Chapter 26: Quicksand

Liang Jin stared at the characters flickering on the interface, feeling a momentary sense of trance. He hadn't realized it, but he had already been signing in for two consecutive months. Did that mean every month of continuous sign-ins granted him a new avatar?

Just as Liang Jin was pondering this, that peculiar sensation washed over him once again. In an instant, his consciousness felt as if it had been pulled thousands of miles away. When his senses returned, he found himself amidst a swirling storm of sand and wind.

At this moment, he could clearly perceive every aspect of his true body back in the Imperial Palace, and he shared a seamless mental connection with his other avatar in Lu Family Village. This sensation was not unfamiliar to him.

"Whoosh—! Whoosh—!"

The gale howled incessantly. Yellow sand filled the sky, obscuring everything around him. Judging by the thick, shifting sand beneath his feet, he was likely in the middle of a desert.

"Could it be that I have arrived in the Western Desert?"

Within the Great Qian Empire, only the Western Desert possessed such vast expanses of sand. The Western Desert was a peculiar region; sometimes it fell under Great Qian's jurisdiction, sometimes it belonged to foreign powers, and at other times it stood as an independent territory. Great Qian’s control and influence over the area were often tenuous at best. With the rapid decline of Great Qian's national strength, it was likely that the Western Desert would soon break away completely.

"The Imperial Capital is in the north, Giant Ox Township is in the south, and now Dingfeng City is in the west," Liang Jin thought with a sigh of helplessness. "This system certainly likes to scatter my avatars across the four corners of the world."

He had truly hoped for an avatar closer to the Imperial Capital, or perhaps even one within the capital itself to serve as a backup, but he could never seem to get his way.

Liang Jin initially considered trying to move, but the sandstorm was outrageously violent. The world was a blinding yellow, making it difficult to even open his eyes. He knew that wandering aimlessly would only lead to losing his way. Since the system claimed it would deposit him in Dingfeng City, the city had to be nearby. Rather than risking further distance by wandering, it would be better to find a hollow nearby to shelter from the wind and wait for it to subside.

Suddenly—

"Jingle... jingle..."

Above the roar of the wind and sand, the faint sound of camel bells reached his ears. With his current strength as a seventh-rank martial artist, his senses were exceptionally sharp, allowing him to capture sounds buried under the fury of the gale. Following the guidance of the bells, Liang Jin began to walk in the direction of the sound.

As he drew closer, he heard cries for help amidst the wind. Liang Jin quickened his pace. After a while, he finally reached his destination. He saw a few camels huddled together, lying on the ground. As he approached, the cries became clearer:

"Help! Save us!"

Liang Jin shielded his eyes from the sand and scanned the area. The cries were coming from the ground itself. Several people were buried in the slowly churning sand. Some had half their bodies exposed, some had only their heads visible, gasping desperately for air, and others had nothing left but hands flailing above the surface.

"Quicksand!"

Liang Jin was startled. He realized they had encountered quicksand. He dared not step too close, immediately scanning the perimeter to judge the extent of the trap. Even as a seventh-rank martial artist, quicksand was dangerous. Once caught, the shifting sand would neutralize his strength, leaving him with no leverage. A mere seventh-rank warrior was still insignificant in the face of such raw natural power; only true masters capable of projecting internal energy outside their bodies could remain unfazed by quicksand.

In the time it took him to hesitate, another person was completely swallowed. Liang Jin shouted at them, "Drop your heavy gear! Do not struggle! The more you fight, the faster you will sink!"

However, his words were snatched away by the gale. Even if someone heard him, they were already paralyzed by terror and could not follow his advice. By the time Liang Jin had assessed the danger zone, most of the victims had already been consumed. Only one young man had listened, staring at Liang Jin with a face full of despair and grief.

Fortunately, this man was on the edge of the pit. Liang Jin grabbed the reins of a camel to anchor himself, reached out with his other hand, and caught the man's arm.

"Up!"

Drawing strength from the ground, he pulled with all his might. The young man was slowly dragged out of the sand pit. The man had been completely drained by his struggle; the moment he was free, he couldn't even stand. Yet, he pleaded with Liang Jin, "Kind hero! Please, save my servants! They have been with me for many years, please, I beg you, save their lives!"

Liang Jin turned to look. The surface of the sand had already returned to calm. There wasn't a shadow of a person left. Those people had clearly been swallowed by the quicksand. He shook his head. "It is too late."

Once a person is pulled into quicksand, the dense weight of the sand crushes the chest, making it impossible to breathe. Even if he could dig them out now, they would likely have already suffocated.

The young man let out a cry of grief and despair upon hearing this, but as soon as he opened his mouth, it was filled with sand, forcing him into a violent coughing fit. Seeing this, Liang Jin lifted him up and moved away from the pit. He then gathered the camels into a circle to act as a wall, taking the young man into the center to shelter from the storm. Everything else would have to wait until the wind died down.

As he waited, Liang Jin checked the properties of [Thousand-Mile Tracking].

[Thousand-Mile Tracking: Input a person's name to lock onto their current location.]

The description was simple. Liang Jin didn't fully understand it after pondering for a moment, so he decided to test it. He immediately entered the name "Zhao Bao" into the property bar. The next moment, a map of the world appeared on the system interface.

Red dots appeared all over the map, representing the locations of everyone named "Zhao Bao."

"Is this just a GPS navigation system?" Liang Jin wondered. "A system-produced feature, and it's just navigation?"

He clicked on the single red dot located within the Imperial Palace of the Great Qian Empire. An information panel popped up, displaying a portrait—it was indeed the photo of the Zhao Bao he knew.

It was accompanied by a line of information:

[Target: Zhao Bao]
[Location: Great Qian Imperial Palace, Zongwu Office Training Ground]
[Strength: Ninth-rank Martial Artist]
[Martial Arts: "Bone-Melting Soft Palm" (First Level)]

Liang Jin was stunned. The [Thousand-Mile Tracking] feature was far too heaven-defying. Not only could it pinpoint a person's location, but it also provided detailed information and even a portrait.

However, he soon noticed another problem: "Strange. My true body in the palace and this avatar in the desert can both use the Tracking feature, but why couldn't the avatar in Giant Ox Township? And the 'Healing Talisman Water' feature can only be used by the true body and the Giant Ox Township avatar, but not by this one in the desert."

Liang Jin formed a rough hypothesis. The true body was the core. The true body could use all the features of its avatars, but the avatars could not share features among themselves. This gave each avatar its own uniqueness. However, for information-based features like [Thousand-Mile Tracking], while other avatars couldn't use the feature directly, they could use it indirectly. All avatars shared the true body's consciousness; the true body only needed to relay the information, and the other avatars would know it. It was only skill-based features, like [Healing Talisman Water], that remained locked to specific avatars.

"The avatars' features seem related to their tasks," he mused. "The Giant Ox Township avatar had the healing feature, which was used to treat the local plague. So, what is this [Thousand-Mile Tracking] in the desert for?"

Liang Jin couldn't guess yet. He wanted to talk to the young man he had saved to see if he could gather any clues. But when he turned his head, he saw the young man had curled up under a piece of canvas, unconscious. He touched the man's forehead and found he had developed a high fever.

Liang Jin shook his head slightly. "A weak scholar like this, why would he venture into the desert?"

The young man was refined and dressed like a scholar. Between the terror of the quicksand, the exhaustion of his physical limits, and the tragic death of his companions, the man had fallen ill after sleeping in the sandstorm.

Liang Jin left him be. He didn't have the healing talisman water here. Everything would have to wait until the storm passed.