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nIt was the evening of the 2nd day now, and Alex had gone through 5 more of the same sandstorms as the previous night, each one stronger than the last one.

nBy now, he had learned his lesson and would immediately cover his face with his robe and wait out the storm. Each time he did that, he would be covered in sand, followed by storm beasts coming out of the sand.

nAlex fought those beasts quite easily, but he was still wondering how they were even here at all.

nGoing in a zigzag pattern, he was barely 20 kilometers off the shore of the river and needed to go on for a lot longer. He was barely starting to feel whatever was on the other side after all.

nHe took out a yang jade from his storage bag and tried to feel it. His body barely responded enough for him to even tell he was holding the stone in his hands.

nHe kept it back in and started walking ahead to find some more. “I hope it won’t be so hard to find them or going any further would be a waste of time,” Alex thought.

nIt had already been a day and a half since he was searching for the jades, and it didn’t seem like he could make it whatever was on the other side that was calling him.

nSuddenly, Alex started feeling another set of vibrations. ‘Another storm of sands?’ he wondered and looked in the direction. But no matter where he looked, there was no storm.

n‘Where is the vibration coming from then?’ Alex wondered.

nHe walked some more and finally felt another yang jade close by, although it was very faint. Alex ran towards the location, but the stone moved as well.

nAlex got apprehensive. “A beast?” he wondered and got his guards up. The faint vibrations still kept up, so he couldn’t tell where the beast would pop out of.

nSuddenly, a giant, wide snake popped its head from underneath the sand and angrily opened its mouth to hiss at him. Alex held his sword with a strong grip and got ready.

nThe snake suddenly lunged towards him and Alex stepped aside. He suddenly got up to realize the snake had already followed up its attack using its tail.

nAlex was about to put up his hands to block but stopped mid-action. Instead, he took the attack with his chest.

nBAM

nAlex was hurled back and hit a dune of sand a few dozen meters behind him. He quickly walked out of the sand just in time to dodge another lunge from the beast.

nAlex was perfectly fine thanks to the armor he was wearing and took almost no damage.

nHe slashed his blade at the snake’s body and barely managed to make a small cut in it.

n‘That’s a strong snake. Is it close to the Meridian Tempering realm? This is going to be tough,’ Alex thought and kept fighting.

nFighting the snake was hard. Despite being so big, its head and tail were very agile and kept jumping at Alex to hit him.

nAlex on the other hand constantly tried to cut the snake, but mostly he was doing was simple cuts. “Should I take out the steel sword?” he thought for a second.

n“No, I should try that first,” he thought and jumped back. He looked for an opening and took a deep breath.

n‘KILL’

nHe suddenly jumped towards the snake’s body and slashed at it. White light appeared around his blade as he targetted the snake and Alex cleanly cut through half the snake’s body.

nThe snake hissed as loud as it could and sent its tail directly at Alex. Alex brought back his sword in time and directly slashed at the incoming tail.

nHis Sword Intent was getting way better now and he could deal a lot of damage. So, in a single slash, he cut the tail in half.

nThe snake cried out even more while Alex felt the force of the tail on his hands. The rebounded energy made his palms sting a little.

nThe snake started twisting on the sand in pain as blood spilled out of its two major wounds. Alex took the opportunity to jump at its head and pierce through its head.

nThe snake twisted around a few more times before stopping. It was dead.

nAlex took a deep breath and got a little happy when he realized that his sword intent worked in this place.

n‘So sword intent isn’t actual Qi related, huh?’ he thought. He knew this already, but he was still surprised to finally have it be proven to him.

nAlex was about to go up to the snake’s corpse when he felt even more vibrations than before. ‘Wait, so it really was not the snake’s doing?’ he thought.

nStill, he needed to get the Yang jade first so he focused on that. He looked through the snake’s corpse and finally reached a place where the yang jade could be vaguely felt.

nHe started cutting through the snake’s body and before long, he got the yang jade.

n“I got 2,” he thought with happiness. He just needed one more and he could happily go back.

nJust then, he lost his footing and nearly slipped in the sand. The vibration was very strong this time, on the level of an earthquake.

n“Just what is going—”

nFinally, he saw it. He had looked for it before, but it wasn’t there. However, it seemed to have arrived during his fight with the snake.

nThe storm.

nHowever, something was different this time. For once, the storm was really, really fast. Secondly, he could see something yellow and black all over the storm.

n“What’s that?” he thought and looked closely at the storm still far away.

nSlowly, a feeling appeared inside him and his eyes went wide. “Those…are yang jades?” he thought as he looked at the thousands of yellow sparks in the sand.

n“Then the black—”

nHe recognized those wriggling and movements in the air too. Those were all the beasts of the desert.

nAlex got terrified. The incoming storm was strong enough to send yang jades and beasts flying. If that was anything to go by… he needed to run.

nWithout hesitation, he put the yang jade in his storage and ran.

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