Yang Qing started perusing the details of the case as Mao Yunru was loudly grinding her teeth in the background as she occasionally sent him death glares which he deftly pretended he didn't see.

"Mmh let's see the Mountain spring pavilion which is a rank 4 merchant organization has filed a complaint against the Yellow lotus sect which is a rank 4 sect. The complaint is failure to make repayments on the agreed-upon repayment schedule. The loan was to be repaid back in 8 years however they only serviced it for three but for the past year or so they haven't made a single repayment.

The remaining debt they owe to the Mountain spring pavilion is 6,450,208 middle-grade spirit stones that is to be repaid back within 5 years with a 10% interest making the total amount being repaid back at the end of the 5 years 8,222,871 middle-grade spirit stones.

These merchants sure know how to make money. But the monthly repayment amount of 137,000 shouldn't be hard for a rank 4 sect to meet with the many business and lands they have and their other resources. It shouldn't be too hard to scrape that amount together since maintaining a sect of this caliber should have monthly costs that are at least 100 times that.

Is there something going on with the sect?" Yang Qing paused as he silently wondered before he resumed reading the details again after he decided it was better to hear from the parties themselves rather than spend all his energy imagining different scenarios that may end up being off base.

"Mmmh from Su Jinjing's findings it seems that the Yellow lotus sect has debts with other merchant organizations but it seems they are honestly servicing those debts with none in default.

This must be why the Mountain spring pavilion decided to escalate the matter to the Order. With their network of information, it shouldn't have been too hard for them to discover they were the only ones not getting their dues.

It seems when they confronted the Yellow lotus sect to repay those outstanding dues instead of the sect owning up they did something the Mountain spring pavilion didn't expect which was use one of their core disciples as collateral for the debt claiming he was the cause of the debt. They even disclosed the attributes of the disciple to the Mountain spring pavilion.

This is rather odd of them," Yang Qing couldn't help but raise his eyebrow in confusion. The sect being unable to repay its debt was already a red flag but using a core disciple as collateral was even stranger.

Core disciples were prized figures in any given sect. Anyone who was given that title had a talent that stood out amongst countless other disciples. They were the future leadership of the sect and as such, they would receive appropriate grooming and nurturing. Considering how valued and how much effort and time was spent on core disciples it would be unreasonable for any sect to risk losing them, especially in an absurd manner such as collateral for a debt.

Yang Qing was dazed for a moment as he decided to continue on hoping to find a reason for the odd choice in the report.

"It seems the Mountain spring pavilion was just as dumbfounded when they were asked to take the core disciple away as a repayment for their loan leading them to question the Yellow lotus sect's motives.

The Yellow lotus response was simple Huuuuuh? What's going on?

The core disciple was given up by the sect as collateral because he was the reason they took the debt in the first place to help him in his cultivation. But he has been a bottomless pit that swallowed up resources without showing any improvement. The sect in frustration decided to use him as repayment for the loan they took.

Since the loan was taken precisely for his sake to nurture and groom him the sect felt it was his responsibility to repay it back so they offered him up to the Mountain springs pavilion to do with him as they will and the matter of the debt was to be considered closed.

The Mountain springs pavilion took this as an affront to their face and considered it a shameless ploy by the Yellow lotus sect to welch on their debt however the pavilion didn't have the power to force the issue since they are just a new rank 4 organization with 5 core formation experts with 3 of them being the leaders of the organization so they could only involve the Order in this.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Their choice in doing so was understandable since I can see the Yellow lotus sect has been in existence for the past 20,000 years and it's been recorded that they have close to 20 core formation experts which has made them a local hegemon in blue carp county.

Mmmh by these standards they should be considered a high-tier sect among rank 4 organizations. Being around for 20,000 years means they have deeper foundation and resource channels too. Repaying that debt shouldn't have been an issue for them," the more Yang Qing read the increasingly confused he became and the more questions cropped up.

"Maybe the last party in this case may shed a bit of light on the situation.

Zhao Qi is the core disciple being used as collateral and the unwitting center of all this. Once the Mountain spring pavilion filed the suit against the Yellow lotus sect they in turn dragged Zhao Qi as part of the case too.

I can see he joined the sect when he was 6 years old. He was average in his performance during the sect entrance examinations. His results weren't too low but there was nothing worthy of note in his performance either.

When he joined the sect this didn't change either, he kept a low profile, was diligent in his sect-assigned tasks and cultivation but never proactively tried to stand out such as by featuring in the sect competitions. He spent two years like this and about the only thing that stood out was how strong he was in the basics and the entry cultivation art given to new disciples for use during their body refinement and qi refinement realm.

It was during those two years that one of the outer sect elders discovered that Zhao Qi had cultivated to the gold body stage in the body refining realm. This news sent waves throughout the sect and he was directly promoted to a core disciple from an outer sect disciple skipping the inner sect disciple route.

He took one of the core elders by the name of Wei Peng as his master. His talent shone brilliantly in terms of cultivation and was seen to be gifted in using the various cultivation arts, especially his skill with the sword. At 16 he had already reached the peak of the qi refinement realm and two years later after refining and solidifying his cultivation base he broke through to the foundation realm with his first pillar being a blue-grade pillar. This drew the attention of even the sect master and some of the retired elders who had gone into seclusion to try and break through to the palace realm.

With the level of talent, he showed the sect decided to pour most of their resources to nurture him in the hopes that he would reach the palace realm. This is interesting. It seems the Yellow lotus sect once had 3 palace realm experts however they died while exploring a mysterious realm 400 years ago. Once news of the death of those experts spread wolves started surrounding the sect, especially rival sects. Since then the sect has been in desperate straits to try and groom a palace realm expert to ease the dangers they were facing.

Once Zhao Qi exhibited his talent in the form of the gold body and the blue-grade pillar, the sects saw the hopes of having a palace stage expert in him. He was given special attention and resources to the extent of despite being in the first level of the foundation realm he was given top grade sky rank herbs and potions, the arrays in his abode were upgraded to the level that it would satisfy even a core formation expert's needs. He was given specialized training by most of the core elders including the sect master too. Mmh but despite all the resources and training poured into him, in the past 7 years he hasn't made a single leap in his cultivation base and is still stuck in the 1st level of the foundation realm.

The sect thought there was a problem only to find out it was all Zhao Qi's doing. Zhao Qi said he had been deliberately holding back so he could make sure his foundations were firmer and more robust. The sect couldn't believe what kind solidified cultivation base required over six million worth of treasure claiming even a normal pig that was given the same attention and resources he was would be in the peak of the foundation realm already. They couldn't help but worry how much resources they would keep pouring before Zhao Qi decided it was enough seeing how they had already gone beyond what was expected as the normal allocation of a core disciple. The amount they spent on him matched what the core elders got.

Zhao Qi remained stubborn not improving and only working on solidifying his cultivation base till the sect decided to cut off his support despite the pleas from his master. When the Mountain spring pavilion came to collect their debt they threw Zhao Qi to them to repay his own debt out of anger and frustration. Some elders had even sacrificed some of their monthly quotas of resources so Zhao Qi could get them. They felt betrayed by his actions and it was only out of the consideration of how much resources they had expended on him that they didn't outright abolish his cultivation.

What an interesting kid," Yang Qing said as he pushed the white jade talisman to the side with a curious glint flashing in his eyes as he smiled.