Yu Province, Myriad Ancient Pagoda.
"Priest Yao."
The tall and imposing master of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda bowed deeply, crossing his hands before his forehead to show his absolute reverence.
A figure in a patterned white robe stood before Wan Chengming and gave a slight nod. "Pagoda Master Wan."
Her voice was cold and clear, carrying an elusive, ethereal quality.
Like the moon reflected in water.
She seemed close enough to touch, but in reality, she remained as distant as the horizon.
"Where is Du An?" Priest Yao clearly had little interest in exchanging pleasantries, asking for him straight away.
"He is already on the seventh floor. He has bathed, changed his clothes, and fasted for three days to await you, Priest Yao." Wan Chengming did not dare show the slightest disrespect, answering with his head still bowed.
Wan Chengming had brought no attendants with him.
None of them were qualified to meet Priest Yao.
He followed closely behind her. Seeing that Priest Yao was only a few steps away from the stairs to the seventh floor, he finally spoke up.
"Priest Yao, the Virus Element that Du An and I developed... I wonder if it might be exchanged for an advancement in rank for the Myriad Ancient Pagoda?"
Priest Yao paused and glanced back at him. "I have never heard of such a thing, and you should forget about it as well."
Wan Chengming shrank back.
In front of the rather petite Priest Yao, this eight-foot-tall man cowered like a frightened quail.
Priest Yao turned back to face forward. "The Unreturning Place must sweep away insects, and the Nine Heavens Sea must fend off raw souls. You merely process corpses and collect elements. Why would you need to advance to the Seventh Tier?"
Wan Chengming's expression turned bitter. Not daring to beg any further, he simply lowered his head.
"Numerous raw souls appeared in your territory, yet you only noticed them at the very end. The fact that the Wizard Lord hasn't punished you is already a sign of leniency."
Priest Yao hadn't come for him in the first place. Her patience exhausted, she vanished from the stairs in a blur of motion.
Wan Chengming stopped in his tracks.
He knew this was a clear signal not to follow her inside.
"Sigh. I can only hope that when Brother Du becomes a Priest, he'll help me advance my tier," he muttered.
Priest Yao cared nothing for Wan Chengming's thoughts. She reappeared on the seventh floor of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, right in front of Wan Chengming's room.
However, the room had been vacated and lent to Du An.
She walked up to the door at a normal pace and entered, spotting the man standing in the center of the room. He wore white clothes, his hair draped loosely over his shoulders.
Upon seeing Du An, Priest Yao smiled for the first time since arriving.
"Your aura is pure. You have completely severed your ties with your original world."
"Yes, Priest Yao. The Ring World has disintegrated," Du An said calmly. "But I must trouble you to make a final confirmation."
"There is no rush for that. Let me see your Wizard Embryo Fragment first."
Du An raised his hand and gently removed his left eye.
His left eye was actually just a false seal. The socket underneath held no flesh or blood, hiding a small object instead.
He lowered his head, pulled the object from the socket, and held it out in his palm for Priest Yao to examine.
Resting in his palm was a black-and-white hemisphere.
Its flat side was jagged and uneven, as if a sphere had been violently torn in two.
If Li Ban had been there to see it, he would have found the sight incredibly familiar.
Priest Yao glanced at it, her smile fading slightly. "It is ready to be assimilated. Unfortunately, your Wizard Embryo Fragment has lost its vitality, so it can only recover slowly through spiritual rhinoceros nourishment. Is the other half of the fragment truly lost for good?"
"I watched helplessly as the other half turned to dust and vanished into the Dark Side of the World," Du An said with equal regret. "I fear only the Wizard Lord would be capable of retrieving it."
But how could they possibly ask the Wizard Lord to step in for a mere half of a Wizard Embryo Fragment?
"In that case, let it go. Nourish it well. Once you become a 6th Tier Star Glow Priest, I will ask the Wizard Lord to send you to a suitable world to reforge a complete wizard embryo."
"Thank you, Priest Yao," Du An nodded.
Priest Yao then stepped forward and raised her right hand. She tucked her thumb in, pressed her remaining four fingers together, and rested her index, middle, and ring fingers against the center of Du An's forehead.
"Seize!"
At her sharp command, grains of white dust suddenly flew off Du An's body.
The dust scattered backward, forming the faint silhouette of a person.
From a distance, it looked as if his very soul had been knocked right out of him.
However, Du An wasn't harmed in the slightest.
The half Wizard Embryo Fragment in his palm simply melted like liquid and seeped into his skin.
In the next instant, Du An practically glowed with vitality. Every scar on his body vanished, and even his empty left eye socket regenerated a brand new eye.
Du An looked down at himself, feeling that his body had never been in such peak condition.
Just as he raised his head to thank Priest Yao, he noticed her frowning in confusion.
Alarmed, Du An hurriedly rechecked his own body. To his shock, he hadn't advanced directly to a 6th Tier Star Glow Priest—he was only a 5th Tier Cloud Hidden Priest.
The spiritual rhinoceros within him rolled and churned like thick clouds and mist, completely lacking the brilliant radiance of starlight.
"What happened?" Du An asked, looking toward Priest Yao.
"Strange..." Priest Yao mused. "Your wizard embryo may be incomplete, but it comes from a mature world. The elements within it should be sufficient. How could you fail to advance to Star Glow?"
After a moment's thought, she raised her hand and pressed it against his forehead once more.
Du An stood perfectly still, allowing her to inspect him.
A moment later, Priest Yao lowered her hand, still puzzled. "I know your divine soul underwent fragmentation, but it shouldn't have caused such a severe impact. Exactly how many times did you split your soul?"
Du An was equally perplexed. "Only once. I separated my softer, weaker self."
He felt a flash of irritation. Did that one division really leave behind such a massive hidden flaw?
Priest Yao shook her head. "It is what it is. The Rite of Heaven-Seizing Breath can only be used once. If you want to use it a second time, you will have to wait until you advance to a Wizard Lord."
Advancing to Wizard Lord was incredibly difficult; Priest Yao was merely stating an impossibility.
"Now, in addition to reforging your wizard embryo, you must also nourish your divine soul, or you will never advance to a Star Glow Priest. There are two ways to do this. The first is to slowly nourish it; it will eventually heal, but it will take a very long time. The second is to find your fragmented soul and reabsorb it. As long as your consciousness remains dominant, reabsorbing it won't negatively affect you."
Du An let out a long sigh, feeling a sliver of regret for the very first time. "If I had known, I would have lured Chen Dong back to the Wizard World with me."
At the time, he had only wanted to cut ties with the Ring World as quickly as possible. He never expected that severing his divine soul—an act he thought would be harmless—would block his path to further advancement.
He looked at Priest Yao. "The Ring World has collapsed. Is there still any way to locate a lost divine soul?"
"When a world collapses, it either falls into the Dark Side of the World, or it drops into the Shattered Realm. If it is the latter, you still have a chance to get it back."
Priest Yao was Du An's guide. She had chosen him precisely because of his nearly mature wizard embryo.
Possessing more than half of the wizard embryo from a collapsed world, Du An had a far higher chance of becoming a true Wizard than Priests who naturally manifested embryo fragments.
Now, the black-robed priests were growing increasingly arrogant, already beginning to scheme within the Wizard World.
Priest Yao desperately wanted the White Robes to gain another powerful Priest—or better yet, a Great Wizard.
She firmly decided that she couldn't let Du An's progress be halted by a minor issue like a fragmented soul.
"For your next step, you will go temper yourself in the Shattered Realm. That place will allow you to both reforge your wizard embryo and search for your fragmented soul. If necessary, you may employ some extreme methods."
Du An pondered this. Although the chances of finding Chen Dong were slim, it was better than no hope at all.
Besides, even if he couldn't find him, he could just spend the time slowly nourishing his divine soul. He was already far ahead of other Priests who had been cultivating their wizard embryos since childhood.
"Then I will go to the Shattered Realm."
That night, after asking Little Cat to help keep watch, Li Ban once again entered the Shadow World.
Before entering this time, he tried to bring other elements along with him, such as the Iron-Eating Sword.
But when he opened his eyes in the Shadow World, he found that he could still only use spiritual elements, and he had no additional items on him.
I'll have to figure out another way, he thought.
Casting his awareness outward, Li Ban realized he seemed to be on someone's back.
Heavy, labored breathing sounded clearly in his ears.
However, Li Ban's head was covered by a sack. He could only see slivers of orange light filtering in through the woven fabric.
The person carrying him was very small, with thin shoulders and slender arms, yet surprisingly strong.
With every step the person took, Li Ban could hear the distinct sound of metal striking gravel.
Aside from this person's footsteps, there were many others nearby.
Roughly fifty or sixty people.
None of their footsteps sounded light as they trudged slowly through the howling wind.
Li Ban tried to move his neck. It felt a bit better than before, but he still couldn't support the weight of his own head.
He then twitched his fingers and forearms, finding that he could finally make small movements.
His slight shifting caught the attention of the person carrying him.
"Ah!" It was that familiar voice, Nana. "You're awake? That's great!"
Nana hoisted Li Ban higher on her back, then began to jog forward in short, panting steps.
After a dozen paces, she called out, "Lord Priest, he woke up again!"
Li Ban's heart skipped a beat. Another Priest? Were Priests that common in this world?
Still, Li Ban wasn't in a hurry. He couldn't move anyway, so there was nothing he could do regardless.
Someone responded to Nana, though their tone was unpleasant, and they clearly weren't the Lord Priest.
"Keep your voice down! The Priest just fell asleep!"
The person hissed in a lowered voice, the words muddled by the howling wind.
"What?" Nana hadn't heard them clearly, so she asked again, even louder.
"You—"
"It's fine, Luca. I am already awake."
The Priest's voice was exceedingly frail and laced with exhaustion.
Yet, it was unusually clear, as if he were whispering right into Li Ban's ear.
This Priest has some tricks up his sleeve, Li Ban thought.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, the sack over his head was roughly yanked away.
The moment it was gone, wind and grit battered his face.
This body had very delicate skin, and the coarse sand stung sharply as it hit him.
A small, rough hand reached over, hovering in front of Li Ban's face to block some of the biting dust.
Li Ban opened his eyes.
Above him was the same gloomy sky.
The orange light that had filtered through the sack turned out to be nothing more than dark clouds glowing a deep red.
There was no sun to be seen, nor any clear sky.
Li Ban was carefully set down and propped up by his back.
In front of him, two people were carrying a strange chair made of metal. The chair was draped with plastic sheeting to block the wind and sand. Shockingly, attached to such a crude contraption were two incredibly high-tech-looking firearms.
It looked like a mashup of two entirely different worlds.
And it wasn't just the chair; it was the other people as well.
Almost everyone present had some sort of mechanical prosthetic. The most exaggerated was a towering man, a full two and a half meters tall. Aside from his head, every exposed limb on his body was made entirely of machinery.
There was also a person sitting in the chair. He looked impossibly old, as if he were two hundred years of age.
Yet, he was the only person there without a single mechanical modification on his body.
This was true even though he looked so old that he might drop dead at any moment.
Taking advantage of his propped-up posture, Li Ban looked down at himself.
He was wearing the same kind of clothing as the people around him—a material that was neither cotton nor linen.
It didn't fit him very well; it was a bit too small, leaving his wrists and ankles completely exposed.
Just like the old man, he had no mechanical prosthetics on his body.
Li Ban raised his head again to look at the old man reclining in the chair.
Right then, the two-and-a-half-meter-tall giant stepped forward, completely blocking Li Ban's view.
"Young man, I don't care where you came from," the giant said. "If you want to live in the Alliance, you have to contribute at least one arm and one leg."