Watching the two logistics big shots leave with indignant expressions, Shen 18 felt no joy.
The escalation of the incident meant it could slip out of their control at any moment.
The two of them sat in the room, waiting for the Main Brain's next directive.
Both felt a lingering sense of unease.
This anxiety deepened when Gu 332 discovered that his computer could no longer transmit data externally.
A moment later, new characters finally appeared on the screen.
[Target: Shen 19. Phase one target: Shen 19 Smart Mecha, ID: 9786780679988789544. Integrating information—Confirmed departure from the outer ring of Trash City, entered the wilderness at Year Day Hour. Engaged in combat with Mechanical Dogs at Year Day Hour—Recorded by vehicle dashcam at Year Day Hour—]
What followed was a video feed from visual equipment encountering the Shen 19 Smart Mecha out in the wilderness.
Finally, the Main Brain calculated the approximate location where the Shen 19 mecha might currently be.
The entire process took less than ten minutes.
Although they had long known of the Main Brain's capabilities, Shen 18 and Gu 332 still felt a spike of tension.
They also knew the Main Brain wasn't completely ignorant of the Black Market's dealings.
In the Main Brain's eyes, all their under-the-table activities were nothing more than an acceptable margin of error.
If the day ever came for the Main Brain to truly settle accounts, none of them would escape.
However, the Shen Family, the other major families, and the legion had their own trump cards.
After all, the Main Brain still relied on human creativity.
While everyone's attention was drawn away by 9899 in the Smart Mecha, Li Ban had already returned to the Wizard World.
"The issue with the suicide note is basically resolved. As for the problem with that final sentence, I'll probably have to wait until I reactivate the necklace world to get an answer. Or maybe there won't be one."
Li Ban wasn't in a hurry. He wasn't carrying the burden of saving the world, after all.
—
Not long after he woke up, the carriage came to a halt.
After days of continuous travel and sleeping rough, Deng Jun turned his weather-beaten face back. "My lord, we've arrived."
Shi Ming, huddled in a corner of the carriage, lifted his head.
Lying inside, Li Ban slowly propped himself up with his right hand.
"Finally."
He pushed the carriage door open and leaned out. The first thing he saw wasn't the majestic, towering Myriad Ancient Pagoda, but a massive, circular waterfall thundering with roaring water.
The high wall that usually held back the River of Helplessness had vanished. The turbid water surged over the dam, flowing into a channel lined with iron nets on both sides, sweeping upward toward a place that resembled a circular volcanic crater.
Carried by its own momentum, the current swirled around the crater once before pouring into the very bottom.
Due to the terrain, Li Ban couldn't see the bottom of the circular waterfall. He could only see hundreds of tall towers standing in a ring around the cascade.
Several thick iron chains dangled from each tower, swaying from time to time.
Occasionally, a chain would rapidly retract, hauling up a person secured within its iron links.
Judging by their agility, they were at least 3rd Tier spirit practitioners.
High in the air floated a white-robed priest, his expression stern as his gaze patrolled the entire waterfall.
Seeming to sense something, the priest turned his head to look over.
Li Ban quickly slipped out of the carriage, stood on the driver's seat, and respectfully cupped his hands in a distant salute toward the white-robed priest.
The stern-faced priest blinked, then suddenly offered a somewhat unpracticed smile and gave a small nod.
It slightly diluted his previous severity.
Li Ban smiled back.
He realized that most of the priests he had encountered had surprisingly good tempers.
The priest in the air looked strict, but he had smiled at a newcomer like him. It seemed he wasn't truly that severe a person.
At that moment, a pair of grayish-white wild geese descended from the sky.
Both birds had wingspans of nearly three meters. A person stood on the back of one, while the other was empty, looking as though it were meant to welcome Li Ban.
The figure on the goose was a slightly plump woman. Her eyes crinkled in a smile, giving her a very amiable appearance.
"Greetings, Priest Li Ban," the woman said, cupping her hands. She wore armor rather than ordinary clothes. "I am Qian Jing, Pagoda Master of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda at the Unreturning Place."
So the Pagoda Master here at the Unreturning Place was a woman.
"Pagoda Master Qian. I have finally lived up to expectations and brought Shi Ming here."
Shi Ming stood behind Li Ban.
Seeing the Pagoda Master in front of him and the Unreturning Place in the distance, his expression turned dazed and blank.
"I feel like... I've been to this place before."
Pagoda Master Qian looked at Shi Ming and pursed her red lips. "Indeed you have, but that is no longer important."
"Priest Li Ban, please mount the goose. I will take you to see Priest Qian Que. As for Deng Jun and Shi Ming, I will send someone else to guide them into the Myriad Ancient Pagoda."
Li Ban looked back at Shi Ming. That strange feeling had returned.
It seemed everyone knew of Shi Ming, yet aside from the Black Robes, everyone treated him with total indifference.
Even though the Undying Halo on Shi Ming's body was incredibly miraculous, not a single major figure showed any desire to investigate it.
Li Ban didn't follow immediately. Instead, he asked, "Pagoda Master Qian, Shi Ming helped me a lot along this journey. May I know how the Myriad Ancient Pagoda plans to arrange things for him moving forward?"
Qian Jing nodded. "I am aware. Regarding Shi Ming, our initial plan was to have him live under the Myriad Ancient Pagoda's surveillance. However, Priest Du An mentioned yesterday that Shi Ming performed outstandingly in the mission to capture the Corpse Worm mother. Therefore, we hope Shi Ming can cooperate with us to capture the worm mothers that escaped the Unreturning Place into Yanzhou. Naturally, this will count toward his merits and make his life here easier."
From the sound of it, the Myriad Ancient Pagoda simply planned to let Shi Ming live under their watch.
Of course, this might have been a recently changed decision.
If Li Ban had arrived today simply as an ordinary spirit practitioner waiting to join the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, they probably would have received a completely different explanation.
But there was no point dwelling on hypotheticals.
Li Ban believed Pagoda Master Qian Jing wouldn't go so far as to lie to him here.
He turned to Shi Ming and said, "I'm going to see Priest Qian Que first. You two go get settled. As for the mission, think it over yourselves. I'll come find you later."
Shi Ming was still a bit dazed. Deng Jun stood up and held Shi Ming by the shoulder, nodding along with him.
Seeing Shi Ming like this, Li Ban felt inexplicably uneasy, but with the Pagoda Master and Priest Qian Que waiting for him, he could only leap onto the other goose's back. He would check on Shi Ming later.
When Li Ban landed on the goose, the bird dipped slightly under his weight, but a flap of its wings quickly restored its altitude.
The two wild geese then banked and flew toward the Myriad Ancient Pagoda in the distance.
Viewing the Unreturning Place from the bird's back made it look even more majestic. As they approached the center of the waterfall, Li Ban glanced down and saw a spatial rift that looked like a torn eye.
Unlike the rifts in the Trash Realm and other worlds, the edges of this rift vibrated constantly, yet the rift as a whole was exceptionally stable.
The rift hung in the central space near the bottom of the massive depression in the Unreturning Place. Dozens of white, regular tetrahedral stones floated around it, and beneath it lay a structure resembling an inverted white dome. It looked like an exquisite piece of porcelain catching the entire rift.
"Is that the entrance to the Shattered Realm?"
"Yes, Priest Li Ban. Actually, the very bottom of the Unreturning Place also leads to the Shattered Realm, but entering through the Shattered Eye will send you to a much safer location, or near the small world you last marked with your Realm-Breaking Stone."
Hearing this, Li Ban thought of something. "What about Priest Du An? I was catching worm mothers with him just a couple of days ago."
"Priest Du An had matters to attend to and has already re-entered the Shattered Realm."
Li Ban's eyes flickered.
He didn't even need to think about it; Du An had definitely gone back to the Trash Realm to look for the Leader and Chen Dong.
It seemed Du An had already guessed that Li Ban had unfinished business in the Trash Realm and wouldn't be leaving right away.
However, Li Ban's main objective in the Trash Realm was already complete. Once he returned there to tie up loose ends, he could simply use Gu Yi's body to leave and travel to other small worlds.
After that, as long as Li Ban wasn't in the same small world as Du An when communicating with Chen Dong through the reader, he wouldn't have to worry about Du An discovering Chen Dong's whereabouts.
"I heard from Priest Zhu Yao that Priest Du An often descends to small worlds and rarely stays in the Wizard World. Does he have some urgent business to handle?"
Qian Jing smiled slightly. "I'm not entirely sure about that. Perhaps Priest Du An is simply eager to advance his cultivation. You could try asking Priest Qian Que."
She covered her lips and chuckled. "Priest Qian Que usually doesn't speak, but Priest Zhu Yao put in a request with him, so he will definitely say something when he sees you today."
Li Ban was a bit puzzled. What did that mean?
Did Priest Qian Que really not speak on a daily basis?
While he wondered, the geese had already flown across almost half of the Unreturning Place, landing at the Myriad Ancient Pagoda perched on the highest slope to the north.
Set against the backdrop of the massive circular waterfall, the initially towering Myriad Ancient Pagoda appeared quite delicate.
Unlike the Myriad Ancient Pagoda beside the Mass Grave, the architecture here looked more like the hilt of a sharp sword driven into the mountain peak, with only the handle exposed.
The main body of the pagoda was slender and sharp. Aside from the massive base at the bottom and the flying eaves at the top, no distinct partitions for the other floors could be seen from the outside.
Red and gold Glazed Tiles were arranged elegantly over the exterior walls, shaped like fish scales.
Apart from the main pagoda, there were no auxiliary pagodas nearby.
The surrounding buildings were all centered around the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, constructed sequentially along the cliffs and following the contours of the mountain range.
Along the cliff face, numerous wooden plank walkways had been built, hugging the sheer drop of the precipice on one side.
It looked incredibly steep and magnificent.
Upon drawing closer, Li Ban suddenly realized that a white-robed figure was sitting at the very top of the pagoda.
When he had gazed at the pagoda from the carriage earlier, he hadn't seen anyone up there.
'Did he just teleport here? Or is he using an art that prevents others from noticing him?'
The goose landed straight onto the top of the pagoda. Once Li Ban and Pagoda Master Qian jumped off, it folded its wings and scurried over to stand on the very tip of the flying eaves.
Li Ban walked up to Priest Qian Que.
Priest Qian Que, who had just been sitting on the pagoda looking out over the Unreturning Place, rose leisurely to his feet.
"Hello."
His voice was extremely soft. If Li Ban's hearing hadn't been enhanced, he wouldn't have been able to catch it over the roaring of the waterfall.
Was this the price of not speaking for a long time?
"Hello, Priest Qian Que."
Since the other party was at the Seventh Tier, Li Ban still took the initiative to bow respectfully.
Priest Qian Que raised a hand to support Li Ban, thought for a moment, and said, "Enter the pagoda, or... enter the shattered?"
Pagoda Master Qian Jing shared a slight resemblance with Priest Qian Que around the eyes and brows, though only a slight one.
Standing beside them, she smiled and translated, "Priest Li Ban, do you want to enter the Myriad Ancient Pagoda to cultivate spiritual rhinoceros, or head straight into the Shattered Realm to search for Wizard Embryo Fragments?"