“Hey! Tell me! Are there Immortals in the desert? How is that possible? How do they have Qi?” Alex asked, shouting for them to turn around and answer, but the chief kept on going.
The daughter turned once with a curious look, but she too turned around and walked away.
At that point, Alex was left with the half a dozen people that did nothing in the slightest to interact with him even when he called for them. It was as if they were not allowed to talk to him.
Alex sighed and sat back on the bed, his mind full of countless new thoughts. Words like Extolite, Elixir, and Insiders kept roaming through his mind.
Extolite sounded like a title or a rank, while Insiders were surely people from the inner region of the desert.
As for Elixir, he didn’t even know where he could begin with that. What sort of liquid was there in the other worlds that could be produced here and would be beneficial for everyone?
‘Something to do with pastes maybe?’ Alex wondered. It could be the juices of pastes. Although he did wonder how they could get herbs this deep in the desert.
The effects of the elixir eluded him. There were too many possibilities, so unless someone told him, he would likely not know.
‘How is there Qi in the desert?’ Alex thought. ‘Is there a spatial pocket where the Intent of this world doesn’t destroy everything above True Qi? How could it evade it?
How could there be actual Immortals in the desert?
Alex racked his brain, but could come up with no answer. He needed some sort of distractions at that point or he would not be able to think of anything else. Since he had nothing else with him, he decided to train his Intent.
And the room he was in was a perfect place.
Alex walked around the room, fighting against the forces of whatever formation was keeping up this incorporeal barrier. After some time, when he was tired, he sat back down to rest.
As a cultivator, he was used to doing nothing, so he easily waited until he had recovered enough to continue.
Alex could’ve fought the Storm God’s seals, but he didn’t want to fully lose consciousness while he was in there. The constant mild pain he felt even at the center of the formation meant that it would continuously attack him even after he was knocked out.
At that point, not only would he not know what was happening outside, but also recovery would be far more difficult.
Alex did the same thing twice more, and lay back on his bed. He stayed there with his eyes closed until he recovered again.
When he woke up to try again, Alex saw that the sky had begun to grow brighter again as dawn approached. He knew he was in a somewhat depressed land, but it was never more clear until he saw the silhouette that covered the brightening sky.
There was perhaps ten meters of height difference between where he was and where the closest house was.
Alex raised an eyebrow in surprise when he saw the pillars surrounding the houses. At least, he had thought it was pillars, but to his surprise, he could see leaves at the very top of the trees, fanning out in thin branches.
‘Palm trees?’ Alex thought in surprise. ‘In the desert?’
They were supposed to grow near beaches, weren’t they?
‘Am I close to the ocean?’ he thought, but the wind carried no scent of salt that he could discern, nor could he hear the waves in the distance.
As the day approached, Alex was most definitely sure that those were palm trees.
A thought came to Alex. ‘Ocean in a location this deserted sounds impossible,’ he thought.
‘But it could be an oasis.’
* * * * * *
The Palm Haven oasis lay in a region of the desert where the land sank nearly 30 meters deep compared to every other region, allowing for water from the aquifer below to spill out, filling the region.
It was long and narrow, bulging only toward the middle toward the east.
The oasis itself was about 5 meters deep at the deepest region, 200 meters wide on average, but up to 600 meters wide at the widest region, and over a kilometer long.
Surrounding the oasis were green wildlife, with verdant plant life taking over most of the region. Many people and tribes had tried to make this region their home throughout history.
There was even half a record of a conquering army that tried to unify the desert, making this place their base of operation in this region.
However, after a long history, while many things changed, the oasis remained. And now, 5 tribes lived around the oasis, with great rivalry, but none daring enough to claim the oasis as their own.
The oasis lay from northeast to southwest. On the eastern side, the Grayhounds lived in the north, the Stoneclaws in the middle, and the Sunwardens at the south.
On the western side, the Skullheads lived in the north and the Sandkillers lived to the south.
While the tribes lived separately, there were many others that did not belong to the tribes that also lived around the oasis, forming a massive city simply known by the oasis’ name, Palm Haven.
Because of the oasis, Palm Haven was a spot for travelers and merchants that roamed the desert to come and stay, so it was a trade hub for the majority of the cities outside of the inner regions of the desert.
That made it one of the more important cities in that region, and thus the 5 tribes were one of the more important ones as well.
In the southern region of the oasis, on the eastern side, the chief of the Sunwarden tribe woke up next to his wife after a long and filling sleep, and decided to head over to the outer regions of his tribe once again.
Surely, he hoped, the prisoner would have come to his senses by now.