While Fang Qianyuan was busy with the many routine affairs of the Bureau, a group of elders in the Heavenly Observation Court had buried themselves in a sea of texts and records, diligently sorting, cataloging, and filing them away.
The room was packed with cultivation arts and texts that Fang Qianyuan and the Warriors under his command had brought back from Ten Thousand Poisons Valley in the Eastern Sea. More than half came from Dongfang Zhi's private collection, while the rest consisted of offerings from Ten Thousand Poisons Valley and the surrounding powers. They even included cultivation notes and practical techniques from some rogue cultivators.
Deputy Valley Master Pan Bai had played a part in this as well. To curry favor with Fang Qianyuan, his new backer, and fulfill his ambition of taking over Ten Thousand Poisons Valley, he had spared no effort in helping the Warrior Administration strip the place clean, allowing Fang Qianyuan to return fully laden.
To a rogue cultivator, so many texts and records would have seemed a disordered jumble. The vast majority could not be applied directly to any one individual, for everyone followed a different Dao path, and learning too much from too many sources was not necessarily a good thing.
To an established power, however, they were an excellent foundation and a wealth of resources. Whether they proved useful or not, there was never any harm in stockpiling them.
Acquiring these materials had brought the Heavenly Observation Court a tremendous windfall. They could rapidly advance their sect's research into the Poison Dao, and even follow Dongfang Zhi's progress to make improvements in fields related to the Creation Dao and Warrior methods.
Yet these elders, as blissfully content as mice that had fallen into a rice jar, soon found themselves interrupted by an attendant's