Taishang Laozi had entered seclusion, and so had Tongtian.
Unlike Laozi, however, Tongtian had left several strands of divine sense in the outside world, ensuring he could awaken at any moment if anything unexpected happened.
There was no helping it.
After all, he still needed to oversee the investiture calamity unfolding outside.
Although the Interception Sect now held the initiative, and under normal circumstances even the Chan Sect and the Western Teachings would struggle to turn the tables together, that was not enough.
Tongtian still worried.
Both the Chan Sect and the Western Teachings were masters at manipulating people's hearts.
They could pluck all manner of schemes and plots from thin air. In later ages, they would practically qualify as masters of the School of Yin-Yang, the School of Diplomacy, Confucianism, and even the School of Military Strategy.
Even in an imperial court, they would be figures no less formidable than Guiguzi.
To be fair, Tongtian admired them quite a bit.
In fact, these were precisely the people he intended to do his utmost to recruit in the future.
After all, if he had any intention of laying plans in other great worlds, no one was better suited to the preliminary groundwork than Yuanshi and the Two Sages of the West.
Winning people over and sowing divisions, forging alliances and maneuvering between factions, corrupting people's hearts, claiming the moral high ground...
These people were the true masters of such arts!
Tongtian could hardly bear to kill them. These were talented people!
Because of the Heavenly Dao's restrictions in the Primordial World, they could make no progress in cultivation, their primary pursuit. Instead, they had developed all sorts of secondary pursuits to their very peaks.
The Hundred Schools of Thought that would emerge in the mortal world in later ages were