The sky was dark with a heavy sandstorm that engulfed the entire desert. Among the sand dunes, a team of camel traders pushed through the deadly barrier or nature on slow steps.
Even with their gear, it was too hard to see the path ahead. But as experienced merchants who crossed the same path every year, they could still find their way with the help of the rings tied to their animals.
When the sandstorm died down just a little, a man taking the lead yelled loudly behind him, “Keep your guards up, folks! That ahead is the most dangerous part of the route. Stick close to each other and don’t lose your way!”
This place was known as the “sands of no return” just because of the quicksand clusters in the way. Anyone who took the wrong step would sink into the hot grave to hell with no hope of coming back out. Not even veteran adventurers.
But as everyone moved as warily as they could, one of the members in the group, a tall figure wearing a black robe, left the formation and headed into the deadly zone alone.
“Are you looking for doom? Get back here!” the leader anxiously called out.
That straying man was not one of their team but a lone traveler they met halfway.
“Thank you for your kindness, sir, but my long journey has ended.” The robed man kept moving away. “Now, I will find my old friend and have a nice drink with him.”
The distance and the sandstorm should be enough to muddle his voice. Yet strangely enough, those words were heard by everyone loud and clear.
“Old friend? There are only dried corpses buried all around this damned place!” a trader protested.
The caravan leader suddenly recalled something and stopped his men from helping the weirdo.
“When I was younger, my old man used to tell me a story, that there’s a secret paradise in the depth of this desert, which was made by powerful wizards. A woman who could fly saved him from the sands, he said.”
He didn’t believe the story before, but seeing the strange traveler walking on top of the soft traps of sand smoothly, he changed his mind. That man didn’t even leave any footprints behind as if he were a ghost.
...
The robed man kept walking for half an hour until he arrived at the center of the desert, which was fully surrounded by quicksand puddles.
For some reason, the raging sand gales did not reach here as if this were the eye of a storm.
Nothing here looked out of the ordinary except for a lone stone pillar that stuck out of the empty terrain. The pillar had an eagle’s head engraved on its tip, below which was a number of totem-like symbols.
The scenery around the pillar went blurry and changed when the robed figure approached. In a matter of seconds, the pillar split into two, then four... until over a hundred pillars came into being and surrounded the traveler within.
Two eyes suddenly emerged on two pillars closest to him and spoke, “Taomuey’s Quiz, Sunguine’s Conjecture, or Maze Corridor. Choose one. Pass the challenge, and you’ll be granted entrance into the treasure vault.”
The traveler removed his hood and revealed his face in the sunlight—a middle-aged man with a clearly-trimmed beard and a sharp facial outline. There was the tattoo of an hourglass on one side of his neck, which suggested the Ashen Traders.
“Hello, Zimbo,” “Whale Hunter” Beals spoke in a cheerful voice, “I’m paying Old Vifet a visit. It’s been a long time since we talked over a glass of wine.”
The eyes on the pillars gained more colors and vividness as if they just became alive.
“Beals! Good timing. I have this infinite loop thing I’ve been working on. A little help, please?”
Beals shook his head and sighed. Zimbo the Guardian Totem was the gatekeeper of Moxa Westland. This stone spirit was usually friendly to all, but with only one problem—it loved math quizzes way too much. Each time someone wished to enter or leave from the gate, Zimbo would pester them with questions. And if the traveler was clever enough, they might even receive a nice reward from Zimbo.
Rumor had it that a mortal from a thousand years ago earned a bottle of spirit-improving potion from Zimbo for solving one of the problems and became an apprentice.
“Fine. Show me.” Beals knew Zimbo wouldn’t let him go easily.
Beals wasn’t exactly a scholar, but he had his good share of study as a wizard. He didn’t reach an answer to the quiz in the end, though he did provide some interesting opinions to help Zimbo work it out.
“Welp, you tried. Off you go then.”
The pillars began to vanish until only the original one was left behind.
An entrance to a staircase appeared in the middle of the thick pillar.
“I told Vifet you’re coming. He’ll send a servant to fetch you,” Zimbo said and returned to being silent.
Beals walked onto the stairs and saw a giant sand rat waiting for him. Following the creature, they soon found Vifet in a guest room.
To Beals’ surprise, he and Vifet weren’t the only ones present. A flickering human shadow was also on a seat at the opposite side of the table.
“Thirty years, or was it, Beals? What makes you remember me all of a sudden?”
Vifet was a short, hunched old man with a magnificent white beard. The wrinkles on his loosened skin almost covered his small eyes.
“Selling your slaves again? I’m not interested in common slaves, mind you.”
“Nah, we didn’t find many decent slaves recently. We did get our hands on a wild Demeter the other day, but we sold it to someone.”
Beals gave Vifet a friendly hug and found a seat while carefully glancing at the other guest in the room.
“I meant it when I said I’m looking for a get-together. You have time, right?”
“A Demeter, you say?” Vifet looked disappointed. “I could use one of those in my sand maze. You should have told me so that I could compete with the other buyer!”
“Well, I don’t think you can win in a fair competition anyway.” Beals shrugged. “Besides, the decision brought our team more benefit.”
“Oh ho, you found a nice customer you can scam for more money?” Vifet smirked.
“Mind that I can’t tell you who that is. We have rules, you know.”
Vifet nodded. This was why he loved working with Beals in the first place.
“Alright.” Vifet sat down. “I don’t believe you’re here to say hello. Just tell me what you want.”
Beals glanced at the shadow, who made no attempt to leave, and remained quiet.
What he was going to ask in Angor’s place was not a big secret, but as a professional trader, he would like to avoid letting his business being overheard by others.
“No worries.” Vifet smiled. “If you’re talking to me, then you probably won’t speak of anything important. Buuuut I can send you somewhere private if necessary.”
Beals considered and decided to make it plain right here. But he still used Voice Transmission, just in case. “Will you sell that lucky scroll of yours, by any chance?”
Vifet made an “X” with his arms. “No. Nonono. That’s my dearest treasure. I’m not giving it up.”
“I’m asking for a customer of mine. You can simply show me a price, and I’ll deliver the message. Any price is fine.”
“A price? Sure. I’ll hand the scroll over in exchange for a Fragment of Eternity.”
“I... see.” Beals silently scoffed. A single Fragment of Eternity was worth several more times than Vifet’s scroll.
“Truth be told, I don’t want to sell even if someone does give me a fragment,” Vifet continued. “One fragment is useless anyway, I need to look for more myself.”
“Okay.” Beals nodded. “It’s fine as long as I have something to report.”
Beals did not leave right away after the job was done—he did wish to spend some time with his old friend.
Vifet was an old wizard who had been in the wizarding world for 800 years. Sometimes, he could reveal other wisdom that greatly benefited them.
Vifet found his best-preserved wine and readied it on the table, after which they began talking about various events that happened in the wizarding world, as well as their future plans and ambitions.
Beals believed that the day would be more perfect if that strange shadow weren’t here to listen to them from start to end. Each time he inconspicuously tried to figure out who that was by asking Vifet questions, Vifet just diverted his attention. Eventually, Beals gave up and decided to completely ignore the weird company.
“I’m no longer sure what the Fey Continent is going to look like at this rate.” Vifet shook his head in frustration when they talked about the general situation in the southern region. “I can’t say whether Mister Monkey did the right thing, but the demon invasion cannot be stopped now, that’s for sure. And there’s the unusual darkness in the Evernight Kingdom. If monsters are hiding in there, they would strike nearby organizations even earlier than the demons, by which time Moxa would not be so safe...”
Moxa Westland and the Evernight Kingdom weren’t so far apart from each other. There was only the border of the Lavish Division serving as the only barrier between them.
“What the heck’s going over there?” asked Beals. He only heard that the Sleepless City was “in great trouble” right now and that more organizations were fleeing from the Evernight Kingdom. But he never learned the cause of the disaster.
“I don’t know much. But you can ask Mister Phantom if you really need to know. He’s the only wizard who went to the center of the dark area and came back out.”
“He did?!”
“Not only that, but he also took his student with him and saved several members of Brute Cavern along their way. If the magazines are telling the truth, that is.”
“Mister Sunders and his student? Hmm...”
“You should have heard about that particular young man who got the entire alchemy world crazy several times. What’s his name again... Angor?”