When the two entered the relatively separate, more heavily guarded section of military tents housing the Directorate of Astronomy, he clearly sensed several fairly powerful auras of Spiritual Power slowly circulating inside the tents. Clearly, people were cultivating in meditation within.
However, judging by his initial assessment, even the strongest among them seemed slightly inferior to his current strength.
Still, Cui Jiuyang dared not relax his vigilance in the slightest. As an official institution with a long heritage, the Directorate of Astronomy might have reserves no less substantial than those of major Daoist sects with legacies stretching back millions of years.
So even if their cultivation seemed slightly inferior to his, their actual combat strength and methods absolutely could not be underestimated.
They were entirely different from the itinerant Daoists Cui Jiuyang had encountered before.
People like Old Daoist Sun, who refined Longevity Pills, or Xuansheng, whom he had shot dead, possessed either incomplete legacies or crude cultivation methods that circulated by the roadside-disorganized and lacking any coherent system.
Although their haphazard efforts had produced some Spiritual Power, they were like burly men possessed of brute strength but no fighting techniques. When fighting others with magic, they could only flail their fists wildly and amounted to little.
But if the Daoists of the Directorate of Astronomy fought someone with magic, they would surely employ a dizzying variety of spells and seamless teamwork, making them extremely difficult opponents.
Moreover, after a thousand years of accumulated resources, they presumably possessed plenty of powerful magical implements and talismans.
In fact, from what Cui Jiuyang could sense, the young Daoist from the Directorate of Astronomy conducting the inspection before him was probably carrying two magical implements.
The spiritual fluctuations those two implements emitted were not as pure as those of his Apotropaic Coin, but