Zhang Caixin’s breakthrough this time took a full seven days from the start until she successfully broke through.

In fact, this is considered fast. When Feng Jun arrived in the evening, he deduced that she would use less than eight days to break through, but unexpectedly, she succeeded in breaking through on the seventh day.

She started breaking through at midnight, and Feng Jun guarded for three days before perceiving her difficult progress through the first threshold.

Counting the initial preparation of over two days, this speed is slower than her previous advancements, but this is the norm for advancing to the Outcast Realm. If not for Chaoyang’s slightly purer spiritual energy, her speed would have been even slower—even if she has a Pure Water Constitution.

Of course, if Feng Jun hadn’t extracted the Red Pill so early, but used it now, the time would certainly have been shortened.

Seeing that by the fifth day, Zhang Caixin was still breaking through, Feng Jun felt it was almost enough—what follows was just a matter of course, no need to wait until she stabilized after breaking through to leave.

Doing this seemed somewhat unsympathetic, but Feng Jun hoped to be a qualified mentor rather than a babysitter—a mentor leads the way while cultivation depends on the individual. The most dangerous part has passed. As for the remaining part, she should just be cautious.

So he got up and quietly left, instructing Little Celestial Master and Yu Qingzhu before leaving, "I’ll head over to Europa to wrap things up there. If anything unexpected happens here, crush one of my Essence Blood Protection Talismans, and I’ll be aware of it."

When Sofia heard he was going to Europa, she volunteered to accompany him. Although she has already entered the Qi Refinement Realm by cultivating the Incense Fire Ascension path, she can sense the mystical aura during Zhang Caixin’s advancement, but knows what it is without understanding the reason.

Just yesterday, she sought advice from Feng Jun about the meaning behind the aura’s changes, but his answer left her somewhat indifferent—"It’s not the same cultivation path; just take a look, and enrich your experience."

Since that was the case, as she saw Feng Jun going to conduct business in Europa, she figured it would be better to accompany him, which would be convenient for cover.

The two went directly from Chaoyang to Britain. Feng Jun followed Beauty Lin’s advice and contacted a Huaxia citizen in Foggy City. Unexpectedly, that person had a surface identity as a businessman with various import and export dealings, making them unavailable for the time being.

Unable to find him, he could only check on those keeping Huaxia equipment there—hopefully, under the protector’s supervision these past few days, nothing unexpected happened there.

The place where things are stored is an eight-story apartment building. Besides the eight floors above ground, it has a basement level where those pieces of equipment are hidden in a room.

Feng Jun sensed and calculated for a while, confirming that nothing had been tampered with, thus not in a hurry.

Now there’s no need to take out the items; alerting the enemy would be troublesome. Returning wastes effort since traveling back and forth consumes energy points—spirit stones shouldn’t be squandered like this.

In reality, he considered staying here overnight, possibly observing Mai Nation people come to retrieve goods—a pleasant surprise.

Regrettably, nothing happened overnight, be it involving Mai Nation people or between him and Sofia.

Out of boredom, Feng Jun meticulously examined the equipment several times and discovered three hidden traps—not harmful ones, but ones that, once manipulated, could alert the opposing party.

Adding to the previous discoveries, there are altogether five traps here, allowing the opposing party to ascertain if anyone tampered with anything.

Feng Jun thought this was somewhat unbelievable. An exchange group might have brought some relatively important information, yet how could ordinary entourages carry such significant content? Is this monitoring method excessively stringent?

However, he quickly realized that Huaxia personnel intended to fish, just like Mai Nation people. So, this is bait meant for them, seen as targeting Mai Nation people, while Mai Nation people view it as targeting Huaxia—fairness across the world merely depends on whose fishing skills are superior.

Unconsciously, dawn broke, Feng Jun gained nothing, and today Foggy City was overcast.

After a while, it even began to rain lightly. He particularly enjoyed such weather, as did Sofia, understanding his inclination—during the elimination of Apostate Keane, the weather was similarly gloomy.

The two strolled leisurely in the rain and finally, by noon, contacted that Huaxia citizen and obtained the replacement equipment.

By evening, as they prepared to set off, the Huaxia businessman requested to follow along, expressing his desire to witness it firsthand. Initially, Feng Jun refused, but he explained that he had colleagues who could assist in providing vigilance.

Seeing his persistence, Feng Jun didn’t want to decline; after all, as long as the wondrous Storage Talisman wasn’t disclosed, the rest... could be treated as a chance for them to broaden their horizons.

Around ten that evening, Feng Jun drove a small car near the target location. Rain continued to fall from the sky as it typically does in oceanic climate countries, with plenty of rainfall.

The car contained the equipment to be replaced, and there weren’t many policemen around—tonight was the English Premier League; during the match, policemen were busy at the venue, afterward handling potential hooligan disturbances.

So this kind of small locality isn’t on the police’s radar.

Feng Jun wasn’t in a rush to replace the items, as the current timing was too early. Should someone pass by and see, it wouldn’t be ideal. Waiting until one or two o’clock in the dead of night to take action would be much safer.

But just as they were getting close and about to move, a car silently appeared on the street.

"It’s modified, with a silencer," whispered the Huaxia businessman who claimed his surname was Xia. Even in the quiet of the car at night, they had to be cautious about their voices being overheard.

"Lao Xia, you seem quite familiar with this business," Feng Jun said with a smile. "Do you also dabble with modified cars?"

"I don’t play with modified cars," Lao Xia replied sternly. "Boss Feng, let’s not joke... I suspect they might be from Mai Nation."

"I hope they are too," a gleam flashed in Feng Jun’s eyes. "I’ve been waiting for them for so long, didn’t expect them to show up now, truly a blessing from above."

He was delighted when Lao Xia suddenly blurted out, "Boss Feng, can you not kill him... leave him to me? Well, it’s them."

As soon as he finished speaking, two people got out of the car across the street, and there seemed to be another in the driver’s seat. Lao Xia’s night vision equipment was decent enough to distinguish, even in the rainy night, that there was more than one person.

The Mai Nation operatives opposite were truly unlucky. Initially, they were cautious about being discovered by Huaxia, so they didn’t dare to come — after all, the information on these devices wasn’t classified, so being late wasn’t a problem.

Primarily, they estimated that Huaxia wouldn’t gain much from this European tour, so there was no rush, preventing backlash from the Huaxia citizens.

To date, Huaxia’s European tour had been unexpectedly successful, which led the Mai Nation operatives to believe that Huaxia was content and wouldn’t have any excess time to spare, so they thought it was safe to retrieve these things now.

But unfortunately, their luck was too bad, even Feng Jun didn’t expect to run into them so directly.

— If it weren’t for waiting for Zhang Caixin to advance, he would have been here long ago.

— If he hadn’t failed to find Lao Xia yesterday, the things would’ve been taken out already.

Under these circumstances, you still ran into me, which seems too unfortunate to just blame on bad luck; it can only be said that God has abandoned protection of the Mai Nation.

The next events are needless to say; these three tried to take the equipment, but in the face of Feng Jun, a Golden Core, could they succeed?

Feng Jun not only replaced the equipment but also captured the three, and because he came by car, he didn’t even expose the Storage Bag.

Among these three, only one was a Central Intelligence Agency member from Mai Nation; the others were peripheral members. But Feng Jun had no interest in talking to him—what would it help? Hunt down his superiors and their superiors?

In the end, would he have to go kill the President of Mai Nation? Isn’t quiet cultivation more attractive?

So he straightforwardly handed the three over to Lao Xia, "I’ve arranged everything inside, besides the equipment, you can take these three away as well."

Lao Xia, being cautious in his work, though he had been repeatedly advised to trust Mr. Feng’s capabilities, couldn’t help but ask, "Are you sure there are no signal emitters on these devices and packages?"

Feng Jun looked at him helplessly, "Don’t you trust me?"

"No," Lao Xia hurriedly shook his head, cautiously explaining, "We’ve suffered great losses in situations like this before."

Feng Jun remained silent, who among the Huaxia citizens could forget the events at the Honglu Temple in Serbia? So he nodded slightly, "I assure you, there are no signal emitters, and I’m willing to take full responsibility for it."

Lao Xia smiled and wanted to say "there’s no need to be so formal," but recalling the topic just mentioned, he decided against it.

After a moment of silence, he spoke, "The equipment can be taken, but these three people... I didn’t expect such a gain."

Feng Jun nodded, "I didn’t expect it either, I’d say it’s quite lucky. What do you plan to say?"

Lao Xia hesitated for a moment before speaking, "I want them alive, but... I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s too much trouble for Mr. Feng to help transport them to a designated location?"

He truly didn’t anticipate encountering such a coincidental situation, though his plans included potential responses when encountering adversaries, but the best scenario they could envision was "if there’s an opportunity, capture them alive."

Once captured, they obviously needed to be transported, but how to transport them wasn’t thoroughly planned—it wasn’t necessary to overthink it.

But now, since this was achieved, Lao Xia felt that none of their transport methods seemed particularly safe, so he gathered the courage to ask Feng Jun for help.

This request was a bit out of line, but Feng Jun, thinking of Serbia, nodded without hesitation, "No problem, tell me where to take them, anywhere in the world you choose."

(Update, summon monthly tickets.)