Demon Sword Sect’s Undercover
Chapter 554 - 554 553 New Experience

554: Chapter 553: New Experience 554: Chapter 553: New Experience Looking at the map, because the entire boundary is not a straight line, the encroachment of the Kneecap Desert into the inland areas varies in intensity, creating an interlocked and tortuous border.

Here, Ancient Lop is relatively deep into the desert with thousands of miles in width, named after the ruins of a human city that once existed there.

Ancient Lop was a desert ancient state, but with the exhaustion of water sources, severe desertification, and the rampant spread of undead creatures, this ancient state eventually disappeared into the long river of history.

Humans gradually relocated inward, intermarrying and proliferating with other ethnic groups over this process, and now the term “people of Loulan” has long since ceased to exist, having become the descendants of nations like Qin and Yue.

The Shan Sect Quanzhen was in charge of guarding the once vast territories of the ancient state of Loulan and existed as a barrier for the Northwest Region’s humanity.

The Loulan City he was now heading for actually had little to do with Ancient Lop.

It was the only place in the region with a water source depression, barely capable of providing the basic living conditions for humans, thus attracting a certain number of residents who lived off the desert.

According to records, there were only a few thousand people, a number so small that it wouldn’t even match the size of a village in the prosperous Southeast and Southwest regions.

The harsh living environment created a completely different local culture and charm.

After roughly determining his direction, Hou Niao lowered his height; he wanted to take a closer look at the terrain below.

It was said that experienced locals could precisely find their way by observing the size, rotation, and distribution of the dunes—a truly unique experience of a foreign land.

Hou Niao was a person who enjoyed experiencing different natural environments, so to him, didn’t this place seem not too bad?

Such a thought might only occur to cultivators since they did not have to worry about a lack of water.

Once he had clarified his direction and lowered his altitude, he began patrolling the sky a hundred yards above the ground, and the landscapes and figures on the ground started to become clear.

Among countless half-soil, half-sand rings of hills, a caravan of camels was winding its way forward.

A small caravan of over fifty camels, with about a dozen people among them.

The rest of the camels’ backs were piled high with goods; the people were wrapped from head to toe in wide cloaks, indistinguishable as men, women, old, or young.

Only the crisp sound of camel bells echoed through the vast, arid dunes, carried far by the wind.

This was surely a merchant caravan heading for Ancient Lop from a nearby city because there was no other place for humans to set foot in that direction.

Considering that the nearest city from Ancient Lop was over a thousand miles away, one can imagine how difficult such a journey would be for mortals.

He wanted to see the local customs firsthand and personally experience the dangers of this journey.

To him, everything here was still theoretical.

Everything needed to be experienced in person, starting now.

As for when he would report to Yu Zhengxing, being a few days early or late didn’t matter.

Sikong Mansion’s goal was for him to leave Jade Capital, and presumably, it wouldn’t bother them if he spent a year on the road.

He quietly landed not far in front of the caravan; because the hills of sand and dirt blocked the view, no one could tell how he had appeared.

Then he trudged forward, keeping his pace just slightly below that of the caravan.

There were stories that the people here were fierce and simple—but was that truly the case?

No sooner had he touched the ground than he discovered an unexpected advantage for himself in this place: his Earth Escape was like a fish in water in this desert environment, much more effective than in the Lizhi Sea—an unexpected outcome.

………

The caravan struggled to advance through the dust and flying sand.

The man on the lead camel was wrapped in an airtight cloak, his body swaying with the movement of the camel, seemingly relaxed, but his eyes never stopped scanning the surroundings.

In this season, in this part of the region, traveling was still very dangerous, but it was barely manageable.

Human cultivators coming from the direction of Ancient Lop had been relentlessly slaughtering and searching for undead creatures in this area for hundreds of years, managing to barely maintain the basic living space for humans and halt the undead’s southward march.

Therefore, most of the danger came from the environment itself.

This situation was somewhat controllable within Loulan, but outside of Loulan City, there were different risks.

Undead creatures had memory and intelligence; they too knew that this barrier was not easy to provoke, resulting in a stalemate.

But according to what the Qi Refiners from Loulan City said, in recent decades the intensity of undead creature attacks has begun to increase again, and human cultivators were feeling the strain…

This was something for the distinguished Qi Refiners to ponder, not something these mortals could worry about.

Turning past a sand dune, the terrain in memory hadn’t changed much.

Even though the dunes had slightly altered their appearance due to the daily erosion of wind and sand, the native people like them would not lose their way.

But this time, there was something extra in front of them; a man was walking through the sands on foot, without a cloak to shield him, wearing low boots unsuitable for the region, a sword on his back, but without any visible baggage.

Catching up from behind, a smaller figure under a cloak called out with a voice still tinged with youth,

“Uncle, it’s a Qi Refiner!”

Qi Refiner, a term used in the Northwest Region to refer to cultivators.

They didn’t understand much about cultivation, so they simply divided cultivators into two categories: those who could fly were called high-flying Qi Refiners, and those who could not were called earth-rooted Qi Refiners.

Most of the high-flying Qi Refiners were from other places, while the earth-bound ones were typically beginners from the local Northwest.

Seeing his uncle hesitate, the youth was somewhat dissatisfied.

“Let’s give him one of our camels to even out his journey; I don’t know when he would arrive otherwise.”

The man stopped his nephew.

Young people were always too impulsive and not cautious enough.

“Wait!

Let’s take a closer look first; Xiao Li, inform everyone to be careful, and prepare the bows and arrows!”

“Uncle, is that necessary?

The man walks with proper bending at the joints and casts a shadow.

Besides, if he was an undead creature in disguise, he should be wearing a cloak, not the attire of an ordinary inland person…”

Despite his words, the youth still turned back to notify the caravan as instructed.

Growing up in the Northwest, these were things they learned without being taught, absorbed through daily life.

The adult males in the caravan began to push their camels forward, each armed with bow and sword.

In the boundless desert, they relied not on luck but on their own caution and bravery.

The caravan approached slowly from the rear, bows and arrows at the ready, and the lone traveler turned his head, revealing an unfamiliar face but unmistakably human.

Without waiting for the man’s command, the youth shouted joyfully, “Traveler from afar, do you need a camel’s hump?

And the desert’s sweetest camel milk?”