Chapter 1403 Into The Ground
The Palace Master of the Water Mist Sect was a False True God. So, she never had the opportunity to wield the key. However, this obviously mean that another individual had taken on the role.
Back then, unlike the joke that Anabella had become, the Water Mist Sect key wielder was worthy of the title. Although the current Palace Master was still slightly better, their Key Wielder was a God and was happened to be their former Grand Elder.
Unfortunately, that Grand Elder never gained the recognition of the Mist Seal, so the Water Mist Sect had been without a Palace Master for a while back then.
This aside, according to rules established by their ancestors, the key could only be passed on in three situations. The first was if the key wielder died, obviously. The second was if the key wielder entered a deep sleep and became an Ancestor. And the last was if this individual became the Palace Master.
These rules might seem odd. After all, as long as the key was being passed to a youth of their Sect, why did it matter when this happened?
There was a simple answer to this, and it was related to the higher floors of the Epistemic Tower. Simply put, quadrants who had younger key wielders were actually at a disadvantage.
When one climbs to higher floors, the privileges of key wielders increase. Not only does the key gain added functions in war and the gates, there are also numerous events that can only be entered by quadrants who have their key wielders on a particular floor.
It should be remembered that the saint floors are just a primer. True competition doesn't begin until one reached the celestial floors, and it only increases on the dao floors. The amount of time and energy it takes to take even a single step forward after entering the celestial realm is so astronomical that one has no choice but to rely on natural treasures. But, for the tower quadrants, their only real chance at these are found within the tower itself.
One can imagine how fierce the competition would be between 100 quadrants, so the tower's way of mitigating this and giving weaker quadrants a chance is by allocating these chances based on where the key wielder is within the tower.
Essentially, stronger quadrants have an advantage, but they also move on to the next floor far quicker as well. Eventually, there will be certain gap periods where weaker quadrants can fight over resources amongst themselves while the stronger quadrants have already moved on.
At the same time, however, stronger quadrants obviously want to spend as much time as possible on the highest floors. For them, only these highest floors are worth their time and only they provide a chance to improve their already high positions.
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?