997 Scarlet

Alex kept staring at the hazy image of the Central continent in the distance and wondered if he should try and go there.

It seemed close enough that he could reach it if he just flew for 2 or 3 hours.

But he hadn't lost enough of his rational mind to understand that whatever he was thinking was simply undoable. Ignoring the practicality of flying through the entire ocean, not getting caught off by the beasts that roamed in it, there was simply no way for him to get into the continent.

The Qi barrier that tore up everything was simply impossible to get by. He could maybe teleport in, but then how thick was the Qi wall? Given that it was a continent, it had to be massive right?

He subconsciously remembered the howling wind that put him to sleep every night as a kid and shuddered. He had never thought that it would be that destructive Qi that was doing it all.

"I can't go in just yet. Not only do I not have the strength or ability to bypass that wall, but I also don't even have the Qi to fly close to it. I will have to think of another way to get in there and get close to Pearl," he thought as he flew back down to the edge of the crater.

There was absolutely no Qi in the environment for him to gather from, and no spirit stones in his storage ring for him to use either.

"Isn't only some part of the Southern Continent supposed to be without Qi? There's an entire section of the continent where you can freely use Qi right?" he thought. If that was the case, then that was where he was going to go.

"Since that way is north, I will most likely have to go south to get to that place," he said to himself. "But first…"

He turned towards the tiny Vermilion bird. "So, little phoenix, how did you end up in this place? Did you run away from your family?" he asked.

The bird screeched, but there was no answer he could formulate from it. "I don't know much about Vermilion birds, so you might actually be a variant of it, and not actually a Vermilion bird, but still, seeing your intelligence, I can say without a doubt that you have a tremendous amount of bloodline," he said.

"You are most likely just like Pearl. He wasn't as intelligent as you when he was just a child, but then he was also an infant back then," he said. "Speaking of which, how old are you exactly?"

The bird gave a tilted glance as she thought for a while and replied something. She didn't know.

"Sigh, and what about your parents? Where are they? Certainly, they didn't just lay an egg and leave right?" he asked.

The bird screeched angrily as she didn't know the answer to any of the questions he was asking.

"Okay, okay, I get it. But one last question," he said. "Do you have a name?"

The bird shook her head.

"Seriously? You can't go around without a name. You need one," Alex said. "Let me think of a good one."

Alex rubbed his chin in a thinking gesture, and the bird followed him as she too used her wing feathers to rub her chin in a similar way too.

"What? Do you want to be called Mirror?" he asked. The bird screeched angrily.

"Haha, that was a joke. Wait, let me actually come up with serious answers," Alex said as he gave the names some more thought.

"Red Feathers? Tiny Phoenix? How about Crimson Death? Wait no, I have a really good one. How about Lord Fi—"

The bird screeched in anger as none of the names were good in her thought.

"Not even Lord Fire? I thought that was a good one," Alex said. He gave some more thought and said, "Okay, how about just Scarlet?"

The bird was about to get angry, but she stopped when she gave it some thought.

"Scarlet, it's good, right? It's a feminine name, but at the same time, it sounds dangerous. Like something you should stay away from in all cases. Scarlet. What do you think?" he asked.

The bird nodded, finally accepting the name that Alex had come up with.

"Good, then from today on, I shall call you Scarlet," he said.

Scarlet screeched in happiness at finding her new name.

"Come," Alex said as he beckoned her to climb on his hand. Scarlet was apprehensive for a moment before climbing onto it.

Alex then brought his hand next to his shoulder and had her step on it. Once Scarlet was firmly perched on his shoulder, he finally decided to get away from this burning crater.

"To the south it is," he said as he finally walked out of the crater. He sent out his spiritual sense everywhere around him, but it seemed pointless as there was nothing but sand dunes all around him.

He shook his head and took back his senses to keep it just around him.

As he walked away, he didn't notice it at all, but the fire that had been burning in the crater slowly got smaller and smaller as he got away.

After some distance, the fire in the crater was completely extinguished, never to burn there again.

Alex continued forward as he felt the atmosphere. He didn't really have to feel it as his eyes were capable of seeing Qi now.

He remembered seeing the multicolor spectrum that was the Qi wall that blocked the Central continent.

In contrast to that, there was no color in the atmosphere in this place. "It's truly devoid of all Qi," he thought. He couldn't help but wonder why that was.

The situation was clearly not like the Forbidden Fields where his body was heavily suppressed, making it impossible to use Qi or spiritual sense.

He could freely use his Qi and spiritual sense. If used up, his spiritual sense would recover quite quickly as well. However, due to the lack of Qi, he couldn't do the same for his cultivation as well.

"Still, why isn't there any Qi here?" he wondered. He thought about the Central continent's lack of Qi being a cause for a moment, but that thought seemed wrong.

He could understand if Qi was constantly being dragged towards the vortex of Qi in the Central Continent, but that was not the case. Or else he would have seen faint lines of color in the atmosphere.

Aside from that, he wondered if it was some formation that was making Qi unable to enter this region. He didn't think it was someone's doing, but rather a natural formation that formed from the ever-changing desert.

There was one other possibility here that he simply couldn't ignore. And that was the possibility that it was the doing of someone with a higher power, most likely an immortal.

"Your ancestor might be why I have to walk in these shifting sands instead of fly directly across it," he said to Scarlet, who showed no reaction.

That was only funnier for him. He shook his head. "Let's just continue walking for now. I need to quickly find a set of clothes for myself."