Boom!

  A figure wreathed in shattered golden scales plummeted from the heavens, clinging desperately to the remnants of a black-scaled serpentine creature. The beast was a ruin—half its scales ripped away, the rest crushed like crumpled iron.

  *Clatter. Clatter.*

  The sound rained down like hail.

  "What in the Ancestor Powerhouses—?!" A Guard in a Uniform, strikingly modern; which on closer inspection looks like ordinary silk Chinese clothing with modern accessories and pockets—jerked his head upward. His partner, thirty meters away in a watchtower, squinted and fumbled.

  "It’s raining rocks?....… Or rather black jade?"

  "No, fool—those are scales!" The first guard’s voice turned to ice. "Perhaps a High-tier beast's? Is that injured and still alive? Perhaps it's just shedding?!? The possibilities are nearly endless, but the dangers are in its majority! I do not understand if this means the fate befalling upon our Alliance is of fortune or bad luc—"

  *CRASH!*

  The golden figure and the serpent’s corpse struck the earth behind the tower. Though nothing directly touched the man, his uniform from the backs was charred to a black residue. The tower, cut in half, is slowly leaning. The impact sheared through stone supports, sending the structure groaning—

  "Be vary of whatever is happening; I am informing an Elder. Make sure to follow the protocols to a T!" the first man shouts, though in vain, as he hears no reply.

  A Young adolescent boy works on a body. He wears a facemask as well as a hospital gown, his fingers dancing across a body's flesh with precise tools.

  An elder—full-white-haired, of medium stature, face carved with decades of political and mental struggles he had to face— barges into the room and grips the boy’s shoulder.

  "What are you doing??!?"

  The boy retaliates instantaneously, perhaps even before he got complete his sentence, showing that he predicted his arrival earlier on itself- "Helping, ofcourse!".

  "I understand your concerns but with your intelligence you should have already thought about the implications of saving a Cultivator!"

  "Saving cultivators from their injuries is always thought to be an opportunity. Entire mortal clans become Town or City lords just from coming across and helping an injured Cultivator. But it is more important to think WHO you're saving"

  "Saving an injured Righteous Cultivator, fortune! Saving a badly injured Cultivator, with no hope for complete recovery is a waste of resources at best and him sucking you on your back forever at worst! Saving a demonic cultivator is a death sentence. Though all the golden scales around this man showcase his Righteousness nature, how can you say whether he is or isn't a traitor, Sir Supreme Stra—"

  "Just think about it. He is atLEAST, an early Nascent soul! Nascent souls have a couple of disciples, some of them being even the core disciples of their Sect. Even if he turns out to be a lost cause, we could sell this guy's body to them in exchange of techniques and resources, or even better, a guaranteed position as their Sect's Inner disciple.", the teen cuts into his speech with his own monologue.

  "And how, does that exactly refute my points? A traitor with disciples is either a traitor with ex-disciples, a traitor with traitor-disciples or a traitor with already-dead-disciples." asks the Old man, with respect but the tone could also accidentally come off as taunting.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Starts off again, the Young boy—Clearly not misunderstanding the Old man's tone- "Here, Let's assume I lost the argument and have no more to say now. A person should at these situations, use skills or external accessible technology to magnify his points or diminish the opponent's to a degree such that his will get to stand up and combat theirs!"

  [Again with your random philosophical and intellectual teachings in the middle of a debate. Though that's what made you our Supreme Strategist. I guess it does make sense for you to talk to about them excessively.]

  "Traitor or Saint, he is now a cripple. His Cultivation foundation and thus his Spiritual, Divine sense, as well as Soul signatures have all been ripped apart in half." continues the boy.

  "I can use my substitution skills and temporarily fill his Cultivation base with miscellaneous trash. He will have certain restrictions and fail-safes, but he won't feel them as there is nothing foreign, or everything that is foreign, has no specific attribute. But I would know about them. They would also work as a method to hide that man's true identity. That too, while considering he can recover. If he fails to recover then we can have him teach our Alliance's kids extra sermons once they come back for a Quest or Reunion."

  "I think I understand now. My last point was about the certainty of him not turning against .us and prioritized our safety. Even though there was a low chance he would, the losses if he does will be immense. So you recommended putting fail-safes in his Cultivation foundation. This technique, removed the base of my point, which was about the lack of safety of our Alliance."

  "Exactly! Now please gather all the Elders and Venerables to discuss this matter while I operate" the Young Strategist smirks, pleased—happy that atleast the Elder understands.

  [Who said that all Old men are grumpy and can't empathize?]

  "What is his situation now? What pills, medicines and additional resources do we need?" asked the Old man, suddenly reawoken from his contemplation.

  "You switched sides quick! Already catering to my decision and its needs? He-he-he" laughed the Young Strategist akin to that of an Old degenerate."

  "I need several disciples of Qi Refining realm, level unspecified. And if possible a Foundation Establishment Venerable with Water or even Earth attribute to oversee them. As for materials, I also need the usual blood essence and clotting pills, Spiritual stones, an 0+ve, non-body tempering person as a live blood donor."

  "Considering that the materials required for this is the same as the other operations except the amount, will this one be like the othe—" the Old man speaks while scribbling something in a Jade tablet before putting it in a special machine weirdly instead of just throwing it.

  "No, not at all! I believe you haven't seen the Nascent soul realm Powerhouse in question, he's..................." the Young Strategist says while prompting the Old man to come and look forward.

  [Oh my..........]

  A beat of silence.

  The cultivator who fell now lies stationary—unmoving and helpless on a bed, revealed to be missing both of his arms.

  "He is........ Now physically too a cripple?"

  [I can barely comprehend the pain and grief of this Sir. I can't imagine cultivating for a century till Nascent soul, only to possibly find out you are now a mortal, and on top of that a double amputee! The Emotional pain will itself be cruel, not to mention the Mental dysphoria from losing your entire Mountain crushing power or even more and even arms.]

  "Didn't you reattach people's wrists back in other operations? Is it not possible to do the same with his arms?" the old man scrambles a few words through his shaking jaw; Calling the Young Strategist with pronouns instead of his title(Not that he cared that much about what people called him), feeling empathetic towards someone he can't even clearly see the face of.

  The teen said flatly- "Pulverized!"

  "........... Huh?" says the Old man, unable to comprehend in shock.

  "Both his arms have been pulverized, nothing left but shards of gold and red, either during or before his fall."

  "So is there really no other remedy left for this Sir?" the Old man asks, vividly disheartened.

  "Yes there is, if you look closely, you'll find that, the cultivator in question is not an ordinary cultivator. The cultivator's 'golden scale armour', is in fact, his scales, a part of his already marvelous tempered body!"

  "If you remember that he was supposedly fighting a black serpent"

  The Elder excitedly exclaims- "Yes, this Old man recollects!" He does not know what that intel entailed, but he was sure if the Martial genius and Supreme Strategist, Zhuo Yi-Fan mentioned it, then it must lead to an answer.

  "I was analysing the dragon's as well as the cultivator's blood during this time. The results should be out by now"

  [Could it be, he's a..........]

  The teen affirned him before the Elder even finished his sentence "The cultivator is not of pure human blood, but is a half-dragon!"