"So, what did you guys find?" Tang Ze asked. The sect courtyard they were sitting in had a nice breeze blowing through it that made it hard not to doze off. They were all lazing around a little after finishing their sect duties, which they felt they sort of deserved after all that had happened recently.
He had asked the others to find any other people who happened to be named Tang Ze whose identity he might be accused of impersonating or being reincarnations of.
"So, we looked over things for the past few days," Chen Yu said. "And we found about seventeen notable people named Tang Ze. Let's see... wanted for murder, wanted for robbery, oh - this one's wanted for murder and robbery..." Given the time period for which the Raswatian Empire had stood, and how big it was as well, there were countless examples of people with the same name. There were nine different famous military generals in the Raswatian Empire's history all of whom were named Shen Wun, for example.
It appeared that, unfortunately, 'Tang Ze' was a rather common name among people with criminal records.
Tang Ze sighed. "I hope this doesn't become even more of an issue in the future."
"Nah, relax," Yin Tiang said. "After what you did, and the off chance you might have that technique, no one's coming after you."
While Tang Ze was chilling out with his crew in the courtyard, all the while not trying too hard to look for trouble, a battle was brewing that he was mostly unaware of.
It was not a physical battle per se, but a political one regarding the fallout of Ling Kuang's actions.
Regarding Ling Kuang, by the time that his other sect members had taken him back to the Astral Winds sect's territory, his Qi network had already been so significantly damaged that despite pouring some of their best resources into his recovery, he was now back at the Golden Core realm.
Needless to say, the Astral Winds sect was not very happy about such. The gap between a Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivator was immense - the power multiplier of 'four' did not fully capture this gap.
When one moved up a major realm, it was not just that they got a power multiplier of 'N' where 'N' was the number of the major realm. There would also be new possibilities that would open up which were only possible at the higher realm. For example, Nascent Soul cultivators could use various soul-based abilities and techniques that Golden Core cultivators could not. Often, these new techniques more than multiplied whatever advantage they already had several fold.
Take for example the difference between Xian Yue, an Eternal Soul cultivator, and Ling Kuang, a Nascent Soul cultivator. Ling Kuang had to put in an extreme amount of effort to simply remember the major events of one prior lifetime - while Xian Yue could easily recall them of multiple lifetimes, influence where her soul reincarnated, and was even able to tell that Tang Ze's soul was not from this world. If Ling Kuang had possessed that last ability, he never would've landed in this mess in the first place. Part of this could be attributed to Xian Yue specializing in the soul path while Ling Kuang did not, but without the foundation of an Eternal Soul cultivator such techniques could not have been possible regardless of specialization.
Furthermore, if Ling Kuang's body died, he could only remain in this world for a decade at most as a soul, and would be pitifully weak, only slightly stronger than Xu Feng's ghost. On the other hand, Xian Yue's soul had been able to remain for centuries and still carried much of the original soul's strength - that was what it meant to have one's soul tempered from Nascent Soul to Eternal Soul!
Of course, right now, as a Golden Core cultivator, if Ling Kuang's body died, his soul would instantly perish as well.
That was how much the difference between major realms mattered when it came to strength and possibilities available to oneself.
And so, the loss of a Nascent Soul cultivator would be sharply felt by the Astral Winds sect.
That said, Ling Kuang had been the instigator of this entire event in the first place. He had disregarded the rules out of a desire for vengeance, and not only had he not obtained such, he was now in heart water with his sect.
The Supreme Elder of the Astral Winds sect, when she got to know what he did and the full story behind it, beat him to a pulp once again when he had recovered.
As for the lackeys that he had coerced or bribed to accompany him, they were all kicked out of the sect save for the Golden Core cultivators who were heavily fined and assigned to the least tantalizing assignments for Golden Core cultivators within the sect for the next fifty years.
Once her anger had subsided, the time now came to pursue the matter with the Imperial Court.
Given that all the major sects were righteous, there were certain rules that they had to play by. Major inter-sect conflicts were mediated by a court consisting of the Imperial Family on one side and the sects themselves on the other as a group - each side had equal power in total, meaning that the Imperial Family had a disproportionately large influence on the court compared to the sects.
However, the Rising Phoenix sect had beaten the Astral Winds sect to the punch when it came to bringing up the issue.
Ling Kuang's actions were an egregious violation of the rules of the righteous sects. And no matter how much the Astral Winds sect accused the Rising Phoenix sect of harboring a demonic cultivator, they had no proof for the same - not to mention even in that case, there had been no emergent need for them to violate sect boundaries and enter the Rising Phoenix sect's territories.
Might makes right - and while the Astral Winds sect had an Eternal Soul cultivator while the Rising Phoenix sect did not, that could be seen as a disadvantage in this situation.
First off, there was the Imperial Family who naturally did not want any sect to gain too much power as it might affect the delicate power balance of the Raswatian Empire, and they had an Eternal Soul cultivator themselves - an ancient ancestor who had one of the Five Attributes. The higher one went up in the realms, the more they could bring out the power of the Five Attributes. Still, it was hardly enough to beat a three-to-one advantage.
And, the times during which one of the sects had a Hinayana realm cultivator were always tumultuous times. The gap between the Eternal Soul and the Hinayana realms was immense, and the Five Attributes combined could not bridge such a chasm. Whenever a sect had a Hinayana realm cultivator, they would instantly become the number one sect in the Empire, and the Imperial Family and the other seven sects would have to unite on one front simply to ensure that they weren't trampled over.
Thankfully, till date, none of the Hinayana realm cultivators had been genocidal maniacs or else the country would have been bathed in a sea of blood multiple times throughout its history and the Imperial Family unable to defend itself.
Still, during those times it was as if a heavy sword hung over the heads of the Imperial Family.
That was why Xian Yue was adamant on keeping her existence a secret. If information reached the Imperial Family's ears that she had an actual chance of advancing to the Hinayana realm; regardless of how slim it was - they would do everything in their power to stop her from ascending. Furthermore, if they got to know that Tang Ze's involvement was necessary for her ascension, they would be overjoyed as that would mean that they did not need to kill her and could simply get rid of him to nip the problem in the bud. Between Xian Yue in her spectral form and Tang Ze - it was very evidently apparent who would be easier to deal with.
Thankfully for Tang Ze's sake, they were kept in the dark regarding the same and had thought that Xian Yue had passed away centuries ago. She had been very careful to cover her tracks.
Ultimately, it was in the Imperial Family's best interests to find an excuse to suppress the Astral Winds sect.
Secondly, coming to the other four sects who did not currently have an Eternal Soul cultivator - naturally they would feel great pressure from this incident. How could the Astral Winds sect so brazenly disregard sect borders and invade into the Rising Phoenix sect's territory? This set a dangerous precedent which they were all keen to avoid lest they become the next targets of one of the stronger sects, and as such, they were united around the Rising Phoenix sect. Much like a school of smaller fish could chase away a bigger predator by uniting, they too wanted to place pressure on the Astral Winds sect.
Thirdly, coming to the other two sects who also had an Eternal Soul cultivator - the Swift Sword sect and the Emerald Floral sect; while the Astral Winds sect tried to appeal to them, neither of them was keen on lending their support.
The Swift Sword sect did not involve itself in political matters for the most part - and when they did tend to do so they would go along with whatever the Imperial Family decided. One of their founding members had been a member of the Imperial Family, and even till this day there were blood ties between the Swift Sword's higher-ups and the Imperial Family.
As for the Emerald Floral sect, upon seeing that the Astral Winds sect was now isolated politically, why would they want to put their necks on the line?
When asked by either side what their decision was, the Emerald Floral sect essentially chose to say neither yes nor no. Instead, they waffled, choosing to remain neutral.
All of this put the Astral Winds sect in a very disadvantageous position. It was clear that they could not win and could only stomach their losses for now - when they realized this they chose to gracefully withdraw rather than risk losing even more face.
When Ling Kuang heard of this, he nearly coughed out a mouthful of blood in rage.
But, it could not be helped. Unless he wished to become a demonic cultivator, he had to abide by the rules of righteous sects.
However, even if Tang Ze was completely not the same person whom Ling Kuang had been looking for, Ling Kuang now marked him as an enemy regardless because of what had happened.
Before he could focus on that though, he needed to try to ascend back to the Nascent Soul realm. His meridians and dantians had been damaged, and he needed to spend a large amount of resources in order to get them back to their prime condition before he could attempt ascension again.
All of this would take him at least forty years, and as his lifespan had also shortened when he had fallen by a major realm, he had to devote all of the energy he currently had to this endeavor.
With everything considered, it was good that Tang Ze hadn't killed Ling Kuang, else the Astral Winds sect would not have dropped the matter so easily and would have definitely fought harder.
That wasn't to say that the Astral Winds sect did not manage to get any form of retribution against Tang Ze in the Imperial Court, however, as Tang Ze would soon discover.
However, Tang Ze was, for the moment, blissfully ignorant as to this political struggle the sects were involved in as he instead focused on cultivating and making new costumes.