Maha noticed them before they did. The four had been walking past the sandstorm zone, but then one of them caught sight of the two women standing in front of it. After discussing with the rest of their group, they decided to approach them in the name of gathering information.
"Wow, I sure am in luck to meet two pretty ladies in desolate place like this. But I'm curious. What brought you two beauties out here?"
The leader of the group, was a man with a well-built figure and a fairly handsome face. However, he had no reservations about licking their bodies with his eyes. Emily felt an uncomfortable ripple run across her limbs, but Maha stood in front of her as if to shield her from those eyes.
"Just a little exploring. We finally came of age, so our clan allowed us to see the outside world for ourselves."
"Oh, are you from one of those desert clans?"
Maha only gave a suggestive smile in response. There was no way for them to prove their strength without a fight, so she hoped that this would be enough to deter them from making a foolish decision.
"I see. By the way, have you seen a group of five recently? Three men, two women."
"Sorry but, I don't believe we have."
As a professional assassin, there was no way Maha would reveal her thoughts through any unconscious signals, but Emily wasn't able to replicate such a feat. It was a brief flinch that she herself didn't notice, but the leader did.
"Oh really? But your friend seems to know something."
At that moment, Emily knew that she had screwed up. She wished she could apologize, but Maha didn't lay blame on her.
"You don't have to mind her, she's just a little shy."
"In that case, you should come with us. We'll be glad to help her socialize. Right guys?"
The rest of the men chuckled with mocking smiles. Emily clenched her fists and narrowed her eyes in response, but Maha took a step forward with the same pleasant smile that she had kept since the start of this conversation. The other three men raised their guard as she approached, but the leader remained calm and confident.
"That's quite the generous proposal, but,"
"Watch out!"
At the same time as Maha swung her arm forward, one of the men pushed their leader out of her way and suffered in his place. Blood spewed from his arm but the wound was already closing once he took out the knife that had stabbed him. Even so, he struggled to stand up straight since he could feel poison invading his body.
"Be careful, she uses poison."
The dying man's colleagues watched her cautiously and with hate in their eyes. The leader was especially furious so he started off their attack. He used a wind spell to create multiple invisible arrows that were aimed her vital regions. Maha could feel the danger of her surroundings increase, but she only sighed. She wasn't fond of fighting head-on, but these men weren't strong enough to give her too much trouble. She had aimed to kill the leader with her first attack, but she could settle for incapacitating one of them.
She struck the ground with a spell, and then used the screen of sand to hide her figure. The arrows of wind lost their target so the leader and others quickly used their spiritual senses to find her, and when they did, she was already behind a different man with her knife poised for his neck. His barrier managed to deflect the attack, but Maha was relentless. The other two tried to assist him, but they had forgotten about someone.
A fireball stopped one man in his tracks while Emily attacked the leader with Dull Harmony. The leader raised his barrier and tried to counter with the wind, but Dull Harmony split his barrier like hot butter so he was forced to use the wind to escape her attack instead.
"Didn't you say that you would help me socialize? I'll take you up on that offer."
Inside the sandstorm, Shui was experiencing a new sensation. He had realized that there was another way of examining the desert for clues; following the wind instead of the searching underground. Although he couldn't see the fire element channel system from the sky, by latching his perception onto the wind, Shui was able to freely scour the plains.
Like a bird, he moved naturally through the sky while paying attention to what was down below. He could still pick up vibrations in the environment so if he focused, he could eavesdrop on the scant human conversations being had without alerting anyone. However, his perception couldn't stretch endlessly so there was a limit to range that he could observe. It included a few power spots, but Shui wanted to see more so he also activated his martial intent which had a positive effect on his perception.
Thanks to his martial intent, if he focused in one direction he could now sense up to eastern border of the desert. As he swept his perception around in a circle, he found a surprising number of people in the desert. He couldn't find any of the rumoured desert clans, but there was a large group that seemed to be searching for something. He was a little worried so he briefly checked their conversations, but luckily their objective was different from his. He also found the group of five, but he didn't spend much time watching them.
Once he was done scanning through the desert, Shui cleared his mind and compared the power spots and their distribution to what was on the map. The power spots also influenced the air movement so he saw a different side to them that he hoped was useful. As he compared the airflows between the power spots, Shui thought that he finally found a clue, but there was the same problem, the air flows changed. Furthermore, unlike the channel system, there was no stable air flow that he could emphasize.
Shui began to feel discouraged, but as he thought of sinking his perception into the ground, he had a new idea. Instead of focusing on just the sky or underground, why not both?
Shui acted on it immediately. In order to capture both the sky and underground in his perception, he had to severely limit his range, but it was successful. In the process, he noticed the group approaching Emily and Maha, but he believed that they could handle it.
As he followed the stream of fire element to the great river, Shui used the above air flows as a guide. He suppressed his joy when he broke his record for the distance he could cover through the channel system, but his heart beat rapidly once he found one of the cores that were displayed on the array shown by the map.
"Finally."
The core was a ball of fire elemental energy that was more orderly and pure than the fire element that made up the channel system. It also seemed to hide mysteries too profound for him to unravel. Shui felt that he could find more cores, but his perception couldn't stretch much farther so he had to stop here.
Shui took out the map and then used his spiritual sense to connect it with the core. It was a gradual process, but he could tell that the map was becoming more refined as it continued. With this, the end was in sight.