Niu Youdao was both startled and doubtful. "A sacred site from the flourishing age of Buddhism, later buried beneath yellow sand—this is the Sunken Buddha Land? In other words, the Endless Desert is the route to the Fifth Domain?" After so many years in the cultivation world, he had never heard the slightest mention of the Fifth Domain.
Zhao Xiongge said, "That is what the handwritten notes say, so it should be. Yet no one has discovered it all these years. It is likely related to that guiding object. Without finding the guiding object, one cannot enter the Fifth Domain. According to the notes, that means one must first obtain the Heaven-Swallowing Ring and the Mountains-and-Rivers Cauldron before finding the guiding object."
Niu Youdao hesitated. "The Heaven-Swallowing Ring is Wei Kingdom's national sacred artifact, while the Mountains-and-Rivers Cauldron is Han Kingdom's. Whether they can be obtained is another matter. But what sort of guiding object could there be in the Endless Desert?"
Zhao Xiongge said, "That is impossible to know. The Saintess did not mention it before her death either. Logically speaking, Sand Scorpions ran rampant in the Endless Desert, and few living things could remain there for long. Besides, there should be a passage into the Fifth Domain. I suspect that this so-called guiding object may refer to using the Heaven-Swallowing Ring and the Mountains-and-Rivers Cauldron to open the passage into the Fifth Domain."
Niu Youdao was doubtful. "The guiding object is the passage? Can it be understood that way?"
Zhao Xiongge said, "What else could it be? Cultivators coming and going could not possibly stay in the Endless Desert forever, waiting for someone to hold the ring and strike the cauldron. Other than people, the Endless Desert had only Sand Scorpions. If it was neither a person nor