Li Zhai's face darkened.
This was a painful subject for him, yet the other man brought it up effortlessly.
"So back then... the Realm Emperor adopted us princes and princesses purely to cultivate Wizard Embryo Fragments?"
"Of course. You lot were not easy to find."
Li Zhai took a deep breath. No longer dwelling on his origins, he turned to the matter at hand.
"If I want to find someone to help me cultivate a Wizard Embryo Fragment, what are the requirements?"
Xiao Suo did not answer immediately. He cast a sideways glance at Li Zhai. "Are you trying to fish for information right now?"
Li Zhai showed no fear. After all, having spent over half a year as the crown prince, he had long since learned to remain composed and keep his emotions hidden.
"Since I am risking my life to work with you, I naturally need to know the terms of our cooperation, and how to avoid repeating my Imperial Father's mistakes."
Xiao Suo caught the slip, though he did not point it out. He simply mused that Li Zhai was clearly not as ruthless as the previous Realm Emperor. Even after enduring a life-and-death ordeal, he still clung to old sentiments.
Then again, the White Robes might prefer someone like him.
He only wondered how spectacular their expressions would be once they discovered that Li Zhai had made the exact same choice to betray them.
Finding this amusing, Xiao Suo stopped holding back. He casually crossed his legs. "If you want to find a wizard embryo seed suitable for yourself, it is best to groom them from childhood. Have them fuse with elements that match your own affinity, using those elements to reshape their bodies."
"If you stumble across someone whose affinity already matches yours in your daily life, you can slowly train and groom them as well. Give them new elements or alter their existing ones until they reach the 8th Tier. When the time comes, the closer they are to you, the less resistance they will put up when you finally transplant the Wizard Embryo Fragment. That naturally increases the chances of success."
"The previous Realm Emperor actually did a decent job. It is just a pity that neither the second prince nor you managed to produce a fragment."
"Then again, if Wizard Embryo Fragments were that easy to create, the White Robes would not have gotten so worked up over finding a gray robe who possessed one."
Li Zhai's eyes darkened at the thought that all of his Imperial Father's care and affection had been nothing more than a ploy to increase the success rate of a Wizard Embryo Fragment transplant.
He took a deep breath. Knowing that Xiao Suo was watching his reaction, he abruptly changed the subject to avoid making a fool of himself.
"Can't you black-robed priests directly seize Wizard Embryo Fragments from others? Why can't you just snatch one for me?"
"Because you are useless, of course." Xiao Suo had no intention of coddling the so-called crown prince.
Li Zhai clenched his fists. He was just about to flare up in anger when he heard Xiao Suo smile and add, "However, I happen to enjoy making use of trash—"
"What a coincidence. So do I."
A familiar voice suddenly cut into their conversation.
Xiao Suo's smile vanished. His expression hardened as he immediately looked toward the source of the voice.
Confident in his overwhelming strength, however, he remained seated in his chair, making no move to stand.
On the bed, the fake Li Zhai—who had just been slumped over in terror—suddenly sat up straight.
Meeting Xiao Suo's gaze, he unhurriedly peeled the human-skin mask from his face.
"Li... Ban?" Xiao Suo narrowed his eyes slightly.
If there was a single low-ranking priest worth his attention, it was absolutely Li Ban.
Back in the Imperial Palace, when Li Ban was nothing more than a Spirit Awakening Priest, he had dared to team up with Zhu Yao and the others to set a trap, using himself as bait.
Later, when another Xiao Suo took Du An to ambush the Unreturning Place, he had been perfectly confident in making a clean getaway. Instead, he unexpectedly perished, and even the current Xiao Suo had no idea what had actually transpired.
These repeated disruptions to his plans had sparked Xiao Suo's interest in Li Ban—the most unfamiliar factor in all this—along with a trace of wariness.
As Li Ban watched the shift in Xiao Suo's expression, a slow smile curved the corners of his mouth.
This Xiao Suo had no idea that Li Ban had already absorbed two of Xiao Suo's Wizard Embryo Fragments!
Li Ban had chosen not to launch a sneak attack, deliberately revealing his true appearance just to see how Xiao Suo would react.
The man was a little surprised and slightly guarded, but he was still confident enough in his own strength to remain seated without moving a muscle.
That confirmed it for Li Ban: this Xiao Suo did not know about the Recycling Station either.
That meant the flow of information between the various Xiao Suos was not instantaneous.
They might communicate through the Self-Seeking Mirror or some other method, but it required a certain amount of time and means.
In other words, if he took down this Xiao Suo today, the other Xiao Suos would have no idea what had happened to him.
Unaware of Li Ban's thoughts, Xiao Suo shifted his gaze between Li Ban and Li Zhai.
"It seems all those questions Li Zhai was asking me were just a way to stall for time," he remarked.
He said this first to Li Zhai.
"Very well. You have lost your last chance to become a priest."
Showing no signs of panic, Xiao Suo even smiled at Li Zhai.
Li Zhai maintained a neutral expression, but his fists were clenched so tightly that his fingernails dug painfully into his palms.
If Li Ban had not discovered his connection with Xiao Suo, Li Zhai genuinely did not know whether he might have eventually chosen to cooperate with Xiao Suo for one reason or another.
Now, hearing that he would never again have the chance to become a priest, his sense of loss and regret was entirely real.
At that moment, Li Ban strolled leisurely to Li Zhai's side. "If you had chosen Xiao Suo, you would have only ended up dead anyway."
Li Ban knew exactly how Li Zhai had met his end in the previous timeline.
Xiao Suo was merely casting a wide net, grooming seeds for black-robed priests everywhere he went. He did not actually care about the success rate of any individual seed.
Furthermore, Li Zhai was far too obvious a target. One could talk about hiding in the shadow of a lamp all they wanted, but the lamp itself was still conspicuous.
Xiao Suo slowly stood up, making a show of dusting off nonexistent dirt from his robes.
"Li Ban, you have only just become a priest and yet you are already at the 6th Tier. It seems you encountered some decent fortune after falling into the Unreturning Place. However, since you are confronting me directly right now, I imagine you have already arranged for backup to hide in the shadows, just like last time?"
The corners of Xiao Suo's mouth suddenly stretched upward at an eerie, exaggerated angle, forming an unsettling smile.
"Let's see if I can escape this time."
The moment the words left his lips, Xiao Suo vanished.
Li Ban threw up a hand to shield Li Zhai, and a beam of starlight instantly fell over them both.
At the exact same time, every object inside the bedchamber began to emit a luminescent glow.
Seeing this, Li Zhai finally let out a breath of relief.
When he used the brown bead to contact Xiao Suo, the priests had worried that setting up an ambush beforehand would alert Xiao Suo. They could only move in to encircle the area afterward.
His immediate questions about how to transplant a Wizard Embryo Fragment served two purposes: first, he genuinely wanted to know, and second, he needed to stall for time.
Fortunately, the priests were better prepared this time, and Li Ban was personally standing guard beside him.
Though in truth, Li Ban was more likely there to monitor him.
While Li Zhai relaxed slightly, Li Ban remained on high alert.
Xiao Suo's sudden disappearance meant he could be finding a way to escape, or it could mean—
Li Ban threw up his arm, violently blocking an arm that materialized out of thin air.
The skin on that arm looked like tree bark—rough, cracked, and a blood-red hue.
It struck a palm at Li Ban, but its force was severely weakened by the luminescent glow and the starlight enveloping him.
Li Ban felt a massive jolt run through his arm. He was nearly sent flying, but he managed to endure it in the end.
The two consecutive layers of protection had not been cast in vain.
After clashing once with Li Ban, the arm that had appeared out of thin air did not immediately retreat. Instead, it tried to bypass Li Ban to attack Li Zhai behind him.
However, Li Zhai was still an 8th Tier spirit practitioner. While he did not know as many spells as a priest, his own elements were immensely strong.
Frowning at the monster's bark-like arm, he immediately used his element to extract the moisture from it.
Unable to locate the creature's heart, he had no choice but to target the relatively unimportant blood vessels in the arm first.
However, Li Zhai's elemental ability only caused the arm to pause for a moment; it did not truly stop the attack.
At the final moment, Li Ban's figure flashed, once again blocking the path in front of Li Zhai.
"This is not Xiao Suo's arm," Li Ban said. "He seems to be using some sort of spatial spell as well. The speed of his casting is incredibly fast."
Time and again, Li Ban stepped in front of Li Zhai, preventing the monstrous arm from touching him.
When he accepted the task to lure out Xiao Suo, Li Zhai had fully expected to be abandoned as cannon fodder due to his prior wavering. He had not expected Li Ban to fiercely protect him at every turn.
For a moment, he was genuinely touched.
Just as the stalemate dragged on, a tremendous boom echoed from above the palace.
A string of explosions followed, shaking the earth and sending a cascade of dust down from the roof ridge.
Grabbing Li Zhai by the arm, Li Ban instantly teleported to the roof.
The Glazed Tiles adorning the outside of the crown prince's bedchamber were also radiating a white light.
But the white light did not stop at the entire palace. It formed a massive dome—like an enormous glazed bowl—that completely engulfed the entire crown prince's estate, bedchamber included.
And Priest Qian Que, who had been hiding in the shadows all this time, finally revealed himself.
He was locked in a fierce battle with Xiao Suo, who had somehow made his way into midair.
Lightning and flames flowed between the two of them, and immense energy violently clashed and detonated in midair every so often.
It looked as though they were putting on a special Signal Flare exhibition in midair.
"It seems that earlier attack was a feint as well. He was preparing to escape from the very beginning."
Having regained the "right eye" element, Li Ban's vision was exceptional. He had long since noticed the grim expression on the phantom figure belonging to Xiao Suo in midair.
Since this Xiao Suo did not know about Li Ban's encounter with his other self in the Recycling Station, he naturally had no idea that Li Ban already knew his various abilities like the back of his hand.
Thanks to Li Ban's prior warning, Priest Qian Que was absolutely not treating him like a Seventh Tier Black Robe.
This fellow relied on a certain ability to tamper with people's perception of him, so almost none of the white-robed priests knew that he was not at the Seventh Tier, but was actually at the 8th Tier.
To prevent Xiao Suo from using various methods to escape again, Priest Qian Que had long since teamed up with Priest Chu Zhan to deploy a maximum-strength confinement spell.
It was also to prepare this powerful, large-scale spell that Li Zhai had needed to converse with Xiao Suo to stall for time.
While Li Ban stood calmly on the roof observing the battle between the two 8th Tier priests, Li Zhai beside him was completely unable to track the fight overhead. He said to Li Ban, "Priest Ban, do not worry about me. Go help the Lord Priest up there. This is a rare opportunity—we must eliminate Xiao Suo!"
Li Zhai knew perfectly well that Xiao Suo would not give him a second chance to cooperate.
If the man escaped this time, the next time he appeared, he would definitely kill Li Zhai.
Since he had completely offended the black-robed priest, he had to tear the problem up by its roots.
He did not understand why Li Ban was still guarding him at such a tense moment.
Clearly another powerful priest was already battling Xiao Suo, so it was impossible for Xiao Suo to still have the energy to deal with him right now.
Li Ban shook his head, utterly composed. "There is no one else left here now. Aside from Priest Qian Que, there is only you and me."
Li Zhai did not quite understand the meaning of Li Ban's words.
He looked around, only just realizing that the maids and guards who had been driven out of the bedchamber earlier were all gone.
Inside the glowing white protective dome, only the three of them and Xiao Suo were actually left.
"Does Xiao Suo have some sort of ability to escape through other people?"
"That is my guess." Li Ban affirmed Li Zhai's observation.
No matter how powerful Xiao Suo was, it was impossible for him to die and be resurrected out of nowhere.
Furthermore, given the delayed flow of information between his various clones, one could deduce that if the other Xiao Suos eventually learned the exact details of one clone's death, it must be because the dying clone had split itself right before the fatal blow, leaving behind a microscopic clone that possessed its memories.
It was just like the flesh and blood Ming Kai had left on Li Ban's clothes after he exploded. A miniscule Wizard Embryo Fragment could be hidden within to evade the priests' detection, only to reconstruct its body and be reborn once everyone had left.
Therefore, the only way to capture a Xiao Suo clone was to clear the area, leaving his fragments with nowhere to run!
The powerful 8th Tier Priest Qian Que was responsible for dropping the cage and clearing the area.
And Li Ban was the detector meant to track down Xiao Suo's clone.
The only "ordinary person" left here was Li Zhai, making him the best target for Xiao Suo to hide in.
Thus, no matter what the battle situation was above, Li Ban would not step half a pace away from Li Zhai.
There was another earth-shattering tremor. The glowing white protective dome shuddered, looking as if it might collapse at any moment.
In the air, Priest Qian Que, who had been constantly pursuing Xiao Suo, suddenly halted. With a single-handed swipe to the left, he brought two fingers together and pointed into the empty void.
That seemingly empty void suddenly rippled like water. Immediately after, Xiao Suo's distant figure disappeared, unexpectedly materializing right at Priest Qian Que's fingertips in the next second.
Furthermore, Priest Qian Que's fingers plunged directly into his chest.
Ice crystals radiated outward from Priest Qian Que's fingers, completely freezing Xiao Suo solid in the blink of an eye.
However, just as Priest Qian Que cast a new spell to completely seal Xiao Suo's body, countless fissures spiderwebbed across the frozen figure.
With a bang, the body exploded.
Countless ice crystals danced wildly in the air.
In the past, the white-robed priests might have assumed Xiao Suo was killed.
This time, however, Priest Qian Que abruptly pulled his hands back, palms facing each other. A dark, near-black purple sphere appeared in front of him.
He threw his hands wide, and the sphere rapidly expanded to a zhang in size.
In the next second, a massive gravitational pull erupted from the center of the sphere.
Li Zhai's body was sent flying upward in an instant, and in the end, it was Li Ban who grabbed his arm.
Even then, both of their bodies were subjected to the immense suction, almost immediately drawn toward the center of the massive sphere in the sky.
At this moment, starlight flared across Li Ban's body once more. Incredibly, it managed to faintly resist Priest Qian Que's spell, steadying their bodies.
Nearly all of the shattered ice crystals in the sky were sucked back into the center of the sphere by the immense gravitational pull.
Yet, in an unnoticed corner, a nearly transparent ice crystal slipped into Li Ban's Starlight Domain at the final moment, escaping the suction.
Priest Qian Que acted swiftly this time. Reaching deep into the mass of condensed ice crystals, he hooked and flicked two fingers, pulling out a Wizard Embryo Fragment from within.
"Xiao Suo has been killed," Priest Qian Que declared in a deep voice.
Just as the massive, glowing white confinement spell began to flicker and fade, Li Ban abruptly shot out a hand, blocking the back of Li Zhai's neck.
He blocked a transparent ice crystal—just as it was about to sink into the back of Li Zhai's head.