"Who are you and what business do you have here?" one of the young men asked in a serious voice.

The current Tang Sect received very few visitors, and even though the federation hadn't released any new policies that targeted the Tang Sect, all of the major powers knew why the sect was falling into obscurity. Thus, the Tang Sect naturally received fewer and fewer visitors. On this day, Tang Wulin had disguised himself into a middle-aged man in his forties who was extremely mundane in terms of height, figure, and appearance.

"I'm here to discuss a business deal. The heartless one denies his innermost feelings, while the amorous one is left to rue what could've been," Tang Wulin replied with a smile.

Surprised looks flashed through both of the young men's eyes upon hearing this. The one who had just spoken made an inviting hand gesture toward Tang Wulin, and said, "Please come with me."

He then led Tang Wulin further into the branch.

Meanwhile, in a completely nondescript house not far away from the Tang Sect headquarters.

In direct contrast to the mundane exterior of the house, the interior was like a scene straight out of a science-fiction world, and it was filled with all types of complex and intricate devices.

"Who is that?" There were three people in the room who were staring at a screen.

If Tang Wulin were present, he would've definitely been able to identify that the images being depicted on the screen were none other than those of the courtyard within the Tang Sect headquarters. The images were shot from a bird's-eye perspective, but they were extremely clear.

"I don't know; I've never seen this man before, so he's most likely not a member of the Tang Sect. He seems really ordinary, but he's so ordinary that I can't help but be suspicious. Should we report this to the higher-ups?"

"Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions; let's keep observing first."

"It's going to be very hard for us to continue to observe him after he enters the building, though. The Tang Sect has internal masking systems, and we've tried to infiltrate the building many times to install surveillance devices, all to no avail."

"Activate the thermal imaging analysis device and analyze him before he enters the building," a middle-aged man who was sitting at the center of the trio instructed.

"Yes!"

The other two people in the room immediately sprang into action, and Tang Wulin's body began to turn red on the screen, clearly being viewed through thermal imaging devices.

"His blood essence is significantly more powerful than a normal person, and his heartbeat is quite strong. It's beating around 45 times a minute, which is on par with that of a very healthy human. He's not releasing any soul power fluctuations, and his spiritual fluctuations are also within the normal range. It feels like he's nothing more than a normal person who exercises regularly."

"Alright, keep observing him, then," the middle-aged man instructed before closing his eyes to rest.

Their mission was to observe the Tang Sect headquarters at all times and report anything amiss to their higher-ups right away.

The Tang Sect was nowhere near as powerful as it was during its heyday, but up until recently, it was still one of the most powerful super organizations on the entire continent, so there were always going to be some visitors.

As such, the instructions they had received were to observe all powerful Soul Masters at or above the Soul Emperor level that visited the Tang Sect headquarters, then follow them after they left to see where they came from.

This type of surveillance had already been going on for over half a year, but as it turned out, the Tang Sect really was keeping an extremely low profile; not only had they not done anything in the past half a year, there had been very few powerful beings that required tracking. The members of the Tang Sect themselves also rarely ever left the building, and it was almost as if they were in semi-seclusion. Furthermore, all of the Tang Sect's business operations seemed to have ceased, and even though its headquarter was very large, it was like a large family manor that couldn't be any more understated and inconspicuous.

However, the more this proved to be the case, the more the higher-ups of these surveillance personnel were convinced that the Tang Sect was up to something. With the enormous foundation that the Tang Sect had established, they shouldn't have been reduced to such a state even if their headquarters had been destroyed; they should've at least had the power to retaliate.

Tang Wulin was led into a room by the young man, and after coming here, the cautious look in Tang Wulin's eyes finally eased slightly. With his Spirit Domain realm spiritual power, he could sense all of the sensory devices around him. To put it in simpler terms, all sensory devices emitted energy fluctuations, and no matter how faint those fluctuations were, they couldn't escape Tang Wulin's detection.

With his immense spiritual power, he was able to discover all of them with ease. As a result, he had intentionally disguised his own energy fluctuations to fool whoever was conducting surveillance on him. With his enormous spiritual power as a foundation, it was extremely simple for him to use the disguise techniques he had learned from the old demons to fool the sensors.

A faint smile appeared on Tang Wulin's face, and he sat in silence to wait.

Not long after that, a bookshelf beside him suddenly shifted to the side, and a person emerged from behind it.

Tang Wulin's smile instantly widened at the sight of him.

This was an extremely handsome middle-aged man. In particular, he had a pair of clear magnificent eyes that were framed by long eyelashes, and he was no less handsome than Tang Wulin. He was none other than the vice-palace master of the Tang Sect's Douluo Palace, Amorous Douluo Zang Xin.

Zang Xin turned to Tang Wulin before giving him a slight nod, then waving a hand before walking into the hidden door behind the bookshelf.

Tang Wulin hurriedly followed along. He wasn't surprised at all that Zang Xin had been able to recognize him, not because of his cultivation rank as a Limit Douluo, but because he had notified Zang Xin in advance of the fact that he was coming.

After entering through the hidden door, they arrived in an elevator, which began to travel downward.

Only then did Zang Xin turn to Tang Wulin with a smile. "Your disguise abilities are truly becoming more and more extraordinary! Even I couldn't recognize you. I was only able to confirm that it was you because you didn't completely conceal your aura."

The elevator was moving very quickly, and Tang Wulin could sense that he was descending at a rapid speed, but strangely enough, there was no sense of weightlessness that one would associate with such a rapid descent. If it weren't for the sharp senses of his spiritual power, he wouldn't even have been able to identify that he was descending at such a fast speed.

This was definitely the fastest elevator that Tang Wulin had ever taken; even the ones at the Spirit Pagoda and the blacksmith association couldn't compare with it. The elevator had descended for at least 200 meters in less than 20 seconds, and it was still continuing downward.

Zang Xin smiled at the sight of Tang Wulin's surprised expression. "Not bad! Not many people can notice this."

A wry smile appeared on Tang Wulin's face. "Do you have a mind-reading ability, Your Majesty? Why do you always know what I'm thinking."

Zang Xin chuckled, "I can't think of anything else that you could be surprised about. You've done very well, Wulin; I'm very impressed that you've grown to this extent in just a year."

Tang Wulin asked, "Did Senior Blood One tell you about me?"

Zang Xin's expression changed slightly at the mention of Cao Dezhi, but he then quickly looked away, and harrumphed coldly, "Hmph, that bastard wouldn't speak to me. He has ways of informing me of certain things, though."

The elevator finally stopped, and Tang Wulin was sure that it had descended at least 500 meters underground, which placed them even deeper than Shrek Academy's sanctuary beneath the Sea God's Lake.

This made Tang Wulin suspect whether everyone in the Tang Sect headquarters had actually been completely wiped out during the bombing.

If there was such a deep place here, wouldn't there have been a similar place at the past Tang Sect headquarters?

The elevator doors opened, and Zang Xin strode out first. Compared to the Shrek Academy sanctuary, this place was completely different.

The first thing that Tang Wulin was struck by after exiting the elevator was the strong technological vibes here.

There were all types of different soul tools positioned throughout the massive metallic space, some of which Tang Wulin recognized while others were completely unfamiliar to him. There were also some strangely-shaped soul tools that he didn't know the functions of.

After passing through a large door, Tang Wulin was given quite a fright as he found himself in a massive factory that stretched as far as the eyes could see. This was none other than a mecha manufacturing factory.