The Qiankun Button

It was just that no one wanted to be the first bird out of the woods. Everyone was waiting for someone else to take the lead.

Now that someone had finally done so, if they missed this opportunity and the cultivation world became wary and took precautions in the future, would they ever get another chance?

Would there ever be a better opportunity to turn the tables?

Everyone knew the answer perfectly well.

Thus, they all sprang into action, cooperating with one another to wipe out every single Wanwantong spy within their respective territories. The speed of their operation made it difficult to believe they had not been planning this for a long time.

Even those who were still hesitant, frightened, or reluctant to take action were dragged into it by their neighbors and forcibly made to participate.

There. Now everyone had blood on their hands. If any spies escaped and the cultivation world came looking for trouble, no one could pretend to be uninvolved or become the one who stabbed everyone else in the back.

Wanwantong’s many years of arrangements in the mortal world were completely exposed and uprooted almost in the blink of an eye.

The Heavenly Heart Sect was the most enthusiastic of them all.

The moment Venerable Zhiyu received the notice, he immediately ordered the sect’s elders to lead people in capturing the spies within the sect’s territory. He also instructed them to assist the surrounding sects and imperial families in arresting their spies with all their strength.

The Kuiyi Kingdom under the Heavenly Heart Sect was among the fastest of all the countries to finish the operation and send its captives to the Pusi Kingdom.

Naturally, there was a reason the Heavenly Heart Sect had acted so enthusiastically.

Many years ago, when Venerable Zhiyu sensed that he was about to reach the late stage of the Nascent Soul realm and prepare for a breakthrough to the Great Perfection stage, he had already begun making plans. He ordered the entire sect to fawn over the spies from his own sect, treating them well in every possible way. Even when cultivation resources were scarce, they did their best to provide for them.

When had those spies ever received such treatment? Although they prided themselves on being cultivators from the cultivation world and considered themselves superior to the cultivators of the mortal world, they were, in reality, all low-level members of Wanwantong. What status or authority could they possibly have? They were merely people selling their lives for others.

As a result, the Heavenly Heart Sect’s honey-coated cannonballs proved quite effective. The spies were thoroughly charmed. They lived in bliss every day, and their reports on the Heavenly Heart Sect became far less diligent.

Of course, the fact that they had remained undiscovered for so many years was also inseparable from the negligence of their superiors.

The main reason was that the mortal world was simply too poor. After staying there for so many years, the spies had come to believe that, even as cultivators from the cultivation world, it was extremely difficult for them to break through to the Foundation Establishment or Core Formation realms. As for reaching the Nascent Soul or even Divine Transformation realm, that was even more impossible.

The cultivators of the mortal world had nothing at all and lived miserable lives. Even if they possessed exceptional talent and managed to cultivate to the Nascent Soul realm, that would be the end of the road.

Divine Transformation? Wasn’t that just a daydream?

Besides, even a Nascent Soul cultivator would create quite a commotion whenever they broke through a minor realm. If Venerable Zhiyu of the Heavenly Heart Sect had truly broken through, the disturbance would certainly have been impossible for them to miss.

Thus, the spies of the Heavenly Heart Sect felt perfectly safe nestling within the sect, enjoying the disciples’ and elders’ flattery and obsequiousness. As for investigating the Heavenly Heart Sect, they paid little attention. Many matters were brushed aside after the elders and disciples offered them a few casual explanations.

What they did not know was that the Heavenly Heart Sect’s founder had passed down a magical treasure capable of isolating celestial phenomena within a certain range.

It was called the Qiankun Clasp.

It was precisely because the Qiankun Clasp had concealed the celestial phenomena accompanying Venerable Zhiyu’s breakthrough to the Great Perfection stage of the Nascent Soul realm that Wanwantong had failed to discover it in advance.

The Qiankun Clasp had always been passed down from one sect master of the Heavenly Heart Sect to the next. Only someone who had reached the Nascent Soul realm could wield it.

Although the Heavenly Heart Sect possessed the Qiankun Clasp, regrettably, it had never produced a disciple who could reach the Great Perfection stage of the Nascent Soul realm and have hope of advancing to the Divine Transformation realm.

In fact, the Heavenly Heart Sect was not alone. Given the scarce resources and thin spiritual energy of the mortal world, cultivators capable of possessing both outstanding talent and great fortune and reaching the late Nascent Soul stage were exceedingly rare.

Venerable Zhiyu could be said to be the first person in several hundred years to have any hope of reaching the Divine Transformation realm.

This was also one of the reasons the Wanwantong spies in the mortal world had become so negligent.

After all, several hundred years might not seem like much to high-level cultivators, but the cultivators actually working at the lowest levels had, at most, reached the Core Formation realm. Most were only at the Foundation Establishment realm. Over the course of several hundred years, many successive batches of such people could have come and gone.

All these years, Venerable Zhiyu had restrained the fluctuations of spiritual energy around him whenever he went outside. Everyone assumed that he was still in the late Nascent Soul stage.

Until recently, when he finally began preparing to enter secluded cultivation and attempt his breakthrough.

Who could have imagined that the spies would suddenly start taking their work seriously for some inexplicable reason? A short while ago, they had even discovered the various preparations the sect was making for his seclusion.

As a result, Venerable Zhiyu had no choice but to order that all of them be captured and imprisoned in a heavily concealed underground cavern within the sect.

The reason he chose imprisonment rather than execution was that he feared they might possess soul lamps or similar objects in the cultivation world. If they were merely imprisoned, then even if the other spies in the mortal world discovered something amiss, there would still be plenty of time to relay the news.

But if they were killed outright and the cultivation world did have soul lamps for them, the other side would notice immediately. Such a risk could not be taken.

His breakthrough was imminent. He could not allow anything to disturb him.

This time, either he would successfully break through to the Divine Transformation realm, or he would fail. Before the Heavenly Heart Sect was completely suppressed and destroyed by the cultivation world, they would fight to the death.

Success or death.

This was Venerable Zhiyu and the Heavenly Heart Sect’s all-or-nothing gamble.

Naturally, outsiders knew nothing of these matters. They merely praised the Heavenly Heart Sect’s enthusiastic actions, remarking that the sect truly possessed the bearing of a great sect.

Venerable Zhiyu personally led the team that delivered the spies captured in the Kuiyi Kingdom to the Pusi Kingdom, then returned to the sect to enter secluded cultivation.

And so, the network of spies Wanwantong had planted throughout the mortal world—from the supervising directors and ringleaders at the top to the lowly underlings at the bottom—fell into the net without a single exception. They were transported from every corner of the mortal world to Splendid Water City in the Pusi Kingdom.

There were fourteen thousand eight hundred people in total: one Nascent Soul cultivator, one thousand Core Formation cultivators, ten thousand Foundation Establishment cultivators, and the remaining three thousand or so at the late Qi Refining stage.

The sheer number was astonishing. It was one thing not to count them, but once the figures were compiled, the result was truly frightening.

Over such a long period, Wanwantong had actually sent so many people into the mortal world.

Although their numbers in each country and sect were not particularly large, the mortal world was vast. Once everything was added together, the total was enormous.

Seeing so many people, the countries and sects that had transported the captives there could not help worrying for Splendid Water City.

After all, these were cultivators, not ordinary mortals. There were also so many Core Formation cultivators among them. If they joined forces to cause trouble, they would be extremely difficult to control.

Only the Lingxian Sect was not worried in the slightest.

They were even delighted.

So many people, so many Core Formation and Foundation Establishment cultivators—how much land could they reclaim?

With so many strong laborers, couldn’t that endless stretch of deep mountains and old forests behind North Mountain be transformed into farmland in no time?

Just thinking about it was enough to make them excited. They could hardly wait to drag these cultivators out to clear the wilderness.