27 Where is Luo Qingben!?

Shen Long continued to train diligently for the next few weeks. He would arrive at seven o'clock every day without delay, and Daoist Fireblade was extremely impressed by his effort. He trained for almost fourteen hours a day, and his body was constantly on the verge of collapsing.

Fortunately, his effort did pay off. Across all areas, whether it was his strength, cardiovascular endurance, sword techniques, Qi - huge improvements could be seen. After practising his ten basic movements for almost a month now, he could now link them perfectly, and he seemed like a proper swordsman now.

However, his affection towards the sword only grew even more. After reaching his current mastery of the sword, he didn't slack off but worked even harder to further improve. There is simply no end to the cultivation road, especially for Shen Long. Even though his sword techniques had improved by leaps and bounds, he was still a beginner and was no match to any proper sword cultivators.

Compared to his monstrous advancement in his sword art, his Qi seemed to be advancing at quite a slow rate. As explained before, before reaching Celestial Immortal, the quality of Qi dictates one's cultivation level. Despite Shen Long was much stronger than before, he was still in Mid-Saint Realm.

After his Qi cultivation session and his training, it was still 3 pm. Normally, Shen Long would continue to practise his sword art, but he felt like there wasn't a need for it at this moment. The fundamentals were more or less sorted out, and he needed his Master to guide him.

Shen Long was not used to this one hour of free-time at all. His mind began to wander off, and he felt extremely unproductive. After all, it was quite normal. For the past weeks, he had basically dedicated his entire life towards his sword art. And now, this sudden hiatus of his practice caused him to feel slightly out-of-place.

As a result, Shen Long decided to visit the basketball court, to meet up with his friends. As Shen Long stepped onto the court, everyone present was stunned as they stared at him. All at a sudden, the crowd started cheering and chanting.

"Our God - Shen Long - is back!! Everyone!!! It's really him!!"

Shen Long was quite shocked at his own popularity, and he certainly didn't expect this level of excitement from the disciples. Most disciples were quite solemn and secluded, and they would rarely show this side of them to others. In fact, before basketball was introduced to them, there was little interaction between people here.

Basketball wasn't just an entertainment but also a tool to connect people. A basketball game would be a 5-on-5 match, and it was, without a doubt, much more enjoyable to play with others. Hence, people were forced to talk to each other. Once people broke through the initial stage of awkwardness, it was easy to become friends.

Shen Long enjoyed his short moment of glory, but he was more happy about seeing disciples get along this well. When he first came to Daoist Fireblade's palace, most disciples were only in groups of twos and threes. There was no way that one would see a group of people, hanging out together and chilling out. This kind of thing never existed in the cultivation world, until Shen Long's appearance.

"This atmosphere is way better! After Master finishes crafting the gym equipment in mass, the quality of Master's disciples would greatly improve! Now, with unity and teamwork, we will surely outshine other disciples from other sects. Master would definitely gain face in front of his peers! This is all I can do for him right now... I'm still no way close to Celestial Immortal..." Shen Long thought to himself as he waved at the disciples present in the scene.

"Show me what you've got! I need to go at 3:50, so let's try to squeeze a full game in before I take my leave! Have you guys seen Qingben? Where is he?" Shen Long shouted as he dribbled the ball up the court. Despite he hadn't played for a couple weeks, his accuracy didn't seem to have dropped. Instead, he felt like he had actually improved!

"Luo Qingben? You don't know yet? He almost got kicked out of the palace last week! He is probably wearing an orange vest, cleaning the streets right now, receiving his punishments... Can't help him out. He's already lucky that he didn't get kicked out! Public services already count as a light punishment! " Another disciple who Shen Long was quite familiar replied to him.

"What!?? What happened to Qingben!? He was fine the last time I saw him! Well... at least he was fine four weeks ago... What did he do!?" Shen Long abruptly stopped as everyone followed.

"He... He apparently stole from the Resources Allocation Department. We didn't believe it as well... Although Disciple Qingben didn't talk much, he would never steal. It's just not his style! For some reason, the Supervisor and Justice Department never issued a case, but just directly punished him. There was no evidence, and they just took him out like this... We all feel quite ashamed but there's nothing we can do..." One of the disciples, who was watching the game, spoke up.

"Are you crazy!? We're not allowed to tell anyone! Do you not remember what the captain told us last time!? We are gonna get punished as well! There's nothing we can do about it. All the supervisors in the Department are all bribed and corrupted. Telling Senior Brother Long won't do anything neither!" Quickly shut up!" Disciples near the handsome youth urged him.

"YOU SHUT UP. Tell me everything. I can't stand to watch my friends being bullied by others. I will make sure I do a thorough investigation of this!! If I really need help, I will ask Master to check! Just because he's an outer disciple, it doesn't mean that he can be bullied by people of a higher status!" Shen Long angrily shouted at the disciple in an orange robe next to the youth who stood up, to tell the truth.

"Come with me. Let's speak somewhere else! Thanks for being brave and telling the truth. There aren't many people like you these days! I owe you one!" Shen Long continued to speak with him as they left the court. As Shen Long learned more the Justice Department, steam could be seen from his face. Shen Long's eyes flickered with coldness as he seemed disgusted by the corruption here.

Shen Long was properly mad. Normally, he could control his emotions quite well. But whenever it came to his friends and family, he would lose his cool. This was because Shen Long cared about all his relationships, and his aim of cultivation was to protect people around him. If Shen Long couldn't even help out Luo Qingben, then there was no point in cultivation either.

Hence, Shen Long was determined to address this issue regardless of the situation. Plus, Shen Long knew that his Master would definitely help him if he needed him. So Shen Long was not afraid of directly going to the Justice Department to argue with them! He was ready - to fight it out with them!

Well, not physical fights. He would surely be at a disadvantage as he was still in Mid-Saint Realm. His sword art was also not up to standard yet. But for a verbal fight, Shen Long was more than ready. Shen Long packed in all the insults he learnt from Earth, and he was not afraid to blast them all out.

PS: if you guys can see the chapter, please comment or something. I don't know if the bug is affecting our novel as well! Thanks! I will post two chapters tomorrow. or maybe even three! Sorry for the inconvenience < though it isn't my fault :/