Before performing the Rite of Heaven-Seizing Breath on Li Ban, Priest Zhong Ye had considered that the man might once have been a 5th Tier, 6th Tier, or even 7th Tier Priest.
So even if he saw clouds, starlight, or a silver moon, he wouldn't have been too surprised.
But the very first thing he saw was a cosmic river of stars, which meant—
However, the river of stars quickly vanished. What appeared before his eyes was only the thin mist characteristic of a 4th Tier Spirit Awakening Priest.
Although it was only the 4th Tier, for Priest Zhong Ye, it was already enough.
In such a harsh survival environment, a 4th Tier Spirit Awakening Priest was enough to shelter their branch of the Ash Alliance.
Moreover, judging by the aura of the Wizard Embryo Fragment he had just sensed from Li Ban, he shouldn't be a cold, heartless person.
Yet, Priest Zhong Ye did not realize that he was gradually forgetting the shock of seeing that entire river of stars.
A few breaths later, he completely lost that mind-blowing memory.
That was the normal spiritual rhinoceros manifestation of a 4th Tier Spirit Awakening Priest.
Exhausted, Priest Zhong Ye leaned back in his chair.
He had done everything he could; the rest depended on Li Ban's reaction.
[Detected that the Wizard Embryo Fragment has been reactivated.]
[Current Tier: 4th Tier Spirit Awakening Priest.]
[Beginner task completed.]
[Please advance to a 9th Tier Divine Offspring Priest as soon as possible to unlock intermediate tasks.]
Li Ban's eyes snapped open.
He had already reached the 4th Tier?
But his 3rd Tier spiritual rhinoceros clearly hadn't reached its limit. Could it be due to the unique nature of the Priest identity?
Then there was the task mentioned by the system, which had never been brought up before.
It seemed he could only receive these prompts after meeting certain hidden conditions.
He asked the system in his mind, "What task is this? Who issued it to me? Or is this just the system's phrasing? If I cannot complete it, what are the consequences?"
The system remained silent, offering no response.
Li Ban sat up, massaging his throbbing temples. It couldn't be—was there another Laboratory out there?
On second thought, he felt that was impossible.
Priest Zhong Ye of the Shadow World was only at the 4th Tier, yet he knew of the existence of other worlds. A 10th Tier Wizard would definitely be considered a god-like existence.
Li Ban didn't think a Laboratory in any world could surpass a Wizard.
If the task prompt was just the system's linguistic quirk, then it might be his Wizard Embryo Fragment urging him to advance.
Since there was no other way to uncover the truth for now, Li Ban could only focus on the present.
He stretched his limbs, feeling that this body had recovered to the physical strength of an ordinary person.
While not as robust as his body in the Wizard World, he could at least move freely without needing to be carried around.
This Rite of Heaven-Seizing Breath was truly miraculous, like an instant recovery potion from a video game.
Seeing Li Ban's amazement, Priest Zhong Ye misunderstood the reason for it and weakly explained, "It is only because your original world shattered and you came here that I could exploit a loophole in the rules to perform a weakened version of the Rite of Heaven-Seizing Breath. But I can only do it this once. Even if you travel to other worlds in the future, you can only perform it yourself when you advance to become a Wizard."
Priest Zhong Ye had also mentioned Wizards, and his pronunciation matched exactly with the Wizards of the Wizard World.
This meant that both the Shadow World and the Wizard World shared the same understanding of top-tier combat power.
A Wizard was very likely a powerful existence capable of traveling freely between different worlds.
And the Rite of Heaven-Seizing Breath that needed to be performed when advancing to a Wizard wouldn't be a simple technique either.
However, judging by Priest Zhong Ye's exhausted state, even a weakened version of the Rite of Heaven-Seizing Breath was definitely not something that could be performed lightly.
Li Ban knew he owed the man a favor.
He reached out to support Priest Zhong Ye, gave a firm nod, and pointed to himself. "Ban."
Priest Zhong Ye offered a tired but bright smile. "Priest Ban."
He pressed a button on his wheelchair, and the door was opened again by Luca.
He rushed in, his eyes full of distress when he saw that Priest Zhong Ye was on the verge of passing out.
"Lord Priest." He didn't even dare look up at Li Ban, afraid he wouldn't be able to hold back a look of resentment.
"You will need to learn the language here and familiarize yourself with the situation," Priest Zhong Ye said. "But I must rest for a while now. Next, I will have Nana and Ah She come over to serve you, Priest Ban."
"I'll go tell them," Luca said quickly.
With that, he bowed his head to Li Ban in salute, then somewhat impatiently pushed Priest Zhong Ye's wheelchair out of the room.
Shortly after they left, Nana peeked her head in through the doorway. Behind her stood an anxious Ah She, constantly wringing her fingers.
Although Li Ban couldn't speak the local language, he could understand it, so communication wasn't an issue.
Still, he was eager to learn the language.
He wanted to figure out what exactly Gu Yi's Testament in his possession was.
The older Ah She quickly grasped Li Ban's desire to learn the language and fetched some educational materials meant for children from the Alliance.
They were primitive paper books.
Compared to electronic documents that required power and were prone to failure, primitive books were far more suitable for a group of people constantly on the move.
As he flipped through the book, Li Ban found that the writing system here was a phonetic script, making it relatively easy to learn. There were only thirty-two basic symbols. With Li Ban's current abilities, he memorized them all effortlessly.
While he read, Nana introduced him to the state of this world.
"People or objects often drop from the rifts in the sky around here."
She gestured carefully.
"The rifts are black fissures that suddenly appear in the air. Some are very high up, and some are closer to the ground, though never lower than five meters. Sometimes nothing falls out of them, and sometimes a lot of things do. Most of the things pile up together. Those massive trash heaps you saw in the Metal Desert were formed from junk dropping out of the rifts."
"Many people are already dead when they fall out, or they die shortly after."
Nana brought up the Mechanical Dogs.
"The Mechanical Dogs are products of Trash City. Whenever a rift appears, they swarm over to search for fallen living creatures. They drag the dead or living native organisms back to their handlers. After that, those living creatures become merchandise for Trash City—dismantled for organs or harvested for useful tissues."
Li Ban suddenly looked up and asked Nana in the broken language he had just learned, "You... and Trash City... enemies?"
Nana was unsure how to answer, so Ah She stepped forward.
"Yes, Priest Ban. We are from the Ash Alliance, and we call ourselves Ashlanders. No Ashlander could ever accept being ruled by artificial intelligence."
Dusk was approaching in the Wizard World. Li Ban opened his eyes in the east bedroom of the Hundred Flowers Pavilion courtyard.
He didn't get up immediately after returning.
During the world transfer, he had suddenly noticed his first change since becoming a Priest.
A space measuring one cubic meter had appeared inside his Wizard Embryo Fragment.
The system told him this space was called Cubic Heaven and Earth.
With his wealth of reading experience, Li Ban suspected it was a storage space, so he tried to place the educational book in his hand inside it.
He succeeded!
Looking at the book lying quietly within Cubic Heaven and Earth, Li Ban smiled.
He really had acquired a storage space!
But he quickly suppressed his excitement and began to consider how to utilize this Cubic Space.
This Cubic Heaven and Earth probably wasn't an ability exclusive to him.
He analyzed that all Priests likely gained such a Cubic Heaven and Earth after advancing, and its volume would probably expand as their Priest Tier increased.
He took the educational book out again. It was incredibly easy, requiring only a minuscule consumption of spiritual rhinoceros.
Li Ban immediately stored the small square chip labeled "Gu Yi's Testament" and the Mobius Ring Metal Necklace into his Cubic Heaven and Earth.
This way, he didn't have to worry about his belongings being taken by others upon his return to the Wizard World.
Once he could communicate normally in this world, he planned to find a suitable reader to parse the contents of the testament.
His current body still contained the Virus elements that had been transferred to the Ring World, so this body was undoubtedly connected to the Ring World and the General, Gu Yi.
Li Ban wanted to figure out what had actually happened to this body.
Was he really from the Ring World, having fallen into the Shadow World through a rift?
After reading for a while, Li Ban decided it was about time. He told Nana and Ah She that he needed to rest and recover his energy, and that he wasn't sure when he would wake up again.
Both of them promised to take good care of him.
Afterward, Li Ban pretended to fall asleep and departed from the Shadow World.
"If things from the Shadow World can be put into Cubic Heaven and Earth, things from the Wizard World should work too."
After getting up, he casually grabbed a pillow next to him, placed it into Cubic Heaven and Earth, and took it back out.
Just like in the Shadow World, it barely consumed any spiritual rhinoceros.
"You're awake?" The Cat Girl was sprawled over the table, staring intently at the Cyan Silk Algae Seed they were cultivating.
"Go get some rest. I'll keep watch."
To prevent any issues during the cultivation process, Li Ban and the Cat Girl had divided the labor, taking turns keeping an eye on things.
The Cat Girl didn't stand on ceremony; she immediately climbed into bed to sleep.
Looking at the small seed buried under the white gauze, Li Ban wondered if he should try putting it into Cubic Heaven and Earth.
But he quickly dismissed the idea.
"I'd better verify the properties inside the space first."
Li Ban poured a cup of tea from a nearby teapot.
The tea was no longer hot, but it was still warm.
He took a sip, then stored the cup and its contents into Cubic Heaven and Earth.
Half a shichen later, he took the tea back out and found that it had gone cold.
"So Cubic Heaven and Earth isn't a completely static spacetime; at the very least, energy fluctuates. Rather than a spatial pocket, is it more like a world fragment growing within my own consciousness? If I put soil, water, and air in there, I should be able to grow plants too."
Li Ban caught a small flying insect by the window and put it inside.
Normally, oxygen would definitely be insufficient in such a small space, but the insect didn't die.
"Is there air inside?" Li Ban shook his head, unable to quite figure it out.
But given these internal spatial properties, he could safely store the Cyan Silk Algae Seed in there as well.
Even so, he didn't act on it right away.
Unless absolutely necessary, there was no need to move the seed for now.
Li Ban smiled. He had gained another fallback plan.
As a prerequisite class for a Wizard, a Priest definitely had more tricks than this.
He wondered what new powers he would obtain once he became a higher-Tier Priest.
Also, Priest Zhong Ye had mentioned the term "spells."
The Shadow World had no spiritual rhinoceros, so spells shouldn't be an ability brought by elements. Perhaps they were a special power belonging solely to Priests.
He would have to ask Priest Zhong Ye for the exact details later.
Staring at the seed before him, Li Ban relaxed back into his chair and continued to cultivate his spiritual rhinoceros.
No matter what his current identity was, spiritual rhinoceros remained the foundation of his power.