Moving on from the Furnace Sect, the Six Elements Crossroads disciples were far from done with the Green Sands. Technically they could have cut straight north to the Sunfields, but they would have given up the opportunity to learn from the variety of styles that could exist in a single region. Since they were trying to cover as much ground as possible, they would be making their way to Zolvolj to learn from the various clans and sects there- the Milanovic clan chief among them.
Nobody was foolish enough to bother their group along the way, nor did they happen to run across any ongoing conflicts. John hoped that was because the continent was becoming more peaceful in general, but of course their particular group wouldn’t be the target of most trouble. Anyone with actual grievances against them would have to find their way through a significant distance of allied territory, which made it quite unlikely.
John didn’t entirely relax, though he did find the Green Sands quite pleasant to traverse overall. The dangers were quite limited along the established roads, and the heat was extremely consistent. No dangers of ice falling on people’s heads.
Then the sandstorm came. It was rather interesting to see his vision filled with a green veil. John had only encountered sandstorms a few times in his travels through the Green Sands, and they were usually a lesser threat than the heat. Sadly, they didn’t reduce the temperature even by blocking out the sun- much of the heat was stored in the sands themselves, and the ancient fire element throughout the region.
John wasted no time giving orders. They had already established squads in case of emergencies, so people merely had to gather together two groups wide, spilling slightly over the edge of the road. “If you can’t feel the groups behind and in front of you, or the one to your side, you need to call it out,” John warned.
The swirling sands would limit the senses of lower ranking cultivators. Some of them would have to work to remain together. John didn’t find it necessary to inform them that he could feel all of them. A little sense of danger would improve the training potential of the situation. As long as it mainly stuck to that sensation while minimizing actual risks, it would be quite effective.
John watched as some of the groups tried to retain visual contact by deflecting the sandstorm around them. Everyone had to defend themselves to a certain extent, as the sands were hot enough to burn. Some water cultivators created bubbles of water to protect from both heat and grit. Air and earth cultivators alternatively blew against the sands or caught the sand and forced it away. Those who acted so blatantly would certainly tire themselves early. John saw a few more effective methods, in his opinion.
It could be as simple as huddling closer together and splitting the load among the squad, though inefficient techniques would still tire people out. At least that way, the senior disciples would bear more of the burden, so it was reasonable enough to expect them to keep it up for however long the storm lasted.
John still preferred the other methods. Air cultivators were better served not by fighting against the wind but by more subtly redirecting it. John expected most people to recognize that method as superior fairly quickly, though that somewhat depended on how far their senses went. Most squads should have air cultivators of their own, and if they didn’t then one of the five neighboring squads certainly would. Obviously those who didn’t have air cultivators had to come up with other methods… or be very efficient with their cross-element techniques. Technically the sand was not so powerful as to require a totem to counter it, though that still depended on the stronger disciples.
The best thing John saw from water element cultivators was spreading their energy thin to create a fog. It seemed at first that further blocking vision would be harmful, but the widespread water element was good at catching the sand and weighing it down. That could create a dead zone in the sandstorm that would last long enough for their group to pass, though much of that depended on the precise angle of the winds. It also served the secondary purpose of minimizing the heat of the sands, so at most they were annoying instead of able to cause burns.
The sandstorm was bringing more of the surrounding area onto the proper roads. They would eventually be cleared, but earth cultivators were bulldozing sand out of the way- making it easier for those behind them to walk. John took some time to rearrange some of their groups that had good techniques in the wrong location. The earth cultivators would always be best out front, while the water cultivators would do best in whatever direction the wind was coming from. Air cultivators were best distributed among everyone.
Light and darkness cultivators weren’t particularly useful against the sandstorm. Since the visual impairment came from physical blockage, they couldn’t see better than anyone else. Mostly, they could protect themselves or those around them in primitive ways. A few darkness cultivators had ‘gravity’ techniques like John’s Gravity Blade, and those clumped the sand into larger chunks that couldn’t be blown about so easily. The light element cultivators at least made it so that their group could be spotted by others even if precise forms wouldn’t be clear. They also helped negate some of the darkness that came from the sunlight being blocked.
That left fire cultivators. One would think that in a region full of their spiritual element they would be most effective, but that was not the case. They were able to draw upon the heat in the sands, counterbalancing what they used to shield themselves from the sand impacting them. However, there wasn’t much else they could do.
A few enterprising individuals began to melt some of the surrounding dunes to glass- or began that project. However, as they were on the move it was quite impractical to keep the sands held down in that manner. That method would be beneficial if they were to stop, giving them the ability to form some sort of shelter along with the work of earth cultivators.
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Ultimately, as some of them found out, they were most effective supporting the water and air cultivators. Simply amplifying their allied spiritual energy was enough to help people shelter, and fire could also boost water as it was a supportive element in the cycle. The fire cultivators would have been helpless alone- it would have been a rather unpleasant slog but they wouldn’t have been in any danger since they could constantly replenish their spiritual energy. They just weren’t anywhere close to the most effective individually.
Fedel and Chi didn’t do anything stupid during the march, nor when they camped out in a temporary cave for the night instead of pressing on to reach the next city. John doubted they were far, but people were draining quickly. John saw Chi messing around with the sands- the two lovers absolutely considered burrowing deeper in the sands to get some privacy. However, it seemed they decided against it. Probably best to wait another day or two, and John would have had to stop them if they went through with it. They’d either be too close, or too far.
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In the morning, they woke up in a shell of hardened sand and glass. The dune they’d burrowed into had grown several meters taller above them, but it didn’t take the earth element disciples long to open a tunnel. John collapsed the little cavern behind them to minimize the long term impact on the topology. The little bits of fused sand would break apart well enough, but the larger shell would have taken months or years to break down.
The sandstorm still continued, but the Six Elements Crossroads disciples had plenty of practice converting elements. This was where the fire element cultivators had been most effective at extracting fire from the surroundings and filtering it in measured doses to their allies.
As John had suspected, they were only a couple hours from the nearest city. The guards were a bit surprised to see travelers arriving, but it wasn’t unheard of. Sandstorms weren’t exactly something you could look up in the weather forecast, and not everyone would be comfortable sheltering long term.
They spent the next day and a half in the city until things settled down. That slightly increased their expected expenses, but they weren’t paying for expensive rooms. Even the fire cultivators didn’t need slightly denser spiritual energy to cultivate with.
As they continued along the roads, they did the polite thing and helped clear them. The actual roads were made of solid stone, partially melted together by fire cultivators and finished by earth cultivators from the Stone Conglomerate. It might have been impossible to find the roads without spiritual energy senses, as they could be buried under significant quantities of sand. Normally, they were traveled well enough that any cultivator could flick away thin layers of sand with any sort of spiritual energy. This took a bit more effort.
John joined his disciples, blowing some of the sand onto lower slopes with wind shoveling larger quantities away with earth element. He probably could have gotten all the way down to the road himself, but he arranged things so that they went through the layers a bit at a time. They didn’t fully uncover the road, but they made a clear path for any other caravans to work with.
They would be a bit late to their next destination, though certainly the locals would be the ones who could best understand how much sandstorms slowed down travel. And except for particular events, the world wasn’t so tied down to things happening on specific days that anyone would have made much fuss even if they were a more minor sect that was simply late for no reason.
That was the best part about being out on a journey. Because when he was back home at the Crossroads, John didn’t have an excuse to not be ready for things when they came about. It was easy for days to be bogged down with social and political visits with no time left for cultivation… or at least any of the interesting cultivation.
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They arrived around Zolvolj at a particularly normal time. That meant the volcano wasn’t due to erupt anytime soon. It wasn’t smoking or rumbling or anything of the sort. There was a reason many of the locals lived there. That was the best way to take advantage of any events that came up. It was dangerous, of course, but quite beneficial to their long term growth if they managed to withstand it.
The Milanovic clan’s compounds had expanded significantly since John first saw them. Perhaps that should not have been surprising- it had been many decades of constant growth, after all. Even if they were conservative with how many children they had and there were some deaths to violence, they were simply going to increase.
“Yo!” Steve called out to John. Lucanus was his local name, but John thought his older name suited him just fine. He was a pretty casual cultivator. Casual as a person, anyway- he did take his power seriously. “You’re late!”
“Sandstorm,” John said.
“You should have punched your way through it!” Steve said enthusiastically. John looked at Yustina, raising an eyebrow.
“He’s been looking forward to meeting again,” Yustina explained. “He’s got some new techniques.”
John was quite interested in seeing said new techniques, and also certain they would test his ability. Personally, while John thought that a cycle of elements was stronger, there were also mono-element cultivators like Steve who pushed the envelope. You didn’t always need flexibility when you were the very best at solving particular problems. And even if Steve was lacking in some areas, Yustina would cover for his weaknesses. John absolutely wouldn’t win a fight with both of them. He’d have to surpass them at least by a couple ranks to even think about it, and he’d only just recently caught them at the forty-first rank.
