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Chapter 2. Sandswept

Xian Wei peered at the ground around him, noticing the sands had shifted silently as he slept. After checking himself and his possessions, he felt that something was missing, although it wasn't a physical object. With a moment of concentration, Xian Wei was able to locate the qi in the distance, though it felt somehow different, perhaps due to his dirt nap. As he began to stand, a brief pain shot through his legs which were sore from the previous day's travel. The second most important thing to look for now would be the collapsed Sandfiend, Xian Wei struggled to find evidence the creature had even been there at all. until he crested the dune. The Sandfiend’s leg was on the ground below him, he noted the shattered joint, pieces of the creature’s reflective body littered the ground around him. The creature itself had managed to evade Xian Wei’s unconscious body and escape.

Inspecting the remaining fragments of the Sandfiend, Xian Wei plucked one of the larger shards and began examining it. Almost immediately, his fingers felt a strange burning numbness, and he was forced to drop it. After a moment's thought, the significance of the discovery dawned on him, and he vocalized his realization: "Of course, these creatures are made of ice." Xian Wei quickly gathered a few of the shards and placed them in his water skins. Shielding his eyes as he stood, he squinted against the harsh rays that beat down upon him. The heat was oppressive, the air filled with dust and sand that seemed to magnify the sun's power. He could feel the heat reaching him even through his clothes. He would need these ice shards, and he could tell that getting more would be exceedingly difficult.

He trekked on, still on the lookout for the Sea of Glass. As he moved it became apparent that today's journey would be a tiresome and unproductive experience, much like the day prior. He sighed. Xian Wei hoped, at least, that he wouldn’t be forced to encounter another dangerous predator. He trudged through the endless desert, his feet sinking into the scorching sand with each step. His pace slow and methodical, he wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up, the air clearing for a brief moment. He squinted as he surveyed the horizon. A sickly yellow color, the sky reflected the health of the land. Yet, Xian Wei noticed something in the distance, a dark fog was forming in the northern sky. He hoped it would pass, but he could feel a strange pull from the distant Qi. As if it were drawing him into the storm.

Xian Wei noticed the wind begin to pick up, it was evident, he would not survive long buried beneath the sand each night. He would need a proper covering if he wished to tread beneath the ominous cloud. Xian Wei's heart sank as he surveyed the barren landscape. He began to move in a zigzag pattern across the dunes, his eyes scanning the landscape for any sign of a cave, a crevice, anything that might offer a respite. He kept this up for several hours, the sky now a deep shade of orange, threatening to extinguish the light at any moment.

Through some sort of divine luck, Xian Wei managed to notice something through a brief gap in the sand, an irregularity among the landscape. In an instant of enlightenment, he remembered what his father had taught him about Qi circulation. Depending on where he applied internal energy, he could achieve a variety of effects. He closed his eyes and began circulating his Qi, he felt the energy flow through his body. Then, he began to direct the Qi into his eyes, visualizing it gathering in the pupils like a bright light. As the Qi settled in, Xian Wei felt a strange sensation, like a warm glow spreading through his eyes. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and the world around him seemed to shift into a sharper focus. He could see the details of the sand grains, the small pebbles on the ground, and even the subtle movements of the Sandfiends.

“Sandfiends!?” Xian Wei was shocked, almost muttering the word aloud. He could see them clearly now; the group contained four of the creatures. Where only yesterday one had appeared as a mere mirage, now with enhanced sight, he could easily distinguish them from the sand they were surrounded with. Xian Wei dropped to the ground to avoid attracting their attention as best he could. It seemed they hadn’t noticed him yet. Xian Wei considered his options. Surely the ridge beyond the fiends would offer somewhere he could spend the night. As much as he wanted to rest his body in an imaginary shelter, Xian Wei knew he had no chance should he rush the group. Instead, he chose to remain on the ground, hoping to conceal his presence in any way possible from them.

Xian Wei lay there for hours, the sun now hidden and the sky dark as night. During this time, Xian Wei decided to experiment with his new technique. He tried to extend the range of his vision, pushing the limits of his Qi. As he did so, he felt a strain in his eyes, and a throbbing pain began to build behind his forehead. Worried that he might suffer permanent damage, Xian Wei quickly withdrew his Qi, feeling a wave of relief as the pain subsided. He poured as much Qi into his eyes as he could without straining himself and began to examine the ridge behind the creatures. The ridge itself was constructed from pillars of crystalline stone that had been drawn from beneath the ground, leaving a scar upon the land, most likely from an ancient battle. As Xian Wei waited for the sandfiends to show any sign of movement, he imagined what this battle could have looked like. Two Legendary warriors fighting among the sands. Each one a master in their own right. He imagined what power would be required to create a landmark such as this. Perhaps this fight took place before the wastes had become barren. He pondered this momentarily, “No”, he thought, quickly dismissed the idea. He realized that something as small as this ridge could not have survived the desolation that left the land destroyed.

The wastes were created when the Celestial Cultivator, Zhu Lian, descended upon the land. He was well aware of the legend that a primordial evil had manifested itself within a mortal who witnessed the state of the world and wept, for it was wretched. This evil force, he had been told, ravaged the land, destroying mountains and oceans alike and eventually driving the world to its current state – barren and lifeless. The sand hitting his cheek reminded him of himself as he pondered the destructive force that had caused such devastation. As Xian Wei waited, he noticed the sandfiends beginning to move.

He stayed low and began to crawl towards the ridge. The creatures didn’t seem to notice him, in fact it almost appeared as if they were looking at something else. Xian Wei observed the group appear to motion to each other, before all four of them began to glide across the sand, chasing something it looked like. At this point Xian Wei stood up and began to dash towards the ridge. The dunes quickly catching his heavy footfalls as he ran. He knew that a single misplaced step could cost him weeks of time in terms of recovery. What he feared more was the possibility of something worse, lurking in the night. He was fortunate enough to have been buried for the first night, but he did not want to suffer a horrific death suffocating under the dunes.

As he ran, Xian Wei began to think about the application of Qi he utilized earlier. If circulating the internal energy through his eyes improved his vision, what could happen if he did the same for his feet and legs? He slowed his pace, taking deep breaths, and focused his attention on his lower body. He began to circulate his Qi through his feet and legs, visualizing the energy flowing through his veins and muscles, enhancing his physical capabilities. The sensation was electrifying, like a sudden burst of power coursing through his body. He felt lighter on his feet and the sand seemed to have less of an impact with each step. As he continued to circulate his Qi, he felt more in tune with the world around him, like he could sense the subtle shifts in the sand beneath his feet. With each passing moment, Xian Wei felt more confident in his ability to traverse the barren landscape, the strength of his internal energy flared in his legs. He ran faster and faster as the moments grew to seconds.

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Xian Wei began to refine the excess Qi in his body using the [100 Lead Arcs] technique, turning his sweat into lead, he noticed something strange. By combining natural qi circulation with a qi transmutation technique, he had discovered the effects of Qi Synergy. As Xian Wei ran across the dunes, he felt lighter and faster, as if he was flying across the sand. However, to the world around him, his body had grown incredibly heavy, leaving deep impressions in the sand with each step. This was the true power of the synergy, to make the user light as a feather, but heavy as a boulder to their surroundings. Xian Wei revelled in the feeling of speed and agility that the technique gave him, but he knew that he had to be careful not to push it too far. The strain on his body could be immense if he overdid it, and the last thing he wanted was to collapse from exhaustion in the middle of the desert. Nonetheless, he couldn't resist the urge to push himself to the limit, to see just how fast he could move with this new power at his disposal.

Where Xian Wei initially estimated the walk to the ridge taking an hour at best, he managed to reach it in minutes. Astounded by the power of this synergistic response, Xian Wei began to explore the ridge at length. Now putting a minor amount of qi, all he had available, into his eyes, he examined the area. As Xian Wei looked out at the ridge before him, he was struck by its imposing size. The pillars of stone that made up the ridge reached into the sky. The texture of the stone was jagged and rough, and it glimmered in the moonlight with a crystalline sheen. Xian Wei could see the scars of the ancient battle that had taken place here, the evidence of great explosions and cracks in the stone that seemed to reach down into the earth itself. As he examined the ridge, he noticed that there was a single opening in the stone, a dark tunnel that led deep into the ridge's interior. Shelter at last, he descended from the crystal pillar he stood atop.

He touched the entrance of the cavern, pieces of it crumbled away, hard sand which dissolved at a mere touch. He entered the threshold to the dark corridor and began to relax his qi. He maintained circulation in his eyes to continue to observe the environment. As he walked through the tunnel, the walls changed from the brittle sand at the entrance, to solid sandstone as he walked. It was completely dark now, the tiny luminous intensity offered by the moon, now insignificant to his distance into the cavern. The Qi in his eyes was the only way he could navigate in this inky blackness.

He sat, exhausted from a day of traversing and exerting his Qi. He began to take stock of his supplies: a fragment of ration cracker and two small water skins, all placed within a sack he had brought from the terrace, along with his clothes and the Jiang fused to its scabbard. He estimated that these supplies could keep him healthy for a week at most, before he would begin to succumb to starvation. He needed a source of food before that happened. He remembered the instruction given to all the children during their training: “If you can’t maintain your body, there is no hope in the wastes. Find food, and find it quickly,” the elder had said, the memory now distorted by time. “Tomorrow’s task,” he thought, as he steadily drifted off to sleep.

As his eyes sprang open, Xian Wei detected a change in the air. His sense of smell, dulled by the sand, now became acute. A putrid odor filled his nostrils, drawing him forward. The passage grew increasingly narrow, forcing him to contort his body to continue. With a steady application of Qi, he made slow but steady progress until the cave came to an abrupt end. He dropped to his knees and added a small amount of Qi to soften the impact of the ground as he crawled forward. After ten minutes of crawling, he found it: the source of the smell. What he saw was strange indeed. A corpse, still preserved within the sand. Xian Wei could tell that the soul had already departed. Whoever this person was, they had been proficient enough to perform a successful self-mummification ritual mere moments before their death.

Xian Wei examined their corpse, in the breast pocket of their rotten jacket, he found a book. A journal, written by Hojung Peng, the corpse. The book detailed his strategies for survival in the wastes, Xian Wei quickly looked for a section regarding food. The book outlined many things but he was able to find a page describing the process by which one should prepare sunscale meat. Confused, he found a section in the book that detailed of these creatures, for he had not seen them on his journey so far.

The journal described the sunscales as towering beasts covered in scales. They were massive lizards that roamed the sandy terrain. Their territory typically includes large portions of open desert where the sun shines. These creatures have the unique ability to transform heat from the sun into Qi within their bodies. They do this by using a specialized organ in their throat to process the Qi. Xian Wei read on, finding more information about the specifics of the sunscales' growth cycles. As he reached the last page, he noticed a change in writing style. The page detailed how Hojung Peng became a renowned practitioner of the Fire Spitting technique, which involved pumping ki into the throat and transforming it into fire. The page recounted how Peng discovered that consuming sunscale meat made him more proficient with fire-natured techniques. Xian Wei signed briefly, knowing that he didn't possess any fire-natured abilities and therefore the meat was safe for consumption.

Xian Wei also found an intact piece of fabric among the corpse’s possessions. It was large enough to cover him, so he decided to take it with him as an emergency measure. If he couldn’t find proper shelter for the night, he could sleep under it on the sand. He wished farewell to Hojung Peng, taking the book and the fabric along with him. He thanked the corpse as he turned in the crevice. Xian Wei made care not to rip the cloth on his way back. However the crawl infuriated him, the fabric would catch on the tiniest crack in the wall or the floor.

Over the next few days, Xian Wei made frequent use of his new fabric. He slept among the sand each night, and read the book as he traveled. On the sixth day, as he set out from his place in the dunes, he observed the once distant storm, now apparent as hundreds of thousands of deceased sandfiends. They hung from the sky effortlessly, almost as if supernaturally suspended. He presumed this was the Sea of Glass. The once distant haze in the sky, now apparent. The sea was the storm itself. He observed the cloud, now fully obscuring the sun. It enveloped the world in shadow. With his enhanced sight he viewed the storm. He could see faint wisps of energy leaving the dead, conglomerating at the peak of the storm. The wind began to pick up, a low whistling sound at first, Xian Wei likened it to the voice of spirits warning him to turn back. He did not falter and soon the voices turned to a single homogeneous roar.

The first gust of wind hit him like a physical force, nearly knocking him off his feet. Sand and dust rose in a thick cloud, obscuring his vision and filling his mouth and nose. The wind was relentless, buffeting him from all sides and whipping his clothes and hair into a frenzy. As the storm intensified, the sky was consumed by the swirling sand and dust, turning day into night. Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the darkness with a brilliant white light. Xian Wei struggled to make his way forward, the wind and sand making each step an uphill battle. The storm raged on, the wind and sand chipping away at his exposed skin, the howling of the wind almost deafening.

The wind and sand continued to pummel Xian Wei mercilessly, but he refused to give up hope. He had come too far to turn back now.