Because Li Ban had slaughtered all the surrounding monsters, the perilous Swing Forest temporarily became a safe haven.
They managed to scavenge over a dozen Cottonwood Vines nearby.
Ed skipped along as they walked, and Zhu Yao's eyes crinkled with a smile.
Li Ban finished scouting the perimeter and returned, at which point they decided to head back.
"I just took a look around," Li Ban said. "There aren't any hand monsters here, nor anything else. Not many people come through here, either. What do these monsters rely on to survive?"
"Monsters eat other monsters." This time, it was Ed who answered him.
"Most of them are completely mindless and only know how to eat. A rare few have a scrap of intelligence, but not much. Those hand monsters might cooperate when they encounter an enemy, but the moment food gets scarce, they will hunt each other."
They weren't much different from wild beasts.
But unlike wild beasts, they had absolutely no desires other than eating.
"There are extremely basic maps," she replied. "But they can only be used for reference. You never know if those places will still exist a month from now, or if they will even be in the same spot."
"There should be some relatively stable places, right?" Li Ban asked. "Like the cliff where the camp is. That looks like it's been around for a long time."
Zhu Yao nodded. "Mountain ranges and large forests are relatively stable. They act like anchors for the Recycling Station. Other places might undergo drastic changes, but these remain basically untouched. If they do change, it is during a batch erasure."
"Batch erasure?" Li Ban vaguely grasped what the term meant, but afraid his understanding was incomplete, he asked Zhu Yao for clarification.
"It's when the progress outside is deleted in its entirety." Zhu Yao fell silent for a moment. "Do you know what 'deletion' means?"
"It means moving data to the Recycling Station." Keeping in mind that they were currently inside the Recycling Station, Li Ban guessed, "But data in the Recycling Station is just hidden and unusable; it hasn't truly disappeared."
"Right. Data only truly vanishes when it's overwritten by new data. When an entire instance of progress is deleted, our corpses from the previous progress—we will all be overwritten."
Pedaling the Tricycle, Zhu Yao glanced back at Li Ban, an unreadable emotion in her eyes.
"When you first arrived here, you obviously recognized me. That means the Zhu Yao from your progress still exists, and she is still a powerful Priest. She will likely survive until the progress is deleted. When that happens, I will cease to exist."
Li Ban frowned. "You're saying our progress will be deleted too? Will all progress eventually be deleted? Does nothing continue?"
"Currently, no. No matter how the world develops, no matter who becomes a Priest or a Spirit Practitioner, as long as they cannot become a Great Wizard, they will become part of the deletion."
"You're that certain?" Li Ban wasn't about to panic over this kind of news.
"It's not that I'm certain, but that someone is recording it."
"Recording? From the beginning of the Recycling Station until now? Is it a Great Wizard?"
Zhu Yao shook her head.
Ed threw his hands in the air. "It's the Recorder!"
Zhu Yao paused. "We wanted to call him the Sage, but he said he was just an ordinary recorder. However, I remember that someone once seemed to recognize him and called him—the Director."
Hearing the word "Director," Li Ban jolted. He felt both surprised and entirely unsurprised.
"I want to... meet him," Li Ban said, his mood complicated. "Do you know where he is?"
"He is quite far from here, and he travels often. But if you want to see him, you can go to a place called Wanghai Cliff. It's said there is a high probability of him appearing there."
"It adds up," Li Ban thought. "When I touched the Swing Vine, that wasn't a hallucination originating from my own mind. That man was really speaking to me. But how did he do it?"
In this world with no energy, no spiritual rhinoceros, and not even normal life, how did that man—who was also called the "Director"—manage to communicate with him from so far away?
"How far away is Wanghai Cliff?"
"Even cycling, it would take three years."
Li Ban's eyes widened. "That far?"
"Um, yes, because Wanghai Cliff is near the rift of the Northern Continent. It's said that the Director often stays there to observe the monsters near the rift." Zhu Yao let go with one hand. "Meanwhile, our camp is near the edge of the Northern Continent, far away from the central rift. That also makes it safer."
"That's way too far," Li Ban muttered.
If he wanted to see the Director, his only option was to ride there.
It would take three years.
Then he could only use a Priest's Cloud and Mist Flight.
But across such a massive distance, Cloud and Mist Flight would still take a long time, and it would consume a vast amount of spiritual rhinoceros.
So, his task circled right back to what it was originally: collecting waste elements.
"Zhu Yao."
"Hmm?"
"..."
"Where are there relatively more monsters near the camp?"
"If it's nearby, it would be the Ant Cave."
"?"
"Sounds like an underground cave."
"It is." Zhu Yao fell silent for a moment. "That place used to be the largest camp nearby. After it fell, the people inside all became monsters."
After Li Ban and Zhu Yao's group returned to camp, three other people rendezvoused near a hillside outside the camp.
They waited there for over ten minutes before they saw Hemira leading a squad out on patrol.
Hemira glanced toward the hillside and caught sight of a pre-arranged mark. She halted and said to the Guard Team members behind her, "Same as always. Split into two routes. Dodge and Liu Yi will follow me to the high ground for reconnaissance."
"Yes!"
Over a dozen Guard Team members acknowledged the order, setting out to patrol and fight according to plan, just as they had done every day for over a decade.
Hemira then led her two trusted subordinates toward the hillside near the camp.
When they reached the top of the hill, the three people who had been waiting nearby secretly hurried up to meet them.
"Vice Captain," one of them said. "The five of us took turns tailing them and found they didn't go to the Building Graveyard. They went to the Swing Forest instead."
"The two who were already exposed had to keep heading toward the Building Graveyard. We three trailed them from a distance and hurried back ahead of them."
Hemira frowned slightly. "The Swing Forest? They must have gone to look for Cottonwood Vines. But that area is dangerous, and not many people go there. If you had kept following them, you might have been exposed."
The three men nodded repeatedly.
In truth, they hadn't really wanted to track Li Ban and Zhu Yao in the first place.
They were unfamiliar with Li Ban, but Zhu Yao had been in the camp for many years, and everyone had heard stories of her past deeds.
Even though she appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary person right now, anyone who knew what she had done harbored a degree of fear toward her.
"Oh, right, Vice Captain. I made another discovery near the Swing Forest," one of the men suddenly spoke up.
"Speak."
"I think I saw traces of mountain bandits near the Swing Forest."
"Mountain bandits?" Hemira's gaze instantly sharpened. "Mountain bandits are not the same as wandering thieves. Are you sure that's what you saw?"
"I saw a monster corpse from a distance. It had marks on its body from being bound by iron chains. The footprints and drag marks on the ground were still very fresh. It must have just happened."
Liu Yi, standing beside Hemira, said, "Then it must be mountain bandits. Only those lunatics would raise monsters to attack other people. I've heard some of them even manufacture monsters, wanting to create beasts that are both powerful and controllable. It's truly—"
Liu Yi was filled with indignation. Dodge, on the other side, merely shot him a glance and said nothing.
Hemira rested her chin in her hand. "Mountain bandits?"
After a moment, she turned back to Dodge. "Go back and tell Madam Jin to temporarily raise the purchase price for Cottonwood Vines. Just say the Guard Team needs to replace a batch of hunting nets."
Dodge immediately understood what Hemira meant. "Alright."
One of the three trackers caught on as well, but he asked hesitantly, "Vice Captain, do we really want to do this? They're quite strong."
A flash of irritation crossed Hemira's eyes. "He refused to join the Guard Team, so what does his strength have to do with us? People like him are just too arrogant. If they don't suffer a little setback, they won't recognize reality. Since he's so strong, let him learn how terrifying the outside world is, so he knows to come back and rely on the collective."
Only then did the others nod in agreement.
Framed like that, the reasoning sounded somewhat logical.
But only Dodge, Hemira's true confidant, knew that she wasn't doing this for the camp at all, but for her own selfish desires.
She was afraid that Zhu Yao would rise to power again because of that man who possessed spiritual rhinoceros.
For now, the newcomer Li Ban didn't seem foolish enough to hand over a massive amount of spiritual rhinoceros for others to use. But what if he spent enough time with Zhu Yao, built up trust, and shared some of his internal spiritual rhinoceros with her? Then Zhu Yao would revert to being that insufferably arrogant Dark Moon Priest.
When that time came, Zhu Yao might not necessarily vie for the position of Camp Leader, but once she rose to power in the camp, she would absolutely take up the rare resources originally belonging to the high-ranking members.
That was why pretty much all the high-ranking members—except perhaps the Camp Leader—had been quietly suppressing Zhu Yao.
This suppression was extremely subtle. There were never any direct confrontations, and on the surface, they all even appeared to highly value Zhu Yao.
But they could not allow her to rise again.
It wasn't that they didn't care about high-end combat power.
It was that the camp's situation was already extremely stable. Their combat reserves were sufficient, and their defensive strength was adequate. They had reached a point where even if monsters attacked the camp, they would only need the soldiers on duty that day to ride out to battle.
There was absolutely no need to let a single person rise up and carve out a slice of an already limited pie.
But Li Ban's arrival had vaguely stirred a sense of unease among the high-ranking members.
This unease came from one thing: the sheer composure of a man who had only just entered the Recycling Station.
After splitting up with the three scouts, Hemira turned back and shot Dodge a look.
Once the squad had finished their patrol and returned to camp, Hemira and Dodge went together to Hemira's room on the second floor.
No one was surprised; after all, the two were in a relationship.
The moment Hemira returned to the room and closed the door, she said one thing to Dodge.
"For the next few days, trail them from a distance near the Swing Forest. If the mountain bandits and the newcomer start fighting, find a way to... give them a hand."
She placed a heavy emphasis on the word "them."