"This person's objective is quite clear." Li Ban understood the resentment in Zhu Yao's heart.
Upon learning that Priest Qian Que and the others had died in the Sea of Monsters, Priest Li He likely hadn't spared a single moment for grief. He immediately disbanded the Priest Camp, as it no longer held any value to him.
"He probably never thought much of your expedition into the Sea of Monsters from the start. But, holding onto a shred of hope, he chose to wait for your return. And while waiting, he had already prepared his way out."
"Yes. When dealing with someone like him, you can only sway him with profit. If you make him believe the chances of success are high, he'll be incredibly proactive."
"But we also need to be careful he doesn't sabotage others for his own gain at a critical moment."
Aside from Priest Li He, people from the other camps all came over to exchange pleasantries with Zhu Yao.
It was obvious Zhu Yao didn't particularly like any of them, but she didn't drop all pretense of politeness as she had with Priest Li He.
After reuniting and exchanging superficial pleasantries full of hidden agendas, the meeting convened by the Director finally began.
The meeting was hosted by Priest Li He's camp, with the Director as the main guest.
The operation required a minimum of twenty priests and a maximum of thirty.
Yet nearly forty priests had shown up.
However, Li Ban knew every candidate here had issues of one sort or another.
Simple, honest priests could rarely survive until now.
By the same token, these individuals with their own ulterior motives at least possessed some sort of specialty. If they could be properly utilized and organized, they could become a considerably powerful asset.
Li Ban wasn't skilled at leadership, but fortunately, the Director had taken that upon himself.
After the meeting began, the Director detailed the operation plan he had formulated.
Everyone listened attentively at first, but Li Ban could see a hint of dismissal hidden beneath their earnestness.
It wasn't until the Director mentioned the Spatial Teleportation Portal he had constructed and the Spatial Guidance Art that these powerful priests truly started taking things seriously.
"Director, we can understand the Spatial Guidance Art, but what exactly is this Spatial Teleportation Portal? Can it directly teleport us to the center of the Sea of Monsters? How close can it get us to the rift?" a priest named Hao Ze asked.
Priest Hao Ze was only a Star Glow Priest, but because he sat next to Priest Li He, he dared to be the first to raise a question in the meeting.
"A normal spatial teleportation spell can only transport a single person or item at a time. A Spatial Teleportation Portal, however, uses a combination of integration and camouflage to merge multiple people into a single entity, teleporting them all together over a long distance. But this requires a Spatial Teleportation Portal at both ends. So, how close you can be teleported to the rift depends entirely on how close the second portal can be placed."
"This—" Priest Hao Ze hadn't expected such an answer, and he looked somewhat disappointed. "If we can smoothly approach the rift, why would we even need a Spatial Teleportation Portal? Isn't that an endless loop?"
Hao Ze's words resonated with many, but the others kept quiet, waiting for the Director's explanation.
"We need to find one or two priests with strong concealment and assault capabilities to place the Spatial Teleportation Portal as close to the rift as possible."
If a powerful priest didn't care about the ensuing exhaustion or injuries, it was indeed possible to charge into the Sea of Monsters.
The Director had told Li Ban during the simulation that self-proclaimed powerhouses had previously tried to venture deep into the Sea of Monsters alone, but all had been intercepted fifty meters from the rift.
The reason the Director knew these details so clearly was that those people had accepted his funding and agreed to wear cameras.
Thus, the Director had clearly recorded their deaths.
Near the rift, there were at least three monsters that had mutated from Solar Priests.
And the strongest priests in the entire Recycling Station were only at the Solar tier.
Therefore, the idea of relying on a small target size to quickly slip through the Sea of Monsters had already been deemed impossible.
But if a small target could push forward to within a hundred meters of the Northern Continent Rift and use the Spatial Teleportation Portal to deploy twenty to thirty priests in peak condition to continue the fight, the probability of success would definitely multiply.
But this brought up a crucial issue.
"Who will be responsible for charging into the Sea of Monsters?"
The conference hall instantly fell dead silent.
Just as Li Ban had expected, almost none of the people who had survived in the Recycling Station until now possessed a straightforward, self-sacrificing nature.
Zhu Yao had originally wanted to volunteer for the assault, but Li Ban stopped her.
For this operation, she was the person Li Ban trusted most; she was the only one he could fight back-to-back with.
So, the better her condition was, the more advantageous it would be for him.
Everyone actually agreed with the Director's proposal, but a debate over the candidates soon broke out.
The slightly weaker ones believed a powerhouse should lead the charge to minimize the remaining distance to the Northern Continent Rift as much as possible.
However, a faction argued that priests skilled in speed and stealth should handle the infiltration, while the most powerful priests should be saved for the very end to fight the strongest monsters near the rift.
Someone even suggested that at least two people should be sent for the charge. If one died in battle, the other could take over.
Although the Director's Spatial Teleportation Portal could be manufactured again, the required resources were a massive figure.
Over all these years, he had only managed to gather enough materials to build two Spatial Teleportation Portals.
The crowd quickly reached a consensus to form a two-person assault team.
The topic then returned to who should be sent.
Then they hit a deadlock again.
At this point, having observed enough, Li Ban finally stood up. Waiting until everyone was looking at him in confusion, he spoke, "On behalf of Wanghai Cliff, I will take charge of the assault team's operation."
The conference room quieted down for a moment. This was the first time someone had actively volunteered for the assault mission.
After all, accepting this task was practically doing the work of cannon fodder.
Even so, they wouldn't just hand the mission over to anyone.
Because the closer the Spatial Teleportation Portal was placed to the Northern Continent Rift, the higher their chance of success would be.
Otherwise, if they just wanted to pick two random pieces of cannon fodder, they wouldn't have deliberated for so long.
Priest Hao Ze stood up at Priest Li He's prompting.
During the earlier introductions, he had learned Li Ban's name, but he didn't yet know his strength.
"Priest Ban, may I ask what your priest tier is?"
"6th Tier Star Glow."
Li Ban slightly elevated his tier.
He should currently be considered around tier 5.8.
However, with the Star River universe as his foundation, Li Ban wasn't exactly lying.
Although none of the priests here had ever seen Li Ban before entering the Recycling Station, they didn't think much of it, assuming he was just a junior from some faction.
"A 6th Tier Star Glow is decent, but in that case, the second person had better be a 7th Tier Dark Moon Priest to be safe." Priest Hao Ze looked around, wanting to see if anyone else would step forward.
The room was very quiet. Most people were weighing their options, unable to make a decision so quickly.
Zhu Yao stepped up beside Li Ban. "If everyone is unable to decide, a priestess who couldn't attend today asked me to convey that she can participate in the assault mission."
"No." Priest Li He sat in his chair, leaning back slightly. "You have already sent out one priest to take the risk; we cannot place all the danger on your shoulders. Yongge Camp will dispatch a Dark Moon Priest. We will provide the candidate within three days."
Several priests from Yongge Camp were clearly surprised, but none of them voiced any objections.
Evidently, Priest Li He held immense authority in Yongge Camp. This was a height of power he had never been able to achieve back in his old Priest Camp.
Zhu Yao patted Li Ban's shoulder, and the two of them sat down together.
This was a deliberate stance the two of them were putting on.
The goal was to let Zhu Yao stand at the forefront for the time being.
However, just as everyone thought the assault team candidates were temporarily settled, the leading priest of Langhuan Camp—one of the Five Major Camps—suddenly spoke up.
"I wonder if Priest He and Priest Yao would mind if our Langhuan Camp also sent a few people?"
The leader of Qingwan Camp sitting next to them immediately frowned and objected.
"The resources provided by the Director can only support around thirty priests participating in this breakout. Sending too many priests into the assault team will only overly consume our strength. No one can guarantee that thirty priests will be enough to break through the final fifty meters."
But the priest from Langhuan Camp smiled and waved his hand. "You misunderstand. The people I'm sending aren't priests."
"Not priests? Then how will they keep up with Priest Ban and the other priest? You can't possibly expect Priest Ban and the others to free up their hands to look after them, can you?"
"Right, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?"
It was a bit strange. It seemed many people were subconsciously speaking out against Langhuan Camp's leading priest.
Meanwhile, the man being opposed kept a smile on his face, seemingly accustomed to the pushback.
Li Ban leaned his head close to Zhu Yao. "Is there something special about this priest?"
Zhu Yao looked toward the Langhuan leading priest, subconsciously frowning as well before whispering back to Li Ban.
"Langhuan's leading priest, Priest Lang Jiao—he used to be an 8th Tier black-robed priest."
To think he was actually a black-robed priest.
The dozens of priests participating in the meeting basically all belonged to the three major factions: the Imperial Dynasty, the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, and the Mist Realm. Li Ban truly hadn't expected to find a black-robed priest here.
However, without the fundamental conflict of fighting over Wizard Embryo Fragments, there was no longer much need for the priests to distinguish between Black Robes and White Robes.
But looking at the expressions of Zhu Yao and the others, their wariness toward Priest Lang Jiao was far beyond normal.
Li Ban listened as Zhu Yao continued.
"Before entering the Recycling Station, this Lang Jiao was just as famous as Xiao Suo. Both were Black Robes who caused massive headaches for the White Robe Wizards."
"It's just that Xiao Suo liked to secretly wreak havoc in the Wizard World, while Lang Jiao killed a lot of White Robes in the Shattered Realm."
Li Ban hurriedly asked, "Does Lang Jiao also have a history of being caught multiple times, only to end up escaping?"
He was worried that Lang Jiao might be just as bizarre as Xiao Suo.
"Not quite. He's very cunning, and he kept a group of subordinates. We laid traps to ambush him a few times, but he saw through all of them and got away. Sigh, we never managed to catch him."
Li Ban nodded, feeling a sense of relief.
As long as he wasn't a second Xiao Suo, it was fine.
If there were another Black Robe like Xiao Suo, Li Ban would really have to wonder if the Great Wizard who truly controlled this world favored the Black Robes or the White Robes.
"It seems there aren't many black-robed priests in the Recycling Station?"
Zhu Yao nodded. "Because when everyone first arrived at the Recycling Station, no one knew the special rules here. With everyone suddenly compressed into a small space, many Black Robes instinctively began attacking the White Robes to snatch their Wizard Embryo Fragments. However, stealing and fusing with someone else's Wizard Embryo Fragment here is just like eating meat and drinking blood—it turns a person into a monster."
Because the black-robed priests were too aggressive, the Black Robes who entered the Recycling Station ended up dying the most.
For Lang Jiao, an 8th Tier Black Robe, to have survived until now and even become the leading priest of a camp, sitting in the same conference room with the white-robed priest camps, showed that the man was not only extremely cautious but also highly self-disciplined.
Black-robed priests mostly operated on the philosophy of indulging their desires, so for an anomaly like Lang Jiao to emerge was certainly no easy feat.
While Li Ban and Zhu Yao were talking, Priest Lang Jiao had already easily rebuffed a few of the vocal dissenters, finally stating his proposal in full.
"The candidates I'm requesting for the assault team are very powerful, and they won't need Priest Ban and the others to look after them. If necessary, Priest Ban is perfectly free to use them as cannon fodder. Their life or death doesn't matter, and I guarantee they'll be obedient."
Priest Hao Ze spoke up again. "You're not talking about those monsters you've been secretly creating, are you?"
"No." Lang Jiao calmly uttered words that nearly made the other priests jump. "They are the new type of monsters we sneaked off to the continent's border to create after you stopped us. They've already been put into actual combat, and they are exceptionally useful."
Right at that moment, the Director's voice rang out again.
"I need to inspect their combat power and controllability."
Their combat power was beyond doubt; anything too weak wouldn't be able to keep up with the priests at all.
But subordinates with poor controllability could become an even bigger headache than the enemy.
Across the room, Priest Li He finally spoke. "Director, can even monsters join the ranks of the priests?"
The Director's voice emerged from Allen's chest, as calm as ever. "They are unknown entities; therefore, they need to be inspected and recorded."
"It seems the Director is just like me, not simply defining them as monsters. Ah, you people. You've lived in the Recycling Station for so long, yet why do you still insist on blindly categorizing species? Are there no monsters that can be put to use?" Lang Jiao laughed dismissively, his tone laced with teasing and mockery.
Beside them, the leader of Qingwan Camp said darkly, "If the artificial monsters you cooked up last time hadn't nearly wiped out an entire camp, I'd still be willing to give you a chance to introduce them."
He wanted absolutely nothing to do with this sort of person—someone who used the lives of other camps for experimental research and then sugarcoated it as "innovation." He only wanted to bury this bunch of creators and all their ideas deep in the muck of the Recycling Station!
"Unfortunately, this isn't your Qingwan Camp, and you don't get the final say." Lang Jiao shifted his gaze to the other camp leaders. "What about the rest of you? If you don't want to listen, I can present them to the Director privately."