In order to express his intentions, the chief of the Black Sand tribe, Hei Mann, vacated his residence and arranged for the best food in their tribe to entertain Ye Zhen.
Even though Black Sand brought out their best, it still couldn’t compare to the luxurious lives of the Great Zhou nobility.
To be honest, the best things Black Sand offered were only slightly better than the average meals of ordinary Great Zhou citizens, not considered luxurious.
But this was already their best food.
This shows how harsh the living environment of the Sha Clan people truly is.
The ingredients were scarce, and the preparation was simple: steaming wheat cakes, large chunks of mutton, sand scorpion soup, sea buckthorn wine, and some desserts made from special products of the sandy land.
However, Ye Zhen ate with great satisfaction.
Not that the food was particularly tasty, but because of the environment.
Everyone around him had sincere smiles, causing him to unknowingly eat a few more bowls of rice.
As Ye Zhen frequently raised the not-very-delicious sea buckthorn wine, it made the chief Hei Mann and several Realm King realm experts of the Black Sand tribe excited with flushed faces.
In their view, for the incarnation of the Yizhi Heavenly God, the Divine Envoy to drink their wine, it was the greatest affirmation to them.
Ye Zhen’s down-to-earth demeanor also livened up the atmosphere of tonight’s banquet; as the incarnation of the Yizhi Heavenly God recognized by these people, Ye Zhen could completely lead the topics of the banquet.
And Ye Zhen intentionally or unintentionally steered the topic towards the Yizhi Temple.
Although Hei Mann and others became reserved when discussing the Yizhi Temple, under Ye Zhen’s lead as the fake Divine Envoy, they relaxed quite a bit.
Giving Ye Zhen a basic understanding of the Yizhi Temple in the Yizhi Sand Sea.
Since Ye Zhen had already decided to contend with the Yizhi Temple in the Yizhi Sand Sea next, knowing oneself and the enemy ensures victory.
Understanding the Yizhi Temple is essential first.
The Yizhi Temple appeared early in the Yizhi Sand Sea; it was there when the Yizhi Sand Sea existed.
Legend has it the Sand Sea Heavenly God Yizhi was omnipotent.
The oasis where the Sha Clan people survive in the Yizhi Sand Sea was created by the Yizhi Heavenly God.
Moreover, back then, the oasis in the Sand Sea was much larger than it is now.
With the oasis to live in, the Sha Clan people didn’t have to worry about food and water; back then, their enemy was the invaders, the Great Zhou dynasty seeking to conquer the Primordial Continent.
In the bloody battles staining the yellow sands for thousands of years, the Sha Clan people leveraged the geographical advantages of the Sand Sea to repel one invasion after another by the Great Zhou.
These are tales passed down by some elders of the Sha Clan tribe, their accuracy unknown.
But one widely circulated fact among all Sha Clan people is, nobody knows how many tens of thousands of years ago, maybe fifty thousand years ago, maybe a hundred thousand years ago, or perhaps even longer ago.
Their guardian deity, the Yizhi Sand Sea Heavenly God, hasn’t bestowed any Divine Miracles ever since.
The oasis that generations of Sha Clan people depended on for survival began to shrink rapidly, and their living environment started to deteriorate swiftly.
Even the priests of the Yizhi Temple couldn’t halt this trend.
Fortunately, the Yizhi Temple, which worships the Sand Sea Heavenly God Yizhi, still had some abilities.
When ninety percent of the oasis that Sha Clan people relied on vanished, the priests of the Yizhi Temple finally stopped the disappearing trend of the oasis, maintaining the necessary oasis for countless Sha Clan people to sustain life.
But it was only maintenance at best.
The Sha Clan people could only barely fill their stomachs; moreover, as the oasis shrank, a mere sandstorm could cause enormous loss for them.
Thus, over the many years, even though they had the Yizhi Temple, the living environment of the Sha Clan people continued to worsen.
Frankly, the situation of the Black Sand tribe is slightly better; there are still some very small tribes with populations of only a few thousand, who might completely vanish after a single sandstorm.
This is the basic situation of the Sha Clan people Ye Zhen understood, and through the inquiries by Ye Zhen, the superior Heavenly God’s incarnation, Ye Zhen realized another thing.
Today, why did they identify Ye Zhen as the incarnation of the Yizhi Heavenly God just for doing some small feats?
They became fervent believers of Ye Zhen, worshipping him immensely.
The reason boils down to two words—comparison!
In the Yizhi Temple, the ranks of priests are divided into four types. The lowest level priest is the Sand Robe Priest, who is generally a Divine Communication Realm priest.
Having mastered the secret techniques of the Yizhi Temple, they can find water sources in the Sand Sea, predict sandstorms, and guide the Sha Clan people to avoid disasters.
Above Sand Robe Priest is the Green Robe Priest.
The Green Robe Priest is regarded as god-like by the Sha Clan people.
Because after the Green Robe Priest’s rituals, they can revive dying plants in the Sand Sea and use secret techniques to draw underground water to irrigate large wheat fields, improving water and soil.
For small tribes like the Black Sand tribe, the Yizhi Temple would at least station one Green Robe Priest.
In general, one Green Robe Priest can control the lifeline of small tribes like the Black Sand tribe.
Most Green Robe Priests belong to the Dark Palace Realm, like the previous Laxen, who was a Green Robe Priest.
Above the Green Robe Priest is the Water Robe Priest, also known as Blue Robe Priest.
The Blue Robe Priests of the Yizhi Temple can help stabilize underground water sources, find new underground water, and even cause exhausted underground rivers to gush springwater anew.
Generally, only medium to large tribes have stationed Blue Robe Priests; besides, a Blue Robe Priest is already part of the upper management of the Yizhi Temple and considered as Realm King realm experts.
In the Yizhi Temple, above the Blue Robe Priests are the Sand Sea Divine Priests, who are said to be powerful enough to alter the path of sandstorms.
However, there are very few Sand Sea Divine Priests in the Yizhi Temple, and they’re rare and seldom participate in matters.
As Ye Zhen understood it, Sand Sea Divine Priests should be Dao Realm experts.
According to this understanding, there are Dao Realm experts sitting in the Yizhi Temple, and there are more than one, this was Ye Zhen’s understanding.
As for why the Black Sand tribe identified Ye Zhen as a Divine Envoy, the reason is actually because over a hundred years ago, the Black Sand tribe was a medium-sized tribe with a population exceeding two hundred thousand.
Back then, the Black Sand tribe’s oasis was twice the size now, guarded by a powerful Blue Robe Priest.
Unfortunately, the Black Sand tribe was rather unlucky, with frequent sandstorms occurring sometimes as many as ten to fifteen times a year.
Once the terrifying sandstorm swept over, their lifeblood wheat fields would be uprooted.
After enduring many natural disasters, the population of the Black Sand Tribe naturally dwindled significantly.
Natural attrition, in truth, meant starvation.
The scale of the Black Sand Tribe fell from a medium-sized tribe to a small one, and their guardian Temple Priest was replaced from a Blue Robe Priest to the current Green-Robed Priest.
However, including Hei Mann, the chief of the Black Sand Tribe, along with the only three remaining Realm King Realm warriors of the tribe, and some of the tribe’s elders, all had personally witnessed the powerful Blue Robe Priest of the Yizhi Temple performing Heavenly God Skills.
The so-called Heavenly God Skills involved making the nearly withered wheat seedlings and sea buckthorn trees in the oasis absorb moisture and rejuvenate.
Even when the formidable Blue Robe Priest performed the Heavenly God Skills, it would still take at least a day for the yellowed seedlings in the oasis to regain their green vitality.
Moreover, only a portion of the yellowed seedlings would come back to life.
Like the wheat field that Ye Zhen saved for Gangli’s family of four, if the Blue Robe Priest were to perform the Heavenly God Skills, saving half would already be considered divine intervention.
If it were the Green-Robed Priest Laxen, saving a third would be decent.
But in the hands of Ye Zhen, Gangli’s family’s wheat field became lush and vibrant within a few breaths, even looking better and more flourishing than the surrounding undamaged fields.
If this isn’t a divine miracle, what is?
Afterwards, wherever Ye Zhen walked, all the plants in the oasis, whether wheat seedlings, sweetgrass, sea buckthorn trees, or even dead suasu grass, burst forth with vibrant vitality.
If this isn’t a divine miracle, what is?
Such feats were beyond the capability of even the esteemed Blue Robe Priest of the Yizhi Temple, let alone those rarely seen Sand Sea Divine Priests.
The only one capable of performing such a miracle would be a God!
Only the legendary Yizhi Sand Sea Sky God could achieve it.
But the Yizhi Sand Sea Sky God has been gone for countless years, thus the Sha Clan naturally perceived Ye Zhen as the embodiment, the Divine Envoy, of the Yizhi Sand Sea Sky God.
This finally made Ye Zhen understand how he muddled into becoming an embodiment of the Yizhi Sand Sea Sky God.
At least he understood the reason.
In fact, Ye Zhen already realized that the so-called Heavenly God Skills of the Yizhi Temple was simply a Secret Technique that could mobilize Water Spiritual Power and Wood Spirit Power.
It’s just that their training in this Secret Technique of Water and Wood Spiritual Power was lacking, much inferior to the Yimu Spiritual Power cultivated by Ye Zhen’s Yimu Spiritual Communication Technique.
Ye Zhen’s Yimu Spiritual Power is the foundation of billions of plant spirits under the heavens.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that if Ye Zhen gave a tree a wisp of Yimu Spiritual Power, as long as its luck wasn’t too bad, it could cultivate into a demon with that Yimu Spiritual Power.
So, creating these kinds of divine miracles with a hint of Yimu Spiritual Power in the water vapor was nothing unusual.
Furthermore, a simple reason remained, beneath the gathering place of the Black Sand Tribe lies an underground river, and the Black Sand Tribe has Realm King Realm experts.
Even if a Realm King Realm expert wasn’t strong enough, practicing an Escape Skill to retrieve water from the underground river to the surface should be sufficient to irrigate the wheat fields here. Why rely solely on the priests of the Yizhi Temple for water extraction and field irrigation?
The reason was simple, whether the Green-Robed Priest of the Yizhi Temple or Ye Zhen, when extracting underground water to irrigate the wheat fields, they used a very meticulous method.
Directly delivering moisture to the roots of seedlings and plants, allowing them to absorb it directly.
For thousands of years, the plants in the Sand Sea naturally evolved traits to resist drought and conserve water, allowing them to survive with a little moisture.
Similarly, those Realm King Realm experts could bring water from the underground river to the desert surface to irrigate the fields, but such haphazard flooding could waste about 90% of the water into the desert.
In the desert, water is the most precious resource, and such waste is catastrophic.
A few times might not matter, but if it continued for too long or excessive amounts were used, the underground river beneath the Black Sand Tribe’s gathering place would eventually dry up.
Should that happen, it would be a true catastrophe for the Black Sand Tribe.
Thus, even if the Black Sand Tribe had Realm King Realm experts, they preferred to live under the influence of the Yizhi Temple to sustain their lifelines.
From the banquet, Ye Zhen gained a rough understanding of the Yizhi Sand Sea.
Simultaneously, he developed a more definitive plan for his next steps.
The only issue left was the Yizhi Temple’s attitude.
Ye Zhen was curious to see how the Yizhi Temple would react if they discovered him passing off as the Yizhi Heavenly God’s Envoy.
In truth, on the surface, the Yizhi Temple didn’t seem strong, and there weren’t many Dao Realm desert Divine Sacrifices.
But it could counterbalance the Great Zhou Dynasty; in the secret archives of the Heavenly Patrol Department, Yizhi Temple’s greatest reliance was on geographical advantage.
It seemed that in the Sand Sea, the desert divine priests of the Yizhi Temple could unleash astonishing Combat Power.
Therefore, Ye Zhen remained wary of the Yizhi Temple.
Nonetheless, since he came to the Yizhi Sand Sea and gained such benefits, Ye Zhen couldn’t leave empty-handed.
The banquet hosted by the Black Sand Tribe in Ye Zhen’s honor lasted for two hours until midnight before it concluded.
Returning to his resting quarters, Ye Zhen found, much to his amusement, that the two sisters he saved from the Green-Robed Priest Laxen earlier in the day were now cleaned and kneeling at the foot of his bed.
"Shaana, Shayina are here to serve the Divine Envoy’s rest."
The two young girls, free from the tension and sorrow of the day, now had eyes full of joy and anticipation.
Ye Zhen could tell these two young girls were genuinely willing.
But regardless of their willingness, Ye Zhen couldn’t accept it.
Today, Ye Zhen simply wanted to help and nothing more.
Rescuing them from the tiger’s jaws and then taking advantage would demean everything he stood for.
Upon hearing Ye Zhen’s refusal of their service, one of the young girls burst into tears, crying until Ye Zhen used his dignity as a Divine Envoy to assure them that the God had acknowledged their sincerity, only then did they reluctantly leave.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, with the wind blowing sand soundly outside, Ye Zhen studied a simple map of the surrounding tribes obtained from the chief of the Black Sand Tribe, contemplating his next destination.
Quickly, Ye Zhen decided on the next tribe where he would showcase divine miracles, gather the Power of Belief, and strengthen his Divine Soul Power.
"However, before leaving the Black Sand Tribe, I must do something more for them, like stabilizing their oasis... to stay true to my heart!" Ye Zhen murmured.

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