"The purchasing price for Cottonwood Vines has gone up!"
Zhu Yao stared at the new gathering task list she'd picked up along with their morning trash disposal duty, her large, watery eyes quivering.
Ed, who was on pedaling duty today, threw both hands in the air. "Yeah!"
Then, looking a little flustered, he hurriedly dropped his hands to steady the handlebars.
"Hmm? Is it higher than yesterday?" Li Ban, sitting across from Zhu Yao, leaned over to look.
"Up thirty percent." Zhu Yao sighed with a hint of regret. "If only it had gone up yesterday."
"Why the sudden increase?" Li Ban asked, finding it strange. "We handed in a lot of Cottonwood Vines yesterday. If anything, the price should have dropped."
"The camp still has a high demand for Cottonwood Vines. Without them, they're forced to use Hemp Grass, which is inferior in every way. But a sudden price hike—it might also mean the camp suddenly needs a massive amount for something specific."
A sudden spike in market demand for a specific good was perfectly normal.
"Those hand monsters shouldn't have recovered that quickly. We can head to the Swing Forest again today."
Li Ban also wanted to go back and see if anything had changed on the Director's end.
He also needed to inform the Director that heading to Wanghai Cliff might take a very long time, and see if he had any good advice.
So, after tossing the trash, the group made their way back to the Swing Forest.
Just as they'd thought, the hand monsters hadn't replenished so quickly.
This wasn't a game map; monsters still had to grow according to the laws of nature.
Therefore, they began their search in a location parallel to where they had found the Cottonwood Vines yesterday. They didn't search the exact same spot, nor did they push deeper into the Swing Forest.
While venturing deeper would yield more Cottonwood Vines, it also meant more Swing Vines and more monsters.
After shifting over a fair distance, the trio began coordinating their search.
Zhu Yao and Ed handled the searching and gathering, while Li Ban stood guard.
When the hand monsters disguised themselves as Cottonwood Vines, they emitted no malice, making them incredibly difficult to distinguish.
But the moment they locked onto a target and prepared to strike, Li Ban would sense them.
After collecting roughly the same amount of Cottonwood Vines as they had yesterday and casually dispatching two stray hand monsters, Zhu Yao checked the sky.
"That's about enough. We shouldn't head back too late. If something happens on the road and we can't reach the camp before dark, we'll be in trouble."
Nothing particularly bizarre happened after dark.
It was just that this place had neither moon nor stars; once the sun set, the land plunged into pitch blackness.
For ordinary experts who couldn't use their abilities or spells, absolute darkness was a rather thorny issue.
"All right. But first, I want to take another look at the illusions. Keep watch for me."
Zhu Yao paused, momentarily stunned. "You really do like a thrill, don't you?"
A thrill?
Li Ban had no idea what kind of visions Zhu Yao saw when she touched a Swing Vine. He just smiled without explaining. Once the two of them flanked him, he reached out and touched the nearest Swing Vine.
This time, however, he didn't see the Director.
Nor did he see the Laboratory filled with machines and bright lights.
He saw people.
A great many people.
There were thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—standing in concentric circles radiating outward from him.
This countless throng faced Li Ban, expressionless.
They seemed to be staring at him, yet simultaneously staring into the nothingness ahead.
Li Ban's line of sight gradually rose, then began to sway back and forth. It felt like standing on a high swing, continuously rocking back and forth as he looked at the boundless sea of people in every direction.
He rocked and swayed. The people below slowly raised their heads, their lifeless gazes tracking his figure.
Then, a face abruptly appeared right in front of his eyes.
It was the face of his current body.
It was Gu Yi's face.
Just as the swing was about to carry Li Ban right into it, the illusion vanished.
He was standing on the ground again, his mind still reeling with the slight vertigo of shifting suddenly from a swaying swing to solid earth.
Zhu Yao's smiling face appeared before him. "I knew you liked a thrill, so I let you swing a little longer."
Swing?
It seemed the illusion he saw this time was similar to what Zhu Yao and the others experienced.
Why hadn't he connected to the Director's Wanghai Cliff this time?
Was it because the other party was offline?
Li Ban zoned out slightly.
Ed waved a hand in front of Li Ban's eyes. When Li Ban looked over in surprise, Ed raised his axe.
"Don't be scared!"
Li Ban smiled wryly. "I'm not scared."
Though the scene had been a bit eerie, it wasn't enough to make him truly afraid.
"The last time I looked, it was too brief. I didn't even start swinging. No wonder it's called the Swing Forest. Not only does it have Swing Vines, but it actually makes you swing."
"Yeah," Zhu Yao said with a sigh. "Some people say those figures are just shadows left behind by completely deleted data. But if they were completely deleted, why would they leave shadows?"
She looked at her own hand, gently making a fist, then slowly opening it.
There was no blood flowing within, so her palm didn't flush red from the movement.
"Others guess it's because this world has no energy, no disturbing magnetic fields, allowing souls to linger for long periods. Maybe what we're seeing are souls left over from the previous iteration, or from an even earlier iteration."
The physical body was easy to delete, but souls weren't so easily disposed of. Was that it?
Li Ban cupped his chin, thinking of Gu Yi's face he had seen at the very end.
He felt things weren't that simple, but he still didn't understand the underlying principles.
This time, however, he snapped off a piece of a Swing Vine, preparing to take it back to the camp for research.
Although a severed Swing Vine lost its ability to cast illusions, he could still examine its internal structure.
The group started heading out, returning to where they had hidden their Tricycle.
Then, something happened—something not entirely unexpected, but absolutely infuriating.
Their Tricycle was gone.
"Crack!"
Li Ban watched as Zhu Yao clenched her fists tight.
"It's fine," Zhu Yao said, trying to keep her tone calm. "I left some fragrant herbs on the Tricycle. Ed, take a sniff. They shouldn't have gotten too far."
Ed actually had this kind of utility?
Li Ban spoke up. "Actually, I prepared a backup plan too."
"No need." Zhu Yao raised a hand. "Your backup plan requires spiritual rhinoceros, doesn't it? It's not worth it. Let Ed try first. If that doesn't work, we'll rely on your method."
They had made quite a bit of money recently; they could afford to lose a Tricycle.
It was just infuriating.
"Then let's go." Li Ban rolled his wrists. "If someone's stealing Tricycles, they're definitely stealing other things too. Robbing thieves is the fastest way to make money."
Ed twitched his nose. In an instant, his nose grew a full centimeter longer, and his nostrils expanded a size larger.
Li Ban's eyes widened slightly.
"Ed's nose comes from a race with an extremely sharp sense of smell." Zhu Yao walked behind Ed. "When his head got split open back then, his nose fell off too, so we just chopped a suitable one off an enemy corpse and swapped it in."
Back then, it was that very race of keen-nosed people who acted as guides to ambush Zhu Yao's group.
Aside from the enemy's nose, Zhu Yao had hacked the rest of his body to pieces and tossed it into the mud pit like garbage.
Ed didn't use this nose often. He stood in place sniffing for a while before pinning down a direction.
He pointed outside the Swing Forest, though not in the direction the three had come from. "That way."
Zhu Yao drew her spear once again. "Let's move!"
They reached the edge of the Swing Forest and skirted along the boundary westward for a distance.
The ground grew somewhat damp, clearly displaying the unique tire tracks of a Tricycle.
"There might be a mud pit nearby."
A mud pit was a perfect place to dispose of a corpse and destroy all evidence.
Li Ban stroked his chin. "With the Swing Forest at their back and a mud pit nearby, ordinary people wouldn't live in a place like this, would they?"
Zhu Yao nodded. "We might have stumbled upon a hidden bandit lair."
She narrowed her eyes, somewhat hesitant.
"If it's a bandit group of dozens or hundreds of people, then—then forget it."
If it was a gang of dozens or hundreds of enemies, the three of them wouldn't necessarily lose, but Li Ban would highly likely need to expend a massive amount of spiritual rhinoceros to cast spells.
Expending a massive amount of spiritual rhinoceros just for a Tricycle and some other uncertain gains?
Zhu Yao wasn't even willing to let Li Ban waste spiritual rhinoceros on finding the Tricycle; naturally, she wasn't willing to take a risk here either.
Life in the Recycling Station was long, and every last drop of spiritual rhinoceros had to be used sparingly.
Much like lifespans in the original world, it would never regenerate.
"Let me think..." Li Ban didn't immediately give up. "If they can steal our things, we can steal theirs."
Zhu Yao shook her head. "These bandits are used to being thieves, so they're also used to guarding against thieves. They'll definitely keep a tight watch over their own stash."
A vague thought flashed through Li Ban's mind. "No matter how many people they have, they're still relying on human eyes. There aren't any machines measuring weight changes, nor are there surveillance cameras watching twenty-four seven."
'What a pity,' he thought. 'If I used "World Without Me" to go in and steal things right now, I could probably empty out the bandits' storehouse without them even noticing. Sigh, it's a shame that I barely have the capabilities of a Star Glow Priest, yet I don't know the corresponding spells.'
Back during his outburst at the deep pool in the Unreturning Place, Li Ban had touched the Solar tier, but because his consciousness was unstable, he was taken away by the Faceless One to recover.
Although Li Ban's cultivation realm had fallen back down, his spiritual strength had grown much stronger.
His earlier ability to sense malice was one of the manifestations of his enhanced spiritual power.
He felt that he could also learn some of the spiritual spells used by Star Glow Priests.
And "World Without Me" was one that Li Ban thought would be exceptionally useful.
Suddenly, Li Ban froze, slowly turning his head to look at Zhu Yao.
"Zhu Yao."
"Hmm?" Zhu Yao was busy calculating in her head whether today's haul of Cottonwood Vines could cover the loss of the Tricycle. She responded to Li Ban rather numbly.
"Before you entered the Recycling Station, what tier of priest were you again?"
Zhu Yao finally snapped back to reality and turned to look at Li Ban. "Seventh-tier, Dark Moon. But now—"
"Do you—" Li Ban interrupted her somewhat rudely, though the two were familiar enough with each other that an occasional interruption didn't matter. "Do you know the spell 'World Without Me'?"
Zhu Yao paused before answering, "I do, but that spell can only be learned by Star Glow Priests, and it also requires a massive amount of spiritual rhinoceros."
If they were in the Wizard World, where spiritual rhinoceros was as abundant as air, this tiny bit of consumption naturally wouldn't mean anything.
But here, just thinking about it made Zhu Yao's heart ache.
"Don't worry about the spiritual rhinoceros. Can you teach me the spell?" Li Ban's eyes shone brightly.
He suddenly realized he had almost overlooked the most valuable resource in the entire Recycling Station!