Gu Zhi and Gu Xiao eventually made it to the oasis.
It was much bigger then they expected. A wide lake of fresh water with trees and grass along the shore.
"Finally a place to rest, we need to restock on supplies, theres food and water here, lets get to work I'll make us some food with the trees, go grab some water from the lake and fill up or water skins" Gu Xiao said.
Wandering the desert took a toll on ones body. It wasn't just the sweltering heat, their was a phycological burden as well. Traveling with no map, you had no idea how far the dunes would stretch on for.
Gu Zhi collected all the water skins they had and made his way to the lake. He was filling them up before he noticed something strange. Something was floating at the surface of the lake. He pulled it out of the water only to find it was a severed arm.
'Looks like we weren't the first ones here' he thought to himself.
He then smelled at checked the water to make sure it was safe to drink. They would still most likely have to drink it with their dwindling supplies, but if their was a problem with the water, they should know about it first.
He took a sniff and then a swig, finding it to be relatively fine. Their was a slightly strange taste to it, but that could have been caused by anything, it was pointless to speculate because they would have no way to confirm.
The lake was rather large, so any pollution or poisoning was probably worthless, with how diluted it would be. Still if a couple passed through here, he didn't doubt that they would at least think about sabotage.
"The water skins are full but I noticed a floating severed arm on the water, it seems we aren't the first to arrive here" he said as he regrouped with Gu Xiao.
"That's not that surprising, in this harsh desert any living thing would rush here if they saw it. The problem is that they're couples ahead of us. With the amount of time we spent gathering resources that's not that crazy, what is crazy though is that they managed to get here in the first place. To reach this oasis, we had to exhaust almost all of our supplies to reach here. How were couples able to reach here first, with less time spent gathering resources" she replied.
"My best guess is that they ran into more couples, we have only faced 2 seen we've been here. With how many contestants we saw at the beginning rushing into the portal, it does take math professor to know something is not adding up".
"Maybe, but don't forgot how big this place is. Contestants could have been placed north, east, or west, while we were placed south. Perhaps the palace is in the middle and everyone knows the general location they have to head in to reach it" she said.
"true, but do you really think only 3 couples would be placed south. The amount of contestants reached over 1000, and you're telling me only 6 were placed south. Every faction chose to send young couples in and this a shared trial, we should all be placed into the same world. Why then, can't we find anyone".
"Maybe, they killed each other, maybe we passed by them, maybe this world is truly that big, we don't know and we have little time to speculate, all we can do is keep this in the back of our minds while we press forward. It won't matter if we make it to the palace" she said.
"Right, but it doesn't help to be cautious, and this smells fishy. Like theirs a grand scheme going on, and we're out of the loop" he said.
"you're probably right but we have no new information, and no way to get it. We still have to move, but we will move with caution and patience" she said.
Thus, they restocked their supplies and headed out north again. Hoping that whatever conspiracy was going on didn't involve them. But that was probably hopeless naivety, believing that people weren't out to kill you, could in fact get you killed.
They treaded the desert, with calm resolve. Patient not to waste resources no matter how much time they were wasting. After over another month spent in the desert they finally found some semblance of hope.
"Look, out there" Gu Zhi said as they never stopped moving forward.
Gu Xiao squinted her eyes looking north into the distance. She could only make out some sort of green horizon, with grass and trees.
"It looks like we finally made it out of the desert" Gu Xiao said with a smile on her face.
They got closer and closer to the forest until they stepped foot in it.
"Strange... why is there a road here" Gu Zhi commented.
"A road to the palace, it appears when your very close. I've seen it mentioned in past accounts of trials before" Gu Xiao said.
Gu Zhi squinted his eyes "I don't like it, too easy to place a trap on a road, let's first get some food and water and continue heading north, we can use the road after we restocked our supplies".
Gu Xiao easily agreed, as going thirsty or hungry during battle was not ideal. It was better to be in tip-top shape when fighting an enemy.
They found a river, it was quite bigger than any of the others they have seen, as they restocked their water skins, Gu Xiao used the thicker and healthier trees to provide them with some food.
Gu Xiao and Gu Zhi weren't exactly famished during their trip through the desert, but they weren't full either.
They quickly tried to build up whatever weight they may have lost from the trip here as they used the road to head north.