It would not just be Master Yun Chi and his party traveling to Sandstorm Abyss alongside them. Master Ruo Chong would be coming with them as well. Wu Jian learned the evening before they left that she had arrived before they had. Since they had both requested a guide from the Mercenary King, he had decided they would travel together because there was safety in numbers.
That did not mean they would travel together once they reached the legacy tomb. According to the report, there was only one of Medusa’s Tears. Since they were both traveling to the legacy tomb for that, it meant they were in competition with each other. Both alchemy masters had only agreed to travel together until they reached the legacy tomb, and then they would split up.
Shā Shing Yue and the group she was leading would not be traveling inside. Their only task was to ensure they safely reached the legacy tomb.
Wu Jian soon learned that the antagonism between Master Yun Chi and Master Ruo Chong ran far deeper than he could ever imagine. From the very moment they began traveling as a group, the two had taken to insulting each other. It was all very polite, meant to sound like compliments, and yet the derision dripping from their voice could have drown a dragon in hatred.
He remembered during the alchemy tournament in the former Zhou Kingdom, someone had said that Master Yun Chi had confessed his love for Master Ruo Chong, but she had turned him down and that was how their antagonistic relationship began. He wasn’t sure he believed that. It was true that some men could become incredibly hateful when a woman rejected them, but Master Yun Chi didn’t strike him as the type. There did not appear to be a romantic bone in that man’s body. He was too in love with his alchemy to care about a woman.
He eventually became curious enough to ask Lili Ling one evening during their watch shift.
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask Zhou Lihua,” she said.
He shrugged. “I completely forgot about it until just yesterday.”
“Fair enough.” Lili Ling stared into the crackling ember flames as though recalling the past. “This is just secondhand knowledge, mind, so I don’t know how accurate it is, but several centuries ago, Ruo Chong had been just a Rhenium Alchemist--and not a very successful one at that. She had coasted along on her good looks, sleeping with men in exchange for favors.”
Lili Ling wrinkled her nose in disgust. One’s purity and chastity were important in their society. It was believed by many that maintaining a chaste and pure lifestyle helped cultivators achieve greater mental clarity, focus, and inner peace, which were essential for mastering advanced cultivation techniques and insides. Romantic entangles and worldly desires were distractions that diverted a cultivator’s attention from their cultivation path. Cultivators could better resist temptation and maintain their focus on spiritual growth and enlightenment by maintaining their chastity.
At least, that was the excuse society gave.
The true reason was because of men and women’s yin or yang essence.
Virgins, be they men or women, were a highly sought after commodity in the cultivation world due to their pure yin or yang essence. It was something they could only give away once and so cultivation families carefully fostered the idea that purity was important, all the while choosing a suitable bride or groom for their child. This was done to form long-lasting alliances with other families. However, it was also done to increase their family member’s cultivation. Wu Jian still remembered how his cultivation had risen after he slept with Hou Jingshu.
“Distasteful as that might sound, I doubt that’s why Master Yun Chi hates her,” he said.
“You’d be right in assuming that,” Lili Ling said as Wu Jian grabbed a stick and threw it into the fire. “It happened during an event called the One Hundred Year Lotus Blooming Festival. It’s not actually a festival, mind. There is a field of flowers located on an island in the Southern Vermillion Inlet. Every one hundred years, these flowers bloom, and among them is a flower known as the Azure Lotus. It is an extremely rare treasure that only blooms once every five thousand years.”
“… I think I see where this is going,” Wu Jian said at last.
Lili Ling smiled. “You really are smart.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. Master Ruo Chong had seduced all of the male alchemists and his own bodyguards and used them to obstruct Master Yun Chi in his quest to acquire the Azure Lotus. While he might have been a powerful alchemist, he was not the best fighter. He had managed to survive and flee with his life, but that was it. Master Ruo Chong had acquired the Azure Lotus and used it to create a pill that supposedly helped her reach the same heights as Master Yun Chi himself.
The story itself was interesting, and a bit more plausible, given what he knew of the two alchemists in question. He glanced at the tent where Master Ruo Chong was staying. She had taken a man into that tent--one of the more handsome men that belonged to Shā Shing Yue’s group. Not a sound had emerged from the tent, but he didn’t doubt she was banging his brains out. There were barriers that could prevent sound from escaping a specified area.
“I can see why Master Yun Chi hates her then… if all that’s true,” Wu Jian confessed.
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“I’m pretty sure it is,” Lili Ling said. “One of the men who had been seduced by Ruo Chong lives in the Southern Tang Dynasty.” She paused. “Well, I say he lives there, but it’s more like he’s been imprisoned for life. He was Master’s former apprentice back then and the first one Ruo Chong seduced.”
“Hmmm. Well, I think your story is more believable than the one that said he hates her because she spurned his love,” Wu Jian admitted.
Lili Ling smiled. “That doesn’t sound like Master at all. He doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body.”
“Very true.”
It wasn’t long before Shā Shing Yue and Tang Tiantian replaced them. Wu Jian went to bed, his curiosity fully satisfied.
***
The Sandstorm Abyss was called such because it was surrounded by a massive sandstorm that seemed to reach up to the heavens. Gale winds swirled around and around. It looked like a gigantic tornado. The winds picked up sand and debris, which swirled around, turning the once powerful winds into fierce eroding winds. That was the reason cultivators below a certain level couldn’t enter. Supposedly, anyone below the Seeker Realm would be torn apart by the sand-swept winds.
“So that’s the Sandstorm Abyss,” Tang Tiantian let loose a low whistle. She then glanced around. “Looks like we’re not the only ones entering.”
Wu Jian also glanced at the other people present. There were several groups who had gathered in this location. A few of them had set up tents, but most of them were meditating. He wondered what they were doing. Why were they meditating in front of this massive sandstorm? While he was curious, he wasn’t curious enough to ask about it.
He glanced back at the sandstorm.
“I’m surprised you were able to make it past that tornado,” Wu Jian said.
Shā Shing Yue shrugged. “I have my methods. Follow me. We will be entering the Sandstorm Abyss now. I suggest you all activate a shield or create some kind of protection for yourselves. It won’t be pretty if you don’t.”
Everyone else seemed to have some planned method of protecting themselves. Tang Tiantian activated a bracelet that caused her body to glow brightly, Shā Shing Yue created armor made of blood, and Lili Ling and Ruo Chong’s apprentice swallowed a pill that caused their skin to look like stone.
“Ling’er, after all this is over, why don’t you come back with me? We can learn alchemy together,” Wei Xiao suggested.
“I’m not interested,” Lili Ling said bluntly. The young man opened his mouth to talk again, but she apparently had no desire to talk back. She turned to Wu Jian. “Are you not going to activate a barrier to get past the sandstorm? Do you need a pill? I have a few…”
Wu Jian shook his masked face. “Thank you, but there’s no need. You might have forgotten, but I can manipulate space. Getting past that sandstorm will be easy.”
“I’d love to know where that confidence comes from, but I’ll take your word for it.”
Wu Jian said nothing and instead turned to look at the sandstorm once more. Out of curiosity, he summoned some profound spirit armor that he had no use for. It was something he had gotten during his first auction with Shuchang. He chucked it at the sandstorm and watched in astonishment as the winds swept it up and eroded it so quickly that it looked like the armor had simply disintegrated.
“Is everyone ready? All right! Let’s go!”
Shā Shing Yue led the way, everyone following her.
“Will you be all right traveling through that sandstorm at your advanced age?” Master Ruo Chong asked Master Yun Chi with fake concern. The mocking tone in her voice was so obvious even an ignorant child would have realized she was being mean.
“I will be fine. You should worry more about yourself. I fear you spend so much time sleeping around and not enough time cultivating that you might find it difficult to make it past the sandstorm,” Master Yun Chi rebutted.
Wu Jian shook his head. Even as they walked toward their destination, they still found the time and inclination to argue. Their hatred ran deep indeed.
They soon reached the sandstorm, and Wu Jian realized the winds truly were incredible. He didn’t know how fast they were going, but the swirling gale had created a suction force that attempted to pull him and everyone else into the sandstorm. Now he understood why those people were meditating. They were building their strength to get through this.
Shā Shing Yue was the first to enter. She walked through the sandstorm, her blood armor eroding away, though it quickly formed again. So that was how she got past. Her body wasn’t strong enough to withstand the winds, but if she just kept regenerating her blood armor, she could make it through easily.
The others followed her. Wu Jian walked alongside Lili Ling and Tang Tiantian. He activated [Nihility] just before entering. It had been a long while since he had used this technique, but it worked the same as it ever had. All of the sand particles past right through him. He didn’t even feel the winds anymore since he wasn’t in this space but one next to it.
He emerged from the other side along with the others.
Spread out before them was a vast expanse of dunes with small pockets of miniature sandstorms much like the one surrounding this space. The towering dunes of sand created a labyrinthine landscape that would be easy to get lost in. Dotting this landscape were ruins, remnants of a bygone era. Many of them had probably been picked clean already.
“We will need to be careful going forward,” Shā Shing Yue warned them. “This place is home to many monsters, and all of them are at the Seeker Realm or stronger. We won’t be flying either. The sand wyverns who make the skies their home are near impossible to beat. I’d much rather deal with the creatures on the ground.”
“You are the one who knows best, so we will follow your lead,” Master Yun Chi said.
Shā Shing Yue nodded before leading everything through the desert. They did not traverse over the dunes but traveled between them. He found out why eventually when he spotted several cultivators flying through the air. An entire flock of massive creatures with dragon-like features and powerful wings swooped in and attacked them. Despite all of them being at least Seeker Realm cultivators, not a single one survived. The dragons devoured them like they were a light snack.
Of course, traveling over the ground was also quite dangerous, as they soon found out when an enormous scorpion erupted from the ground. It had a massive armored exoskeleton and deadly stingers. He had seen something similar in the White Tiger Sect Ruins, but it had not been this big, nor this powerful. He couldn’t even sense its cultivation. That alone let him know this creature was at least at the Seeker Realm.
Truly, the Sandstorm Abyss was a deadly place.