During the day, temperatures in the Cordillera Desert reach as high as 40 degrees Celsius, and at night the temperature can drop to -10 degrees Celsius.

Talos was wearing only an ordinary sackcloth on his body, and the cold wind mixed with the yellow sand blew like a barbed whip on his body, and the cold from all directions made the surface skin gradually freeze numb, and the yellow sand could even hit white marks on his tail.

Gritting his teeth, he walked slowly through the desert, still straight, neither the heat of the day nor the cold of the night could stop him.

He knew that today was only the first day, and the real difficulties and sufferings were still to come.

- Fortunately, Talos has awakened the bloodline of the Immortal Whale and promoted to the second-order bloodline knight, even if he does not spontaneously use extraordinary strength to resist the heat and cold from the outside world, there will be no muscle tissue necrosis, and the skin and snake tail are only burned and frostbitten, but the pain will not be reduced by half a point.

When the two moons, which symbolize the moon goddess Suremel and the goddess of the night, Knox, rise high in the sky at the same time, the gravel reflects the cold light in the moonlight, and the sand dunes slowly advance at a speed that ordinary people cannot feel under the cold wind, and when they realize it, the surrounding environment is very different from just now.

As the clock ticked to midnight, Talos felt dizzy and dizzy from the scorching sun and cold, and had to find a leeward place to coil up his numb tail and prepare to eat and rest.

Talos took out a portion of water and a portion of jerky from the Spatial Ring, and during the nearly eighteen hours of crawling throughout the day, Talos had not eaten a drop of water, and had long been plagued by hunger.

He first smeared a few drops of water on his chapped lips, and then ate slowly with dried meat to replenish his strength.

This was less than one-sixth of Talos' usual breakfast, arguably the most modest meal of his seventeen years of life.

Nonetheless, jerky is strictly not allowed in ascetic recipes.

According to Antony, the god of suffering, the deity who originally proposed asceticism, ascetic practice required renunciation of lust, taking an oath of permanent celibacy, surrendering income to the church, and reporting to the bishop for contact with relatives and friends.

Self-inflicted physical punishment, the most famous of which is the penance belt – a belt with a metal barbed hook that is tightly tied to the thigh to stimulate the senses with pain, for at least two hours a day and must be worn all day on weekends – and the whipping of oneself with a snake-tailed whip.

In terms of eating, unless you are seriously ill, you should abstain from meat and vegetarianism, and it is recommended that each meal should not exceed a glass of water and a serving of brown bread.

Abstinence, celibacy, pain, hunger, ......

They are all part of asceticism, exercising the will with the help of all kinds of pain and suffering, sublimating in suffering, and being spiritually comforted by the gods, thus strengthening the belief in the god of suffering.

Later, this ancient deity mysteriously disappeared, and Sainz never saw his temple and followers again, but the asceticism he proposed was retained after some weakening and improvement, and was especially prevalent in some churches, and he was known as the ascetic.

Every ascetic is the elite and hidden elite of the Church, and they generally remain incognito after giving all their possessions to the Church.

In the ascetic mind, there is nothing but faith and the gods, to live for the gods, to die for the gods, and to give one's life to the gods or the church without hesitation anytime, anywhere.

Compared to the asceticism of the God of Suffering and the ascetics of the Church, Talos is now suffering from nothing more than the most basic external circumstances.

Talos knew this well, so he silently endured the thrills of the desert heat and cold, allowing them to temper his will in a rough way.

The night was spent in a false sleep, and the Talos snake coiled, half-asleep, until a slight rustle was heard not far away.

Boom!

With his eyes closed, Talos unsheathed the Froststeel scimitar following the sound and instinct in his ear, and the sound faded away, leaving a brownish scorpion sliced in half with a single knife.

It was the sand scorpion, a very poisonous beast.

The sun rose as usual, and Talos continued his austerity in the direction where the sand mountain was.

Time passed, and during the day, Talos would crawl through the scorching yellow sand under the most difficult sun, drought and heat for the most tidal Naga, and take a short rest at night before setting off again the next day.

At first, Talos was very uncomfortable with the climate and environment of the desert - for the tidal Naga who crawled on the desert with the help of his tail, the tail was the most sinful part - but by the time the sun went down on the third day, he became accustomed to crawling and thinking in the desert.

The silence, silence, and crawling along the way—Dolores accompanied him, but never disturbed him—made Talos forget the cheers, flattery, and compliments he had received as the son of the Lord of the Black Sea, and let his mind wander into the desolate desert.

Day 4, Day 5, Day 6......

Talos was attacked by sand scorpions, two-headed flying snakes, desert worms, and a terrible sandstorm that nearly buried him in the sand, and his body was emaciated at a rate visible to the naked eye.

The drought of the desert and the scorching sun caused the skin of his upper body to crack and peel off, the repeated invasion of high and low temperatures caused blisters and chilblains to appear on his body at the same time, and the scales on the snake's tail cracked and fell off due to prolonged drying and sun exposure.

But Talos's body did not collapse, and despite his exhaustion, something strange was slowly growing in the depths of his silent mind.

Sometimes Talos felt that his body and spirit were like a piece of jade waiting to be polished, and every step of his tail twisting in the desert was a grinding and carving, impurities being expelled in pain, and his spirit being condensed in torment.

As night fell on the sixth day, Talos's body had weakened to a certain point, and Dolores dissuaded Talos from temporarily suspending his asceticism, otherwise his life would be in danger, but he refused without hesitation.

Vaguely, Talos could feel that his spirit and will had reached the limit, and he could advance to a new realm at any time, neither the wounds on his body nor the external environmental stimuli could cause a ripple in his heart.

On the seventh day, when the sun leaped over the horizon in the east, Talos stopped to rest and continued his journey to the yellow sand, which was dyed golden by the morning sun.

His face was resolute, and his expression remained the same, like an idol of a god from time immemorial.

In the distance, the roar of a wyvern could be heard, just as his indomitable will.

The fifth combat specialty, Iron Will, was thus formed.