In Ding Yun's rented apartment, the living room.
After putting away the bank card, seeing Zhong Qi's hesitant and awkward demeanor, Ding Yun guessed he had something else on his mind:
"Do you have something you need to tell me, or did the higher-ups assign you a mission and need to brief me? Just say it directly, I don't like beating around the bush.
If you keep being circuitous and euphemistic with me.
I might just ask you to leave."
Seeing Ding Yun say this, Zhong Qi thought that whether he stuck his head out or hid it, it was still a blade, so it was better to be straightforward. Thus, he immediately and directly explained their department's so-called "Spiritual Severance Plan" and complained:
"I know you definitely won't agree with this.
But I hope you won't mind, this isn't my intention. It's mainly that the higher-ups asked me to come to you..."
"No, wait, why wouldn't I agree?"
Ding Yun's sudden sentence completely stunned Zhong Qi. It took him a while to process what he had just heard, and he looked at Ding Yun with disbelief, his eyes wide, and retorted:
"Wait, what did I just hear?
You're saying why wouldn't I agree?
Wait, I, you... I... I... I need a moment. Why wouldn't I agree? Why wouldn't I agree? So you... you mean you're willing?
Are you really willing? Did I hear that correctly?"
Needless to say, his thoughts were now a mix of excitement, confusion, and disbelief.
His entire train of thought had become a mess.
"Yes, I am willing. In any case, the remaining spiritual energy in this world is no longer enough for ordinary people to cultivate to immortality. Even for those with average aptitude, extending their lifespan is difficult.
Instead of lingering on with this meager spiritual energy, which might even breed countless evil paths, it's better to completely sever the spiritual path. It might even be immeasurable merit."
During this time, Ding Yun had been quite troubled about what she should do to increase her influence, and she hadn't made up her mind yet. It wasn't until Zhong Qi mentioned the Spiritual Severance Plan and how it could save many lives.
A world that was about to completely embrace science and abandon metaphysics would surely have its world consciousness lean more towards humanity and science. If she could eliminate metaphysics in advance and save countless lives that would be lost to evil paths in the next two hundred years.
Then she would not only gain immeasurable merit.
She might also win the favor of the world consciousness.
After all, if she did that, she would definitely be considered to be actively promoting the world's embrace of science.
In that case...
The probability of her inscribing her mark would be quite high.
This was why Ding Yun, after a moment's thought, quickly stated her willingness and calmly explained the reason to Zhong Qi.
Zhong Qi didn't really hear Ding Yun's explanation clearly. He only knew that Ding Yun agreed to their Spiritual Severance Plan, and kept thanking her excitedly, then apologized, and quickly took out his phone to call Qin Hui.
Qin Hui, upon receiving the news, was also incredibly incredulous and confirmed it several times before joyfully rushing over in person to meet Ding Yun for discussions.
Not to mention the specifics of the process.
In the end, they successfully finalized the details.
Then, both sides began to busy themselves. The Special Incident Management Department was mainly busy identifying the remaining spiritual脉 branches worldwide and making preliminary preparations for the Spiritual Severance Plan, while Ding Yun primarily focused on learning.
She learned the method of spiritual severance that the Special Incident Management Department had painstakingly deduced from countless ancient texts.
Half a year passed this way.
Of course, Ding Yun's learning wasn't that slow; she finished in less than half a month. The main reason for the time taken was the preliminary preparations by the Special Incident Management Department, as it was a project involving all remaining spiritual脉 in the world.
Once all preparations were complete, they naturally cooperated with Ding Yun to officially initiate the Spiritual Severance Plan.
There weren't many major difficulties in this regard. It was mainly about destruction, completely destroying those remaining spiritual脉. The main reason the Special Incident Management Bureau couldn't handle it was that spiritual脉 were semi-real and semi-illusory existences. They couldn't be destroyed by technological means; it required metaphysics, meaning it could only be destroyed by soul power and magic.
However, they lacked such powerful soul power and magic.
This was the main contradiction.
But these problems were not an issue for Ding Yun at all, as her mental power was strong enough to substitute for her soul. As for insufficient magic, since the remaining spiritual脉 were to be completely destroyed, Ding Yun chose the simplest and most direct method: using her mental power to forcefully extract the spiritual energy from the remaining spiritual脉 and transform it into magic to destroy them.
Destroying them with its own power.
As a result, apart from the mental energy consumption being slightly higher than expected, there were no other problems.
As the remaining spiritual脉 were continuously destroyed by Ding Yun, the spiritual energy concentration in the entire world began to decline drastically again.
However, because the plan was kept very secret.
The Xuanmen (mystical sects) didn't notice at first.
It wasn't until more than half of the remaining spiritual脉 were destroyed by Ding Yun, and many places where spiritual脉 were destroyed had not even a trace of spiritual energy, and even the magic within many Xuanmen cultivators and the ghosts they commanded were continuously dissipating.
At this point, no matter how slow their reaction was.
They also sensed that something was wrong.
Fortunately, these problems were handled and blocked by the Special Incident Management Department. Moreover, those Xuanmen cultivators whose magic was constantly dissipating no longer had the ability to resist high-tech firearms.
Therefore, apart from anger, condemnation, and protest, they had no other recourse.
Another half a year passed this way before Ding Yun completely destroyed the last remaining spiritual脉. At that very moment, Ding Yun clearly felt merit and luck descending upon her, her destiny flourishing, and the world consciousness showing a hint of joy.
In her mind, she instantly saw how many evil paths and unorthodox techniques would have emerged in the next two hundred years if not for the Spiritual Severance Plan, and how many people would have died because of them.
However, even so, Ding Yun felt it was still a bit short, just a bit short of inscribing her mark into the world's origin. At the same time, she knew deeply that if she couldn't succeed this time, it would be even more difficult to inscribe it later.
So, in the next second, she decisively sacrificed all the merit and luck she had just obtained, because merit and luck were essentially transformed from the world's origin.
The world was merely compelled by rules to bestow them. Now that Ding Yun, without asking for any reward, sacrificed all the newly acquired merit and luck back to the world, the world naturally rejoiced.
It was at this very moment that Ding Yun, due to the world's increased favor towards her, finally saw the world's origin and quickly seized the opportunity to inscribe her mark into it.
The mission was successfully completed.
Afterward, considering that she had no lingering attachments in this world, Ding Yun fabricated an illusion of ascension and withdrew from this world.