The three soon pooled and checked the information each had obtained through Soul Search. On the Seven-Treasure Golden Lotus, Pei Buchong spoke.
"According to these people's memories, Qianyu Sect has appointed a new sect master and elders to several posts, in addition to the Void Refinement Realm elders who were already stationed in its markets and cultivation cities.
"Compared with what Junior Brother Li found when he went deep inside last time, Qianyu Sect couldn't have produced so many new Void Refinement Realm cultivators in so short a time.
"The likeliest explanation is that Su Nanzi transferred more people from the Yin-Yang Chaos Sect. With Qianyu Sect so badly weakened, that would let it resume normal operations as quickly as possible. Still, we'll need to verify this information as we travel."
The sect master and elders of that fourth-rate sect had not witnessed these things themselves. Unless something unusual happened, Qianyu Sect did not normally issue orders to them directly. It passed orders to the third-rate sects immediately beneath it.
When Qianyu Sect needed more people for a task, it drew cultivators directly from those third-rate sects. If that still was not enough, the third-rate sects passed the order down to their own vassal forces to gather more.
It had been the same for Pojun Sect back then. Its members rarely saw anyone from the Moji Dao Sect. Even when carrying out orders, they usually received them from the sect directly above them, let alone met any of the Moji Dao Sect's senior cultivators...
So the news Qianyu Sect's sect master and elders heard about Qianyu Sect came partly through their own sect and partly through hearsay.
After comparing what each of them had learned through Soul Search, the three could only draw tentative conclusions, just as Pei Buchong had