Yuan's eyes sharpened. Temporal anomalies were serious business, especially when detected in realms under the sect's supervision. Without a word to the other elders, he simply vanished, his form dissolving into motes of light that scattered on the evening breeze.

He materialized an instant later in the Realm Monitoring Division, a section of the sect that most disciples never even knew existed. The building was carved directly into Azure Peak's living stone, its chambers filled with formations that maintained constant observation of dozens of subsidiary worlds.

Elder Han Zhiwei stood waiting in the main corridor, his usually composed features tight with worry. At forty-three hundred years old, Han had seen enough strange phenomena to remain calm in most situations. The fact that he'd sent an urgent message to the Sect Master directly suggested something genuinely unprecedented.

"Sect Master," Han said, bowing deeply. "Thank you for responding so quickly. The situation is... difficult to explain."

"Try," Yuan said simply.

"One of our monitored realms appears to be experiencing temporal distortion. Specifically, complete resets to a previous temporal state whenever certain conditions are met." Han's voice carried the tone of someone reporting facts they didn't entirely believe. "The monitoring disciple claims to have observed multiple iterations of the same events, with one local inhabitant retaining memory across resets."

Yuan felt a chill run down his spine. "Which realm?"

"The Realm of the Chosen."

Of course it was.

Yuan maintained his outward calm, but internally he was beginning to understand why Ke Yin's karma had exploded to such impossible levels. Time manipulation, especially on the scale of an entire world, was the kind of interference that created karmic debt measured in epochs.

"Show me," Yuan said.

Han led him through winding corridors to a small chamber where formation arrays projected real-time images of distant worlds. At the center of the room, a young outer disciple sat before a complex viewing setup.

The disciple, Meng Qiao, according to his identification badge, nearly fell out of his chair when he realized the Sect Master himself had entered the room.

"S-Sect Master!" Meng Qiao stammered, trying to prostrate himself while simultaneously not abandoning his monitoring duties. "I didn't... that is, I wasn't expecting..."

"Show me what you've observed," Yuan said gently, his tone carrying enough authority to cut through the young man's panic.

Meng Qiao's hands shook as he adjusted the viewing formation. The projection flickered, then stabilized into a crystal-clear image of Hope City in the Realm of the Chosen. Yuan could see Du Yanze and his allies preparing for what appeared to be a desperate last stand against approaching Tribunal forces.

"This is the current iteration," Meng Qiao said, his voice steadying as he focused on his duties. "But I've watched this exact scenario play out forty-seven times now. Every time Du Yanze dies, the entire realm resets to this same moment two days ago."

As if summoned by his words, the battle began.

Yuan watched with growing understanding as Du Yanze, clearly carrying memories from previous loops, demonstrated knowledge and techniques that no local cultivator should possess. The young man fought with the desperate precision of someone who'd died many times before, every movement calculated for maximum efficiency.

It wasn't enough. Even with foreknowledge, Du Yanze couldn't overcome the fundamental power disparity. The Tribunal forces cut him down, leaving his allies dead and the city in flames.

And then the world flickered.

Reality stuttered, shifted, and reset.

The burning city restored itself. The dead rose from ash. The sun traced backward through the sky until everything returned to that same golden afternoon, with Du Yanze waking up in the same library where his loop began.

"Forty-eight times now," Meng Qiao whispered.

Yuan stared at the projection in silence, his mind working through implications that grew more troubling with each passing moment. Time loops were among the rarest phenomena in all of cultivation, requiring power that surpassed even Civilization Realm experts. The fact that an entire inner world had been trapped in temporal recursion suggested forces that Yuan preferred not to contemplate.

"Elder Han," he said quietly. "Disciple Meng. What you have witnessed here does not leave this room. You will speak of it to no one: not your friends, not your families, not even other elders. And especially not to any of the ancestors."

Both men nodded, but Yuan wasn't finished.

"Swear it," he commanded. "Swear by the heavens themselves that you will maintain silence on this matter until I release you from this obligation."

"I swear by the heavens above," Elder Han said immediately, his voice ringing with conviction.

"I swear by the heavens above," Meng Qiao echoed, though he seemed confused by the formality.

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Yuan felt the oaths settle into place, karmic threads weaving around both men like invisible chains. Most cultivators who swore "by the heavens" thought it was merely ceremony, dramatic words to emphasize their sincerity. They didn't understand that the universe itself bore witness to such vows, that breaking an oath sworn with genuine conviction could bring karmic retribution measured in lifetimes of suffering.

The power behind these particular oaths was especially strong, because Yuan had leveraged his own karmic weight to enforce them. Anyone who broke their word would find themselves facing spiritual tribulations that would make normal cultivation deviation seem like a pleasant afternoon nap.

It was harsh, perhaps, but necessary. If knowledge of the time loop reached the wrong ears, particularly certain ancestors who viewed unusual phenomena as resources to be exploited, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Yuan departed the monitoring chamber with his mind churning through possibilities, each more disturbing than the last. Time loops didn't occur naturally. They required the active cooperation of the realm itself, a willingness to sacrifice its own growth and vitality to maintain temporal recursion. And realms, no matter how small or subsidiary, never made such sacrifices lightly.

For the Realm of the Chosen to trap itself in a time loop meant the realm was facing existential danger. Something so threatening that ceasing all growth and slowly consuming its own spiritual foundation seemed preferable to allowing events to proceed naturally.

But what could threaten an inner world badly enough to justify such desperate measures?

The answer, Yuan realized with growing dread, was likely something that existed outside normal reality. Something that operated on a scale that made Civilization Realm cultivators look like children playing with wooden swords. The kind of horror that most cultivators went their entire lives without imagining, let alone encountering.

And clearly, Ke Yin was aware of this threat. Had perhaps even taken direct action against it, which would explain the impossible karma Yuan had witnessed. Creating a time loop to give a realm's inhabitants almost infinite chances to find a solution; that was exactly the kind of intervention that generated reality-warping levels of karmic weight.

The problem was that such knowledge made Ke Yin incredibly dangerous. Not because of malicious intent, but because of what others might do to acquire his secrets. If the ancestors learned that a mere Pseudo-Elemental Realm disciple had somehow gained the ability to manipulate time itself...

Yuan suppressed a shudder. The political bloodbath that would follow wouldn't just destroy Ke Yin. It would tear the sect apart as various factions fought for control of what they'd perceive as the ultimate cultivation resource – time.

No. Better to let sleeping dragons lie, at least for now.

The time loop would protect the Realm of the Chosen for the time being, giving its inhabitants the time they needed to find their own solution. The tournament would conclude in a few more days, after which Yuan could arrange a private conversation with Ke Yin away from prying eyes and listening formations.

Until then, the secret would remain buried in a monitoring chamber that most disciples didn't even know existed, protected by oaths that carried the weight of heaven itself.

Yuan materialized back on the observation platform just in time to see Elder Wan standing up to announce the beginning of the fifth round.

No one noticed that the Sect Master's expression had grown considerably more troubled during his brief absence.

Yuan settled into his chair and gazed out over the tournament arena, where eight disciples prepared for the next phase of competition.

Among them, Ke Yin sat in quiet meditation.

The young man was a walking paradox. Intelligent enough to trap worlds in time loops, yet content to sit peacefully among his fellow disciples. Capable of cosmic-level intervention, yet seemingly unaware of the attention such actions inevitably attracted.

Yuan sighed, the sound barely audible over the arena's ambient noise.

World Tree Sutra cultivators were like that; simultaneously the greatest blessing and the most dangerous curse a sect could acquire.

They could elevate an organization to heights undreamed of by normal cultivation methods, their unique abilities opening doors to realms of power that most sects could never even imagine reaching.

But they could also bring destruction beyond measure. Their very existence attracted attention from forces that usually remained hidden, and their abilities often developed in ways that defied prediction or control.

The sect's most precious treasure and its most existential threat, wrapped up in the unassuming form of a seventeen-year-old boy who probably just wanted to advance his cultivation and protect his friends.

Yuan closed his eyes and tried not to think about how many ways this could all go catastrophically wrong.