Chapter 1622 - Viola (1) (2/2)

Now, it's quite obvious why the Water Mist Sect would have such rules. It was in their best interest for the Grand Elder to keep this key for as long as possible.

Unfortunately for the Mist Clan, their former Grand Elder and current Ancestor was far older than the Palace Master. Since things worked out in this way, although they could play keep away with the key with her, they eventually reached a point where the former Grand Elder had to hand the key off to a member of the younger generation.

This was where the rules impacted them once again. The key could only be handed to a youth who had yet to take their trials. The reason for this is also related to benefits. After all, only a key wielder could receive the best rewards the Tower had to offer.

Due to the structure of the Tower, only Gods and True Gods could receive supreme grade weapons as a reward, and, one couldn't take the God Trial unless you had the key. Considering how rare supreme grade treasures were, how could the Mist Clan give up this opportunity?

When these events were combined, it resulted in a situation where the Grand Elder entered her deep sleep too late to give the key to their Clan's true geniuses, but too early to find a candidate more worthy than Anabella.

The Mist Clan was simply too greedy, preferring to hand the key to a mediocre candidate instead of having the key leave their family. Because of this, the Water Mist Clan was constantly at a disadvantage. Everywhere Anabella went, she was inferior to the key wielders of the 4th-8th ranked quadrants. She was even worse than some of the key wielders of the 11th-29th ranked quadrants. Soon, the 30th would be included on that list considering Saru was attempting her God Trials as these events were transpiring.

For such a powerful Clan, this sort of matter was embarrassing beyond belief. It might have been fine if things ended with embarrassment, but they didn't. Due to Anabella being unable to secure the resources they needed to maintain their former foundations, the Clan was suffering. To make matters worse, Anabella's cultivation pace was too slow, who knew when she would finally reach the dao floors?

In truth, the Water Mist Sect had known that Anabella would be lacking after testing her talent as a youth. In fact, they had estimated that she would only become a 3rd or 4th Order celestial. It was only because the Mist Clan continually poured resources into her that she managed to reach the 6th Order.

The issue was that they underestimated how profound an impact this sort of thing would have. They were constantly looking for a candidate worthy enough to replace Anabella, but one inexplicably refused to be born.

From any outsider's perspective, it was obvious why this was. They tried to skirt around the rules laid by their ancestors by giving the key to an unworthy candidate and thus lost the protection of their some of their faith. Even worse, Anabella was unable to perform well enough to supplement this loss. How could they birth talents while crippled in this way?

It would be good if the Mist Clan acknowledged their mistake and took a step back by giving the key to someone worthy, but who knew they would be so stubborn to the point they would rather run the Sect into the ground?