"It's like a kind of combustion."
Xu Qing watched as the scorpion in front of him instantly turned into black ashes that scattered to the ground. He frowned and fell silent.
He had studied this black ash before but it was useless. It gave Xu Qing the feeling that after the curse was suppressed, it chose to perish together with its bloodline.
"It will require more experimentation, as well as different species."
Xu Qing fell into deep thought. He took out the other ferocious beasts the shadow had captured on the way and continued to study them.
Days passed just like that.
There were also disputes in the small city, but since his arrival, Xu Qing had never ventured outside, keeping himself isolated from such trivial matters.
As time passed, the seed he planted gradually sprouted and became a green seedling.
This little seedling was peculiar, seeming to possess some form of sentience. When Xu Qing approached it, it would instinctively tremble.
When Ling'er got close, it would sway and twist its body, which would elicit joyful laughter from Ling'er, causing the seedling to put in even more effort.
The Diamond Sect's ancestor shouldered the mission of guarding. He hung on the roof beam and was always looking at the entrance.
And the shadow…
It was very unconvinced by the little seedling's actions of currying favor with Ling'er. There were a few times when it suddenly appeared beside the little seedling when Ling'er and Xu Qing weren't paying attention and gave it a deathly stare.
Every time this happened, Xiaomiao[1] would curl up and not dare to move at all.
However, the shadow didn't do this often. It also had other missions. Occasionally, it would have to head out and leave the small city to capture ferocious beasts for Xu Qing in the Bitter Life Mountain Range and the Green Hair Desert.
This allowed Xu Qing's research to continue without interruption.
And every time it returned, it would also bring back some insights and knowledge about the area and convey emotional fluctuations to Xu Qing.
At this moment, the role of the Diamond Sect's ancestor became apparent.
He would act as a translator at the side to explain the shadow's words. However, he would occasionally add in his own words and set traps for the shadow.
Although the shadow had grown quite a bit, it was still a little tender in the end. There were still two to three times out of ten where it didn't notice the traps.
Xu Qing didn't care much about this. He was already used to the conflict between these two fellows.
Through the shadow and the Diamond Sect's ancestor, his understanding of this Green Hair Desert deepened.
For example, Xu Qing knew the reason why the earth cities were built on mountains.
That was because there were many bizarre entities in the desert, and any one of them could easily destroy a small city.
Only on the mountain would it be much safer.
Additionally, there would be various illusions appearing in the desert periodically, sometimes an oasis, sometimes a city in the sky, and at times, even otherworldly realms.
They would move, and wherever they passed, death would fill the air.
As long as one entered these illusions, it would be very difficult for them to come out alive. After the illusions disappeared, only bones with flesh and blood eaten clean were left on the ground.
In addition, regarding the huge mushrooms Xu Qing had seen on the way, the news brought by the shadow also described that it had seen the giant mushroom standing up from the desert.
Under the mushrooms, there were countless roots that formed human-like shapes and moved across the desert, pursuing the illusions.
These weren't the most terrifying things in the Green Hair Desert. Under the shadow's description and inquiries, Xu Qing understood that the color of the wind in this desert wasn't fixed.
When the green-colored wind turned white, then all living beings in the desert had to seek refuge in the nearest mountain as quickly as possible.
If not, they would face a dire situation, and only the peaks in this area could provide shelter from the sandstorms.
In the long passage of time, the white wind appeared quite a few times, and occasionally, there were survivors who managed to escape to the nearby mountains to avoid death within the white wind.
However, these people who escaped would undergo a common change.
Their bodies would become deformed and extremely ugly, and this condition would also be passed down to their descendants, without change.
This reminded Xu Qing of those deformed people in the small city.
In addition, other than the white wind, there was also the black wind in the Green Hair Desert. However, it hadn't appeared for hundreds of years but the rumors about the black wind still existed.
Once the black wind appeared, all living beings in the Green Hair Desert would have a slim chance of survival. Even if they hid on the mountain, there would still be danger.
However, in the Moon Worship Region, places that weren't dangerous were rare, and compared to the constant dangers of the outside world, the occurrence of the black wind once every few centuries didn't seem like a significant threat.
However, there was still one more color, gray.
The gray wind was just a legend, and it was something that Xu Qing had learned about from an old man who had come to buy medicinal pills. This kind of wind had only appeared once in the history of the Green Hair Desert.
It had been too long since then, so no one knew exactly what would happen.
This information allowed Xu Qing to have a deeper understanding of this desert. At the same time, during this period of time, other than studying the curse, he also activated the mirror many times.
Through his repeated explorations, he gained a clearer understanding of the assessment of the Moon Rebel Hall.
"That one-eyed cultivator wasn't lying about this. Any mirror in the range of the Bitter Life Mountain Range is the entrance to Moon Rebel Hall."
"At the same time, it's also the method to activate the assessment."
"Only by passing the assessment can one enter the Moon Rebel Hall."
Xu Qing sat cross-legged in the house. His gaze landed on the mirror in front of him and determination appeared in his eyes.
His understanding during this period of time allowed him to know that there were a total of three tests to pass in order to join the Moon Rebel Hall.
[1] It means little seedling.
