"Pagoda Master Qian, are these corpses fully processed? Besides checking for bugs, do I need to inspect them for any remaining normal elements or waste elements?"
"Not really. Normal elements have gone through three rounds of screening and won't be missed. Some waste elements might slip by, but it doesn't matter."
Li Ban nodded, thinking, That's perfect!
Now that he understood his duties, Li Ban let Pagoda Master Qian leave, knowing she was usually quite busy.
He went to the first room, used the system to inspect the corpses, and directly absorbed the waste elements he found.
There were twelve chests of corpses in the first room. After verifying there were no insects, Li Ban marked the chests as inspected and sealed them.
Someone would come in at night to remove them and drop off empty replacements.
Satisfied, Li Ban walked out of the corpse room and returned to the final one—the fifth room. He stared at the small basket of waste elements inside and felt a headache coming on.
"There aren't many normal elements, but there's a decent amount of waste elements. The problem is they're all registered in the ledger. Absorbing them right here would be too easy to notice."
Without a second thought, he sent the normal elements in the small chest up through the central pillar. Then, carrying a box of waste elements, he left the fifth floor and headed downstairs.
"Once I drop off these waste elements, my work for the day seems to be done. It really doesn't take much time; coming in once every three or four days is enough."
Carrying the wooden box down the stairs, he ran into several other spirit practitioners working in the Myriad Ancient Pagoda.
Although they had never seen Li Ban, they guessed he was the new master of the fifth floor just by looking at his leisurely demeanor and the floor number on his box.
They stepped aside, bowing or cupping their fists in greeting to let him pass.
Li Ban didn't go out of his way to greet anyone.
When he first set out from the Yu Province Death Prison, he was just coming to work a job. But now, he was here to accumulate grassroots experience.
Finding it rather amusing, Li Ban walked down to the first underground level of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda with a smile on his face.
The first underground level was somewhat gloomy. Instead of candles, it was lit by luminous stones.
These stones were much safer to use, carrying no risk of fire, but their brightness was only average.
Once their light faded, leaving them out in the sun for a few days would fully recharge them.
There were two corridors in the basement, labeled "Corpse Corridor" and "Waste Elements."
Tracks were installed on the ground leading to the corpse recovery room, much like those found in a mine.
Li Ban turned down the smaller corridor on the other side.
An old man was guarding the area just behind the door.
He hugged his walking stick, his head bobbing as he snored.
However, the moment Li Ban pushed the door open, the old man snapped his head up, surprisingly alert.
Seeing Li Ban, he frowned. His gaze fell to the wooden box in Li Ban's hands, and only then did he sluggishly stand up.
"So it's the new floor master. Greetings, my lord."
He bowed deeply.
But his body swayed, looking as though he might fall back asleep at any moment.
It was hard to say whether he was actually being respectful.
Not that Li Ban cared.
"Do I just hand these waste elements directly to you?"
Li Ban held up the wooden box.
"Ah, yes, yes." The old man hobbled forward on his cane and took the box.
He looked ancient, but he lifted the solid wood box effortlessly. It was obvious at a glance that he had a foundation in martial arts.
Anyone stationed in this position had to be a veteran of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda.
After handing over the box, Li Ban didn't leave immediately. "Can I see how you process this?"
A flash of surprise passed through the old man's bleary eyes.
Waste elements were just like garbage; nobody usually paid them any mind.
The other floor masters would hand things over and leave immediately, not wanting to waste time.
But Li Ban actually wanted to watch the process.
Still, the old man didn't pry. "If my lord wishes to watch, by all means."
He casually glanced at the seal on the box, checked the ledger resting on top, stamped it, and handed it back to Li Ban.
"My lord, look. It's actually very simple. Just stamp the seal, and then... dump!"
Li Ban watched the man tear off the seal and, without even looking at the contents, dump everything straight into a pipe with a trumpet-like opening.
Below the opening, rotating gears ground away like a pulverizer.
The already fragmented waste elements were crushed even finer before falling down the pipe.
The physical material the waste elements were attached to was very fragile, ensuring the pipe wouldn't clog easily.
Seeing the man dump all the waste elements without a cursory check, letting them jumble together in the pulverizer, Li Ban knew there were plenty of ways to tamper with the process.
The main reason for this laxity was simply that waste elements were useless.
"It doesn't matter if some normal elements get mixed in by mistake," the old man said, pointing at the pulverizer. "Elements that are too sturdy will jam the gears. We'd notice it then."
Li Ban nodded. "Where does this pipe lead? Does it connect directly to the waterfall at the Unreturning Place?"
"Not exactly. If bugs crawled up through the pipes, my old bones wouldn't be able to handle it," the old man mumbled. "There are usually people standing guard down near the Shattered Eye. If any bugs jump out of the waterfall and try to crawl into the pipes, the guards intercept them."
Even though they were waste elements, there was still a detailed disposal procedure in place.
Whether the people at the bottom actually enforced it, however, was another matter.
Judging by the old man's reaction, he wouldn't verify the quantity of the waste elements, but he also wouldn't let normal elements slip through the cracks.
Li Ban nodded. "I understand. Thank you for telling me."
The old man chuckled. "This old one is called Hu Da. How should I address the floor master?"
"Li Ban."
Giving his name, Li Ban turned and left.
He had no idea that long after he left the waste element recovery room, Hu Da remained frozen in a daze.
A moment later, after making absolutely sure Li Ban had left the first underground level, Hu Da finally touched his forehead.
"Isn't that the name of the new Priest? A Priest actually came here to act as a floor master? Could it be that Priest Qian Que is preparing to advance to the Sun realm and wants him to take over the Unreturning Place?"
"Training them straight from their initial Spiritual Initiation—that really is Priest Qian Que's hobby!"
In just two days, Li Ban became thoroughly familiar with his workflow at the Myriad Ancient Pagoda.
Before starting his clandestine operations, he traveled to the Shadow World once again—possibly for the last time.
Before entering the Shadow World, he took out the Silver Kingfisher, placed it into his Cubic Space, and finally fell asleep in his newly acquired courtyard house.
Opening his eyes, Li Ban dug his way out of a massive pile of steel scrap.
After his previous conversation with Chen Dong, he had packed everything he could carry into his Cubic Space.
Fortunately, the reader was portable. Otherwise, his one-cubic-meter Cubic Space wouldn't have been able to fit the power supply that 9899 built later.
After leaving the wilderness, he hadn't returned to the Northern Base. Instead, he chose to sleep near Trash City.
By using the Iron-Eating Sword to easily carve a tunnel into a massive garbage pile, crawling inside, and sealing the passage behind him, he had created a near-perfect temporary hideout.
Now that he was awake, he used the Iron-Eating Sword to reopen the tunnel and smoothly crawled out.
He hadn't left Trash City right away because he was making preparations to leave the Trash Realm altogether.
The other minor worlds of the Shattered Realm wouldn't necessarily possess the same level of technology as the Trash Realm. If he didn't bring enough portable power supplies, he might lose the ability to communicate with Chen Dong inside the chip at a critical moment.
And Trash City was undoubtedly the richest place in the entire Trash Realm when it came to energy supplies.
Yet Li Ban never expected that the moment he stealthily slipped into the outer city, he would suddenly be targeted by a tiny drone.
While buying things in the outer city market, he noticed he was being watched.
But when he looked around, he didn't see a single soul tailing him, which made him think of the surveillance systems.
"Trash City reacts as fast as ever. Looks like I'll have to go to the Ash Alliance to buy High-Power Batteries."
Li Ban turned into a narrow alley formed by several illegally constructed buildings. Just as he prepared to use an art to teleport away, a mechanical voice suddenly rang out.
"Can we talk?"
"Director."
Li Ban's mind reeled, and his half-formed intent broke apart.
He turned around and saw the miniature drone hovering behind him.
It was a micro-drone designed specifically for surveillance, roughly the size of a ping-pong ball, and completely unarmed.
It was simply a mouthpiece sent specifically to communicate with him.
Li Ban fully turned around and stared at the tiny camera on the drone.
The title "Director" wasn't particularly special in this world.
But for someone to single him out and address him as "Director" still struck him as highly unusual.
Since Gu Yi's body had landed in the Trash Realm, maybe others from the Ring—no, maybe other people from Gu Yi's world had landed here as well.
He would temporarily refer to it as the Outer Ring World.
"Who are you? Do you know me?" Li Ban didn't immediately deny the title of Director.
He wanted to probe the other party's background.
"AI Designation: 123585545*&¥%————."
Li Ban could understand the first half, but the second half was a string of completely unrecognizable sounds.
"In this place, humans refer to me as: the Main Brain."
Li Ban stared in shock.
He naturally knew about the Main Brain of Trash City, but he never expected it to be connected to the Outer Ring World and to Gu Yi.
But for the Main Brain to call Gu Yi "Director"... didn't Gu Yi say in his diary that he was a college student? How did he suddenly become a Director?
Feeling that the suicide note wasn't entirely reliable either, Li Ban pondered for a moment before finally accepting the Main Brain's invitation.
Although the Main Brain was the absolute authority in Trash City, Li Ban wasn't afraid of it.
He might not be its match in a head-on firepower duel, but if Li Ban wanted to flee, the Main Brain had no means of stopping him.
He followed the drone, winding along the small paths until they neared the inner city.
However, they didn't enter through the main gates. Instead, they stopped at a drainage outlet outside the city walls.
As if someone had shut a valve on the inside, the flow of water from the drain gradually dwindled to nothing.
The middle section of the underground pipe, caked in rust and algae, suddenly slid open, revealing a secret passage.
"What, the Main Brain has to sneak around to meet me, the Director? Are the humans in the inner city not allowed to know?"
"The humans within Trash City are merely tools. This prevents them from making meaningless, repetitive inquiries and requests."