Chapter 1871: Chapter 1856: The Most Precious Thing in the Sand Sea
Ye Zhen followed behind Grand Priest Nahar, charging toward the sand sea on the ground. As he rushed over, Ye Zhen had originally intended to use an Escape Skill to keep up.
After all, this was a solid desert, not a real ocean.
But just as Ye Zhen was about to use the Innate Five Elements Divine Escape, those countless grains of sand suddenly seemed to gain Spirit Nature, automatically parting to both sides like flowing water, opening up a bottomless passage in the sand sea.
Ye Zhen naturally understood that this was a technique of Grand Priest Nahar’s, but he was still incomparably astonished.
In the ocean, achieving this isn’t difficult, since seawater itself is fluid, but in a sand sea, wanting to do this is basically impossible.
Speaking of himself, blasting out a large pit was easy for Ye Zhen; making the sand automatically part like seawater, however, was difficult.
With a knowing look, Ye Zhen followed behind Grand Priest Nahar and charged into that bottomless sand sea passage.
The instant he entered, the yellow sand that had just parted came together again like seawater rejoining after being split, covering the space above Ye Zhen’s head.
But the miraculous thing was, no matter how much yellow sand flowed back down, it could only cover to a point three meters above Ye Zhen’s head.
While Ye Zhen was clicking his tongue in wonder, Grand Priest Nahar’s speed suddenly slowed, and wherever he passed, light and shadow began to flicker.
Countless grains of yellow sand at this moment seemed to come alive, rapidly writhing and recombining, and almost at the instant Ye Zhen arrived, a great hall purely forged of yellow sand, covered everywhere with mysterious patterns, was cast into existence out of thin air.
As the great doors boomed shut, Grand Priest Nahar casually waved his hand, and a sand table and two sand chairs, purely forged from sand, condensed out of nothing.
"Sit!"
Nahar gestured for Ye Zhen to sit.
These creation-like miraculous means of Grand Priest Nahar had already left Ye Zhen thoroughly stunned.
After unceremoniously sitting down on that sand chair, Ye Zhen began to knock hard on the sand table and sand chair in front of him.
The sound was crisp to the ear, and they were extremely solid. Even if Ye Zhen used all his strength, he still couldn’t pry off a single grain of sand from them.
Just as Ye Zhen was preparing to use Spiritual Power to test the strength of this sand chair, Grand Priest Nahar chuckled soundlessly. "This is just an ordinary sand table and sand chairs; they can’t withstand your Spiritual Power bombardment. However, this great hall—if you’re interested, you can try it!" Nahar said with deep meaning.
Ye Zhen was taken aback for a moment. He flicked his finger, and a Sixth Formation Profound Fire Drill condensed from Heavenly Thunder Spirit Fire shrieked as it blasted over.
The Xuan Fire Drill exploded with a boom against the sand hall’s wall. The Mysterious Patterns densely covering the sand hall’s wall flickered faintly once, and the firelight of the Xuan Fire Drill was snuffed out just like that, while the sand wall remained completely unharmed.
Ye Zhen’s shock was beyond description.
His Sixth Formation Profound Fire Drill, although not Ye Zhen’s current strongest strike, was still a Killing Move capable of blasting to death a Martial Artist at the Early Stage of Realm King Realm, and could rival the full-strength strike of an expert at the Peak of Ninth Stage Realm King Realm, and yet it couldn’t even shake this sand hall wall.
If this sand hall were a hall that the Yizhi Temple had managed and refined for tens of thousands of years, Ye Zhen would admit it. But this sand hall before his eyes was something Ye Zhen had personally seen Grand Priest Nahar casually forge on the spot.
A sand hall casually forged on the spot was already this powerful—just how strong was Grand Priest Nahar really?
"Well? Are you shocked, curious, or confused?" Grand Priest Nahar looked at Ye Zhen with a squinting smile.
"A bit of all three." Ye Zhen’s answer was very straightforward.
"Want to know more?" Nahar once again asked with a smiling squint.
Ye Zhen nodded without the slightest hesitation.
"Very good. If our conversation goes smoothly, you will understand."
Smiling, Grand Priest Nahar swung his wide sleeve casually. At the instant a mass of yellow sand flew over, a sand pot and sand cups, ancient in style and with surfaces and inner walls smooth as glass, were created anew.
Ye Zhen could guarantee that, within the range of his perception, this exquisite sand pot was definitely not something Nahar had taken out, but something instantly created out of thin air from yellow sand.
This time, Nahar ignored Ye Zhen. With a wave of his hand, a clear spring burst forth from underground and poured into the sand pot. He rubbed his palm over it once, and the water in the sand pot began to boil.
Casually taking out a delicate tea canister from his sleeve, he scooped in a few spoonfuls of pale-yellow tea leaves, and the fragrance of Spiritual Tea immediately spread out.
This time, Ye Zhen saw very clearly that the tea canister was not forged from nothing but taken out from a storage space.
"Try the Spiritual Tea unique to our Sand Sea."
As the boiling tea flowed into the cups, Grand Priest Nahar half-closed his eyes and began to savor the cup of Spiritual Tea before him.
Ye Zhen did not have much research into the Way of Tea, but as this Spiritual Tea entered his mouth, the rich yet light fragrance filled his nose and oral cavity, instantly turning into a stream of heat that dispersed through his four limbs and hundred bones, while another stream of Spiritual Energy shot straight toward his Dark Palace.
At the same instant, Ye Zhen’s Dark Palace lightly quivered, and within the Seven Mysterious Spirit Palace, the seven great Spirit Palaces of earth, wood, water, fire, metal, yin, and yang all trembled slightly at the same time, each of the seven great Spirit Palaces actually growing just a touch stronger.
This astonished Ye Zhen once more.
The various Spirit Palaces within the Dark Palace were in fact transformed from Ye Zhen’s previous Innate Bloodline.
This kind of Innate Bloodline determined at birth was extremely difficult to grow.
Ye Zhen had, by a fortuitous encounter in the past, managed to grow it once, but since his Cultivation broke through to the Dark Palace Realm, there had been no further changes.
In other words, the size of the Spirit Palaces was actually fixed.
Ye Zhen’s current Cultivation was to do his utmost to fill the Spirit Palaces, but he was unable to make the Spirit Palaces grow, unless Ye Zhen broke through to the Realm King Realm.
But a pot of Spiritual Tea could actually strengthen Ye Zhen’s Spirit Palace, and the strengthening of the Spirit Palace meant that, without any change in Ye Zhen’s Cultivation Realm, his strength would still increase.
In other words, this Spiritual Tea could directly enhance the Innate Bloodline.
To put it even more bluntly, given two Martial talents with completely identical Cultivation experiences, the Martial Artist who drank this Spiritual Tea would have slightly higher Cultivation than the Martial Artist who did not.
And this was only the benefit of drinking it once; if you kept at it over months and years, then the effect would be simply...
"Well, have you tasted its true flavor yet?"
Pouring himself another cup, Grand Priest Nahar half‑closed his eyes and said, "This tea is called Shaluo, named for its curled leaves. It’s also known as Sand Sea Golden Lotus, and the outside world calls it Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea. It has all sorts of miraculous effects.
Besides enhancing the Innate Bloodline and strengthening the Spirit Palace, over long‑term use it can nourish the Origin itself and prolong one’s Life Span.
This old man has been able to live this long all thanks to the aid of this Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea!
Basically, one pot a day, drink it continuously for a year, and it can extend this old man’s Life Span by two months!" Looking at the teacup before him, a hint of desolation flickered in Nahar’s eyes.
Hearing this, Ye Zhen drew in a sharp breath.
If the effect of strengthening the Innate Bloodline and Dark Palace was a treasure for Cultivation, then the life‑extension effect was terrifying to the extreme.
Even if it only worked through long‑term accumulation—drink it for a whole year to gain two extra months, drink for a hundred years to live twenty extra years—just this alone was enough to drive those reclusive old monsters mad.
Playing with the teacup, Nahar continued, "You should have heard of Spirit Void Fruit, right? Three years ago, three leaves of Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea could be traded for a single Spirit Void Fruit.
But in the past few years the price of Spirit Void Fruit has skyrocketed. Now it takes five leaves of Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea to trade for one Spirit Void Fruit."
At first listen, Ye Zhen was shocked by this price. No one knew better than he did how outrageous the price of Spirit Void Fruit was.
Yet this Grand Priest Nahar had brought up Spirit Void Fruit out of nowhere, while Ye Zhen himself was trapped in the Yizhi Sand Sea precisely because of Spirit Void Fruit.
This made Ye Zhen feel a vague guilty panic. Could it be that this Grand Priest Nahar had learned something?
Nahar did not stop speaking. "Now that you’ve experienced the benefits of this stuff, you must be wondering where this Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea is produced, right?
This Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea has only one place of origin in All Heavens and Myriads of Worlds, and that is our Yizhi Temple. Do you want some?" Nahar lifted his eyes to look at Ye Zhen.
Ye Zhen subconsciously nodded, then suddenly jolted—this Grand Priest Nahar really was acting like he was tempting him.
This Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea was the bait he’d thrown out.
Seeing Ye Zhen nod, Nahar burst into loud laughter. "Don’t worry, you’ll have your chance!"
"Let me ask you a question." Nahar spoke again.
"Senior, please."
"In your opinion, within this Yizhi Sand Sea, what is the most precious, most valuable thing?" Nahar asked solemnly.
"The most precious, most valuable thing? In the Yizhi Sand Sea, the most precious and most valuable thing should be water, right?" Ye Zhen said.
At this, Nahar slowly shook his head. "No. Do you think a bit of drinkable water is enough to make the Heavenly Temple organize hundreds of attacks large and small over the course of ten thousand years?
There were thirteen attacks in which the attacking army numbered over ten million. And within the Yizhi Sand Sea, they left behind the corpses of four Divine Kings and one Divine Monarch."
These words left Ye Zhen completely dumbfounded.
As a Wind Patrol Envoy of the Heavenly Patrol Department, Ye Zhen knew this bit of history.
For every campaign against the Yizhi Sand Sea, the Heavenly Temple had dispatched a large number of experts, but Ye Zhen had never imagined the scale would be this great.
Even those lofty Divine Kings and Divine Monarchs, enshrined in the temples of the Heavenly Temple, had actually fallen here to the number of five!
"Guess again!"
This time, Ye Zhen pondered for a moment before slowly replying, "If it can move the Heavenly Temple, then it can’t be ordinary resources.
The Heavenly Temple loves to gather followers above all. What tempts them should be the tens of billions of people in the Yizhi Sand Sea."
"Interesting, but still wrong." Nahar laughed again.
"Still wrong?"
Ye Zhen’s brows furrowed. To be honest, with his understanding of the Yizhi Sand Sea, although the Yizhi Sand Sea produced many resources, there were truly very few that could make the Heavenly Temple launch repeated assaults at the cost of fallen Divine Kings and Divine Monarchs.
One had to know that each of those Divine Kings and Divine Monarchs was a Creation God.
Ye Zhen’s gaze fell on the tea canister in front of Grand Priest Nahar. "Could it be this Sand Sea Golden Lotus Tea?"
Ye Zhen felt that this was possible.
After all, those old undying ones of the Heavenly Temple would do anything for a longer Life Span.
But this time, Grand Priest Nahar still shook his head.
Having guessed wrong three times in a row, Ye Zhen simply cupped his hands with refreshing straightforwardness. "This junior really can’t guess it. I beg Senior to enlighten me—within this Yizhi Sand Sea, what is the most precious thing?"
