Li Ban had only visited Qiao Zhen'er to see how the woman he saved in passing was doing. He hadn't expected to get any valuable clues from her.
To his surprise, Qiao Zhen'er had actually encountered Xiao Suo and been lucky enough to survive.
She was quite a lucky woman.
After leaving the Divine Level Camp, Li Ban headed straight for the Nai River.
Now that he was a Dark Moon Priest, the disorienting influence the Nai River had on a raw soul no longer affected him.
Thus, Li Ban jumped straight into the Nai River to find himself a suitable vessel.
Whenever he entered the Wizard World through the Zhuangsheng Ring, he was always placed into a random body.
Li Ban felt that if he set the pathway in advance, he might be able to enter a vessel of his own choosing.
The water of the Nai River was freezing.
There weren't many corpses in the water, but he could make out the shadowy figures of numerous raw souls.
These raw souls could not touch one another. They overlapped at times and separated at others, inducing a chaotic haze that made one lose all sense of place and forget what night is tonight.
It felt as though if he stayed in the river for too long, he would become just as muddle-headed as those raw souls.
Fortunately, Li Ban only had to focus his mind slightly to shake off the chaotic haze.
Keeping his eyes open, he searched the Nai River and easily found an intact corpse tangled in some debris.
But he averted his gaze the moment he saw it. It couldn't be helped—it was a female corpse.
Given his current state of mind, using a female or male body wouldn't affect his self-awareness.
However, he still felt that using a body matching his own gender would allow him to act more naturally.
A short while later, Li Ban found two adult male corpses.
One looked to be eighteen or nineteen years old.
The other was at least fifty.
Li Ban compared their physical conditions and ultimately chose the older one.
A Dark Moon Priest emphasized Self-Restraint; an older person was more suitable.
Li Ban pulled the old man's corpse from the water and found a random small village near the Nai River.
This remote village had many empty, dilapidated houses.
Li Ban slipped into an isolated hut far from anyone else and lay down on a tattered straw mat.
The Silver Kingfisher flew to the roof to keep watch over his body.
Li Ban placed a sliver of his soul into the old man, and then his consciousness entered the Zhuangsheng Ring.
Through the loading process of the Experimental Capsule, he successfully bypassed other vessels and locked onto the old man beside him.
When he opened his eyes again, his consciousness had transferred into the new body.
Sitting up and seeing his own body lying beside him as if deep in slumber, Li Ban found it amusing. With a wave of his hand, he stored his original body into his Cubic Space.
Indeed, seeking out this small hut and having the Silver Kingfisher stand guard were all to prevent any mishaps during the consciousness transfer.
He certainly had no intention of casually leaving his body, which had fused so many elements, out in the wilderness.
Getting up and recalling the Silver Kingfisher, Li Ban changed into a set of hemp clothes he had prepared beforehand, then returned to the Nai River and entered the water once more.
Rather than flying over the river's surface, Li Ban chose to walk across the bottom of the Nai River.
The waters of the Nai River could wash away the aura of spiritual rhinoceros tainting this body, fully severing the connection between the corpse and his original body.
The Nai River was much narrower than the River of Forgetfulness. Li Ban walked along the riverbed for fifteen minutes before reaching the opposite bank.
But just as he was about to swim to the surface, he suddenly caught sight of his own raw soul.
When a living person entered the Nai River, their raw soul would slowly begin to drift from their body.
However, a Priest only needed to steady their mind to draw their soul back, whereas the raw souls of ordinary people would easily drift away with the current.
Li Ban hadn't been paying attention to his own raw soul. Looking up, he saw a slightly larger, translucent version of himself enveloping the old man's body.
He hastily retracted his soul.
Fortunately, as long as he didn't use spells or engage in combat, his soul wouldn't carelessly slip out again.
My soul looks just like I did in my past life, completely different from the bodies I've used since coming to the Wizard World.
Even his modified new body didn't look exactly the same as he had in his past life.
I remember back in the Nihility State, Priest Li He and Du An also entered the waters of the Nai River.
At the time, Li Ban had been far away, and even with his right eye, he could only see blurry silhouettes.
The soul on Du An's body seemed to look like Gu Yi. That's normal enough, but on that mysterious black-robed priest—
Why was there no soul?
Did I just not see it clearly, or is he capable of concealing his soul even in the midst of fierce combat?
If it was the latter, that black-robed priest was likely beyond the Solar realm.
Li Ban frowned, thinking he still needed to warn Priest Qian Que and the others to watch out for that mysterious black-robed priest.
After coming ashore, Li Ban picked a direction and headed deep into the Nihility State.
Not long after Li Ban crossed the Nai River, Priest Qian Que led seven or eight people into the Nihility State as well.
Unlike the concealed Li Ban, they made no effort to hide their tracks. Many priests from the Mist Realm and the Imperial Dynasty knew they were heading to the Nihility State, though their specific goal remained unknown.
The moment Cat Girl set foot in the Nihility State, she remembered how she had nearly died here before. While not exactly afraid, she was extremely wary of the place.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Priest Hao Ze asked.
"We received news that Black Robe Xiao Suo is hiding deep within the Nihility State. This time, we will find him and kill him once and for all," said Priest Ai Jing, who was co-leading the group alongside Priest Qian Que.
"Black Robe Xiao Suo?" Hao Ze glanced at his older brother. "If we're dealing with him, we definitely need to be as cautious as possible."
Originally, Xiao Suo wasn't the most powerful among the Black Robes, and at first, the White Robes of the three major factions hadn't paid him enough attention.
As a result, Xiao Suo kept pulling petty tricks over and over, until eventually, those tricks snowballed into a massive conspiracy that outright transformed Yun Province, one of the Ten Provinces, into the Nihility State.
From then on, even though they only knew Xiao Suo as a 7th Tier Black Robe, they still placed him at the very top of their most-wanted list.
Yet strangely enough, no matter how the White Robes schemed or ambushed him, even when they mobilized numerous Dark Moon or even Solar Priests to strike, Xiao Suo always managed to escape.
Those unaware of the truth naturally had no choice but to continuously heighten the secrecy level before every operation, lest word leak out and let Xiao Suo slip away again.
There were also those who didn't quite understand Priest Ai Jing's methods.
Priest Chu Qi, who had come along from the Unreturning Place, asked, "But with so many of us gathered together, we're making quite a commotion. Xiao Suo is extremely perceptive. Could he have already left the Nihility State?"
"He hasn't," Priest Qian Que said, pushing Cat Girl forward. "From here on, we'll follow Cat Girl's senses."
Cat Girl had only just become a Spirit Awakening Priest. Priest Qian Que had once asked if she wanted a new title.
Cat Girl thought of how Li Ban hadn't changed his name, and so she didn't want to change hers either.
Everyone's eyes fell upon Cat Girl.
"Priest Cat Girl? Can you track Xiao Suo's trail?"
Cat Girl thought of Li Ban's instructions and nodded. "While I can't pinpoint the exact location, I can pick up on a few clues."