We spent some time in a remote village on the edge of the desert.
After earning money from drying the wood, Tassad decided to be smart about the new opportunity and started planning his next moves.
He wasn’t about to let this chance slip through his fingers.
I kept hanging out with Ba’el and Hamri, spending time not just training but just talking.
“Dagot, did you see that girl in the shop?
Bet I can get her to go out with me.”
“Hamri, I’m not wiping your tears again.”
Those two stuck close to me, constantly messing with each other.
They loved showing off, especially their sword skills.
Since I’d never practiced that art, I didn’t know most of the finer points.
They happily shared their secrets, like they had no one else to talk to, and they always had to flex a little.
No conversation was complete without it.
“You’re sharpening the edge wrong,” they said at one point, sitting around me after seeing my sand dagger.
They drew their real steel blades for comparison.
“Swords are usually sharpened at a forty to forty-five degree angle.
That keeps them sharp without dulling too fast.
The tip is sharpened at twenty degrees.
But you’re making a weapon from a material that can maintain its edge indefinitely.”
“You could easily sharpen it to twenty degrees and not worry about wear.” They showed me roughly what angle the blade should be.
With a serious face, I raised my hand to the dagger and carefully sharpened it.
A little more and the sandstone would’ve crumbled.
I ran it across the fabric and easily cut through.
“Thanks…”
“Ha, bro’s dangerous now.
I’m scared to fight him,” Ba’el grinned.
“I’ll come by for kitchen knives, you cool with that?” Hamri asked, dead serious.
Still, we didn’t stay in that dump for long.
Father gathered his thoughts and called us to the boat.
We were heading home.
Judging by his smile, he’d come up with some solid ideas for a profitable business.
The repaired catamaran lurched forward, and spirits were high.
But squinting against the sand blowing in our direction, I looked at the horizon with doubt.
“Hey…
isn’t that a sandstorm heading for us?” A massive wall of sandstone seemed to be forming in the middle of the desert, slowly approaching.
My heart started pounding.
“That’s it.
We’re going through it.” My eyes went wide.
“It’s safe for Sandbenders.
We can easily deflect the particles, and the wind gusts will actually speed us up.”
According to him, the storm was an enhancer.
Tassad looked pleased.
Probably because it meant getting home faster to execute his plans.
But all my survival instincts told me not to go near it.
Anubis stayed silent, though, which meant the danger wasn’t even worth a choice.
I clenched my teeth and stared ahead.
But maybe I was wrong.
“Yah ah!” A loud yell came from behind us.
It was hard to notice because we had to focus, but three boats had latched onto our tail.
Trying to catch us, the pursuers used three Sandbenders each to create their tornadoes, and soon they were on either side of us.
Sand pirates.
SHOOOM.
Planning to stop us, they formed a huge sand pillar in front of our boat, easily enough to kill our momentum.
Due to sheer inexperience, I closed my terrified eyes, barely noticing a tiny gap appear in the giant geyser.
We flew right through it.
“Hold on tight.” Tassad’s voice was dead serious, barely audible over my pounding heart.
SWISH.
After bursting through the tunnel, he suddenly sent sharp spears at the pursuing boats, piercing their runners and impaling one of the pirates straight through.
The brutal sight made me fear for my own life.
One attack, ending a life so easily.
What was stopping the pirates from doing the same?
And they did, just differently.
With sand kicking up everywhere, I didn’t notice the grains tightly wrapping around my arm.
It was like a whip had grabbed me, yanking me off my feet.
“Ahhh!” I couldn’t hold back the panicked scream.
The boat disappeared from under me.
Father was getting farther away.
The bandits pulled me in.
My neck was in the grip of one of their benders, a sharp dagger pressed to my face, making me go pale as my life flashed before my eyes.
“Shut up, brat.
Stop your boat, or we’ll kill this kid!” they yelled at Tassad.
I should have shit myself, but my experience in near death situations quickly shut my mouth.
Still running on adrenaline, I realized if we stopped, they’d surround us and beat us to death.
I didn’t know what the pirates wanted, but we were on relatively equal footing as long as we kept moving at this speed.
While Father didn’t stop, which would’ve doomed us all, I carefully looked at the arm squeezing me, cutting off my air.
I grabbed the cold fingers, imagined the bulging limb as a log, and suddenly, without any delicacy, drained all the moisture.
“Ghh aaah!” The bender’s body convulsed violently in pain.
He lost control of his bending, and the same thing happened to him as to the wood.
His muscles contracted toward the core, squeezing the bones from all sides.
They became brittle and quickly crumbled.
“Well, shit,” I muttered.
Looking up, I saw the other benders staring at me.
Problem.
Taking a firm stance, I closed my eyes, so I wouldn’t be blown away by the approaching sandstorm.
Instantly, I felt immense power in my surroundings and powerful wind gusts that the benders used to accelerate their boats.
We accelerated like we had nitrous, bouncing high over every bump.
Thump thump thump thump.
At that moment, an endless barrage of sand arrows rained down on the pirates in front of me.
Tassad must have had an unlimited supply of easily accessible ammunition.
A few surprised benders were pierced through, while others quickly adapted to the situation.
The swirling sand surrounded their bodies, turning into makeshift armor.
“This is just insane.
I gotta get out of here.” Seeing this had turned into some kind of god battle, I gathered the swirling sand grains into a whip-like shape to pull myself back to my own boat.
But noticing a blade flying at me, I quickly sharpened the whip and deflected the projectile.
Everything was so chaotic that projectiles were coming from everywhere.
I could barely tell who was attacking whom.
And worse, I couldn’t even see my own boat in this storm.
“Choose:”
At that moment, Anubis finally descided to speak.
“1: Jump off the boat (If you die, at least it’ll be from broken legs).”
“2: Hide in the cabin (Read a prayer before you die).”
He was having fun.
I wasn’t.
Not even a little bit.
Quickly looking around and realizing I wasn’t crazy enough to jump from a moving boat at this speed, I barely made it to the cabin and wrapped myself in a sand shield.
My heart was pounding.
I wondered why Anubis only suggested hiding now.
And right at that moment…
CRASH.
The boat shook from a powerful impact, collapsing a pile of planks onto my sand shield.
Silence.
Only the roar of the storm remained.
I stayed in my cocoon, eyes darting around, dozens of scenarios running through my head.
I was so terrified for my life that I was scared to come out.
Even when the heat rose and oxygen started running out, I didn’t dare look.
Only when the sound of the storm began to fade did my heart slowly calm down.
There were several meters of sand above my head.
If I’d been an ordinary person, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out and would have suffocated.
But I clenched my fist and gave a light punch to the roof.
The strike, honed by countless repetitions, caused an explosion of sand.
I easily cleared the pile and climbed out.
Only to realize there was no one around.
Just a howling breeze and a pair of legs sticking out of the sand.
I anxiously looked around, hoping to see Tassad patrolling the area, but sadly realized he wasn’t there.
I was alone.
And there was one strange mountain on the horizon.
That was it.
I still had my hourglass.
The boat was destroyed beyond repair, with no chance of recovery.
“…Why didn’t you warn me this would happen?” I stared into the air.
“You stayed silent about the dangers for so long, just to what?”
“Choose:”
“1: Sit and cry (You’ll accomplish nothing).”
“2: Head toward Shi Wong Mountain.”
My pupils slowly contracted.
Looking closer at the peak on the horizon, I finally understood which area I’d ended up in.
I was near the magnetic center of the desert, the one Tassad had mentioned.
“It’s dangerous there.
But if all compasses point to it…
eventually someone has to come, right?” I swallowed and stood up.
My father would surely figure out where I was.
I couldn’t just stay in the middle of a dead desert.
The sand under my feet was uncomfortably soft and made the journey difficult.
Walking was long, and considering the dunes in my way, I probably would have lost my mind.
So I gently moved my hand, letting the sand make it easier to move.
I started gliding like on ice skates.
The path was much easier.
I reached the cliff in less than an hour.
“Solid rock.” I touched the almost vertical wall, feeling a sense of awe.
Not sandstone, but real rock.
Even so, it felt like an extension of my hands.
I could take control and use it for my benefit.
But it wasn’t responding well.
“Well, I never learned to manipulate solid rock.”
All I could do was make a fingerhold to climb up.
On the plateau, I was met with numerous burrows.
Everywhere I looked, deep holes.
And under my feet, a strange buzzing.
“Why was this place so dangerous?
What happened in the cartoon…
oh, wait.” I started to slowly recall.
At the same time, the buzzing grew louder.
Fearsome sounds came from the holes.
The moment I swallowed, several giant wasps suddenly burst out.
Real monsters, the size of a person, flying rapidly around the area.
Five of them stared at me with massive compound eyes, opening their mouths like a scavenger’s beak.
Their wings buzzed as they lunged at me, thrusting their huge stingers forward.
The prospect of being eaten by giant creatures appealed to me even less than being beaten to death by bandits.
So I quickly raised the sand that had been blown onto the mountain by the tornado, created a couple of blades, and with all my strength, pouring out my emotions, cut them all down with one swing.
Guts and green blood spilled out just a few centimeters in front of me.
I barely kept my stomach from turning inside out.
Just horrible.
“…So you’re telling me I need to wait for rescue on this mountain?
And for how long?”
“The Trial of Anubis begins.
By leaving home and refusing to drink fermented juice, you have stepped onto the warrior’s path.
Choose:”
“1: Refine your sand tentacles ten thousand times (It will be easier to develop sand speed).”
“2: Knock down 100 enemies from 60 meters while airborne (You’ll learn to shoot sand faster).”
“…I have a feeling this is going to take forever.”