The Director opened his eyes. He had returned to the Ring World.
Because he returned to the outside world so frequently, his body felt no discomfort whatsoever.
He stood in a massive Laboratory, surrounded by rows of neatly arranged Experimental Capsules.
Chen Dong's Experimental Capsule lay right next to his own.
He swiftly climbed out of his capsule and walked over to Chen Dong's.
On the console of Chen Dong's Experimental Capsule, a black rectangular block was slowly generating.
Once it reached ten centimeters in length, the black block stopped growing.
The Director reached out and retrieved the portable hub. This time, an additional connection port for the hub had appeared on the console.
But just as the Director turned to leave, a new message appeared on the console.
Although anxious to use the Core Element, the Director decided to check the system.
At this stage, he couldn't afford any unexpected accidents.
"Could not find Li Ban's citizen ID code?"
Text floated across the motherboard.
[Would you like to search the Deceased Citizen Code Database?]
"Is his physical body already dead?" The Director rested his chin on his fist. "The system didn't warn me—did it run out of power?"
"I had planned to ask Li Ban about the situation when transferring the Core Element... but if his physical body is dead, losing his brain signal during the transfer would also cause brain death. Forget it. I'll just record it as a sacrifice for merit."
The Director hadn't expected that taking Li Ban out of the Laboratory would directly kill his brain signal, but he didn't care much, either.
Far too many people had already died in the Ring World.
Before the fate of the entire world, individual lives had become nothing more than simple units of measurement.
As long as he successfully obtained the Wizard Embryo Fragment, all sacrifices would be worth it.
The Director tightened his grip on the portable hub and strode toward the secure room upstairs.
Along the way, the Laboratory's main doors opened too slowly, so he forced them apart with his bare hands.
He was burning with eagerness to return.
Li Ban had imagined all sorts of scenarios he might face after the Director obtained the Core Element.
For example, after leaving the Wizard World with the Core Element, the Director might praise him for a job well done—and then unceremoniously take the Core Element away.
Or he might skip the praise and just unceremoniously take it.
Or perhaps a squad of soldiers in white protective suits armed with Laser Guns would suddenly appear, pin him to the ground, and seize the Core Element.
However, Li Ban never expected that leaving the Laboratory actually required logging out!
No, only the Director needed to log out.
He was being "transferred."
Transferring his brain signal?
What did that mean?
Did that mean his body inside the Laboratory wasn't real either?
Was he just a signal?
If he was merely a brain signal, what about the rest of the Laboratory?
What about the Laboratory itself?
Li Ban realized that everyone had previously called the Wizard World a virtual world, but—the Laboratory itself was the true virtual world, wasn't it?
It might even be a narrow, confined signal world that couldn't even compare to an open-world game.
Li Ban had also heard the Director say, "Transfer him to the secure room's constructor."
He hadn't recognized either of the key terms in that sentence.
Li Ban knew this transfer wouldn't be simple. So, the moment he saw the Director's figure vanish into the elevator and a beam of light shine down from above, he immediately used the Flute Sound's Mental Interference ability.
He could feel the beam of light trying to take him away, but because of his Mental Interference, the light failed.
The light went out, then prepared to turn on again for a second transfer attempt.
But just as the pillar of light flickered, a new power emerged from within Li Ban's body.
The elevator suddenly went dark, and he couldn't see a thing.
Then, a single point of starlight ignited.
More starlight followed—rapidly spinning galaxies, shifting nebulas, and finally, a vast cosmic Star River where time flowed at breakneck speed.
"Isn't this the scene I see when cultivating spiritual rhinoceros?" Li Ban's eyes widened in astonishment.
Knowing that elements could be brought into the Laboratory world, Li Ban wasn't entirely surprised to see his spiritual rhinoceros here.
But he didn't understand how his Star River had managed to cover the elevator.
Or could the spiritual rhinoceros affect other virtual worlds?
[—Transferring.]
Then, Li Ban heard the system voice, which had been stalled in the elevator for a long time, finally resume.
Next, Li Ban experienced an incredibly bizarre transfer.
It felt as if he had genuinely turned into data and was being folded by an inexplicable force.
There was no pain.
He just watched helplessly—no, actually, he couldn't see.
Only his consciousness could clearly feel that he was being folded.
Just like folding clothes.
His arms folded inward, creased for a short length, and then tucked downward.
Then his body folded, aligning with the width of his folded chest. Using his head as the height, he was folded from top to bottom in a 'Z' shape.
Once his entire being had turned into a thin rectangular block, the block underwent multiple 'Z' shaped folds again, finally turning into a cube the size of a thumb.
Then, he entered a pitch-black, silent world.
"Where... is this?"
As if responding to Li Ban, a narrow window suddenly appeared in front of him.
It was like looking out through a peephole.
He saw a shaking camera perspective.
He saw an old corridor, windows flashing by, and a blood-red sky outside the windows.
Occasionally, parts of a person's body would appear in the frame.
A chest, a chin, and the floor appeared in alternating glimpses.
"Why does it feel like I'm being held in someone's hand? I... couldn't have been transferred into the portable hub in the Director's hand, could I? Then is the Core Element in here too?"
Almost as if catering to Li Ban's thoughts, a light suddenly appeared in the dark space.
It also shone down from above.
It didn't shine on Li Ban, but illuminated the space directly in front of him.
There, a black-and-white, smoke-like object shaped like a cluster of grapes hovered in the air.
It was none other than the Core Element that Li Ban and the others had painstakingly transferred out of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda!
Li Ban "walked" over to the Core Element.
'If I can unconditionally fuse with all elements, can I fuse with the Core Element too?'
He didn't make a move lightly.
He knew far too little about the Core Element.
When he completed the transfer of the Core Element, the system hadn't informed Li Ban what type or grade of element it was.
It only told him the mission was complete and he could log out.
Perhaps the Laboratory had placed restrictions on the mission assistance system, forbidding them from fusing with the Core Element.
Or perhaps the system determined that Li Ban didn't truly possess the Core Element at this moment.
Regardless, the system hadn't provided him with any information.
Furthermore, the Core Element was fundamentally different from other elements in the Wizard World.
Wan Chengming had held the Core Element for so long, yet hadn't he also refrained from fusing with it?
Maybe this thing had side effects he didn't know about.
Li Ban raised his hand, reaching slowly for the Core Element, but stopped when he was just a centimeter away.
'I should still be careful. I know nothing about it, and the Director probably doesn't know that the Star River transferred me to the Core Element's side. If the situation becomes critical, it won't be too late to risk fusing with it then.'
Li Ban had never imagined that while he was a person in the virtual Laboratory, he was merely a brain signal in the real world.
This reversal directly shattered Li Ban's original plans.
He had originally wanted to establish a firm foothold in the Laboratory world, but he hadn't expected that he didn't even have feet to stand on.
Now, he could only think of a way to first find a safe, hidden space in this world capable of housing his 'brain signal.'
Looking at the Core Element before him, Li Ban suddenly had a new idea.
'Huh? If I'm truly just a piece of signal data, does that mean I can roam freely through the electronic devices of this world?'
'So, am I basically a computer virus?'
The Director reached the top of the stairs and glanced at the ruined scenery outside the window.
"All of this will end."
He carried the portable hub toward the secure room.
He walked quickly, but couldn't help constantly looking down at the portable hub in his palm.
The tiny display screen on the hub showed that its internal data remained stable, without any abnormal changes caused by his movement.
The Director couldn't suppress a smile.
This world couldn't hold on much longer.
He needed to fuse with the Wizard Embryo Fragment immediately!
Before he entered the secure room, the young guard snapped to attention and saluted the Director, though his words were rather informal: "Leader, you're in a great mood today!"
Today, the Leader had neither the time nor the mood to chat with him.
"I am going to undergo fusion. The secure room is locked down, and no one is allowed to enter!" Without pausing, he only left behind a stern order.
"Yes!" Zhang Yang saluted crisply, then couldn't resist flashing a huge, delighted grin. "Ha!"
The main doors of the secure room opened and sealed shut again.
Then came the sounds of various mechanical locks engaging and electronic locks sealing.
This secure room once had many facilities, but as fewer people remained in the outside world, most of the equipment had been hauled away to abandoned warehouses.
Now, only a single Experimental Capsule and one brain domain platform constructor remained in the entire secure room.
The Director, or rather the last Leader of the Ring World, walked straight to the brain domain platform constructor and plugged the portable hub into its high-speed port.
He watched with satisfaction as the words "Ready" appeared on the small screen.
The portable hub had successfully docked with his personal brain domain platform.
Now, all he had to do was lie down in the Experimental Capsule, enter his brain domain platform, and he could retrieve the Wizard Embryo Fragment stored within the portable hub.
In this arduous and terrifying era, energy was almost completely depleted. The survivors had all been transferred to this massive surface base, and most of their electronic machinery had been replaced with optical-energy machinery.
Furthermore, to conserve energy, most of the survivors had uploaded their consciousnesses into the Dreamscape System.
While their original intent might have been to escape reality, doing so had indeed saved vast amounts of real-world energy.
It was precisely because of their sacrifices that the Ring World had managed to hold on until the Laboratory project succeeded!
The Leader lay down in the Experimental Capsule and began loading his data.
Entering his brain domain platform, he waited for his consciousness to stabilize, then slowly opened his eyes.
The world he had constructed within his mind wasn't a hyper-advanced, modern Laboratory, but rather a piece of natural scenery.
A tranquil lake surrounded by mountains.
Lush green peaks circled the horizon, and crystal-clear waters rippled nearby.
When the Leader materialized here, his clothing bore a striking resemblance to the styles of the Wizard World.
A speck of light drifted down from the sun overhead.
It wasn't actual sunlight; hidden within the glow was the portable hub imported from the motherboard.
The light gathered in front of the Leader, stacking together like building blocks until it formed a physical object.
It was the file transferred from the portable hub, taking the shape of a scroll painting in this realm.
The Leader reached out, took the scroll, and gently unrolled it.
Painted on the white rice paper was a black-and-white, grape-like cluster of smoke.
The Leader tapped the smoky cluster on the paper.
The two-dimensional image instantly became three-dimensional, popping out from the rice paper.
When the Leader lightly touched the Core Element, the smoke trembled softly like gelatin.
His excited expression gradually turned into confusion. "Is this... the Wizard Embryo Fragment?"
"The Wizard Embryo Fragment can take on different forms, but its essence should be the same."
He looked down at the surface of the lake at his feet.
The lake water was crystal clear; he could even see fish playing in the shallows.
As the Leader looked down, a giant koi with red, white, and black patterns seemed to sense him and swam up from the bottom of the lake.
The Leader crouched down, reached his hand into the giant koi's maw, and pulled out a black-and-white pearl.
The pearl was the size of a fist. It felt cool and dry, completely unlike something that had just been pulled from the water.
He placed the black-and-white pearl and the black-and-white smoke side by side.
The two gave him a very similar feeling.
However, compared to the hard pearl, the soft, bouncy, undulating black-and-white smoke possessed far more 'living' characteristics.
"Their auras are very similar, but not exactly the same. Then again, the Wizard Embryo Fragment I obtained was already near death; perhaps that accounts for the difference."
The Leader tried to fuse the black-and-white pearl in his hand with the newly obtained black-and-white smoke.
The black-and-white smoke did not reject the pearl. Instead, it slowly climbed across the pearl's surface, actively initiating the fusion.
Seeing this, the Leader smiled in relief.
His long-cherished wish was finally about to be fulfilled.
The black-and-white pearl, which had remained entirely unchanged for a long time, seemed to have its vitality reawakened.
The pearl's outer shell began to soften.
And then—
It collapsed!
The Leader leaned in abruptly, carefully observing the collapsed section of the black-and-white pearl.
"Why did it collapse?"
In the brain domain world, the physical manifestation of an object strictly aligned with its true state and underlying laws of development.
It translated complex concepts from the Ring World into imagery, making them easier to understand.
Therefore, the collapse of the black-and-white pearl made the Leader nervous.
No matter how he thought about it, the fusion of two Wizard Embryo Fragments shouldn't cause one of them to collapse.
Sensing a problem, the Leader wanted to halt the fusion and examine the black-and-white pearl's condition.
But to his shock, he discovered that he was completely unable to stop the fusion of the two Wizard Embryo Fragments.
He reached right in, attempting to manually pry them apart.
In this realm, as the one with the highest authority, he was practically a god; his mere motion to separate them should have commanded the brain domain platform's entire algorithmic power to pry the two apart.
However, right as his hand was about to touch the black-and-white smoke, the smoke enveloping half of the pearl suddenly surged forward, instantly swallowing the Leader's fingers along with it.
"This level of activity..." The Leader felt something was wrong.
A normal Wizard Embryo Fragment indeed possessed an active nature far beyond that of ordinary elements.
But it shouldn't possess such an aggressive, devouring instinct.
The Leader immediately jerked his hand back, only to find a small, grape-like cluster of smoke clinging to it. No matter how hard he shook his hand, he couldn't throw it off.
"System, confirm again. Run a detailed check! Is this the Core Element?"
[Based on the definitions, characteristics, and attributes provided in the database, there is an 85% probability that this data is the Core Element. The threshold has been met; it can be classified as the Core Element.]
The Leader breathed a slight sigh of relief. Yet, when he looked at his fingers again, he was horrified to discover that the smoke cluster, which had previously only clung to his fingertips, had already spread to his entire palm.
The most terrifying part was that he hadn't felt it happen at all.
Even the system hadn't issued a warning.
He tried to wiggle his fingers, but he had already lost control over them.
So, was this really the Core Element?
"System, if it isn't the Core Element, what else could it be?"
[Excluding the Core Element, based on its performance, characteristics, and appearance, and in conjunction with element naming conventions, there is a 13.9% probability that it is a Virus element. Would you like me to list the remaining, lower-probability options?]
"No," the Leader said in a panic. He didn't need the system to continue listing them.
By now, the smoke on his hand had already spread up his arm, and its pace was rapidly accelerating.
"A Virus element? How could there be an element whose characteristics are identical to the Core Element?!"
"It appeared in the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, and all of its traits perfectly matched the Core Element—General! General! It was you, it was you! You deceived us again!" The Leader's expression gradually twisted into a ferocious snarl.
The developer of the mission assistance system was none other than the General.
Could he have already decided to betray the Ring World way back then? Did he leave this hidden trap behind on purpose?
The General, whom the Laboratory had been desperately searching for all along, had actually checkmated them!
Realizing that he could no longer control his right hand, the Leader raised his other hand and tapped his shoulder. Instantly, his right arm—which was nearly consumed by the black-and-white smoke—detached from his body.
The Leader hastily stumbled back a few steps, distancing himself from the severed limb floating in the air.
Once severed from his main body, the right arm was swallowed completely by the black-and-white smoke in the blink of an eye.
The infectivity of this Virus element was far too virulent. This was supposed to be his personal brain domain platform!
His command priority should be the absolute highest here!
"System, hurry! Perform a full-body sterilization on me right now! Not just me, but the pearl too—no, sterilize the entire landscape scroll!"
The Leader was now certain that what Li Ban and Chen Dong had brought back was definitely not the Wizard Embryo Fragment.
Even though his heart bled at the loss, he unhesitatingly issued the highest-level antivirus override to the brain domain platform.
[Command received. Given that the Virus element is spreading too rapidly, please confirm the purge radius.]
"Restore all data to the moment right before I logged in!"
[Command received. Commencing sterilization. Please minimize your movements to prevent identification errors and accidental damage.]
Instantly, the entire natural landscape plunged into a deep, dark crimson.
The distant rolling green mountains and the rippling blue lake morphed into a hellish realm of bladed peaks and seas of blood in the blink of an eye.
Even the giant koi that had been playing beneath the water's surface were cast in the sinister red light, twisting into terrifying leviathans!
However, amidst this intense crimson corrosion, a few things still retained their original colors.
One was the Leader.
Aside from his missing right arm, he remained entirely unchanged.
Another was his purge target: the black-and-white cluster of smoke.
Although the smoke cluster currently maintained its form, the Leader could see the crimson light actively trying to breach its defenses and infiltrate it to break down its internal structure.
But the final object that remained completely unaffected... was the scroll painting transferred in from the portable hub!