957 Search For the Guardian of the Desert



"How am I supposed to find a sandworm hiding beneath the sand in this massive desert without any clues about its whereabouts?" Feeling a sense of helplessness wash over him as he comprehended the true difficulty of the trial ahead of him, Xuan Hao could not help looking down at the endless sea of sand beneath the sandstone tower.

Even if he ended up searching through the entire desert, he realized that he might not be able find the guardian of the desert that he was looking for, as it still had the ability to hide underground like the sandworm he had encountered not too long ago.

"Maybe I should explore the rest of the sandstone tower and see if I can find anything useful for finding the guardian of the desert…" Knowing that it would be useless for him to just stand around and lament over the difficulty of the trial, Xuan Hao placed the scroll of trials inside his interspatial ring before making his way down the small ladder next to the stone pedestal leading down into the sandstone tower.

"Looks like there won't be much to find in here…" Muttering this to himself as he made his way down the ladder, Xuan Hao could not help letting out a disappoint sigh as he saw the empty interior of the floor directly below the top of the sandstone tower. Sand all over the place and what little furniture and other things that might have been present inside the tower in the past, had long since decayed and disappeared from the world. 

If not for the fact that the ladder was made up of the same sandstone that the tower was built out of, it would most likely also have disappeared in the long passage of time. Not giving him much hope for the rest of the sandstone tower, as it seemed only the scroll of trials had somehow been able to endure the long passage of time. 

Continuing down, it did not take long to confirm this.

All things considered; the interior of the sandstone tower was not much more interesting than its worn down exterior.

However, after reaching what should have been the bottom of the empty sandstone tower, Xuan Hao discovered that it kept going down far beyond the surface of the sand. 

"Hm?"

Not only that but leaning over the side of the sandstone spiral staircase that had appeared at the bottom floor, he realized that there was a much larger structure beneath the sandstone tower, or more specifically, the sandstone tower was only a small part of this massive structure that was still sticking up above the surface of the sand. The rest had been buried beneath the sand over countless years.

Whoosh~

Feeling a cold gust of wind drifting past his face as he was leaning over the edge of the spiral staircase, Xuan Hao took a step forward and jumped off the edge of the spiral staircase-

Swoosh~

Bang~

Plummeting directly down to sandstone floor at the bottom of the spiral staircase. Not planning to go in circles for what would have been a few thousand times before finally reaching the bottom of the staircase when he could just jump over the edge skip the tedious task and prevent himself from ending up dizzy in the process.

Given that he did not spot any traps or living things with his divine sense, he did not really worry about jumping into some kind of trap.

"Indeed, this place is not as simple as I thought at first…" Getting a chance to inspect what could essentially be considered the true bottom of the sandstone tower, Xuan Hao could not help feeling a sense of surprise upon seeing the countless murals and other paintings covering the walls and ceiling of the small side hall that he found himself inside of.

The reason for the surprise was not that these murals and wall paintings had managed to survive during the long passage of time, but due to the fact that he was already familiar with many of the murals and wall paintings, or more specifically, the stories that they were presenting.

"This is the battle of the ice phoenix fighting against the combined power of the different races…" Muttering this to himself as he realized the implications of the different murals and paintings covering the small hall, Xuan Hao froze on the spot as he began to examine the different murals and paintings more carefully.

Feeling curious if there was something different about these murals and paintings compared to the ones he had seen before. However, outside of being far more detailed with more races present in the battles, it did not look that much different from the murals he had seen so far.

Although he already knew that the mystic realm should have belonged to an ancient sect called the Mirage Sect that was skilled in the art of illusions according to the information Feng Chen had found, he had no idea what kind of sect this was nor how they had suddenly disappeared from the world.

Considering that they might have allied together with the ice phoenix depicted as the enemy of everyone in the murals and painting. Maybe they were even the sect that the ice phoenix was a part of, if that was the case, it would make a bit more sense how the Mirage Sect had disappeared. 

"Why do I feel like learning more about this ice phoenix only ends up making things more confusing than before?" Muttering this to himself as he glanced up at the mural depicting the ice phoenix all by itself in the face of the countless different races, Xuan Hao felt like his head had started to hurt.

With his current limited information, it was nothing more than a pipe dream if he wanted to figure out just what these murals were depicting. Outside of what was shown.

In the end, he could only throw this to the back of his mind once again before making his way towards the large pair of doors leading out of the small hall.