Up until now, a situation like this had only occurred once anywhere in the world, and that had been in Uncle Sam's Nation. Given the enormous chaos it had caused, every country since had lived with the worry that something similar might happen on their own soil.
"Where is the location?" the man asked, his voice heavy.
"In the villa complex reserved for our cooperative partners."
The technician locked onto the position through a scan of the villa area registered in the Bureau's database. The moment he did, the tension that had been pressing down on the room dissolved, replaced by a collection of rather odd expressions.
If the location was there, the possibility of a "special-type cross-dimensional treasure" could essentially be ruled out.
"So the abnormal Spiritual Energy fluctuation was caused by one of our cooperative ability users or treasure holders?"
"Cultivating? Or just testing their current limits?"
"But is there really anyone among our cooperative partners with power on this scale?"
Zhou Chen murmured to himself, his expression caught between surprise and confusion. He directed the technician to bring up the surveillance footage from the villa area.
On the screen, a massive arc of golden sword light tore across the sky, splitting the clouds cleanly in two. Along the edges of the gap, dark violet flames burned with no sign of fading.
"Who is that?"
His eyes carried unmistakable disbelief. Destructive force of this magnitude was excessive by any measure. And yet someone with this kind of strength was among their cooperative partners? How had he not known about this? Had it been arranged by another supervisor?
Sure enough, the answer came from the technician a moment later.
"Because the surveillance cameras in the villa area only cover the exterior and don't extend into private space, we can't confirm the identity directly. However, based on the database, there is only one individual with potential matching this level."
"He signed a contract with Miss Su. The Wangquan Baye template holder: Ye Xuan."
"Su Mengyao?"
"If I recall correctly, her team was responsible for Hangzhou No. 3 High School, wasn't it?"
"She really got lucky, finding someone like this."
Zhou Chen muttered to himself, then shook his head and turned back to the technician.
"Since he's a cooperative partner of the Celestial Pivot Bureau, this abnormal fluctuation doesn't need to be escalated to the upper levels. I'll notify Su Mengyao and have her check in on the situation. We can treat this as a power breakthrough."
"Understood!" the technician replied promptly.
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"You're saying your power just broke through?"
"But if I remember right, it hasn't been very long since you obtained the Wangquan Baye template, has it?"
Su Mengyao stared at the message Ye Xuan had sent with a bewildered look. Since Ye Xuan fell under her responsibility and she had enormous confidence in his potential, she had been sending him a message every day to maintain a working relationship.
Ye Xuan rarely responded. Most of his time was spent in cultivation. That only deepened Su Mengyao's conviction. As a character template holder who was still putting in this level of effort, Ye Xuan would inevitably become one of the top fighters in Xia Nation, and perhaps the world.
Even so, wasn't this breakthrough happening a little too fast?
She wasn't sure how Zhou Chen had found out, though it wasn't hard to guess. Their ranks were equivalent and they shared access to the Bureau's information database. She just didn't know quite what to make of his message saying she had found a template holder with terrifying strength and still hadn't treated anyone to a meal. He had cooperative partners too, and his subordinates were impressive enough, but he had never taken anyone out for a meal either. Then she looked at the video clip he had sent.
Golden sword light cleaving heaven and earth, with dark violet fire burning all around it.
"Wait, what is this?"
"A Heavenly Sword strike? But where is that dark violet flame coming from?"
"And with destructive force at this level, what is his synchronisation rate with the template actually at? Even the young Wangquan Baye with the actual Wangquan Sword in hand probably only reached something like this, didn't he?"
"This doesn't make sense. It genuinely doesn't make sense."
Su Mengyao was completely at a loss. The information the video contained was simply too much to process all at once.
The golden sword light could perhaps be attributed to the Heavenly Sword technique, even if its duration was unusually long. But the violet fire? Wangquan Baye had no ability remotely like that.
And beyond that, destructive force of that scale. Wasn't that roughly what Wangquan Baye looked like just before he set out for the Outer Circle? How long had Ye Xuan even held the template? How high was his synchronisation rate that he could reach this level in so little time?
She had originally thought he was holding back at school, but looking at this message, was his power actually only now exploding outward? Was he perhaps a reincarnation of Wangquan Baye himself?
"Ten days, to be precise." Ye Xuan replied, clarifying for Su Mengyao.
In reality, it hadn't even been a full ten days.
"And the dark violet fire burning through the clouds..."
"I've comprehended my own Wangquan Sword Intent. Think of the fire as a derivative of that Sword Intent." Ye Xuan said flatly, as though he were describing something entirely unremarkable. Su Mengyao, reading the message on the other end, had no idea how to respond.
(Do you realise what you just said? You comprehended your own Wangquan Sword Intent? Meaning you couldn't even be bothered using the one the template came with? And is that something that can just be casually comprehended like that?)
(Wangquan Baye is a fictional character, but you, an actual person in the real world, have a sword path talent more extraordinary than the genius depicted in the fiction?)
"If there's nothing else, I'll go offline. A level like this is still nowhere near enough to protect oneself in the current era."
Ye Xuan closed the channel after seeing that Su Mengyao had stopped responding. At this point, even though he had comprehended the Wangquan Sword Intent and obtained the Three Thousand Burning Flame, putting his strength on par with the older Wangquan Baye, it still wasn't enough.
The older Wangquan Baye, even holding the actual Wangquan Sword, could only contend with a Demon Emperor for a limited time. And while Ye Xuan could endure for longer thanks to the regeneration of the Three Thousand Burning Flame, without the real Wangquan Sword, he wasn't yet in a position to go head to head with a Demon Emperor.
Strength like this was still too weak. In the current era, even though on the surface it appeared there was only one god-template holder standing at the peak, no one knew how many others were quietly hiding themselves among the crowd.
And even if those who were hiding weren't as powerful as him, wasn't there still one person who stood far above him? If he allowed himself to feel satisfied and ease up simply because of what he had now, he would be wasting both the talent he possessed and the Three Thousand Burning Flame he had pulled.