long. However, the corruption eventually tainted his domain almost crippling his cultivation.

After a long arduous journey, the domain expert regained some sense of normalcy and became lucid. Though there were some changes in his persona. For one he developed an extreme phobia for spirit beasts and even food. Though none of them was as extreme as his phobia for air. Cultivators once they reached the later stages of the core formation realm, could forego food and subsist solely on qi but breathing was the one thing they couldn't do without. They could hold long breaths some even stretching for years but they would eventually have to take that breath.

The domain expert thus decided to stretch that time as much as he could by practicing the turtle breathing art to perfection. It was originally an orange-grade art but through countless research and consultation with other members of the Order, the art got elevated to an upper-rank blue-grade art. With it, he would have no need to take a breath in 100 years. It has been 75 years since the art was upgraded and in all that time till the present time he hasn't taken a single breath.

Yang Qing and most other institute graduates heard the tale of that domain expert as part of their curriculum on the dangers faced by cultivators. One of the dangers taught was avarice. That domain expert as a way to pay back the Order insisted his tale be told to the young cultivators to help warn them against letting greed lead them to recklessness. He became one of the teachers at the institute and currently serves as one of the institute's deans as head of survival tactics for cultivators.

He now spends his days molding young minds and working on improving the turtle breathing art from a blue-grade art into a gold-grade art to reach his now dream of never having to take a single breath again.