Priest Zhong Ye maneuvered his wheelchair over, an unconcealable smile on his face.
To think the priest they had casually picked up would display such overwhelming combat power after only a preliminary recovery.
Li Ban alone felt nothing to be proud of.
Compared to the last time when he effortlessly paralyzed all the mechanical dogs, this time he was thoroughly exhausted.
"It's as if these mechanical dogs were upgraded specifically to counter my spells," Li Ban told Priest Zhong Ye.
If these mechanical dogs possessed such formidable upgrade capabilities, the Ash Alliance might as well quit and surrender outright.
"I just checked. They seem to have updated with a function that automatically locks them down the moment they lose control."
When Priest Zhong Ye first came over, he had meant to congratulate Li Ban on his physical recovery and fierce combat prowess.
But seeing that the other man was unsatisfied with the battle's outcome, he changed his tune and got down to business.
The infinite replication of his Virus sounded incredibly powerful, but it had one fatal flaw: it could only replicate within data streams and could not affect the physical world.
Therefore, the best way to counter infinite replication was direct physical isolation to sever the replication channels entirely.
And Li Ban's command tampering ability could not yet be replicated.
In the end, his attacks had gone from invincible to a lethal strike with a limited count.
"To find a countermeasure and complete the modifications so quickly..."
Priest Zhong Ye smiled bitterly. "This is the Main Brain of Trash City. It already possesses the ability to aggregate data and analyze it to make judgments. This is why the Ash League has been steadily losing ground under its assaults, and now can only fight a guerrilla war on the fringes of the Trash Realm."
"It isn't just targeting you. I had a spell that was rendered completely useless by their upgrades. It doesn't work at all anymore."
Li Ban lay back in his recliner with his eyes closed, his mind still working.
"If the enemy adapts quickly, our attacks can't remain stagnant."
An idea suddenly came to him, and he opened his eyes.
"My first spell requires direct contact with the enemy to cast, but it can be cast again upon another contact. So, we could craft bullets or arrows, and load the data modules I cast it on into your weapons."
Priest Zhong Ye's eyes lit up.
"Brilliant idea. I'll have Nana and Ah She assist you with the experiments immediately."
If Li Ban's idea could be realized, wouldn't everyone wielding his modified weapons effectively possess his special spell?
Standing to the side, Nana chimed in crisply, "Then I'll have them go collect the crystal chips and construct modules from the mechanical dogs."
"Have someone scour the nearby junk piles too, and try to provide Priest Ban with enough experimental materials," Priest Zhong Ye added.
Fearing someone might track the mechanical dogs' signals, the group cleaned up the battlefield as quickly as possible and hurried away.
The team set off once more. Ah She repaired her chewed-up mechanical right arm before returning to report the situation.
"The crystal chips from all twenty-four machines have been brought back. We've confirmed the removal of all signal and tracking devices."
Li Ban had just used a High-Power Battery to replenish a little spiritual rhinoceros.
He then took the chips Ah She brought back and pulled out one of their scrapped mechanical constructs. "I'll test it first and see the effect."
He released his ability into one small chip. Nana, whose arms were free of mechanical augmentations, took the chip, tied it to a freshly made rudimentary arrow, and fired it at the scrapped mechanical construct.
Given her rich combat experience, Nana easily hit the stationary target at close range.
The chips lacked display screens, so they couldn't observe the Virus infection as directly as they had on the mechanical dogs. However, once the construct was hit, its indicator lights flickered chaotically for a moment before swiftly going completely dark.
"I'll go check it," Ah She said, pulling out her tools.
"Be careful not to touch your own mechanical parts to it," Li Ban warned her.
"Don't worry, Priest Ban," Ah She beamed brightly, holding up her hands. She gripped a simple probe fitted with a rubber protective sleeve. "I'll be very careful."
Watching Ah She skip over like a playful child, Captain Luca, who had just returned from patrol, felt a little stunned.
He had noticed it while on patrol: even though they had just fought a difficult battle, everyone's spirits were exceedingly high.
It wasn't like before, when even a quick victory over a small pack of mechanical dogs with zero casualties would still leave them fleeing in panic.
He squatted down with practiced ease to report the situation to Priest Zhong Ye, though his eyes unconsciously drifted toward Li Ban.
He knew what this was. This was an emotion called hope.
Yet, as he looked back at Priest Zhong Ye, a wave of indescribable bitterness welled up in Luca's heart.
Noticing Luca's gaze, Priest Zhong Ye smiled and patted the captain's hand resting on the wheelchair's handle.
One old, weathered hand; one mechanical arm.
Both were cold.
But they still held strength.
Luca calmed his emotions and, encouraged by Priest Zhong Ye, repeated his report to Li Ban.
"—Priest Ban, in one more day, we will reach the Northern Base."
Li Ban asked, "Is there any chance these mechanical dogs leaked our whereabouts?"
Luca answered earnestly, "We definitely can't completely hide the traces of the battle, but since all their chips were destroyed by your power, they couldn't transmit any signals. As long as we sweep our tracks when we leave, they won't be able to catch up. Besides, we are already near the edge of the Shattered Realm. Battles between humans and machines happen all over the place here.
"That will also confuse the trackers."
Li Ban nodded. He wanted to run a few more experiments next, and it would be better if they could settle down somewhere stable for that.
He still needed to run a series of tests on the Virus bullets.
For instance, how long the Virus could persist after leaving his body, and the relationship between that duration and the Virus carrier.
He also needed to know if the Virus spread by the damaged chips still retained the ability to infect again.
To use Virus weapons against Trash City's mechanical pursuers, he had to test them carefully to prevent the enemy from exploiting any loopholes to counterattack.
Just like their upgrade to the mechanical dogs this time, which had severely crippled Li Ban's abilities.
'Actually, this Virus ability of mine is far better suited for an assassination or decapitation strike against the Main Brain,' Li Ban thought, resting his chin in his hand as the team set out again. 'That's exactly what Du An did back then.'
He directly destroyed the Leader who possessed the Wizard Embryo Fragment, utterly ruining the Ring World's final chance to linger on.
But there was no need for Li Ban to do the same.
Moreover, destroying a single Main Brain wouldn't necessarily improve the situation in the Shadow World.
What he needed to do right now was first let his own small team stabilize.
He would make this place his second resource ground to help him grow.
Then there was Gu Yi's Testament, which Li Ban still hadn't taken out.
He suspected this was what had drawn Du An's attention.
Until he could confirm that Du An had left the Shadow World, he could not read the testament for the time being.
'It's too difficult to track Du An's movements in the Shadow World. But I can try asking Priest Zhu Yao about his status over in the Wizard World. If he has left the Shattered Realm, I can definitely continue reading the testament.'
Checking his Cubic Space, he saw that the testament and the Mobius Ring Necklace were resting safely in a corner.
The Cyan Silk Algae Seed was growing robustly and had already sprouted a tender green stem. However, it would take about another ten years for it to mature into a fusible element.
'That's fine. If it grew too fast, my Cubic Heaven and Earth wouldn't be able to hold it anyway.'
Li Ban still remembered the fully mature Cyan Silk Algae he had seen beneath the River of Forgetfulness.
Just one main stem had been at least twenty meters long.
After inspecting these items, Li Ban noticed the bronze mirror he had never used since acquiring it.
He raised his hand and took out the rusted bronze mirror.
If his senses were correct, this bronze mirror was also a Self-Seeking Mirror.
The moment Li Ban saw the Self-Seeking Mirror in Priest Zhu Yao's hands, he felt the two were the same kind of artifact.
Even though the bronze casings of the two mirrors were different.
Priest Zhu Yao had told him not to use someone else's Self-Seeking Mirror to cultivate his heart, but she hadn't said he couldn't even look at it.
Besides, he had just held Priest Zhu Yao's Self-Seeking Mirror to scare off the dark hand that appeared inside the furnace.
So Li Ban felt a bit bolder, and took out the Self-Seeking Mirror he had scavenged from the Hundred Flowers Pavilion.
In the Shadow World, which was devoid of spiritual rhinoceros, it would be somewhat safer to inspect the mirror.
Li Ban gingerly touched the Self-Seeking Mirror. After examining it for a while, the mirror showed no abnormal reactions.
Finally, he carefully inspected every inch of the mirror's structure, confirming that the bronze backing and the handle were perfectly ordinary bronze.
Only the mirror itself was special.
The mirror's material wasn't glass or crystal. It felt warm and slightly smooth to the touch, and both its transparency and hardness were very high.
When Li Ban lightly tapped the mirror's surface with his finger, his spiritual rhinoceros reacted.
'I'll take the opportunity of having just used Priest Zhu Yao's Self-Seeking Mirror to ask her if holding someone else's Self-Seeking Mirror is dangerous before I explore this any further.'
He thought for a moment and ultimately held back from using his spiritual rhinoceros to probe it.
Just as Li Ban was about to put the mirror back into his Cubic Heaven and Earth, he suddenly noticed another image appearing within the mirror as he turned his wrist.
Li Ban paused and slowly turned the mirror back over.
The surface, which had originally reflected his face, now revealed scattered motes of starlight.
'A Star River? Can the Self-Seeking Mirror reflect my Star River?'
After he became a priest, Li Ban's Star River had transformed into a thin, pale mist.
To be honest, the mist was nowhere near as magnificent as a cosmic Star River.
But the power Li Ban could wield was indeed far greater than before.
Seeing a Star River in the mirror again gave Li Ban a sense of nostalgia, and he didn't put the mirror away immediately.
Soon, the twinkling starlight in the mirror grew denser and denser.
Suddenly, the starlight completely eclipsed the light and shadows originally reflecting off the mirror.
A dim universe emerged within the mirror.
'This isn't my Star River!' Li Ban realized immediately.
Although his own Star River was also situated in a dark universe, it was densely packed with swirling nebulas, revolving rapidly in magnificent beauty.
But the Star River reflected in this mirror was dim, even completely stagnant.
The image within the mirror seemed to shuttle through that dim universe, ultimately coming to an abrupt halt before a massive stone-carved throne.
The throne hovered in the dim cosmos, as if someone were sitting there, quietly waiting for the starlight to die out.