The first thing the elders did was to check the signs of sleeper cells among the disciples who were present in the room.
And soon after that, they entered the banquet hall.
In the hall, the disciples were standing in a daze, lost in the illusion set by Grand Elder Li.
Ye Tian Yun couldn't help but sigh when he saw the scene. Even with his enhanced Spirit sense due to his breakthrough in the Sword Intent, it was hard for him to distinguish between illusion and reality.
Everyone stepped inside and soon came to check the nails and ears of the disciples present in the hall.
The scene was truly awkward for everyone. But considering the severity of the situation, no one was laughing.
"Found one!" One of the elders cried out, attracting everyone else's attention.
Grand Elder Xuan ran up to him and began to examine the disciple. And sure enough, this disciple had a dark gradient on his nails and even bulging muscles behind his ears.
Clearly, they had found their first Sleeper Cell!
The elders didn't waste any more time and began to examine the remaining disciples faster now that there was indeed someone with features of a Sleeper Cell, as described by disciple Fang Chen.
Grand Elder Xuan moved the disciple from his seat and took him to the platform at the center of the banquet hall.
He then said, "We should bring all the Sleeper Cells found in the hall to this platform. After that, we will bring all of them to the ravine edges without affecting the illusion."
Grand Elder Li nodded his head in agreement and continued to search for more disciples who could be sleeper cells.
After about half an hour, all the disciples in the hall had finally been inspected.
And as for the platform, right now, there were eight disciples standing on the stage, dazed and lost in the illusion.
However, the elders were looking at them with hatred, as if wanting to kill those disciples.
Elder Tu suddenly asked, "Grand Elder, why not kill these disciples instead of keeping them alive and moving them away from the disciples? Even though we might be able to solve the problem at the ravine by blasting that place using these disciples, the lives of the other disciples would still be at risk due to the explosion."
"No, we cannot," It was Ye Tian Yun who answered him, "I am not sure about the validity of what I am about to say, but there's a chance that these disciples might explode if they die.'
"And if this happens, then all our hard work will be for nothing."
Elder Tu asked, "Then why did those assassins not kill these disciples? Instead of doing all the shout and drama."
"Simple because they were confident in these disciples exploding after three hours."
Elder Tu shook his head and said, "From the mechanisms of this incident, we can conclude that the one who schemed this is definitely someone who is very scheming and good at executing. And for them to activate these Sleeper Cells, they would want to hit our sect with the hardest possible blow."
"This could be possible only if the Sleeper Cells exploded here, right at this banquet. But no, they decided to have a three-hour gap between the execution and the result. And even targeted Jiang Yun."
"In my opinion, this was a foolish move on their part. They could have just shouted, and no one would have cared. No one would have known anything, and their Sleeper Cells would have also activated without any hassle."
"But what they did was, they ambushed Jiang Yun. This alerted not only the disciples but also the banquet to end halfway through, not to forget they also lost many of their assassins."�
Elder Tu's words put everyone in serious thought, and it dawned upon them how stupid this great scheme really was.
Not only were they alerting the sect, but they were also losing most of their assets in the sect, and they wouldn't even have caused much harm as compared to the Sleeper Cells exploding during the banquet, which would have wiped out almost everyone present in the building.
Instead, what their hidden enemy decided to do was try to assassinate Jiang Yun. This jeopardized their whole plan and was now going to give them less than half of the best possible outcome.
All this could have been avoided if an assassin disguised himself as a random disciple, acted drunk, and shouted the slogans at the top of his lungs.
Everyone would have just called him an idiot, and things would have gone back to normal.
Grand Elder Li was the first one to break the silence, "Either our enemy is a confident fool, or it's us who have failed to see their true aim."
Ye Tian Yun pursed his lips and said, "Elders, I don't think someone who could train Sleeper Cells and even infiltrate a sect like ours would make such a silly mistake. Our enemy must have a different agenda which we're failing to see here."
"First, they ambushed Senior Brother Jiang Yun and Senior Sister Yuan Shuchun, then they shouted, activating these Sleeper Cells. But why did they attack the top core disciples? Especially Senior Sister Yuan Shuchun. If they had activated the Sleeper Cells, I am sure they would most likely have exploded after some time, and no one in the hall would have survived, including Senior Sister Yuan."
"And they just need to activate the sleeper cells by having someone shout at the top of his lungs. There was no need to ambush Senior Brother Jiang Yun."
Grand Elder Xuan stopped him before he could say anything and said, "We can discuss all this once our task is done. There are still disciples present in the Resource Hall, which we need to check."
Then pointing at the disciples on the platform, Grand Elder Xuan continued, "Also, find the identities of these eight disciples. We need to be two steps ahead of our enemies and counterattack before they plan anything else. We must find out who orchestrated tonight's incident."
As everyone nodded, Grand Elder Li suddenly moved his hands and made some weird gestures at the disciples on the platform.�
The disciples suddenly began to move towards the exit.
Many presents at the scene were impressed by this technique; the most impressed was Jun Xie as he saw the technique which he had always wanted to master play out in front of him.
To control someone's dream and desires was impressive, but to control someone using their dreams and desires was beyond one's comprehension.
As everyone got out of the sect, the elders divided themselves into groups; one group went to collect the remaining disciples who were still present on the base of the first peak.
Another group decided to follow the Sleeper Cells towards the endless ravine edge.
And the last and the biggest group went to the Resource Hall.
Grand Elder Li impressed everyone once again as they found out that not only the disciples in the banquet hall were under an illusion, but rather the whole first peak was under Grand Elder's illusion.
Within a few minutes, they had reached the Resource Hall. Everyone met with the familiar scene as they saw the disciples in the Resource Hall standing in a daze.
Grand Elder Li didn't wish to waste any more time and gestured to the elders to start checking the disciples.
This time it took longer because the disciples present at the scene were more than the disciples who attended the banquet.
In fact, even the disciples who were in the heavenly League's Headquarters but not present in the banquet hall were currently standing still in the Resource Hall.
After about an hour, the Elders checked all the disciples, and they found five new Sleeper Cells among the disciples.
Now a total of eleven Sleeper Cells were found out.
This amount may seem very less considering the number of total disciples present at the First Peak was in thousands in the banquet hall alone.
But these disciples were enough to obliterate all the other disciples present at the scene.
If tonight's ambush had gone well, the Gracious Sword Sect would have suffered its biggest loss in history.�
Grand Elder Li couldn't help but sigh as he stared at the disciples who turned out to be sleeper cells.
Without saying anything, he gestured to the other elders to move, and once again, with his weird hand signs, he made the dazed Sleeper Cells walk out of the Resource Hall.
However, while they were heading towards the ravine edges, Grand Elder Li suddenly had a bugging feeling, as if he was missing something.
He tried to think what it was, but he could think of nothing else. This only gave him a bad premonition.
'What is it? What did we miss?'
Suddenly, he heard Ye Tian Yun's voice from behind, "We still haven't checked all the disciples present on the first peak!"