Half a month later.

  Xia Li awakened from cultivation and habitually extended divine thought to probe. His usually indifferent face quickly showed a hint of joy.

  With a thought...

  He left the Cave Heaven Gourd and broke through the surface of a peculiar-smelling mound of earth.

  "That sand worm finally deigned to excrete me!"

  Xia Li couldn't help but sigh, then turned to look at the mountain-like mound behind him. Its main component was white sand—transformed from the bones of demonic beasts the sand worm had swallowed.

  And within that white sand were visible specks of blue sand.

  "So this is Worm Jade Sand?"

  Xia Li stepped forward, grabbed a grain, and examined it in his palm. Sand worm excrement produced a special precious material.

  A jade-textured sand grain of deep blue color—the product of complex structural changes occurring when spirit-containing materials were swallowed by sand worms and processed in their bodies.

  Worm Jade Sand could store massive amounts of Spirit Qi. A single grain could store as much Spirit Qi as an entire piece of spirit jade. It was ideal material for energy-storing discharge-type treasures.

  If collected and cast into a whole piece of Worm Jade, its value could supposedly buy half a small sect.

  "Surviving great disaster brings great fortune. Since I didn't become sand worm dung, I'll collect some as a memento."

  Xia Li immediately began gathering Worm Jade Sand while also fishing out the golden bowl and Cave Heaven Gourd.

  The golden bowl was a marvelous treasure. Though even Heaven Chip's scans couldn't detect anything special about it, its texture was extremely hard, able to ignore the corrosion of sand worm digestive fluids.

  Before long...

  The worm sand was collected. From the mountain-sized mound, the gathered worm sand amounted to only a tiny handful. Even cast into one piece, it would only be about the size of a glass marble.

  Supposedly, when the Demonic Path ruled the Desolate Continent, they would capture people everywhere specifically to feed sand worms. That's why countless massive worms plagued the underground of the Desolate Continent to this day.

  Looking up.

  Xia Li began observing his surroundings. His face quickly showed both delight and despair simultaneously.

  Because...

  This area was completely covered by black sandstorm with no gaps. Even the sky was blocked by a thick layer of black sand.

  This could only mean one thing...

  He was currently at the center of the black sandstorm, in the windless zone at the eye of the storm.

  In the distance, the outline of some massive structure was faintly visible—a four-sided gate structure resembling a temple entrance.

  The moment he saw that gate, Xia Li guessed what it was.

  It was the gate of one of the Five Great Temples when Buddhism flourished.

  The gate of Great Vajra Temple!

  In Buddhism's golden age, five great temples oversaw everything: Central Heaven Great Thunder Sound Temple, Southern Heaven Great Enlightenment Temple, Northern Heaven Great Radiance Temple, Eastern Heaven Great Wheel-Turning Temple, and Western Heaven Great Vajra Temple.

  Each of the five temples transmitted different divine abilities. Great Vajra Temple specialized in body refinement techniques, favored asceticism, and excelled at Reaching Heaven Manifesting Earth.

  "Well then... since I'm already here..."

  Xia Li gazed at that great temple's outline. After a moment's hesitation, he decided to go investigate. Worth noting, this clearing had many towering mounds.

  It seemed that sand worm used this place as a regular toilet.

  Or perhaps more than one sand worm had chosen this location.

  Sand worms were at their most vulnerable when excreting, so they would find the most hidden and safe places to do so—one reason Worm Sand was so precious and rare.

  The second reason was that Worm Jade Sand needed to be collected quickly and properly preserved, otherwise its spirituality would rapidly dissipate.

  Xia Li glanced at those mounds and also approached to probe with divine sense. Unfortunately, none contained Worm Jade Sand anymore—their spirituality had long since dissipated to nothing.

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  But Xia Li didn't feel any sense of loss over this. Being alive was already good enough.

  As for being able to reach the interior of the black sandstorm, Xia Li had never even imagined—turns out there was a direct bus route.

  The ticket was just a bit hard to get.

  The ground at the black sandstorm's center was incredibly hard. Xia Li could stomp hard enough to crush steel with full force, yet couldn't leave the slightest footprint on this rock.

  This layer of hardened soil was apparently formed by black sand settling, and it even suppressed Spirit Qi. This hardened black layer was probably why cultivators from outside found it so difficult to reach the interior.

  Otherwise, over so many years, surely some clever people would have tried digging tunnels?

  Obviously they had dug to the hardened layer and could do nothing but retreat. Yet sand worms could freely pass through the black sandstorm.

  Walking all the way to the great gate, Xia Li raised his head to gaze at the towering gate as massive as a mountain. Its threshold alone was nearly a hundred meters high. The gate itself rose into the clouds, extending into the dark canopy formed by the black sandstorm—unfortunately the portion above that canopy was already damaged.

  This gate in its intact state must have been ten thousand meters tall. How magnificent must it have been in ancient times?

  The hundred-meter-high threshold was pocked and pitted, with many holes worn by the ages. Xia Li casually crawled through one of the holes. The scene behind the threshold made his eyes widen with utter amazement.

  Apart from temples built to normal human scale on either side of the gate, all other temples were proportionally enlarged to ten times, a hundred times the original size.

  Unfortunately, all those magnified colossal temple structures had collapsed, leaving only towering wall-like ruins and rubble.

  This place was like a land of giants. Who knew what those ten-thousand-meter giant temples of ancient times had been built to contain.

  Xia Li entered the normal-sized building area, but apart from the structures, it was completely empty. Besides sand and dust, nothing remained—not even Buddha statues.

  After investigating carefully and confirming nothing was missed, Xia Li went to the ten-times enlarged area.

  Here was the same as the normal-sized area—still no valuables. This place had perhaps long been destroyed and emptied. Besides ruins and rubble, nothing else remained.

  But if so, what was the point of seeing Great Vajra Temple?

  Xia Li continued exploring...

  Though he knew he probably wouldn't find anything, Xia Li walked with reverence. Even with only one arm remaining, he still held it upright against his chest, bowing his head in greeting when entering any hall.

  There was an indescribable weight here. A lost ancient ruin like this held value simply in its existence.

  It revealed a segment of the past.

  In the hundred-times enlarged temples, Xia Li walked on the ground. Through the remaining ruins and rubble, he could imagine what the temples had looked like when complete. He deeply experienced what it meant to be "an ant."

  Size was the most direct, most honest measure of strength—and a fundamental law of the universe.

  The larger a celestial body, the stronger its gravity, and vice versa.

  "What's that?"

  While admiring these ancient colossal structures, Xia Li turned a corner and suddenly spotted a humanoid giant in the distance.

  Xia Li quickened his pace and immediately went to investigate...

  He discovered it was actually a hundred-meter-tall Vajra corpse.

  Black body, fierce visage, eyes tightly closed, muscles bulging like mountains. This was no temporary illusion from Reaching Heaven Manifesting Earth—it was a genuine physical existence.

  The Vajra corpse sat cross-legged. Judging by its posture, it should have been holding something in its hands.

  At this moment, Xia Li felt movement from within his Phase Ring. He extended divine thought to probe...

  And discovered the golden bowl was trembling.