Wasteland Warlock: From the Start, I Was a Blade-Wielder

[Not a wish-fulfillment novel; plot-driven, political intrigue, sorcerers, swordsmen, wilderness, city-state wars]

Immortals descended to the mortal world, teaching the people of the wilderness the square-shaped script. They left a water-absorbing divine beast in the Western Wilderness Province, but the beast became a precious ingredient for the continent’s sorcerers to make pills, and was hunted down. To repay the divine beast for passing on its teachings, the continent’s only Divine Sorcerer used a five-star formation left behind by the immortals to isolate the Western Wilderness Province, leaving just one passage connecting it to the outside world.

From then on, the Western Wilderness Province knew neither day nor night, and not a drop of rain fell. Hundreds of years passed, and the land grew ever drier. On the barren soil, the people could barely survive. Just then, the ox-and-horse Chen Ziqiu transmigrated here, opening his eyes to find himself stranded in a wasteland with no way out