Emperor Enlightening Academy, inside the Di Clan floating booth:

Di Tian has spent the past decade watching the entire tournament without missing a single bit--all because he wanted to assess the potential threat that each participant was to his future Path of Emperor.

Although he strongly believes that he will be the final winner, that even Wang Wei was not that much of a threat to him, he still wanted to make sure that he did not overlook anyone.

Di Tian was very patient as he watched everybody with meticulous eye--even if he thought that the majority of these people were weak.

Suddenly, he received a communication talisman. After activating it, a holographic image of his father appeared in front of him.

"What is?" asked Di Tian still with the indifferent look on his face. As for his father, he responded with similar calmness: "The meeting led by the Dao Opening Sect has just ended."

Then, he proceeded to explain what actually occurred and the agreement signed by all these Emperor factions.

"What do you think of the situation?" asked the Di family Patriarch.

After pondering for a few seconds, Di Tian answered: "The recent events have proven to the world not only the power of rumors and reputation, but also the power that mortals have over cultivators; to some people, the threat that mortals are to cultivators.

"As for this grand plan against the Academy, it is both important and unimportant to our Di clan. In the Western White Tiger continent, the power of reputations has no use as all these devil cultivators always treat mortals' life worse than street dogs; their lives are even worse than the humans still living in the territory of the Demon race in the north.

"As for our Di family, since the mortals living in the Domains controlled by us have been well protected, our reputation is very good. However, even if someone were to spread rumors about our family, the mortals will not care as they know that without our protection, then they will be exposed to the cruelty and savage nature of the devil cultivators."

The Di Clan Patriarch nodded calmly as he also came to a similar conclusion. Then, he asked: "According to our analysis, this plan was probably created by Wang Wei. With his intelligence, he has proven to be a bigger threat than anticipated. Do you have a plan to deal with him?"

Di Tian frowned after hearing this, the started thinking to himself:

'This Wang Wei reminds me of some people throughout history; although these people were not Sons of Destiny, their luck was similar to them. It was almost like they were the protagonist of a novel--making them extremely difficult to kill.

'I originally thought that Heavenly Dao would deal with him given his Outlaw Status and I would just make sure that nothing unexpected happened during the process. But now, it seems that I have to be more proactive.

'With his intelligence, it is not too far-fetched to find a way to survive. So, I have to help Heavenly Dao and ensure that he is completely annihilated--without any chance of surviving.'

After a few minutes of silence, Di Tian said: "I have a plan!"

"Do you need the Di clan to intervene? If so, how severe do you expect things to be?" asked the Di Clan Patriarch.

"Yes, the clan will need to intervene. As for how severe the situation will be? Well, best case scenario, we might have to mobilize a few if not all our Supreme Elders. Worst case scenario, the Sleeping Ancestors might have to intervene--thus breaking the [Immortal-Avenue Pact]."

The patriarch nodded calmly before saying: "You do not need to worry about the Pact, Since the Dao Opening Sect broke the pact a 100 years ago, we can use that to justify our actions."

After that, he directly cut off the communication. As for Di Tian, with the same cold and indifferent face, he did not have any change in his expression.

After the communication ended, Di Tian looked into the sky: his eyes seemed to be able to penetrate countless space and time, pass through countless Daos to reach the core of the World. There he saw a powerful Will residing.

After looking at the Will for long, it started to look like a giant eye that was close.

After looking at it for a moment, Di Tian muttered to himself: "Although I hate you to very core of my existence for all the pain and suffering you made me go through, I am willing to work with you in order to reach my goals."

The gigantic eye seemed to have heard him, then it opened slightly before closing again; it was as if it was acknowledging his words.

Despite all of this, no one was aware of what happened; there was no vision or change in the environment. It was as if everything was nothing but a dream or illusion.

Afterwards, Di Tian continued to watch the Tournament.

. . .

Meanwhile, inside the Small World, deep under the ocean, Wang Wei was having a similar conversation with his own father.

"So, they finally signed the agreement? It was faster than expected. Were there any people who objected?" he asked.

"Yes. Some of these old fogies were arguing that what we were doing was breaking traditions, but they still signed it in the end," replied Wang Tian with a smirk on his face. However, he did not mention the dispute between his wife and the Yin Moon Saintess.

Wang Wei sneered after hearing this as he expected this outcome. As a matter of fact, most factions would usually disagree with his plan as it might infringe on their rights and benefits.

However, Wang Wei knew these Emperor Lineages the best, so he used even better benefits for them to agree with this plan. He simply offered them something irresistible, so they rapidly changed their minds.

The previous meeting might look like one designed to attack the Emperor Enlightening Academy, but it was not; it was a way for all these factions to divide unimaginable benefits.

Many of these factions were happy that the Dao Opening Sect was forced to hand over so much profit to them because their aid was necessary to accomplish this plan, but none of them actually knows that this plan was never just about doing massive damage to the Emperor Enlightening Academy.

Wang Wei's real goal was to lay a foundation for his future plans after becoming a Great Emperor. Only the Supreme Realm powerhouses and the head of the Three Families of the Dao Opening Sect were aware of the larger plan at large.

Even the Sectarian faction did not know about this as they could not be totally trusted after Long Bo's recent betrayal.

So, while all these Emperor Lineages were celebrating the benefit that they would receive, they did not know that Wang Wei was playing them in the palm of his hand. Once they realized this, it would be too late.

"Wei'er, when do you want to execute the plan?" asked Wang Tian with a little excitement in his voice.

After pondering for a while, Wang Wei replied: "Wait for a while, I want to see how the Academy responds to our recent attacks."

"Well, they have started using similar attacks on our reputation, but we were prepared, so their attacks failed. We also receive news that the person in charge of the formation had her soul searched, thus turning her into brain dead. The Academy would never expect our sect to develop something as heaven-defying as Array Virus."

After saying that, Wang Tian sighed deeply as he remembered a century ago, before his son started cultivating, he once introduced the concept of Array Virus to the upper echelon of the sect.

He remembers how he stood in front of all the Professionals of the sect, then described the idea to them.

The concept of Array Virus was actually based on Wang Wei's past life. When he was studying Array or Formation, he discovered that runes were similar to computer code--which could be used to code reality itself.

After making this observation, he wondered whether he could use the concept of a virus to infect a formation, then taking control over said formation. If his idea was successful, Wang Wei knew that the Dao Opening Sect could actually remotely take control over other sect' Formation or Array.

After introducing this idea to the sect, many people first thought that he was crazy, and he was just speaking nonsense. However, on the count that he was the Sect Master' son, they let him use the resources to try his idea.

After the first prototype of Array Virus was created, it could only take control of a Low Level Profound Array, and it was barely able to do so. Nevertheless, this discovery was truly an unimaginable one for the people of the sect.

This discovery was essentially creating a brand new Dao or Path for Array professionals all over the world.

After more than hundred years of studying, the Dao Opening Sect could take control of some less complex Earth Level Arrays. Luckily for them, the formation used to broadcast the Tournament was not that high, nor that complex. Otherwise Wang Wei would have to find another plan to get access to it.

…

Wang Tian spent a few good seconds reminiscing about the past. Then he took a deep breath to regain his bearing while secretly thinking to himself: 'I wonder what kind of world Wang Wei lived in in his past life; what kind of civilization was it to have such an existing idea or concept. Maybe one day, when he is ready, he could tell us--or even show us.'

Wang Tian then looked at his son before saying: "Well, that should be everything for today, so…" However before he could finish, his wife, Yu Yan entered the room and pushed him to the side before saying to her son:

"Wei'er, I have a bone to pick with you!"