Through Priest Zhong Ye's explanation, Li Ban learned there were six Tiers of Priests.
They were:
Spirit Awakening Priest: The Wizard Embryo Fragment resembled a thin mist. At this Tier, the fragment could directly absorb spiritual rhinoceros, allowing the priest to learn simple spells.
Cloud Hidden Priest: Just as the name implied, the fragment took the form of rolling clouds. With an increase in spiritual rhinoceros, the mist thickened into clouds that could be projected outside the body for offense, defense, and even flight.
However, since the Shadow World lacked ambient spiritual rhinoceros for replenishment, priests here would never use it for flight unless faced with a dire emergency.
Naturally, at this stage, they could also cast a wider variety of spells.
Star Glow Priest: The clouds dissipated and the fragment's physical form vanished entirely, replaced by twinkling starlight flashing within the consciousness.
Dark Moon Priest: It was said that an additional guardian celestial body would manifest within their consciousness.
Sun Priest: The guardian celestial body would harbor a colossal amount of energy.
In fact, Priest Zhong Ye did not even know what abilities priests possessed beyond the Star Glow stage.
Furthermore, only 4th and 5th Tier Priests existed in this Shadow World.
"Priest Ban, I am a Spirit Awakening Priest just like you," Zhong Ye said. "If we want to cultivate and advance, there are two paths."
"The first is to absorb spiritual rhinoceros or other energy sources to slowly solidify our fragments, eventually pushing them to the next stage through quantitative change. The second is to see if we can find other free-floating Wizard Embryo Fragments and fuse them into our consciousness."
"To be honest, the second method is the fast and effective one. If you rely on ordinary cultivation to advance here, you could train every day until you die and still fail to reach your goal."
Li Ban frowned as he listened, though internally he was not worried about this.
After all, the Shadow World might lack spiritual rhinoceros, but the Wizard World had it in abundance.
His fragment could be cultivated in both worlds.
It was just like his mental-type elements.
However, he couldn't show that to Priest Zhong Ye.
Although the other man knew that multiple worlds existed, he had no idea that Li Ban's consciousness could travel between two worlds.
Of course, Li Ban still hadn't figured out if this was caused by his Wizard Embryo Fragment or something else entirely.
"Even if we wanted to find Wizard Embryo Fragments to fuse, it must be incredibly difficult, right?" Li Ban asked.
Where would there be so many Wizard Embryo Fragments just floating in the air waiting to be fused?
They weren't exactly respawning resources in a video game.
"Yes, Wizard Embryo Fragments are extremely rare," Priest Zhong Ye said.
"Fragments are mostly born when a world collapses. Only a tiny fraction drifts into ordinary worlds; the vast majority fall into the Dark Side of the Universe. That is not a place priests can go."
"A long time ago, advancing as a priest was incredibly difficult. Low-tier priests had almost no way to cross between worlds to collect fragments. And even if they could, collapsing worlds were extremely dangerous. In those places, the operational laws of the world had been disrupted. They were fraught with uncertainty and peril, with very few safe havens. Many of the priests who entered simply never made it back alive."
"But later on, a mighty Wizard Lord united many other Wizard Lords to establish the Wizard World. At the same time, they gathered the fragments of numerous collapsed minor worlds and consolidated them in one place, forming a relatively stable, multi-layered space."
"They named this space the Shattered Realm."
Priest Zhong Ye smiled. "In fact, our current location is simply a minor world fragment within the Shattered Realm."
"The odds of priests obtaining fragments in the Shattered Realm increased, and the danger dropped significantly."
Fascinated, Li Ban nodded. "So this place is called the Shattered Realm, and there are many other minor worlds out there."
But he also had some doubts.
If this place was a sacred cultivation ground specifically prepared for priests by the Wizard Lords, why were Priest Zhong Ye and the others in such a miserable state?
Were they a batch of failures who had been eliminated?
Had this world devoid of spiritual rhinoceros become a prison for those failures?
Li Ban rephrased his question. "If this minor world has no spiritual rhinoceros, could it still have Wizard Embryo Fragments? Or do you have a way to travel to other minor worlds?"
Priest Zhong Ye looked somewhat embarrassed.
"There are no more free-floating Wizard Embryo Fragments left here."
"The people outside call this minor world the Trash Realm. Yes, the same as that city occupied by the Main Brain."
"It is located at the very edge of the Shattered Realm. Because it lacks both spiritual rhinoceros and Wizard Embryo Fragments, it is the most barren place in the entire Shattered Realm."
"Unless someone stumbles in by mistake, or falls here due to a world collapsing like you did, outside priests basically never enter. Alas, even if outside priests did visit, they wouldn't care about this place."
"Aside from searching for Wizard Embryo Fragments, those visiting priests care nothing about how a minor world develops."
"As for the method to travel between the different minor worlds of the Shattered Realm, that is provided by a Wizard Lord to the priests following him. For priests like us who serve no Wizard Lord, even if we knew the method, we couldn't acquire enough energy."
"Moreover, without spacetime coordinates, one could fall into the Dark Side of the Universe."
Resources would always be the necessary prerequisite for growing stronger.
Li Ban recalled the scene where that black-robed priest had tried to snatch his fragment.
Yet, Priest Zhong Ye had not mentioned that particular method of obtaining Wizard Embryo Fragments.
Either he didn't know, or he simply didn't want to encourage a cutthroat culture.
After all, if the priests of the Trash Realm started slaughtering each other, the Main Brain of Trash City really would win without a fight.
"Risking so much, all just to fuse with Wizard Embryo Fragments. What kind of power do these fragments actually hold?" Li Ban murmured.
An embryo was a seed, a nascent beginning.
If a priest fused with enough Wizard Embryo Fragments to reach a certain mass, could they become a Great Wizard?
"Once Wizard Embryo Fragments are fused to a certain degree, they can undergo a special ritual to form a complete wizard embryo.
"And a priest who possesses a complete wizard embryo will ascend to become a new Wizard Lord."
"A Wizard Lord can use their wizard embryo to create a world that belongs entirely to them. And within that world, the Wizard Lord is omnipotent."
Wasn't... wasn't that basically the setup of a Creator God?
So, the Wizard World was actually a wholesale factory for Creator Gods?
Of course, 'wholesale' was an exaggeration.
But judging by Priest Zhong Ye's description, the existence of the Wizard World and the Shattered Realm undeniably elevated a priest's chances of becoming a Wizard Lord.
However, the concept of a Wizard Lord was still far too remote for the current Li Ban. Right now, he only thought about how to advance to a Cloud Hidden Priest as quickly as possible.
Independent cultivation was far too slow. Once he returned to the Wizard World, he still had to find a way to access the other minor worlds within the Shattered Realm.
The Myriad Ancient Pagoda was backed by a Wizard Lord, and they had priests stepping forward to guide new priests. Li Ban's resolve to go to the Myriad Ancient Pagoda only grew firmer.
Finally, Li Ban recalled a few specific terms the black-robed priest had mentioned.
"Priest Zhong Ye, do you know what the Black Robes, White Robes, and Gray Robes mean?"
Zhong Ye looked a little puzzled, but he answered anyway.
"The orthodox attire for priests is mostly a white robe. As for Gray Robes, that actually refers to priests who don't follow any Wizard Lord.
"But I've never heard of Black Robes."
Priest Zhong Ye didn't make further guesses about things he didn't understand.
After speaking at length with Priest Zhong Ye, Li Ban finally had a preliminary understanding of the top-tier powers of the Wizard World.
Just as he was preparing to go back to sleep and return to the Wizard World to cultivate, Nana came running over excitedly.
"Priest Ban, we found an abandoned base up ahead. Even though it's not as good as our destination, judging by its scale, it should have a data reader inside."
A data reader? Did that mean Gu Yi's Testament could be read?
Li Ban immediately decided to go check it out first. Anyway, if anything happened over in the Wizard World, the Cat Girl would wake him up.
The abandoned base Nana's group had found wasn't far from their resting spot.
After less than fifteen minutes of walking, the main gates of the abandoned base appeared before them.
Captain Luke immediately dispatched men inside to check the base's safety.
Once they confirmed there was no one else inside and no Trash City surveillance, the group filed in.
No one needed to be specifically directed; everyone knew what they were supposed to do, moving with practiced, focused efficiency.
Only Li Ban and Priest Zhong Ye had nothing to do, with two soldiers left behind to guard their safety.
Priest Zhong Ye was simply in too poor of health to move around easily.
Li Ban, meanwhile, was afraid he would just be getting in their way if he went to help.
Looking at Priest Zhong Ye, Li Ban felt a pang of realization. If he wanted to replenish the spiritual rhinoceros for the Virus Element inside this body, he could only use electrical energy, which was harmful to the body.
Even if Li Ban never used this body to fuse with other elements, as long as he wanted to continue exploring the Shadow World, he would need to constantly consume and replenish spiritual rhinoceros.
Over time, this body would inevitably break down.
Li Ban counted himself lucky that he wasn't like Priest Zhong Ye, truly trapped within this minor world of the Shattered Realm. To him, this body wasn't strictly necessary either.
A short while later, the group had mostly finished tidying up and invited the two priests inside to rest.
Nana ran out and spoke respectfully to Li Ban. "Priest Ban, we have found a data reader and successfully powered it up. Do you want to use it now?"
"Alright, let's head over now."
This base wasn't very large, and one could see it had been abandoned for a long time.
The walls were either crawling with rust or mottled and peeling.
Lacking plants and water, the trek here had mostly been across a wasteland and Gobi desert made of metallic scrap.
Even this abandoned base showed no signs of plant encroachment.
Nana led Li Ban and a guard into the deepest room. Inside, a single machine had been hooked up to an external power supply and was currently humming as it booted up.
The Alliance members had likely powered it on and entered a state of readiness the moment they heard Li Ban wanted to use it.
Li Ban raised his hand and retrieved the Storage Card from his Cubic Heaven and Earth.
Nana explained to Li Ban how to use it.
The operation wasn't complicated.
After Li Ban inserted the Storage Card into the machine, he waited for a moment before the device began to hum even louder.
"Oh no. It seems this data reader isn't fully compatible with the Storage Card," Nana said.
Nana was quite familiar with the machinery here; simply hearing the machine's noise told her that reading the data might be difficult.
Sure enough, the data reader whirred for a while before grinding to a halt.
Nana fiddled with the machine, toggling a few switches, before turning back to ask Li Ban.
"My lord, is it okay if we only perform a fuzzy data read? The decrypted contents might end up garbled or missing pieces."
"Will it damage the Storage Card?"
Nana shook her head. "I didn't initiate a forced read, so it won't destroy the original electronic arrays."
"Alright then, let's see what we can read from it first."
Nana turned back and helped Li Ban operate the machine. The data reader let out another labored hum, but thankfully, once the noise subsided, a different image finally popped up on the screen.
Li Ban stepped forward and stared at the screen.
A massive wall of gibberish flooded the screen, but sandwiched between those corrupted symbols were a few characters Li Ban recognized—the written language of the Ring World.
The Storage Card had indeed fallen from the Ring World into the Shadow World.
That meant the physical body found alongside the card should have come from the Ring World as well.
Whose body could this be?
On the road here, Li Ban had used a reflective piece of metal scrap to examine his current appearance.
Truth be told, it was a bit taller and more handsome than the body he used back in the Wizard World.
But it wasn't the General's body, nor did it belong to anyone he had met in the Ring World.
Yet, this survivor had somehow been carrying a testament signed with the General's true name.
Li Ban scoured the mountain of scrambled text, searching for usable information.
Suddenly, he spotted a few lines of text.
The word order was somewhat jumbled, but it didn't impede his understanding.
"Sixty-seven minutes left. Once it's done, there's no turning back. From this day forward, Gu Yi will vanish from the world—"
"It's all a lie! Don't believe any of it!"