After carefully examining the area, Fang Yuan didn't find any traps.
He slowly approached the dried corpse. When he was only five or six steps away, an abrupt change occurred.
Fang Yuan couldn't help but curse inwardly, because once again he had lost control of the young Dao Tian, becoming a mere observer once more.
The young Dao Tian muttered to himself: "This person died trapped at the bottom of the well. Could it be that they were surrounded by those beasts and couldn't escape?"
Then he approached the dried corpse, observed a moment of silence, and only then began searching the body.
No further surprises followed. The dried corpse was quite ordinary, with no hidden traps.
During his search, the young Dao Tian discovered that this person had been a Gu Master in life, and one of considerable transformation level and high status.
He hadn't left behind any Gu Insects, but sewn into the inner lining of his clothing was a sheepskin map.
The young Dao Tian found nothing else of value besides this sheepskin map.
In the dim light of the underground cavern, the young Dao Tian could only make out blurry lines on the map — nothing clear.
He tucked the map into his bosom and searched the surrounding area carefully, but found nothing else.
Still, the young Dao Tian was already quite content.
Because this place held the most precious resource in the desert — water.
He was cautious enough to check the water quality first. Only after confirming it was safe did he take a careful sip.
The water came from deep underground, seemingly channeled here with great effort by the deceased when he was still alive.
As soon as the young Dao Tian took a sip, he felt a wave of cold, crisp refreshment. The bloody taste that had filled his mouth from drinking blood earlier was greatly diminished.
The young Dao Tian's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. That sip stirred a powerful urge within him, and without hesitation he bent down and plunged his face into the dark spring.
Glug, glug — he gulped down several large mouthfuls before suddenly lifting his head, water droplets spraying in every direction.
He plopped down on the ground, silent. Both hands braced against the surface, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. After a long moment, he let out a satisfied sigh.
After resting for a while, he reached up, wiped the water from his face, stood, and returned to the bottom of the dry well.
The young Dao Tian immediately shivered — the bottom of the dry well was far colder than the underground cavern.
However, the young Dao Tian had his reasons for coming here.
He looked up toward the well's opening. Although he had layered several sheets of beast hide over it, the night wind had been fierce and had already blown away most of the hide, revealing a gaping hole.
Through the opening, the young Dao Tian could see the multitude of stars hanging high in the pitch-black night sky.
He sighed, then pulled out some beast hide and chopped firewood, quickly assembling the skeleton of a campfire. He then rubbed sticks together to start a fire, and after the time it took to drink a cup of tea, he succeeded in igniting the flames.
The fire's smoke was thin, drifting up through the well's opening. The warmth from the flames gradually drove away the cold from the young Dao Tian's body.
The young Dao Tian first roasted several pieces of beast meat, and once cooked, swallowed them down.
Eating cooked food and feeling his stomach fill, he couldn't help but grow drowsy.
But the young Dao Tian fought back his drowsiness and, by the feeble firelight, took out the newly acquired sheepskin map to examine.
"This sheepskin map appears to be very old."
"Hm? The place it highlights — isn't that the small oasis where my clan lives?"
The young Dao Tian was startled.
On the sheepskin map, the small oasis was prominently marked, with several lines of Western Desert script beside it.
The text was quite small, and most of it had become blurred and illegible with age, leaving only the first few characters at the beginning — fragmentary but the clearest of all.
The young Dao Tian struggled to decipher them, reading aloud with difficulty: "Burial ground of immortals... ominous... curse..."
"Bizarre!" After pondering for a long time, he couldn't uncover any more clues, and his brows furrowed deeply.
"I've been in this world for over a decade now, and I've heard the elders of my clan tell stories of immortals. But those are all just legends — do immortals truly exist in this world?"
"It doesn't seem impossible. Just look at Gu Masters — this world is strange and wondrous enough that anything could exist."
"Burial ground of immortals... Could it be that my home is built over the grave of an immortal?"