Gale Desert, covering an area of 15 million square kilometers combined with Tartarus Forest covering an area of 22 million square kilometers, could be said to make more than half of the Bayang continent uninhabitable for human living.

But it is not all that bad.

Tartarus Forest which has Spiritual Beasts from rank 1 to rank 9 is hiding some ancient treasure spots along with a palace-like structure at the heart of the forest. It is said to be an artifact left behind by the gods to help the low rank Cultivators gain epiphany and make it easier for them to ascend to the upper realm. A lot of Cultivators after reaching Open Ascension rank, go there to test themselves and solidify their foundation.

Gale Forest is also loaded with hidden ancient treasures. People say that the highest ranked Spiritual Beast they have encountered in the Gale Desert are rank 7 Sandworms. The desert is encircled by a mountain range and winds in the desert can reach up to the speed of 2600mph!

The desert also gets quite chilly at night. People with no Cultivation will freeze to death within seconds.

Despite all these dangers there are people who venture there to seek treasures. And due to the influx of these treasure seekers, Basara City was formed. Despite being a part of the Wen Dynasty, Basara City is said to be somewhat independent. The Cultivators seeking treasures in such dangerous places are definitely of high Cultivation rank. There's no way such people will willingly follow the rules of an empire.

Zhu Furong's motive to come here is not to find treasures. But to reach a higher stage in Wind Steps!

Right now, in the afternoon, Zhu Furong is sitting in a small restaurant in Basara City having a chat with Zhu Xingzuo via divine sense.

"There is a mention of Elemental Laws Proficiency in one of the jade slips my masters left behind. It is said that the complete mastery of a law is divided into eight grades."

"1. Feel, feeling the presence of an element; 2. Use, make use of the existing element; 3. Explore, exploring the properties of an element and dabble into its laws; 4. Understand, having a general understanding of the laws of an element; 5. Control, controlling an element the way you want; 6. Fabricate, create the element from their laws present in nature; 7. Mastery, having a profound knowledge of the laws of an element; 8. Create, create an element from nothing."

"What do you think? Which proficiency grade am I at right now for the wind element?" Zhu Furong asked.

"Hmm... I would say grade 2 but since you were lucky to get the law runes from the White Tiger fossil, you have a little understanding of the laws of the wind already. So you should be in grade 3 right now."

"Yes, thanks to you deciphering the runes for me. Now all I have to do is use my understanding of those runes and put it into action, increasing my knowledge of the wind with the help of the strong winds blowing in the Gale Desert. It should help me to reach the 5th grade required to pass the first stage of Steps of God. After that our next destination will be the Lightning Valley in Tuanjie continent— Let's get done with this as fast as possible." Zhu Furong stood up from the table and walked to the cashier. After paying for his meal, he walked towards the Gale Desert.

…

Whose idea was it to wear iron shoes in a desert? This guy couldn't run more than five kilometers wearing these shoes weighing 25 kilograms each. Running five kilometers is already a tremendous feat. Well, that's the purpose of these shoes and that's the reason Zhu Furong is wearing these in the first place. To maximize the efficiency of his practice!

The Gale Desert is quite calm till the 10 kilometers mark with only rank 1 to rank 2 Spiritual Beasts in sight and no wind. After ten kilometers in, the wind starts blowing at a speed of 35mph and the speed only increases as you travel towards the center of the desert.

After crossing 500 kilometers, the Gale Desert becomes really dangerous with the sudden occurence of tornadoes swirling at a speed of anywhere from 250mph to 700mph. Not many people have gone past 1000 kilometers but it is said that whoever went past 1000 kilometers has never returned. The area past 1000 kilometers is filled with swirling tornadoes and the winds are said to blow at a whopping 1500mph, sometimes reaching up to 2600mph! This speed can even tear up the flesh of an Open Ascension rank Cultivator. The desert has a radius of about 2,200 kilometers.

Zhu Furong definitely wants to reach the center of the desert but 'wanting' and 'being able to' are two different matters.

Let the man adjust to his iron shoes first.

...

Sandworm, we all know what it is. But this particular Sandworm present in the Gale Desert is not a colossal giant but rather a tiny worm of 5 centimeters in length with a thickness of your index finger. These Sandworms are brown in color with millions of bristle like teeth, pointy at the ends. Despite their looks, they are quite docile and only feed on corpses. It is quite mysterious how such a creature can be a rank 7 Spiritual Beast.

But if the Sandworms are as docile as they are said to be, then why are they attacking a bunch of Cultivators?

After four months of journey while practicing, standing 700 kilometers deep into the desert, hiding behind a rock, Zhu Furong is watching about 15 to 20 Cultivators raining Qi attacks on thousands of Sandworms.

It is hard to find unaffiliated itinerant Cultivators above Core Formation rank due to them having bronze or silver cores which makes it hard to reach Revolving Core rank. It is because they lack the resources and support from sects or powerful families. But here, right now, Zhu Furong is witnessing 10 early Revolving Core Cultivators, 6 mid Revolving Core Cultivators and 1 Open Ascension rank Cultivator grouped together. The battle prowess of this group is enough to challenge any top rank sects in planet Shengdong.

There are several corpses lying on the sand with round holes in their bodies. Surprisingly, no blood is oozing out of these holes created by the Sandworms. This is how the Sandworms attack in self-defense!

Actually, the rank 7 given to a Sandworm is not for its individual prowess but for a large clew of Sandworms. An individual Sandworm is only a rank 5 Spiritual Beast but when they attack, they always attack in a clew of 100 Sandworms, making them equal to a rank 7 Spiritual Beast.

So, how did this group of people come to their situation where they are facing three to four thousand Sandworms?

Well this is quite a common occurrence in the Gale Desert. Someone found a treasure, a fight ensued, they hit a colony of Sandworms, irritating them, the Sandworms called for other Sandworms and a group battle occurred.

Even a bronze core, Core Formation rank Cultivator can easily kill a solo Sandworm. But when the number of Sandworms fighting against one person is more than 100, the lone person cannot help but get a few holes in their body. Thanks to the special mucus secreted by the Sandworm, the blood clots instantly, but with hundreds of holes in one's body, there is no way a person can live.

Currently looking at the situation, three or four more sacrifices will be needed in order to calm this large clew of Sandworms. Zhu Furong silently took his leave, not wanting any unwanted attention.

Thanks to the people being busy fending off the Sandworms, no one noticed Zhu Furong.

But no matter how much you avoid troubles, they will always find their way to you.

After creating a distance of about two kilometers from the former group of people Zhu Furong came across two mid Revolving Core rank Cultivators chasing after a rank 6 Yin Cobra. A 6 meters, dark blue snake, with three fangs.

Given that this is afternoon time when the Yin Cobra should be hiding in its burrow, it is definitely pissed after being pulled out of its home.

With a hissing sound it jumped at Zhu Furong wanting to bite him, but thanks to it being nocturnal, its vision is quite weak during the day time. Even with its tremendous jump speed it missed its mark and shot past Zhu Furong like an arrow.

Zhu Furong breathed a sigh of relief. The poison of a Yin Cobra is enough to freeze a part of his body in seconds. The only way to stop the spreading of such poison is to cut the flesh out. Only the Open Ascension rank Cultivators can keep the damage to the minimum by only losing the parts where its fangs have punctured.

Just as Zhu Furong regained his balance, he found a thin sword Qi flying towards him along with a shout, "You bastard, why didn't you stop it."

No time to dodge, Zhu Furong instantly took out a rank 2 sword artifact, infusing it with Zhu Xingzuo's Chaos Qi, he clashed the sword with the sword Qi. It was an effortless victory.

"What the heck?" Zhu Furong frowned, looking at the two men.

The men are wearing a black hanfu with a black token hanging on their waistband. There is a gray colored ghost drawn on the token.

"Ghost Sect?" Zhu Furong is surprised to see people from the Ghost Sect here. Remembering he was being followed by a member of Ghost Sect after leaving the Sunlight Sect, Zhu Furong instantly became vigilant.

"What is the meaning of the attack?"

The men stopped 5 meters away from him, one of them snorted, "How dare you let the Yin Cobra escape? Didn't you see us chasing it? Rather than helping us, you let the snake run away?"

'What unreasonable people. That Yin Cobra's Cultivation is higher than mine and on top of that it was quite agitated, losing my life to it is the least of my worries and you want me to help you catch it?'

Whatever his thoughts are, it is not good to show weakness to strangers, especially when the person opposite to you is hostile.

Zhu Furong kept his calm, "What reason do I have to stop a raging Yin Cobra? It has nothing to do with me right? I am just a passerby."

"You" The man bared his teeth with displeasure and wanted to attack Zhu Furong again but was stopped by his partner, "We don't have time to waste here, the Yin Cobra shouldn't have gone far."

He whispered, "Look at the weapon in his hands— The boy is not simple."

The man sheathed his sword and snorted, "You wait here, I will deal with you after I deal with that snake."

After passing the threat, the men dashed towards the direction the Yin Cobra left, coincidentally the direction the group of people fighting the Sandworms were. And these two are running into the clew of Sandworms directly and not behind the group of people.

If they were polite to Zhu Furong, he may have warned them, but given their behavior, Zhu Furong only smirked before being on his way. Like hell he will wait here. He dived deeper into the desert.

It was another month of rigorous training before Zhu Furong reached the 4th grade in Elemental Laws Proficiency.

900 kilometers deep into the desert, Zhu Furong sat half naked between two stationary tornadoes which were scraping each half of Zhu Furong's body towards a similar direction at a speed of 400mph, Zhu Furong slowly opened his eyes covered in blood.

His physical body is definitely tough but in no way is tough enough to withstand such violent gale which is carrying sand in it. If not for Zhu Xingzuo taking extra measures to protect Zhu Furong's internal organs with his Chaos Qi, Zhu Furong would be bleeding internally as well.

After getting out of the range of the tornadoes, Zhu Furong dug a pit adjacent to a rock, entering the pit he covered the top with a heavy layer of metal sheet with a hollow pipe sticking to the rock's body for air, somewhat hidden from the sight. After a few minutes, the top of the metal sheet was buried in sand.

Inside the pit, Zhu Furong used the 'used to be basketball sized' pink Spirit Crystal to absorb a dense amount of Spiritual Qi from it and covered his body in it. Whatever Spiritual Qi passed through his dantian got instantly sucked by Zhu Xingzuo. After these five months of using this large chunk of high grade Spirit Crystal to heal his wounds, the basketball sized Spirit Crystal is now the size of a handball. The diameter has been reduced by a whole two inches!

Unlike the fast healing provided by Chaos Qi, Spiritual Qi works with less than half the efficiency. With Zhu Furong's current wounds, it took him about two weeks to heal. During this time he kept going through the laws of wind in his mind while comparing it to the feelings he got from being squeezed between the two tornadoes.

He got a general understanding of the laws of wind— You will face less resistance if you travel in the same direction as the wind but it is not so practical. Hence, here comes the aerodynamic posture in play, moving with an aerodynamic posture, using your head as a drill with your body slightly bent, it vastly reduces the drag from the air. This helps you travel against the wind at much greater speed.

Wind flows faster on a smoother surface, so wearing tight fitting clothes helps a lot. Zhu Furong tucks the upper garment's long tail part into his waist band while running, but it is definitely better to keep it free during battles as the long tail has many uses in a battle, like acting as a distraction or hiding your next moves.

Heat also plays a vital role in the drag coefficient of the wind. Hot air is lighter than cold air and hence it is less resistant. Filling his veins with the Flames of Nirvana and passing the heat through his skin into the surrounding air creates a low pressure area increasing Zhu Furong's speed greatly. But using the Flames of Nirvana for a long period of time is quite burdensome on his body, so it's better to use it carefully.

These few are only a small part of the laws of wind. The more mystical parts are yet to be discovered. Like, the wind is in general the air in motion, then how did the air come into existence? The air is a mixture of different gases, then how are these gases formed?

These 'how's' are what Zhu Furong has to find answers of as he keeps rising through Cultivation ranks.

For now, it seems heat and air are two essential components to create wind and how to use these two to control wind is the next challenge for Zhu Furong to reach the 5th grade in proficiency.

While most of these issues can be solved by using Qi, the current Zhu Furong cannot use that. But hey, who doesn't like challenges? And if you can master something with a handicap, think what will happen when the handicap is removed?

Zhu Furong is definitely up for the challenge.

With a slight effort, he pushed open the metal roof and climbed out of the pit. It is early morning in the Gale Desert and surprisingly Zhu Furong is standing at the center of a huge tornado right now, judging from the rotation speed, it is definitely somewhere between 600-700mph! This is the most dangerous wind speed noted in the region before the 1000 kilometers mark. The current Zhu Furong is definitely not ready for this. His only choice is to wait it out.

With the movement speed of this tornado, it will probably take 4-5 hours to cross a distance of one meter, enough for Zhu Furong to escape. But he has to keep in mind to not get sucked in by the tornado after getting out of it, so a safety margin of 10 meters would be better.

Gale Desert is definitely filled with dangers but thanks to it being extremely hot during the day and extremely cold during the night, the amount of active creatures are way less and are easy to avoid with proper knowledge.

Thanks to the research he did before coming to the Gale Desert, Zhu Furong's journey till now has been nothing but smooth. But that's only because his aim is only to use the environment of the Gale Desert to practice. If his goal was the  hidden treasures, it would have been extremely difficult to avoid confrontations with beats and humans.

Zhu Furong dug a pit near the inner edge of the tornado and hid inside, biting his time. He decided to get out after two days. Till then, it is revision time.