"You don't have to agree right away," Du An said, looking up. "You can think about it overnight. If you don't want to go, just take Li and leave tomorrow."
Yanzhou was in the north of the Wizard World, while Yu Province lay to the southeast.
If Li Ban went to the Unreturning Place, it would be just as Du An said—the two of them would almost never see each other again.
"Lord Du, how special is this prisoner? Am I escorting him alone?"
"Yes. His name is Shi Ming. Originally, he was nothing more than a scholar."
The name sounded familiar to Li Ban. Then he remembered: wasn't Shi Ming the white-robed scholar who had crashed Lu Weizhong's birthday banquet to wish him a "fitting death"—only for Lu Weizhong to be killed by Li Ban later that very day?
"I know him. He caused a scene at Lu Weizhong's banquet and was thrown out."
Du An nodded. "That is him. Lu Weizhong once took him in as a student, only to expel him later. Lu Weizhong always disliked Shi Ming, but refrained from touching him to protect his own reputation. After Lu Weizhong died, his family couldn't find the killer, so they vented their anger on Shi Ming instead. They placed a bounty of two hundred liang on his head."
Two hundred liang wasn't much to a Spirit Practitioner, but it was more than enough to compel many ordinary people to act.
"Is someone protecting him in secret?" Li Ban asked immediately.
"Supposedly not. The assassins sent after him all died, but the men dispatched by the county magistrate to arrest him remained completely unharmed. They smoothly locked him up in the local prison."
"The magistrate didn't know what to do with Shi Ming, so he dumped him in the Death Prison." Du An shook his head. "There is definitely something strange about this man, but we cannot figure it out for now. Later, someone told me to just send him to the Myriad Ancient Pagoda at the Unreturning Place."
Li Ban wondered, 'Who gave Du An this idea? Could it be the Wizard Lord and Priest he mentioned earlier?'
If figures like that were involved, the problem with Shi Ming was probably far from simple.
However, on second thought, Li Ban realized, 'As long as I don't harbor any murderous intent toward Shi Ming, a simple escort shouldn't be dangerous.'
The Myriad Ancient Pagoda in the Unreturning Place was a genuinely tempting destination for Li Ban.
Even if he had to start climbing from a 1st Tier identity all over again, the benefits would absolutely outweigh the drawbacks.
"Lord Du, I am willing to accept this mission."
Seeing Li Ban agree so decisively, Du An nodded. "Good. After I leave the Death Prison, I will have Zhang Baishan keep your prison guard identity active for half a year. If Pagoda Master Qian is unwilling to let you enter the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, you can look for another way out."
Du An's words effectively revealed that he would be letting Zhang Baishan take over as Head Warden.
After waiting and toiling for so many years, Zhang Baishan was finally going to get his wish.
As for where Du An was heading, Li Ban didn't ask.
Chen Dong and the others had mentioned that Du An held a Wizard Embryo Fragment.
The Wizard Embryo Fragment could have allowed the Ring World to hold on for a while longer, but Du An had chosen to use it on himself.
Without a doubt, his goal was to become a Wizard.
Having settled the path ahead, Du An led Li Ban out of the fourth floor of the Death Prison.
The original Lin Han had outlived his usefulness and had already been sent to the corpse vault.
Zhai Liu had left directly; it seemed he hadn't even needed to go through any transfer procedures.
By the time they returned to the third floor, Li Ban realized it was terrifyingly quiet here as well.
Almost all the cell doors were open, yet not a single person was in sight.
As if hearing Li Ban's footsteps, someone finally emerged from a room.
It was none other than Zhang Baishan, the man who would soon inherit the Death Prison.
Seeing that Li Ban's shackles were gone, Zhang Baishan looked slightly surprised, but he still hurried over to bow to Du An.
"Li Ban will be leaving the Death Prison tomorrow to escort Shi Ming to Yanzhou. Take him to prepare some supplies and issue him two hundred liang of silver," Du An ordered.
With that said, Du An left the Death Prison and returned to Jingyan Hall.
In front of outsiders, Du An reverted back to the reticent Lord Du.
Only when Du An's figure disappeared through the main entrance of the third floor did Zhang Baishan look back at Li Ban in astonishment. "Lord Du actually assigned you to escort Shi Ming?"
He knew Li Ban had been handling matters for Du An recently, but he wasn't clear on what had happened since.
Two days ago, Du An had suddenly carried an unconscious Li Ban down to the fourth floor and locked him inside.
The most ridiculous part was that he had even used the Obscuring Sun Locks on him.
Zhang Baishan had never seen the Obscuring Sun Locks used on a 2nd Tier Spirit Practitioner before. Wasn't that overkill?
Later on, he suspected that Li Ban might actually be a high-tier Spirit Practitioner who had shed his identity to infiltrate the Death Prison as a spy.
But to his surprise, the man was let out after only two days of confinement and even assigned a new task.
Since the man was already out, there was no point bringing up his past suspicions.
Zhang Baishan plastered on a warm smile and said, "It seems His Lordship still trusts you, giving you such an important task. I was even thinking of recommending you for a promotion to prison official, but it looks like that will have to wait until you return."
"Official Zhang, I might not come back after going to Yanzhou."
Zhang Baishan's eyes widened. "You... you—"
He was a little confused now. Was Li Ban being entrusted with a critical mission, or was he being exiled?
"I-I suppose that's fine." After a moment, he continued, "The environment in Yanzhou might be a bit harsher, but it's easier to acquire powerful elements there than it is here. I wish you an early promotion to the higher tiers in Yanzhou."
"Thank you, Official Zhang." Li Ban simply sighed to himself. Though Zhang Baishan was a bit too straightforward, he would finally be able to advance to the 4th Tier, fulfilling his long-held wish.
For someone with average cultivation talent, reaching the 4th Tier was essentially the limit.
Advancing any further required not only opportunity but also successfully fusing with a new element.
Starting from the 4th Tier, the chance of failure would become much higher than the chance of success.
Unless the element was exceptionally compatible with the individual.
Of course, Li Ban figured he would never have to worry about this problem.
Zhang Baishan led Li Ban to the storehouse.
"Shi Ming is currently locked up on the first floor, guarded by Liu Mu and Tree-man Bing. Ah, you have no idea. That day, right after you followed Lord Du to the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, the First Prince's soldiers suddenly stormed in. They forced their way into the corpse vault beneath Jingyan Hall, even killing Tree-man Ding, who was standing guard. It was pure chaos; I thought a disaster was imminent."
Despite speaking of a tragic matter, a smile played at the corners of Zhang Baishan's eyes. "Fortunately, Lord Du returned safely later. I don't know if he told you, but he's about to be transferred out of the Death Prison, and I will be temporarily taking over as Head Warden."
"Congratulations, Official Zhang."
"Sigh, it's just that once Lord Du leaves, this Death Prison is going to see a massive personnel shift." Zhang Baishan muttered. "Huo Jiang was suddenly transferred away with no one to replace him, and Zhou Gu died in the Myriad Ancient Pagoda... sigh. I originally wanted to promote you and Liu Mu to prison officials..."
Just a moment ago he had said "recommending," but now it had turned into "promoting."
Li Ban chuckled inwardly, though he understood Zhang Baishan's feelings.
However—
"Official Zhou is dead?"
He hadn't expected Zhou Gu to actually be dead.
"Yes. Rumor has it he was pierced through the heart by an assassin from the Assassin Hall, and then... he didn't even leave behind an intact corpse."
"He wasn't sent back to the Death Prison either, so we don't know exactly what happened."
Li Ban thought of how Zhou Gu's mental state had suddenly recovered earlier. Zhou Gu had likely been thoroughly used by Du An as well.
[If a person is destined to live a miserable life, they might as well die a swift death.]
Lord Du had once again thoroughly executed his style of doing things.
Zhang Baishan went into the storehouse and withdrew two hundred liang of silver for Li Ban, also grabbing some simple travel supplies he might need.
Li Ban wouldn't be able to take the prison's horses and carriages, but with these two hundred liang, he could buy a small carriage of his own, and it would basically cover his lodging expenses on the road as well.
Taking the items, Li Ban ran over to the peach grove and dug up the five hundred liang in silver banknotes he had buried earlier.
Adding in his loose change, he now possessed a massive fortune of nearly two thousand liang of silver.
However, considering he still had to make a living in Yanzhou, he needed to spend it sparingly.
Just as Li Ban returned to his small room in the reverse courtyard and began packing his clothes and luggage, a voice he absolutely hadn't expected suddenly rang out.
[Lost "Bronze-rank Assassin" identity. Currently remaining identity: "Death Prison guard".]
Li Ban froze abruptly as he was folding his clothes.
"Didn't Chen Dong and Du An both say that the Mission Assistance System would no longer exist? Why is mine still here?"
He panicked slightly, nearly tearing the clothes in his hands.
If the Mission Assistance System was still here, did that mean the Ring World still existed?
And if the Ring World was still around, was the Laboratory still there too?
Was it really true that the other party could no longer forcibly wake him up?
Li Ban thought stiffly for a long while before suddenly tossing his clothes aside and lying down on the bed.
"There's no way Du An would collude with the Laboratory to trick me, so... there must be a problem with this Mission Assistance System!"
In truth, there had always been issues with Li Ban's Mission Assistance System. It was just that his lack of knowledge regarding the Laboratory had made him genuinely believe the system's oddities were due to equipment malfunctions on their end.
But thinking about it now, not only was he unable to receive mission details, he also couldn't forcibly exit—they had previously told him he could log out in an emergency, but he hadn't faced a life-or-death crisis since then to test it.
Li Ban now even suspected that his ability to absorb multiple elements without any upper limit might also be tied to this system.
He looked at his hands.
"So... what exactly are you, my system?"
The system remained unresponsive.
He thought it over again and again, and realized there was only one thing that was extremely unusual.
That cosmic Star River that appeared whenever he cultivated his spiritual rhinoceros!
Thus, Li Ban immediately lay back on the bed and began to cultivate.
He closed his eyes and immediately began to absorb spiritual rhinoceros.
The dazzling Star River materialized before his eyes.
Halos of light swirled and flowed, perfectly illustrating what it meant for time to fly like a weaver's shuttle.
In the past, Li Ban had always assumed this cosmic Star River was merely a special visual manifestation of him absorbing spiritual rhinoceros.
But today, he chose to ignore his spiritual rhinoceros absorption rate and instead focused entirely on observing the whole starry cosmos.
This Star River had appeared when he was locked in the mobile hub and invaded by the "Virus," using its starlight to pave a rapid escape route for him.
It was just that the situation had been an emergency back then, leaving Li Ban with no time to study it in detail.
After returning to the Wizard World, he had to face Du An, keeping his nerves so tightly strung that he hadn't dared to get distracted.
It was only now, when the system that was supposed to vanish suddenly popped back up, that his suspicions regarding the spiritual rhinoceros Star River were roused.
Looking at the Star River before him, Li Ban attempted to actively control it.
'What exactly does the entirety of this Star River look like?'
Upon his conscious command, the imagery before him didn't change, but the entire Star River rapidly shrank.
More and more nebulas and galaxies came into view.
However, no matter how much Li Ban zoomed out the image, he couldn't see the borders of the starry expanse.
It was as if it was truly as infinite as the real universe.
He reversed his control, beginning to magnify the details within the starlight.
He focused his vision onto a single point.
As he did so, he discovered that he couldn't actually control exactly which part he magnified.
The Star River automatically selected a fixed point for him and rapidly zoomed in.
Countless nebulas vanished into the edges of his peripheral vision as streaks of light flashed past, putting on a dense meteor shower.
Finally, a tiny fragment appeared in the center of Li Ban's vision.
The fragment was covered entirely in black and white, shaped like a hemisphere.
Its broken cross-section was jagged and uneven, but the spherical portion was smooth and lustrous, resembling a shattered... pearl?