The Magus Era (巫神纪) by Xue Hong (血红)

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 19 - Inherited Magus Treasure

Not far away from the Gold Black Mountain, on another mountainside, a scrawny elderly man and a dapper middle-aged man was standing on a tree side by side, looking at Ji Xia and Ji Shu’s fight.

The elderly man was bared to the waist. His body was covered with a dozen of black, mouth-opened snake tattoos. Once he moved his body, those tattoos seemed squirmed along his body, which was hideous and disgusting.

A two feet long, black, thin snake coiled around the elderly man’s neck, gazed at the Gold Black Mountain with its green eyes; its forked tongue constantly flicked out from its mouth and hissed; a black horn on its forehead was shining under the sunshine.

The dapper middle-aged man was a lot taller than the elderly man. He was wearing a tight leather armour made of serpent skin and carrying an eight-feet-long sword. His angular face twitched occasionally.

Another ten feet long horned-serpent was leaned against a branch, its tail coiled around the middle-aged man’s waist. This black serpent was staring at the Gold Black Mountain the same way as the snake. It was gazing at those gigantic Fire Crows which were floating overhead the mountain.

The elderly man’s skeleton-like face twitched abruptly when he saw that Ji Shu been knocked into the air by Ji Xia’s punches and crashed into a hill. He muttered: “ This Ji Xia…we couldn't kill him in ten years ago…He will definitely cause us more troubles…”

The middle-aged man frowned. He clenched his fists and cracked his knuckles.

The elderly man let out a big heavy sigh and murmured: “Ten years ago…we broke Ji Xia’s ‘magus caves’, we thought we disabled him…But…we never thought so…He woke this much of ‘magus caves’ after that…Him…the offspring of the Fire Crow Clan’s Divine Magus…this power…this potential…He is a great threat to us…”

The middle-aged man gave a sniff defiantly, gnashed his teeth and said: “What about the offsprings of the Fire Crow Clan’s Divine Magus? We killed his father and seven of his brothers twenty-five years ago; we sieged and killed his grandfather and all his uncles fifty years ago!”

The man headed up and continued: “Now, among the entire Fire Crow Clan, only Ji Xia has the purest bloodline from the Divine Magus! I, Black Water Jiao, I will not let him live another decade!”

“Jiao, you’re right. We can’t let him live anymore. Over the past decade, Ji Xia and his people did a whole lot of damage to our clan. We have already lost few fertile hunting grounds.” The elderly man nodded and said in a very low voice.

“Yes…That’s why I truly wish Ji Shu could be the leader. Granddaddy, though I don't like Ji Shu, the devious bastard…But, I hate Ji Xia more!” Black Water Jiao petted the serpent’s tail, which was coiled around his waist, and said sepulchrally.


“My big brother was killed by Ji Xia. I will get his heart ripped out of his chest with my hands. I will take his heart to our highest Black Water Serpent!”

The horned serpent hissed, put its head on Jiao’s shoulder and licked his face with its black, forked tongue.

In the meanwhile, Ji Shu was standing on a fiery cloud and floating in the air. He was holding the wooden stick and laughing madly. The stick was an over two meters long wooden cane, looked like a branch which was just chopped off from a tree. The cane was green, with a dozen of smaller branches which had fresh leaves growing on them.

This cane seemed full of vigor. It didn't really look like a cane, more like a tree which was rooting in the earth and containing a great life force.

Ji Shu held the cane tightly and waved, a large tricoloured flame spurted out from the cane along with a loud blazing sound.

The tricoloured flame looked like a piece of coloured glaze; white flame was in the outer layer; cyan flame was in the middle layer and the red flame was in the core. The tricoloured flame turned into head-sized flame balls, constantly fell onto the ground. Rocks and earth which touched by those flame balls were instantly burned into wisps of smoke.

Ji Shu’s body was wrapped in hot air, looked like a shadow which was shaking on the surface of the water. People couldn't even see his face clearly.

People who were standing in front the Mother Temple and watching this fight were frightened by this wooden cane. The tricoloured flame was so powerful. It heated up the air and made people sweat, some people’s hairs and eyebrows were even blazed up by themselves; it also laid low trees for hundreds of miles around.

Ji Hao looked at the cane astonishingly. Such an amazing power, he thought. Ji Shu has only held it with his hands, the power of the cane already affected everyone and everything for a few hundred miles around without even been triggered!

If Ji Shu triggers its power with all his strength, this cane might perish every enemy for a hundred miles around.

“What the hell is this?” Ji Hao’s heart gave a leap. He started to worry about Ji Xia.

“Its an ‘inherited magus treasure’.” Said Qing Fu. Ji Hao didn’t even notice that Qing Fu has came and stood behind him. Qing Fu gripped Ji Hao’s shoulder, seemed extremely nervous.

“The ‘inherit-magus-treasures’… even the weakest ‘inherited magus treasure’ was made by a powerful Senior Magus, who had, at least, a hundred of ‘magus caves’ waken. Every one of the ‘inherited magus treasures’ was at least passed through generations for at least a thousand years, been nourished by the blood and spiritual power of Senior Magi from generation to generation, then eventually formed.” Qing Fu muttered. “Any of ‘inherited magus treasures’ could boost a Senior Magus’s power to ten times better…”

“Ten times? Then…Abba…If Ji Shu’s power enhanced ten times…Abba…Then…” Ji Hao turned to Qing Fu and said hoarsely. He subconsciously tightened his body when he heard what Qing Fu said.

Qing Fu’s face was pale. She gnashed her teeth and sniffed: “.Hao, your Abba and you have the purest bloodline from the Fire Crow Clan’s Divine Magus. Four sure, your Abba has his own ‘inherited magus treasure’. But…but, this ‘inherited magus treasure’ held in Ji Shu’s hands, it’s way too powerful…it should never be held by him…”

Ji Xia was standing on the lava, he growled and waved his left arm, a shield made of nine huge dragon-scales appeared on his arm. His right hand grabbed in the air, a spear with spearhead made of red dragon-horn and handle made of golden mulberry wood was then held in Ji Xia’s hand.

He held the spear tightly and knocked the shield, then shouted out to Ji Shu: “Shu! Let’s see what you’ve got!”

Ji Shu sneered. He bit his own tongue and spit a mouthful of blood to the wooden cane. Tens of gigantic phoenixes with wingspread over a thousand feet long flew out from the cane along with a long howl. Those phoenixes were spurting huge flakes of flames from their mouth and dashing toward Ji Xia.

Ji Shu’s body was transformed into a fiery light ball, hid in those phoenixes' flames and flew toward Ji Xia. He came up to Ji Xia, raised his arms and heavily smashed the cane onto Ji Xia’s head.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 20 - Bullying

Magus treasures…Inherited magus treasures…

Ji Hao stared nervously at his father. His head was filled with countless thoughts.

Ji Shu came up to Ji Xia, rose the cane wrapped by a tricoloured flame, heavily hit on the dragon-scales shield and caused a ripple.

Ji Hao heard a loud bang and the ground vibrated, almost making him fall over. The shock waves racing across the surface of the lava lake at supersonic speeds and crushing sheets of lava splashing to heights of miles. Glowing hot lava waves rolling like breakers across the surface of the mountain and torched trees on the surrounding mountaintops.

Ji Xia held the shield and whispered a magic spell. The nine dragon-scales were orderly lit up, spurted countless beams of fiery lights from the naturally formed marks on their surfaces. The light beams interwove into a light-cocoon, wrapped Ji Xia inside.

Along with sharp warbles[1], tens of phoenixes started ripping the light cocoon with flame flakes, which caused an ear piercing noise mixed with a thumping sound. People who were watching this fight had to crouch down and covered their ears with their hands.

“Kill!” Ji Xia shouted out while Ji Shu was madly attacking him. His spear transformed into a dazzling light beam and lasing to Ji Shu.

Ji Shu’s body suddenly exploded into countless hair-thin fire lines. The fire lines erupted and jetted upward to thousands of feet higher then gathered splashing sparks. Ji Shu’s body appeared again.

“My brother!” Ji Shu laughed aloud proudly and said. “This is Suiren Cane, the legendary ancient demigod, Suirenshi’s[2] magus cane. Have you seen this magical flame? It's different from our fires…This is the Shamisen fire… What can destroy everything! It’s power…is inexhaustible!”

Ji Shu waved the Suiren Cane with a sneer and continued: “As you’ve seen…As long as I’m holding this magus-cane, no one can harm me! Any attack can't hurt me! My brother! You can’t even hurt me just a little bit!”

Ji Shu’s body then transformed into a tricoloured flame again, rushed down toward Ji Xia along with those fiery phoenixes.

Ji Xia took the spear back, sniffed and also bit his own tongue, spat a mouthful of blood on the dragon-scales shield. A sonorous dragon-howling came from the shield. The shield then separated itself from Ji Xia’s arm, floated overhead Ji Xia and spurted a thick, lava-like flame, shielded Ji Xia behind.

Meanwhile, the shield started emitting a bright fiery light, a thousand feet long fiery dragon appeared in the sky, hovering overhead Ji Xia and the shield.

Ji Xia held the spear to his chest and whispered a magic spell. A bright fiery light began spurting out from his body and wrapping him around.

“Useless, my brother. Just useless… Even if you triggered all of your internal power…You’re just a Senior Magus, how could you withstand the blow of the ancient demigod’s inherited magus treasure?”
Ji Shu then laughed out loud and rose the cane again. While the people saw the shadow of the Suiren Cane flashed in the flame, Ji Shu has already thrown a hundred times of heavy hits to Ji Xia with it.

The blazing flame from Ji Xia’s shield turned into a flame-wall and spread to surrounding areas.

Ji Hao felt a great pain in his eyes caused by the dazzling fiery light. He couldn't even keep his eyes open.

Suddenly, a blasting sound came from inside the flame-wall, the wall then quickly dissipated in the air. Ji Hao forcibly opened his eyelids and looked carefully at the sky. He saw the dragon-scales shield was shattered into pieces and the fiery dragon was split up. As for Ji Xia, he hasn't had the time to trigger his internal power, his body now wrapping by the tricoloured flame and his chest was hollowed.

It seemed all of Ji Xia’s ribs were broken; a head-sized hole burnt from his chest; his skins and muscles of the chest were burned into ashes; A large amount of blood spurting out from his wounds, then quickly burned out in wisps of smoke.

Ji Xia was vomiting blood and flying backward. His eyes had lost focus.

Ji Xia was hit and sent flying across tens of miles, then heavily smashed into a cliff. The cliff collapsed instantly. Rocks that fell from the cliff were quickly burned into ashes by the tricoloured flame, which was still wrapped Ji Xia’s body.

Ji Shu gnashed his teeth, transformed into a fiery light again and followed Ji Xia. Tens of phoenixes flew up to Ji Xia ahead of Ji Shu, spurted flame flakes onto Ji Xia’s face from a distance.

“My brother! Get up and fight! You won’t let me win this easily will you?” Ji Shu rose his arms intended to hit Ji Xia once more. In the meanwhile, he was still shouting at Ji Xia. “Come on! You’re a strong man! You won’t give up, will you?”

Everything happened so fast. No one, even Ji Kui and the other elder Magureists haven't seen this come. With the horrible power of the Suiren Cane, Ji Shu beat Ji Xia only by one second; and Ji Xia was under the protection of his own ‘inherited magus treasure’.

Ji Hao looked around. Everyone was shocked and showed no signs of a reaction. Even if Ji Shu wouldn't dare to kill Ji Xia in front of all these people, once he hit Ji Xia again with that cane, Ji Xia must be completely disabled without any possibility of recovering from the injury.

Only Ji Hao had prepared for Ji Xia’s defeat from a long time ago. Before Ji Shu finished his talk, Ji Hao shouted out with all of his strength: “We lost! My Abba lost! Ji Shu, my uncle! You’re the leader now! All of the Fire Crow warriors will follow you now!”

Ji Hao’s voice even broke the eardrums of a few people nearby.

Ji Kui seemed was woken up by Ji Hao’s voice. He quivered his body, harshly shouted to Ji Shu: “Stop! Ji Shu! You already won!”

Ji Shu paused for a second. Several phoenixes were already flying up to Ji Xia; Ji Xia’s face was about to torched by the flame flacks darted out from their mouths. If Ji Shu takes the power back now, he could still save Ji Xia.

But he paused only for a second, then raised the Suiren Can again and pretended that he could control it anymore. He yelled dramatically: “Oh no…This magus treasure is way too powerful...I lost control of it…”

Those phoenixes didn’t stop attacking Ji Xia.

A figure appeared abruptly in front of Ji Xia. She was standing on a huge leaf and quickly waving her arms. Countless vines and flowers sprouted from the air then rapidly grow into a thick green wall, shielded Ji Xia and herself behind. That was Qing Fu, his wife.

The flame flakes deeply cut into the green wall and soon burned it out. Ji Hao saw Qing Fu shivering her body; her hair was blazed up and blood oozed out from her mouth, nose and ears.

“Ji Shu…Damn you!” Ji Hao clenched his fists in anger and growled hysterically. His parents were about to swallow up by the flame; while he was too weak to do anything to stop it!

At that moment, Ji Kui and other eight elder Magureists appeared in front of Ji Xia and Qing Fu. They raised their arms at the same time, a large amount of huge, golden crow feathers then fell from the air and quickly built up a feather-wall, which blocked the flame.

Ji Kui looked Ji Shu straight in the eyes and said calmly: “According to the rule of our ancestors, Ji Shu, you beat Ji Xia. Now you’re the leader of our Holy Land warriors.”

Ji Shu’s face was hideously twisted. He held the Suiren Can tightly. Those fiery phoenixes, which were hovering around him dissipated into the air one after another.

He rose the cane, held his head high, and laughed wildly.

“Yes, I beat Ji Xia! Now I’m the leader! From now on, I will take the responsibility of protecting our Holy Land! As for that weak waste man…He…is not qualified to lead our warriors!”

“My Master Magureist, you shall leave those war issues to me since now …I don’t want you to be bothered that much. All you need to do now are…maybe try to improve your dug-making skills, keep touch with our ancestors' souls …More importantly… rest well.” Ji Shu gave a glanced at Ji Kui and said arrogantly.

Ji Kui and other elder Magureists stared at Ji Shu in surprise, twitched their mouth corners but couldn't let a word out.

Most of the crowd remained silent. Only Ji Shu’s people started shouting and cheering.

————————————————————
[1] Warble: bird sing with rapidly changing notes
[2] Suirenshi (燧人氏): The inventor of fire. Suirenshi was supposed to have lived approximately 10,000 years ago. He is neither an emperor nor a god, but a mythological demigod. As the story goes, there was a forest in western China with a tree that “shone” throughout the day and night. Suirenshi visited that forest looking for the tree. He came to this big tree and saw many woodpeckers pecking away at it. Suirenshi noticed that as the woodpeckers’ beaks drilled into the trunk, sparks would fly, lighting up the tree. He decided to break off two branches and jabbed one stick against the other in quick succession. Eventually, he got the sticks to spark. As he added more and more sticks, he built a fire. When he returned to Henan Province, he taught the people how to start a fire to keep warm. Also, at that time, people were eating raw meat and vegetables and getting sick. With fire, they learned to cook their food before eating, greatly reducing illness from eating raw food. In addition, cooked food was more delicious. The people were very appreciative of Suirenshi’s discovery/invention of how to make fire.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 21 - Enemy

The bonfire in Gold Black Mountain was blazing hot. Thousands of gigantic Fire Crows were floating overhead the mountain with their wings opened, and ceaselessly cawing.

The dragon-skin drums were beating by warriors. Vigorous and powerful drumbeats was widely heard hundreds of miles away throughout the jungle.

The decennial Fier Crow Clan Ancestor Worship Ceremony was carrying on. Ji Kui was guiding people into the Mother Temple to bring their offerings to the ancestors one after another. The souls of ancestors had been woken up and enjoying those offerings. If they were satisfied with the offerings, they would bestow ‘gifts’ to chosen people.

The lava lake caused by the fight between Ji Xia and Ji Shu has already cooled down. Two ‘sludges’ slowly wriggled across the congealed lava lake with their black, sticky sludge-like bodies.

The rough and hard rocks were quickly softened and turned into the soil by ‘sludges’s. Thick mud unceasingly welled out of the ground and spreading to surrounding areas.

Tens of three folks were slowly swaying their towering bodies and sowing plenty of seeds into the soil. With their power, these seeds would soon sprout and grow up, this piece of the damaged jungle would quickly turn green again. These tree folks have made the agreements with the Fire Crow Clan, which means they were under the clan’s protection and also working for the clan.

However, all of these had nothing to do with Ji Hao.

Ji Hao was sitting in his family house, sadly staring at Ji Xia and Qing Fu, who were lying on the bed side by side.

Both of them were in a coma and fever. Their faces were red and their breaths were scorching hot. The room has been turned into a stove by the hot air breathed out through their mouths; even the soil in the yard has been dried up.

Ji Tu, one of the greatest Magusreists in the Fire Crow Clan were sitting beside of Ji Xia and Qing Fu with his legs crossed. He continuously put different herbs inside their mouths; in the meanwhile, he gestured and whispered a magic spell. With his gestures and spell, the herbs in Qing Fu and Ji Xia’s mouths quickly transformed into liquid and swallowed by them. Once the herb-liquid flowed into Ji Xia and Qing Fu’s stomachs, their breaths cooled down a bit.

“Suiren Cane… the legendary ancient demigod’s ‘inherited magus treasure’…” After a while, JJi Xia and Qing Fu’s body temperature barely returned to normal. Ji Tu stopped the gestures and the spell, started to rub a herb stick and let out a sigh frowningly.

“Suirenshi was a legendary demigod…He lived in too…too long ago. Even I, us old Magusrests who are responsible for the historical inheritance…We have only heard about his name…” Ji Tu looked at Ji Hao and said slowly. “As far as we know, Suirenshi was mainly lived in the legendary central plains, never heard about…that he was in the South…His Magus cane showed up here…the South Wasteland…It’s unexpected…”

“My Abba, Amma…Their injuries…Will they be fine?” Ji Hao interrupted Ji Tu’s talk, asked him what he cared about the most at the moment.

“It’s…hard…very hard…very hard…” Ji Tu shaking his head and said. “We have no idea how powerful the Suirenshi was…even Ji Shu only brought a tiny little bit of its power…the harm…are not what we could take…”

Ji Tu helplessly glanced at Qing Fu and Ji Xia, thought for a while and continued: “ The Shamisen fire is still burning them from the inside…Either they withstood the fire with their own internal power then wake up, or find a powerful Divine Magus who are good at fire-related sorceries to pull the Shamisen fire away from their bodies…I…I could only cool them down temporarily with drugs and spells to keep them alive…barely…”

Ji Tu seriously looked at Ji Hao in the eyes and continued his talk: “But…to resist the fire with drugs…Hao, You have learned about drug-making from us for years…You should know that this can only keep them alive for…only for now…In fact, the fire is still ceaselessly consuming their… life force.”

“So they will eventually burn to death?” Ji Hao stared at Ji Tu and asked.

Ji Tu sighed and muttered: “We can only wish your Abba, Amma will pull themselves through …and…I’m heading back now. I will try to find other ways…Me and the other olds…There will always be a way to save them…Like…Like later after the ceremony, we will force Ji Shu to use the Suiren Cane and try to take the fire back…”

Ji Tu left a pile of cold-natured herbs, slowly walked out with his crutch.

Ji Hao sat down and crossed his leg, quietly gazed at his parents’ faces. He held Ji Xia’s hand, Ji Xia’s palm was as hot as a piece of red hot iron.

Such a horrible fire force. Ji Xia might hang on for a longer time; as for Qing Fu, she was naturally restrained by fire, which means she could hold on for days at most. She could never survive. Ji Hao gazed at the wrinkles in Qing Fu’s eye corners, suddenly felt a great fear.

If those Magusreists went talk to Ji Shu about saving his parents, Ji Shu only needed an excuse or simply refused to do so, then his parents would be die for sure. Even if Ji Xia could withstand the fire with his own internal power then wake up, Qing Fu could never make it.

“Hey! Old man, Old man!” Ji Hao got into his own spiritual space and yelled at the air. Since there was no hope of those Fire Crow Clan Magusreists curing his parents, he could only count on that mysterious man.

Soon, the vague figure appeared in the air, looked down to Ji Hao and asked: “Hey, little guy. What happened today? You hardly come to me like this…”

Ji Hao quickly described the situation to the man. He explained how Ji Xia and Qing Fu get hurt: “Amma went to save Abba, but get burned by that fire too…Even our greatest Magusreist Mediciner[1] couldn't find a way to save them…Old man, do you have any idea how to save my parents?”

The man frowned and murmured: “Suirenshi? I might…heard of him…but wasn't interested. No idea about him… This Shamisen fire…what kind of fire is it?”

Ji Hao held Ji Xia’s hand, pull a wisp of Shamisen fire out from his palm and send to his spiritual space.

The man glanced at the flame, raised his eyebrows and said: “Ahh…this kind of fire…Yes, I know about it. This is made from three different kinds of purest processed-fire, which were extracted and purified from the underworld, the earth core, and the human body. This three kinds of processed fire were compressed by some great power and forcibly turned into a natural fire - the Shamisen fire.”

“Can it be removed from my parents' bodies?” Ji Hao nervously looked at the vague figure. This mysterious man recognized the composition of Shamisen fire with only a glance, while the elder Magureist, Ji Tu had no idea about it at all. Ji Hao now putting his last hope in this man.

“Sure, simple!” The man oddly looked at Ji Hao and said, “Drag the fire force into your own body and absorb it with the ‘Bu Tian Bu Lou Magic Spell’. My magic spell could transform anything, anything in this world into your power and strength…Little guy, how could you be even more muddled than I am?”

Ji Hao was sharply hit by the man’s words. He suddenly realized that he could cure his parents all by himself. The ‘Bu Tian Bu Lou Magic Spell’ can transform anything into power and strength, why can’t it deal with the Shamisen fire?”

When Ji Hao was given a spurt of great joy, the man heavily sniffed.

Ji Hao then been dragged out of his own spiritual space. He opened his eyes and saw a young and pretty girl who was wearing a neat leather armour. The girl kicked on Ji Hao’s chest without saying a word.

The girl was very strengthful. Ji Hao been kicked away and hit through the wall, fell on the ground.

In the yard, the fat bear was tightly holding down by several muscular men. Though the bear was struggling and roaring intensely, it couldn't get rid of those men.

Before Ji Hao stood up from the ground, the girl followed to the yard, jerked out a dagger and stabbing toward his heart.

—————————————————
[1]Magusreist Mediciner: Magusreists who are good at medicining skills and mainly responsible for curing people.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 22 - Jiang Xue

“Hey! You crazy girl!”

Caught by surprise, Ji Hao fell hard on the ground. He darted a glance at that dagger; its surface was blue and sparkling; obviously, it was dipped in some kind of poisonous liquid. Ji Hao numbed the pain and grabbed the girl’s wrist spun her around with a lightning speed; he then flipped the girl’s wrist with his left hand. The girl’s wrist dislocated along with a click. In the meanwhile, Ji Hao’s right hand hit on the girl’s chest; he spread his fingers and sent a wisp of internal power toward the girl’s heart.

Followed by a loud bang, a flame spurted out from Ji Hao’s palm and burned the girl in the chest. She screamed in pain and spat a mouthful of blood from her small, cherrylike mouth.

A lot of yellow spell-symbols appeared on the surface of her armour at once. Ji Hao sensed a great earth power[1] released from the armour and wrapped the girl’s body up.

Ji Hao felt his fists were hitting on some kind of light-shield, even splashing sparkles. His following attacks were all blocked by that invisible light-shield, could never harm the girl again, not even a little bit.

The Girl quickly stepped back in a flurry. In the meanwhile, Ji Hao leaped up and took big steps forward with his eyes stared at her.

Every step of Ji Hao caused a ground shaking for tens of feet round, which made the girl lost her balance and fell on the ground.

The girl headed down, cast a fearful glanced at that burned armour of her.

“I am Jiang Xue! My father is Jiang Shu, the elder Magus of the Bi Fang Clan! How dare you wound me? You lowly kid!” She then looked up at Ji Hao and yelled at him aggressively.

Ji Hao didn’t slow his pace when he heard what Jiang Xue said. He even started to whisper a magic spell he learned from those Fire Crow Clan elders.

In the South Wasteland, there are no any specific differences between Magusreists and elder Magus of clans. Some of powerful Magi serve their clans as both. Generally speaking, Magureists are mostly good at all kinds of mysterious and powerful sorceries. They also have responsibilities for communicating with their ancestors’ souls and ensure the bloodline inheritance. Almost every Magureist are psychic. Magusreists can be seen as the most powerful force of each clan. While elder Magi are mainly responsible for dealing with all kinds of administrative affairs of their clans. Though Magusreists have slightly higher status in the clan than elder Magi, elder Magi are all powerful and influential beings among their own clan people.

Was Jiang Xue’s father an elder Magus of the Bi Fang Clan?

“So…Your father is an elder Magus of the Bi Fang Clan…And…So what?” Ji Hao quickly walked up to her, looked down at her eyes and said harshly, “According to the rule of the South Wasteland, you broke into my house without any permission. It’ll still be reasonable even if I kill you!”

“Don’t you dare!” Jiang Xue screamed out of fear. But she then stood up and yelled at Ji Hao: “My father is Jiang Shu! One of the top ten elder Magi of the Bi Fang Clan! Don't you dare hurt me now!”

She gasped and continued: “You killed Ji Wu! I just engaged with him last year! It will be reasonable too if I kill you to revenge for him!”

“Ha!” Ji Hao raised his eyebrows and laughed. He just realized that this little girl was tried to revenge for that dead kid, Ji Wu; that was why she broke into his house and attempted to kill him when he was talking to the mysterious man in his spiritual space.

“I didn't kill Ji Wu. It was his own father, Ji Shu. Ji Shu killed his own son! What does that have anything to do with me?” Ji Hao pointed at Jiang Xue and yelled back. “You crazy girl. Revenge is not even an excuse for you to break into my home! Even if I kill you now your elders can’t say that I was wrong.”

Jiang Xue’s facial expression changed fleetingly. But she then smiled.

Ji Hao keenly scented that somebody was behind him. He quickly locked his hands together and cast a spell. His body suddenly exploded into countless fiery light spots then gathered together in tens of feet away. Ji Hao’s body then reappeared in the gathering spot of those light spots.

A muscular man, who was holding the fat bear down with a couple of others, now stunningly standing on where Ji Hao was standing on when a second ago, with a spear holding in his hands. If Ji Hao hasn't dodged away, his heart would be punctured by now.

However, Ji Hao dodged too speedy; neither Jiang Xue nor the man clearly saw how he did that.

“You’re just a Novice Magus! I…I’m a Junior Magus warriors! How could I …How could you…Bastard! No wonder they said that you’re the most talented kid for a thousand years!” The man shouted out.

Jiang Xue jealously stared at Ji Hao.

Ji Hao just transformed his body into light spots and avoided a sneak attack. What he cast was a very difficult Magusreist-sorcery. Only Magusreists who are beyond the Jenior Level can cast a sorcery like this. As for those Magus warriors, no matter how strong their bodies are, they can never cast this kind of sorceries unless they have learned how to control their spiritual power.

But Ji Hao was a Novice Magus, who haven’t even triggered his bloodline power[2]. How could he cast a powerful sorcery like that?

Jiang Xue’s pretty face went sour and her mouth corner twitched downward. She glared at Ji Hao and yelled: “You? The most talented kid? It’s not possible! I, Jiang Xue, I’m the genius of the Bi Fang Clan! I’m at the top level of Novice Magus…But…bit I couldn’t…”

Ji Hao glanced at her surprisingly. Is this crazy little girl on the level twelve？

She seemed a year or two younger than Ji Hao, how could she be that strengthful? But the Bi Fang Clan was one of the most powerful clans in the South Wasteland, their elder Magus’s daughter must had a lot of good tutors. Ji Hao thought.

“Yeah…that’s what everybody says…That I might become the first Supreme Magus for a thousand years.” Ji Hao proudly said and threw a sideway glance at Jiang Xue in the meanwhile. “I started to learn all kinds of sorceries from those Magusreists since I was only three months old, and I cast my first spell, ‘Gathering Poisonous Bugs’, when I was three years old.”

Ji Hao laughed out loud and continued: “So…You broke into my house with your people, what do you really want? Did the Bi Fang Clang want a war with our Fire Crow Clan? Are your elders planing on kill me - the future Supreme Magus? Whatever it is, I’m not done with you…Our Magusriests won’t let you just leave.”

Jiang Xue’s facial expression changed again. She gnashed her teeth, panicky glanced at Ji Hao.

Ji Hao’s words were fair and reasonable. Anything can gets serious when it gets involved in the relationship between two clans.

Jiang Xue was scared by Ji Hao’s speech and didn't know how to response. She had never been through any of this.

Back in the yard, the fat bear was still struggling and trying to get rid of those couple of Bi Fang Clan warriors. One of them was left to attack Ji Hao earlier. The fat bear took this chance and forcibly stood up; the bear let out a roar and threw two warriors away. Before the other two realized what just happened, their chests were smashed by the bear palms.

The fat bear slowly raised from the ground, held its palms high and roared at Jiang Xue’s face. Its sticky slobber poured out from its mouth and its beady eyes suddenly turned into red.

“Ji Hao! I'm not finished with you!” Jiang Xue glared at Ji Hao and said. “I’m not here to revenge for Ji Wu. I’m just visiting your Abba and Amma for my aunt, Jiang Yao.”

She sneered and continued: “I’m just sending my best wish to your parents. And you? You let your beast hurt my guards! I will tell my Abba and aunt about this.”

Then she gnashed her teeth and quickly walked out of the yard with her guards.

Ji Hao watched her leave. His heart sank.

The worship ceremony was not over yet, Ji Shu hasn't formally become the leader either. However, the revenge had already begun.


——————————————————
[1] Earth power: The power of the earth, the soil.
[2] Bloodline Power: As we mentioned in the last few chapters, bloodline power is the internal power contained in a Magus’s blood, passed on along the bloodline. The bloodline power could only be triggered when a Magus has reached their top levels (level 11 and level l2) as a Practising Magus. We already know that Ji Hao was practicing as both a Magusreist and a Magus warrior, and he was able to use his internal power at this stage. However, his internal power at this stage was not from his bloodline, but mainly from his daily practice and the ‘Bu Tian Bu Lou Magic Spell’. This kind of internal power is weaker and more limited than the bloodline power.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 23 - Conspiracy

The Fire Crow Clan Ancestors Ceremony was consummated.

Only one thing was bothering those Magusreists - during the ceremony, none of their people received a ‘gift’ from the ancestors. Normally, if a clan lost their ancestors’ blessing and protection, bad things will soon happen.

In Ji Shu’s campsite, tens of people cheerily sitting around a bonfire and holding jorums[1], gobbling grilled meats and drinking liquor.

Jiang Bo was sitting in the middle, holding a jorum with a triumphant grin on his face. The man sitting next to him was the middle-aged man Ji Hao saw through the peeking crow’s eyes the other night. Jiang Bo and the man clinked their jorums then drained off the liquor.

The middle-aged man then took a deep breath. He wiped his own face with his hand and said: “I lost the fight against Ji Xiong, Ji Xia’s father, in decades ago…He broke tens of my ribs at the ceremony… I had never gotten…the leader’s position.”

“But now,” He shrugged his shoulders and continued satisfyingly, “Ji Xiong’s long gone…But I, Ji Huan, I’m alive and living so well! My son, Ji Shu, beat his son and became the leader. Finally!”

A sexy young woman who wore only a leather skirt came and filled Ji Huan’s jorum with liquor. Ji Huan narrowed his eyes, eased his hand up her inner thigh.

Jiang Bo then said slowly: “Now, Ji Shu has become the warrior leader of the Fire Crow Clan. There are…some…things, that we couldn't do before. But now, everything gets more convenient. Ha, I suddenly feel there will be a great future for Ji Shu…and…us.”

Ji Shu was sitting next to Ji Huan, holding a blood-jade[2] axe and remaining silent.

That axe is three-feet-long, embossed with a patterns of few three-legged gold crows surrounding the sun, seems nothing special. There aren't any spell-symbols on its surface. It’s not even a Magus tool.

That axe is the ‘fire crow axe cane’, the symbol of the highest power of the Fire Crow Clan. With this ‘fire crow axe cane’, Ji Shu could mobilise the warriors from thousands of branch clans and subsidiary clans to attack any enemy.

The fighting force of the Fire Crow Clan was tremendous. Not to mention those great warriors, only the thousands of senior level gigantic fire crows are able to destroy any small clan.

Ji Shu gazed at the ‘fire crow axe cane’, opened his mouth slowly and said in a gloomy voice: “I sacrificed my own son for this.”

He kept seeing Ji Wu in his mind. He saw Ji Wu’s head exploded, the blood and brain mixed together, soaked his boots. He felt a great heartache. That was his son, who had his blood. He killed his son for this axe, for this power.

Ji Huan let out a great sniff, grabbed the axe from Ji Shu’s hands. He carefully stroking the axe with a greedy yet cold expression held on his face. “It’s just a son. Ji Shu, I have seven sons, you and your brothers. You just need to get yourself a few more.” Said Ji Huan coldly.

“That’s right, Shu.” Jiang Bo gazed at the axe out of the corners of his eyes and agreed. “I will send you a few beautiful Bi Fang Clan women once I get back. Shu, you’re young and strong, you will have as many sons as you want!”

Ji Shu stayed silent, stared at the bonfire with a sullen face.

Jiang Bo narrowed his eyes and continued: “As for Jiang Yao…I know she is always jealous, never let you touch other women. I will talk to her about this, she’ll understand…”

Jang Yao got inside the tent noiselessly. Her face was as pale as a ghost. She gazed at Jiang Bo in the eyes and said a word by a word: “I’m ok with this. But…Ji Xia, Qing Fu, and their damned son, Ji Hao, they have to die! For my son!”

Ji Huan and Ji Shu both threw a glance at her then looked away, didn't say anything. Jiang Bo frowned and said with a sneer: “We’ve talked through this, we can’t kill them right now. As you’ve seen, those few olds are still holding a negative attitude to Ji Shu. Now we…”

“If you don't let me revenge for my son, I’m telling everybody what you’re planing on!” yelled Jiang Yao.

“You won’t dare!” Jiang Bo jerked up his body and pointed Jiang Yao angrily.

“Try me.” Jiang Yao held her head high, stared at her father and said also with a sneer.

“If it wasn't you…triggered the Bi Fang Clan bloodline power for Ji Wu…” Jiang Bo furiously yelled at his daughter.

“Bi Fang Clan’s bloodline is way powerful than Fire Crow Clan’s, I wanted to make my son stronger, was I wrong? I wanted my son to win the *****, Qing Fu’s son, what’s wrong with that?” Jiang Yao interrupted her father and yelled back.

Jiang Bo glared at Jiang Yao and growled: “You shouldn't do that before the worship ceremony! You shouldn’t let those olds know about it! Any! Any clan in the South Wasteland won’t accept a kid who triggered another bloodline! You…you almost ruined our plan!”

Jiang Yao stared Jiang Bo, gnashed her teeth and said viciously: “But now…Ji Shu had already become the leader… Even Ji Kui and the other olds aren’t able to change this…no matter how. I, I want them to die now! All three of them! Especially that damned Ji Hao!”

Ji Shu held his jorum, poured a mouthful of the liquor into his mouth and swallowed slowly. He looked at Jiang Yao and said in a low voice: “I will handle this. Soon… Jiang Yao, you shall save your little tricks.”

“Little…tricks? Don't you dare to despise me!” Jiang Yao’s pale face almost went blue, she glared at Ji Shu with a creepy smile on her face and said.

Jiang Bo dashed up to Jiang Yao and slapped on her face. Jiang Yao fell on the ground, coughed up blood and cried in pain.

Jiang Bo looked down at her and growled: “How smart you think you are? You send Jiang Xue, that little ***** to Ji Xia’s home… Do you have any idea what would happen if Jiang Xue had Ji Hao killed? He is the son of the former leader who just left his position yesterday
!”

Jiang Yao sniffed with her head still held high. She said: “Does the Fire Crow Clan even dare to turn against the Bi Fang Clan? If so, we can just wipe the entire Fire Crow Clan out!”

Ji Shu covered his eyes with is hand when he heard what Jiang Yao said. Ji Huan opened his mouth but couldn't let a word out. They just found that this woman is so unreasonable.

Other Fire Crow Clan People in the tents all started to twitch their faces. If Jiang Bo wasn't there, some of them might already have this stupid woman chopped.

Ji Shu looked at Jiang Yao for a while, then let out a heavy sigh.

“Allow me few days. I will send Ji Xia out of the Gold Black Mountain to guard. This is within my power.”

“Once Ji Xia left the Gold Black Mountain, we will find a way to do what you want to do.”

—————————————————————————-
[1]Jorum: A large drinking bowl.
[2]Blood-jade: Red jade.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 24 - Agreement

A group of warriors were walking out of Ji Hao’s home and complaining loudly.

“He had to borrow power from an ‘inhirited magus treasure’ to beat our brother Xia… I can’t believe he’s our leader now…”

“‘inhirited magus treasure’ …Hmm, If many of our elders hadn't…sacrificed for protected our homeland and lost those ancient ‘inhirited magus treasures’ of our own…How could that bastard win?”

“Look at his delicate face… He doesn't even look like a man…such a coward.”

“That man doesn’t have a good reputation…You should hear how other clans talked about…what he did…”

All these people were Holy Land warriors. They were also close friends of Ji Xia, they always treated each other like brothers. They would rather die than follow Ji Shu. But they couldn’t do anything to change the fact that Ji Shu beat Ji Xia at the ceremony and became their leader.

A lot of people came for Ji Xia and Qing Fu, who were still in the coma. Everyone went raging when they saw what Ji Shu did to Ji Xia and Qing Fu. For decades, Ji Xia took the lead and fought the enemies, conquered many lands. All of Fire Crow people admired him deeply for his contribution to the clan.

As for Qing Fu, she had an amazing medical skill. She cured countless ill and injured people. In the Fire Crow Clan, She was even more famous than Ji Xia.

These people clearly aware of that Ji Shu harmed Qing Fu and Ji Xia intentionally. They have made their mind, they will never follow Ji Shu’s lead.

After the last guest left, JI Hao sat down beside Qing Fu. He put his hands on her temple and triggered the ‘Bu Tian Bu Lou Magic Spell’.

Wisps of Shamisen fire were pulled out of Qing Fu’s temple and absorbed by Ji Hao’s palms. Ji Hao felt a burning in his Dan Tian, he soon began sweating. Luckily, the Shamisen fire were swallowed by the multicoloured flame in his Dantian before it could do any harm to Ji Hao’s body.

The faint multicoloured flame suddenly grew bigger. Ji Hao surprisingly felt that his strength was quickly improving.

“It’s the dragon blood.” Ji Hao heard the mysterious man’s voice came from his spiritual space. “The dragon blood gave you a perfect human body, which means your physical strength won’t get limited by your body. Hmm… You should eat more, you know? You can even be as strengthful as a Senior Magus at this stage, only if you eat enough.”

Ji Hao showed no interest in the man’s advice. How much he’d eat in order to become as strengthful as a Senior Magus?

Soon, Ji Hao pulled out all of the fire force from Qing Fu’s body; he then did the same to Ji Xia.

After jI Hao dealt with the fire force inside their bodies, he stood up, locked his hands together and triggered the power of one secret word, ‘Zhe’.

Once Ji Hao triggered ‘Zhe’, Ji Xia and Qing Fu started slightly shivering their bodies. JI Hao took control of their bodies with the power of ‘Zhe’, released their internal power and life force which were naturally contained in their bodies.

Then he changed his hand gesture. The air surrounding their bodies started to glow, slowly formed into a faint light-river, flew into Ji Xia and Qing Fu’s bodies.

‘Zhe’ is the most mysterious secret word among the ‘Nice Secret Words’, which containing the most strong life force in the world. Ji Hao controlling the power of ’Zhe’, carefully sending life force into Ji Xia and Qing Fu’s bodies, continuously healing them.


Ji Hao then triggered his spiritual power and observed inside their bodies. He found out that even their damaged ‘magus caves’ were slowly healing by the power of ‘Zhe’. Ji Hao might even cure these dead ‘magus caves’.

Ji Xia and Qing Fu’s bodies were wrapped by the warm faint light. Their facial expression gradually changed from suffering to pleasingness.

Ji Hao looked at his parents and let out a sigh with a relief.

Then he heard a knocking sound came from the window. He turned around his head, saw a two feet tall crow was standing on the windowsill, knocking the window with its beak.

Ji Hao walked up to the window, petted its head and fed it with a piece of dry meat. He then gently asked the crow: “Do granddaddies want to see me?”

The crow nodded and cawed, flapped its wings and flew away. Ji Hao glanced at his parents, who were quietly laying on the bed, then leaped out of the window, followed the crow to the mulberry woods down in the valley.

In the wooden dome, where Ji Hao fought Ji Wu for the first time; Ji Kui, Ji Tu and tens of other elder Magusreists were sitting around a bonfire. Ji Kui saw Ji Hao came, tapped the ground next to himself and said with a warm smile on his fave: “Come, sit here. Hao.”

Ji Hao sat down next to Ji Kui, looked around and found that these Magusreists are all wearing serious faces. Ji Hao said respectfully: “Dear granddaddies, Is there anything that you want to say to me?”

Ji Kui dropped his eyelids and said: “You know…Ji Shu is one of your father’s cousins…Specifically, we have a hundred and twenty-seven different Fire Crow Clan branch-bloodlines in total, except your dad, Ji Shu and his people had the purest bloodline among the others.”

Ji Kui let out a heavy sigh and continued: “However, they’re too close to the Bi Fang clan…Some of their…some of the things they did…we couldn't agree. We thought they would do no good to our clan. That’s why they’ve never got the chance to compete for the highest power.”

“Granddaddy, but this time…Abba…” Ji Hao gave a bitter smile and said.

Ji Kui put his scrawny hand in Ji Hao’s shoulder, paused for a second, then said seriously: “It’s already happened, let use see what they really want. But, the most important thing at the moment, is…Hao, we all fell that you’re going to make a great achievement in the future, you’re talented and kind…So we won’t let anything happen to you. We must ensure that.”

“But Ji Wu’s death…was partly because of me. Ji Shu, Jiang Yao, and their people, they won’t let it go this easy.” Ji Hao said frankly.

Ji Kui gave a mysterious smile, then said: “We knew that…So, we’ve got the permission from our ancestors at the ceremony…Hao, though you’re not a Senior Magus yet, our ancestors said that you can now make an agreement with a Fire Crow. The crow will become your fighting beast, you will fight side by side, always protect and support each other.”

Ji Hao popped up his eyes and stared at Ji Kui, he couldn't believe what he just heard. Fire Corws, a mysterious and powerful creature of the Gold Black Mountain. Even Ji Xia was not qualified enough to make an agreement with a Fire Crow, now he has been told that he can have one.

“Grand…granddaddy, how…how did our ancestors know about this…”

“Er…we’re the Mugusreists, we do what our ancestors said…” Other Magusreists gave the same mysterious smiles and said. “Exactly, ancestors’ wills are always delivered by us…So…Hao, we said that you can make an agreement with a Fire Crow, it’s because our ancestors’ said so…”

Ji Hao was fully aware of what these granddaddies did for him. He nodded and stayed silent.


The heavy wood door then opened. A gigantic fire crow - the one always flying around in the jungle with Ji Hao, slowly walked in.

The crow saw Ji Hao and cawed pleasantly. A blood drop raised from its mouth, transformed into an odd spell symbol in the air and quickly flew into the skin between Ji Hao’s eyebrows.

Ji Hao suddenly sensed Mr Crow’s power, which made his blood boil. He slightly shook his body, a gold fiery light darted out from his back, quickly blazed up into a flame.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 25 - Information

When the sun rose, Ji Hao was standing in the yard, gazing at the rosy sun.

Last night, with Ji Kui and other elders‘ help, Ji Hao made a ’fighting beast agreement‘ with Mr Crow. Mr Crow was nearly a thousand-year-old; he[1] was even more powerful than some ordinary Senior Magi.

Once the agreement was made, Mr Crow’s vast internal power gushed into Ji Hao’s body in a rapid stream. Mr Crow’s power triggered Ji Hao’s bloodline power instantly, upgraded him to the eleventh level.

Ji Hao was slowly stretching his arms and legs in the yard.

Inside his body, tens of red vein-like lines appeared; these lines have interwoven into a magical net; Ji Hao’s blood was continuously flowing through the net. Without jumped into his spiritual space, he could perceive those faint light spots which were twinkling on this red net. These spots were ‘magus caves’ contained in Ji Hao’s blood, passed on along the Gold Fire Crow’s bloodline. None of them has been triggered yet.

With the flushing of Ji Hao’s blood, this red net was growing firm; soon, it has started to absorb power from Ji Hao’s blood slowly.

Ji Hao then tried to trigger his internal power. He sensed a vast and mysterious power was hidden inside his body. He felt like he only need to improve his strength for a little bit more, or maybe just wait until a right moment; then he could release this power and become much stronger. This was a gift from the Gold Fire Crow’s bloodline.

Ji Xia and Qing Fu was still sleeping.

Even though Ji Hao has dealt with the fire forces, their bodies and souls were badly injured by the fire.

Ji Hao was trying to cure their bodies and souls with the power of the ‘Nice Secret Words’, which would take a few days. They needed the rest, so Ji Hao didn’t wake them up.

The fat bear was lying near the door on its own stomach. Mr Crow now shrunk his body into feet tall, stood on the bear’s head and picked a piece of meat. After he made the ‘fighting beast agreement’ with Ji Hao, he was allowed to freely shrink or enlarge his body size.

After a while, the yard gate was unexpectedly pushed open by a young man, who was wearing a simple leather armour, holding a spear and carrying a wooden shield. The young man walked into the yard, took a glance into the window and nodded to Ji Hao.

“Hao, how’s my uncle and auntie?” Said the young man.

Ji Hao turned around, looked at the young man for a while and answered: “Abba…and Amma, they’ve had Ji Tu’s medicine earlier. Now they’re getting better…They just need to rest. They’ll…they’ll be ok.”

The young man was Ji Hao’s distant cousin, Ji Hu. Ji Hu was three years older than Ji Hao. Judged from the blood relationship, Ji Hu and his families were just distant relatives with Ji Hao and other people in their clan. However, compared to Ji Hao, who’s close relatives were mostly died in battles, Ji Wu came from a large and thriving family, which was quite influential in the Gold Black Mountain.

As for Ji Hu himself, he was also talented and strengthful. He has already reached the seventh-level as a Novice Magus. During the last few times of group hunting, his good performances caught many attentions.

Normally, Ji Hao wouldn’t spend his time with Ji Hu or other kids in the village. He had always been either concentrating on study Magusreists sorceries from those elders or hanging around with Heng Luo and his other non-human kind friends. Ji Hu abruptly showed up; Ji Hao was wondering what does he want from him.

“Hao, we’re all pissed off when we saw Ji Shu wounded uncle Xia.” Ji Hu said frowningly. “Our Fire Crow Clan warriors should never hurt our own people! We don’t wanna follow his lead… We…”

Ji Hao stared at Ji Hu, who were talking loudly and angrily; many thoughts has flashed through his mind.

Ji Hu then took two steps forward, put his mouth close Ji Hao’s ear and said mysteriously: “Few days ago, I went up into the mountain and searched for little eagles. You know what I found? I found tow ‘killing vines’, at least, hundreds of years old! You know the ‘killing vine’ can even bring the dead back to live… That pair of vines were guarding by a ‘human face centipede’. I tried to take them to uncle Xia and untie Qing Fu, but it was too risk for me to challenge that centipede by myself… Why don’t we go together? Let’s go get those ‘killing vines’ and cure my uncle and auntie!”

“’Killing vines’?” Ji Hao pretended to be surprised that Ji Hu has found two ‘killing vines’. He grabbed Ji Hu’s shoulder and said: “Really? Let’s go get them! But… ‘human face centipede’? I’m afraid that even two of us together couldn’t kill that…”

Ji Hu patted his own chest and said in a low voice: “Of course not, so I brought Feng and Shui. The four of us, together! The centipede is doomed!”

“Hao, we must cure uncle Xia. As long as uncle Xia is here… he’ll lead us fought against Ji Shu… Then Ji Shu can never get what he want! Not in here, the Gold Black Mountain!” Ji Hu then continued with a luring tone.

Ji Hao threw a sideway glance at Ji Hu. Such a perfect and naive plan, only kids would buy that.

Ji Shu has the ‘fire crow axe cane’ held in his hands, which means he had the highest power of the clan. Even Ji Kui and other elders couldn’t do anything to change that. How could it be as easy as Ji Hu said?

Ji Hao stayed silent for a while, then held Ji Hu’s hand with both of his hands and said anxiously: “Ju Hu, my brother, then let’s go get those vines now! I really want to save my parents!”

He paused, then lowered his voice and continued: “Let’s sneak out, don’t let others find out what we’re doing… I’m afraid that there’re Ji Shu’s people in the village…”

“Ha, you’re very thoughtful. If someone tell Ji Shu, he must send people to hold us back! You know…we’re only kids, we can’t bear to fight against those elite warriors.”

Ji Hao nodded to Ji Hu then whistled. Mr Crow flapped his wings and landed on Ji Hao’s shoulder.

Ji Hu took a glanced at Mr Crow. There were countless small crows like this out there, as weak as ordinary birds. Nothing to worry about. He thought.

“Let’s go. Hopefully, we can make it quick and come back early. Hmm…Hao, come, this way… We better don’t let others see us. Let’s take that trail in the woods…” Ji Hu led the way and got into the woods.

Around half an hour later, they met with the other two young men and sneaked out of the valley, headed up to the mountain.

————————————————————————
[1] Mr Crow has always been powerful and smart; since this chapter, Mr Crow has become the most important company and friend of Ji Hao. Therefore, we will say ‘him’ rather than ‘it’ from now on.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 26 - Ambush

The air was clean and fresh.

Ji Hao was walking behind Ji Hu. He was looking at his surroundings.

Trees were towering, coiled by thick, dragon-like vines. Moss grew on rocks with all kinds of insects crawling over them and there were also mushrooms which were huge and colourful. The Gold Black Mountain had always been full of vitality.

This was the first time that Ji Hao observed this mountain from such a close range, aside from the time when he was two years old where he sneaked up to the mountain with Mr. Crow for the very first time.

They waded across two brooks, tread a path through a few trees and bushes and then finally arrived at a flowering meadow.

The meadow was hundreds of feet round. Wildflowers were blooming in the high grass. Under the sunshine, this meadow looked like an emerald.

Once they arrived at this meadow, Ji Hu and the other two young men tightened their bodies subconsciously and showed a trace of murderous glint in their eyes.

“Such a beautiful place.” Ji Hao stopped and murmured. “The Feng Shui1 here must be pretty good... if one could be buried here… He’d be happy in his next life.”

“Feng Shui?” Ji Hu asked curiously. He started to sweat on his forehead. “What Feng Shui? There isn’t even a brook in here!”

“Haha.” Ji Hao laughed out loud and looked at Ji Hu: “Don’t you know about Feng Shui? Well…forget it then… It’s too complicated to explain it to you; even more complicated than trying to explain the fact that you wanna kill me!”

Ji Hu was looking at Ji Hao smilingly. His expression suddenly changed when he heard what Ji Hao said. Ji Feng and Ji Shui, who were tightly following Ji Hu pulled out their knife and axe simultaneously and chopped towards Ji Hao’s back.

Both of their knife and axe were huge and heavy, forged by themselves with black iron and, to add to that, both Ji Feng and Ji Shui were sixth level Novice Magi. They waved their weapons forcefully, causing two sharp gusts of winds that cut off all the flowers and grasses in the surrounding ten feet,

At the same time, Ji Hu let out a growl and jerked out his spear which pierced towards Ji Hao’s heart.

All three of them attacked Ji Hao at almost the same time. Ji Hu already showed a victorious smile on his face. In his eyes, Ji Hao was already a deadman. Half a month ago, Ji Hao was only a third level Novice Magus. And though he has learned some Magic Spells from those elders, he could never survive this.

However, he never thought about how things have changed over the last half a month. While they were attacking Ji Hao, Ji Hao suddenly rose high into the air, he floated in the air and heavily kicked backward with both of his legs.

Ji Feng and Ji Shui didn’t see this coming; Ji Hao's feet heavily slammed onto their chests and sent them flying backwards. Ji Feng and Ji Shui then fell hard on the ground like smashed fruits. They were vomiting blood and couldn’t even stand back up.

Ji Hao then stood still in the air with his head forward to glare at Ji Hu. He grabbed Ji Hu’s spear, which was stabbing toward him with all of Ji Hu’s strength; Ji Hao grabbed that spear and twisted his palm. The spear then broke into three parts right in front of Ji Hu’s face.

“Hao! Listen to me!” Ji Hu yelled tremblingly and staggered backward.

“Why?” Ji Hao then flew up to Ji Hu at lighting speed and threw a punch to Ji Hu’s face.

“My Amma told me, If someone tried to kill me, then I have to kill him! This is the rule of the Southern Wasteland!” Ji Hao’s punch hit Ji Hu’s head along with a flame. Ji Hu’s body paused; then licks of flame spurted out from the pores of his skin. In the blink of an eye, Ji Hu was scorched and fell on the ground.

“Kill him! You two!” Ji Xue’s voice came from the woods. Along with the voice, Jiang Xue rushed out of the woods. She was wearing the same leather armour as the last time while holding a bola in her hands.

“You douchebags！The three of you couldn’t kill a kid! Kill him!”

Ji Feng and Ji Shui saw that Ji Hu was killed by a single punch of Ji Hao; they struggled back up, glared at Ji Hao and screamed: “Ji Hao! You killed our brother Hu! God! You killed Hu! You killed our brother! You… You killed one of our own people! You’ve committed a capital offense!”

Ji Hao took a lazy glance at Jiang Xue, who was rushing toward him ragingly. Then he turned around and darted toward Ji Feng and Ji Shui.

“What did Jiang Xue gave you for killing me? How dare you help an outsider hurt your own brother? You’re right, it’s a capital offense. But I was only defending myself. That should be you… who committed a capital offense!”

Ji Hao sensed a great power that released from the red net inside his body; soon, a golden flame spurted out from his back. All of the plants near him rapidly withered.

Ji Feng and Ji Shui stared at the blazing flame with shock. The flame showed that Ji Hao had already broken through to the eleventh level and triggered his bloodline power; they couldn’t believe their own eyes. Only half a month ago, Ji Hao was still way weaker than themselves.

Ji Feng and Ji Shui were in a daze for a short while; then they screamed out and threw their weapons away and fled backward in a flurry.

“Ji Feng! Ji Shui! Come and fight me like real men! What are you doing? Are you trying to humiliate our ancestors?” Ji Hao growled. He locked his hands together, cast a spell then waved his arms forward. Spears of flame darted out from his palms and struck on Ji Feng and Ji Shui’s backs.


Ji Feng and Ji Shui were sent flying by the flame. They let out a howl and fell hard on the ground; half of their bodies were burned.

Ji Hao then sensed a sharp wind coming behind him. He turned around and saw Jiang Xue with four Bi Fang Clan warriors waving their weapons and rushing towards him. Their weapons were shining with a fiery light, looking like four fiery dragons.


Along with the sound of sharp winds, the air around those warriors burst into flame. Ji Hao saw four figures of Bi Fang birds in that flame. Obviously, these warriors were all elite Senior Magi of the Bi Fang Clan.

Ji Hao quickly drew back.

Facing the four Bi Fang Clan’s elite Senior Magi, he sensed that the air pressure was increasing rapidly, which even made him felt it hard to breathe.

However, their powers were far weaker than the light palm-hit of Ji Shu at the worship ceremony.

Nevertheless, Ji Hao still couldn’t risk taking this attack. After all, he was just a Novice Magus. He gazed at those warriors, drew back as quickly as he could, and tried to gather his bloodline power as much as possible in the meanwhile.

Jiang Xue followed those warriors and yelled viciously: “Kill him! Kill him! This damn bastard! You killed Ji Hu… I… I haven’t married him yet… You killed my fiance! You ruined my reputation!”

“Haha!” Ji Hao laughed out. People in the South Wasteland were traditional and superstitious; indeed, the fiance being killed before the wedding ceremony could completely ruin a girl’s reputation.

While Ji Hao was laughing, he heard Jiang Xue’s ear-piercing scream.

A wisp of black shadow flashed through the air. The bola in Jiang Xue’s hands suddenly exploded into pieces. A few faint yellow spell symbols were just about to emerge from the surface of her leather armour. The armour then been torn up by the black shadow.

Jiang Xue was sent flying sideways, coughing blood.

———————————————————————
[1]Feng Shui: Feng shui is a Chinese philosophical system of harmonizing everyone with the surrounding environment. It is closely linked to Daoism. The term feng shui literally translates as "wind-water" in English. Feng shui is one of the Five Arts of Chinese Metaphysics, classified as physiognomy (observation of appearances through formulas and calculations). The feng shui practice discusses architecture in metaphoric terms of "invisible forces" that bind the universe, earth, and humanity together, known as qi. Historically, feng shui was widely used to orient buildings—often spiritually significant structures such as tombs, but also dwellings and other structures—in an auspicious manner. Depending on the particular style of feng shui being used, an auspicious site could be determined by reference to local features such as bodies of water, stars, or a compass.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 27 - Black Water

The four Bi Fang Clan warriors were wearing a mocking smile on their faces while they were attacking Ji Hao; however, they all turned around their spearheads which were inches away from Ji Hao’s face and rushed towards Jiang Xue when they heard Jiang Xue’s scream.

Their smile disappeared and their faces turned blue when they realised that Jiang Xue was attacked. They shouted trembly and rushed toward her shimmeringly with all their strength. Jiang Xue’s father was an elder Magi of their clan; if anything happened to her under their protection, even their entire families could be killed by her father.

A figure suddenly showed up. It was an elderly man, standing between Jiang Xue and those warriors. The older man was scrawny, topless, with a two-foot-long, one-horned black snake coiled around his neck. His deathly pale skin was covered by tens of black snake tattoos.

“Go away!” A warrior shouted at the older man. The blazing flame behind him transformed into a pair of fiery wings and spread out in the air. The warrior doubled his speed and flew up to the older man; at the same time, he held his sword high and chopped it hard towards the older man’s neck.

The older man was grinning deviously at the warrior. He stayed still, fixing his eyes on that warrior. The snake coiled around his neck, raised its head while hissing at those warriors and then spurted out a wisp of cold black smoke from its mouth.

All of the four Senior Magi warriors were turned into black ice-sculptures by that smoke instantly. Their bodies were wrapped in half-foot-thick black ice shells; the blazing flame behind them vanished without a trace.

Mr.Crow was quietly standing on Ji Hao’ shoulder. He spread his wings and fluffed his feathers when he saw that black snake, and ceaselessly cawed at it.

The one-horned snake swayed, uncoiled itself from the elderly man’s neck; then rapidly enlarged its body into a several hundred feet long hissing serpent.

The air temperature suddenly cooled; even the plants nearby were all frozen.

“Hey my old friend, he’s only a kid. Why’re you so nervous?” The elderly man asked the serpent.

The serpent’s forked tongue darted out from time to time; it went near the older man’s ear and hissed something to him.

The elderly man’s expression turned grim after that. He showed a trace of respect, turned to Mr Crow and said: “Kid, I didn’t know that you’re taking a Fire Crow with you. Those old guys in your clan… Are they dumb or what? What makes you qualified for making an agreement with a Fire Crow?”

Ji Hao glanced back. He saw that the Gold Black Mountain was only tens of miles away from him, which means he was still in the centre area of the Fire Crow Clan. Only if he made a loud noise would those Magusreists, elders and Fire Crows hear him and come tear this old man into pieces.

He was slightly assured, turned around and said to the elderly man: “What does that have anything to do with you? You stinky snakes… How dare you sneak into our Holy land?”

The older man sneered and said: “What’s the big deal about your Holy Land? I’m already here… It means that… I’m not afraid of you… at all. But I’ve never thought that such an interesting story was happening around here… Haha!”

Once the older man finished his talk, another man rushed out of the woods and darted up to Jiang Xue, who was lying on the ground behind the elder man.

It was Black Water Jiao with his one-horned serpent coiled around his waist. Jiao grabbed Jiang Xue’s neck and pull her up from the ground. Jiang Xue screamed out but Jiao slapped her hard. She then coughed up blood and didn’t dare to make any other sound.

Jiao looked at Jiang Xue in the same way that a horse dealer looked at his animals. He ripped her clothes into shreds, squeezed her breasts and pinched her butt, then pull her head close with his other hand and carefully watched her face.

Jiao splayed his hands across her body and said: “This young woman is quite pretty. I heard that her family is influential in the Bi Fang Clan… And…she’s a virgin! She’s gonna be worth a fortune if we sell her to those slave dealers!”

“I finally got myself a nice piece! Haha!” Jiao’s face flushed red with excitement.

“Slave dealers?” Ji Hao looked at Jiao, who was thrilled. Ji Hao then took a glance at Jiang Xue, who was trembling with tears remaining in the corners of her eyes. Ji Hao took a few steps back cautiously, then said to Jiao and the older man: “Glad that you got something you like. I should head back home then. Goodbye!”

Jiao paused for a second when he heard what Ji Hao said. The older man then said to Ji Hao: “Hey kid, I thought you would want to help this girl and even risk your own life. I mean…that’s what your Fire Crow warriors do, right? Are you really gonna leave now?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Ji Hao shrugged and pointed at them, “You two, I suppose both of you are Senior Magi. And your fighting beasts, I bet they’re on the same level as you. I am a Novice Magus. My only company here is Mr Crow. I might be able run away in front of your faces…If I try my best. I would only have myself killed by trying to save her.”

Ji Hao laughed out and continued: “I’m not stupid, ok? Besides, she was trying to kill me earlier. Why on earth would I rescue her now?"

Ji Hao then took tens of steps backward quickly and pointed at Jiang Xue, said in the meanwhile: “Her father is Jiang Shu, an elder of the Bi Fang Clan. She is also the warrior leader of the Fire Crow Clan, Ji Shu’s daughter-in-law…well, though Ji Shu has already killed his own son… Anyway, this girl could be worth a lot of money. Do make a right price!”

At this time, Ji Hao has already moved to the woods. Jiao and the older man took a step toward him. Mr Crow suddenly let out a caw; his wings started to emit a fiery light. Jiao and the older man then stopped hesitantly.

“Good, little guy.” Said the older man, “Never thought that your Fire Crow Clan had a smart kid like you.” The elder man gnashed his teeth and stared at Ji Hao. “You’re going to be harder to beat even than your Abba. The Fire Crow Clan people… are very lucky.”

Ji Hao didn’t respond. He drew back to the woods.

Mr Crow enlarged his body size, grabbed Ji Hao and transformed into a beam of fiery light, then flew toward the Gold Black Mountain.

Jiao and the older man took Jiang Xue and also quickly left the meadow. They found a brook, jumped into it and soon disappeared in the water.

Back in the meadow, four black ice-sculptures suddenly shattered into pieces. The cold air was released from the sculptures, which froze the entire meadow, including Ji hu, Ji Shui and Ji Feng’s bodies.

The older man’s voice came from the air: “What a smart boy… He’ll be really hard to deal with… But, since the Bi Fang Clan have gotten themselves involved in the Fire Crow Clan’s affairs… Us, the Black Water Serpent Clan… will soon get our chance…”

After a while, a few Fire Crow warriors found the frozen meadow. They stood on the Fire Crows’s backs, looked down at those bodies silently.

Later, a horn resounded through the entire Gold Black Mountain. However, the older man and Jiao were long gone, and the Fire Crow warriors had no way of tracking them.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 28 - Transfer

Three days later, Ji Xia and Qing Fu woke up. Though they were nearly fully healed, they still felt very weak.

Ji Xia told everybody that Qing Fu had used up all the power of the ‘Thorns of Life and Death’ to counterbalance the Shamisen fire to save Ji Xia and herself.

In the meeting dome, the leaders and elders of the Fire Crow Clan were sitting around a bonfire. Ji Shu held the ‘fire crow axe cane’ in his hands. Besides Ji Hao, everyone was looking at the ‘fire crow axe cane’ gloomily. Ji hao was sitting behind Ji Xia, staring at Jiang Yao, who was sitting next to Ji Shu wearing a grim face.

“We, the Fire Crow Clan, have the best warriors in the South Wasteland. However, we don’t have good weapons and equipment which are equivalent to their abilities.” Said Ji Shu, who looked down at the ‘fire crow axe cane’ in his hands.

“But those nice equipment are not for free. We need a large amount of gold, jade and valuable minerals to trade for those weapons and equipment.” Ji Shu looked around at the surrounding people and continued coldly. “Before the worship ceremony, I was hunting in the Coldbrook Valley. I found a rich lode of both Gold and Jade there.”

“Coldbrook Valley? I know that place, less than two hundred miles away from the Springs Mountain. We have a mine in the Springs Mountain, which produced eight-thousand pieces of Gold last year.” Said Ji Xiao once after Ji Shu finished talking. Ji Xiao was Ji Hu’s father, who was also an influential person in the clan.

Ji Shu nodded and said: “I’ve sent people to investigate the Coldbrook Valley. We found out that the mine in the Springs Mountain is just a small branch lode of the central lode in the Coldbrook Valley. As long as we have enough slaves to work in there, we will get at least two-hundred-thousand pieces of gold and thirty-thousand pieces of jade out of that Valley.”

Ji Kui took a deep breath and said to Ji Shu: “Ji Shu, what do you have in mind?”

Ji Shu raised the ‘fire crow axe cane’, looked at Ji Xia, who looked wan and sallow and said: “My brother, you are the most powerful man among all those people; you’re also extremely responsible. Such an important property must be guarded by you. So, I will send you to guard the Coldbrook Valley.”

“That great lode means a lot to our clan, you’re the only one who can take this responsibility. I know that the Coldbrook Valley is a bit far from the Gold Black Mountain. My brother, you shall take your families with you.” Ji Shu continued before Ji Xia responded.

Ji Xia took a glance at the shining ‘fire crow axe cane’ then bowed to Ji Shu and said: “Sure. I will be on my way with my people. Please send slaves to open up the mine as soon as possible.”

Ji Shu smiled and said softly: “Sure. We won’t delay for open up the mine. After all, we’re talking about a lot of profit.”

Ji Xia stood up, stayed silent for a while then said: “Three days ago, Senior Magi of the Black Water Serpent showed up near our Holy land. Ji Hu, Ji Feng and Ji Shui are missing… This…”

“I will look into this. My brother, you’re no longer the leader. You don’t have to worry about this kind of things any more. Just focus on guarding the Cold Brook Valley.” Said Ji Shu frowningly and coldly.

Ji Hao stood up, dragged Ji Xia’s arm.

Ji Shu, Ji Xiao, Jiang Yao, and the father of Ji Feng and JI Shui threw a glance at Ji Hao simultaneously. Especially Jiang Yao, her beautiful face was as twisted as a ghost; if she wasn’t trying so hard to control her rage, she probably had already exploded.

Ji Hao looked at her twisted face and intentionally said: “Ji Shu, my uncle, according to the rule of the South Wasteland, if a man died, all of his properties can be inherited by his brothers. I’ve met Jiang Xue a couple of days ago, I found her really pretty. I’d like to have her. Uncle Ji Shu, why don’t you just give her to me?”

Ji Hao then wiped his own nose, showed a simple and honest face and continued: “Though Ji Wu died before he married to Jiang Xue, it was a bit…unlucky. But, she’s really pretty, so I wouldn’t mind.”

Jiang Yao’s face turned even darker in rage. She clenched her own fists so hard that her nails have dug into the flesh. Her arms was trembling; she even broke one of her fingers off.

Ji Shu stayed silent for a while, then smiled grudgingly and said: “Hao, you’re right about the rule… But, though Wu’s dead, he still had a few more cousins… You’re just a distant cousin of him… I think… it’s not yet your turn to have Jiang Xue.”

Ji Hao signed, threw up his hands and said: “Ah… yes, yes, I forgot about those kids. I understand, I do. But… Jiang Xue’s really pretty, I really fancy her. So…please do give her to me after those kids died as well. ”

Ji Mu, who was sitting behind Ji Shu almost jerked himself up when he heard what Ji Hao said. Ji Mu was one of the blood brothers of Ji Shu; his sons were those cousins they were talking about. In his eyes, Ji Hao just cursed his sons to die.

Ji Shu put his hand on Ji Mu’s shoulder, pressed Ji Mu back in his seat.

Ji Shu then said harshly to Ji Xia: “All right. Things are all settled! Ji Xia, my brother, you should make your trip to the Coldbrook valley now. You only have two months to get everything ready in the Coldbrook Valley. That lode is highly important to the development of our clan. You can't let that lode fall into the Black Water Serpent Clan’s hands!”

Ji Xia tapped his own chest and said in a low voice: “As long as I’m alive, the Coldbrook Valley will be ours.”

Ji Xia then walked out of the meeting dome. Ji Hao was following Ji Xia and also walked out.

When they trod through the mulberry woods, Ji Hao laughed out loud and said: “Abba! Have you seen Ji Shu and his family' faces? Haha!”

Ji Xia sighed, patted Ji Hao on his head then said: “Ji Xiao and I… We were close when we were young. But now…he has got something else in his mind. To work with the Bi Fang Clan might bring profit for themselves… But have they ever thought about our clan?”

Ji Xia remained silent for a little while, then murmured: ”Hu, Feng and Shui… The three kids were quite talented. But they ganged up with outsiders and attempted to hurt our own people… They deserved to die… Such a shame…”

Ji Hao didn’t say anything. Ji Shu and his people seemed very calm during the past three days. Ji Hao knew that they were planning something big.

Two hours later, Ji Xia’s troop left the Gold Black Mountain and headed into the Northern jungle along with low and deep beasts’ roar.

Coldbrook Valley was ten-thousand miles away from the Gold Black Mountain. It wasn’t easy for them to get to the valley within two months.

[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 29 - Qing Yi

Ji Hao was sitting on the head of a ‘four-tusked mammoths’, curiously looking at his surroundings.

The ‘four-tusked mammoths’ are the most common beasts of burden in the South Wasteland. Adult ‘four-tusked mammoths’ can grow up to sixty-feet-high from shoulder to toe, and a hundred of feet long; adult ‘four-tusked ivory mammoths’ can also be as stengthful as Junior Magi warrior.

The mammoth Ji Hao was sitting on was the leader of the mammoth group, which was over a hundred feet tall. It was shaking its head, tearing those towering trees that were in the way into pieces with its four huge ivories, and opened up a broad road in the dense jungle.

“Good! Big guy.” Ji Ho tapped the mammoth’s head delightfully and scratched the soft skin behind its ears. The mammoth raised its head pleasingly and let out a great sneeze, starting up a fierce wind that blew down a few big trees situated hundreds of feet away .

Walking behind the leader mammoth, was its partner, a female mammoth. Same as the leader mammoth, this female mammoth was also a lot bigger than the other mammoths in the group. The female mammoth was carrying a platform on it’s back; a shack was built on that platform. Qing Fu was sitting in the shack, looking at Ji Hao smilingly.

Ji Xia was standing on the female mammoth’s head, continuously talking to other warriors in the troop.

“Be careful! There’re a lot of highly poisonous miasma and bugs in this jungle, don’t get yourselves hurt! Don’t let the ‘cannibal vines’ attack you from the back! Follow up！Don’t fall behind!”

The jungle in the South Wasteland can be very dangerous. Even a powerful Senior Magus might be seriously injured by traveling through the jungle alone. As the team leader, Ji Xia had to pay extra attention to his people, and constantly reminded them to be careful.

Ji Xia was leading a forceful troop. Besides himself, there were three warriors who had just reached the Senior Level; they were Ji Ying, Ji Lang and Ji Bao; all three of them were close friends of Ji Xia. Other than them, there were also fifty Senior Magi warriors and six-hundred Novice Magi warriors in the troop.

Jiang Yao was standing on the mountaintop of the Gold Black Mountain, looking at the troop which was disappearing in the Jungle. “Ji Xia! Qing Fu! And that damn little bastard Ji Hao!” Her face was twisted hideously.

“My ’thorn of life and death’! Qing Fu! You wasted your inherited Magus treasure to save lives! You stupid *****!”

“You’re gonna die! All of you! Wu, my son! My precious son!” Jiang Yao shivered and growled ferociously.

Jiang Bo was standing behind Jiang Yao, glaring at his daughter coldly. “Look at what you’ve done! We could’ve killed all of them quietly! You caused us all these problems! Ji Hu, Ji Feng and Ji Shui are dead now. Don’t you think that their fathers will blame us for that?”

Ji Bo gnashed his teeth and continued: “Do you know who’s more troublesome? That girl, Jiang Xue! I told you to keep an eye on her! Keep an eye on her! But you! You… you sent her to kll Ji Hao! On purpose! Now Ji Hao is still alive, and Jiang Xue has gone missing! How should I tell that old bastard Jiang Shu about this?”

Jiang Yao grinned hideously; that creepy laugh even made Jiang Bo shudder. Jiang Yao stared at her father, gnashed her teeth and said: “It doesn’t matter… We’ve already got what we wanted from the Fire Crow Clan, haven’t we? What that lord wanted…we can continuously supply from now on…”

A trace of delight showed up on Jiang Bo’s face. He nodded and said smilingly: “That’s true. As long as we can serve and please that lord… There will be a lot of benefits for us...that others can’t even imagine. These little troubles and frustrations are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing.”

Jiang Yao stared Jiang Bo in the eyes, gnashed her teeth and said: “I want Ji Xia, and his entire family to die! You! You can never hold me back!”

Jiang Bo stayed silent for little a while, then slightly waved his hand and said: “You can do whatever you want, just don’t let those Fire Crow Clan olds find out. It’s about time to get this over.”

Half a month later, Ji Xia’s troop had gone far away from the Gold Black Mountain. They traveled through mountains, crossed rivers and fought against groups of crocodiles and poisonous snakes. They even met countless strange creatures that they had never seen before.

During their journey, they’ve met tens of branch clans of the Fire Crow Clan. Ji Xia’s troop gained plenty of supplies from these clans. Each of these branch clans sent a part of their elite warriors to join Ji Xia’s troop. At this point, the troop had now become a few times larger.

This day, Ji Hao was sleepily sitting on the leader mammoth’s head. The mammoth pulled a pile of vines apart with its ivoried tusk; a beautiful great lake then showed up.

The lake was huge, stretched to over thousands of miles away. By the lakeside, there were white and fine sand beaches. A few huge turtles were lying on a beach and were enjoying the sunshine. Countless white birds were hovering overhead the lake, picking up fishes from time to time.

On a black big stone, which was only less than a mile away from Ji Hao, a-hundred-feet-long flood dragon was coiled and snoring there. The flood dragon heard the mammoth and the people, sniffed and took a lazy glance at Ji Hao, then fleetingly jumped into the water and disappeared.

Ji Hao gazed at where the flood dragon disappeared stunningly.

It was a real flood dragon, with white scale and beard; it had a single horn in the middle of the forehead and three claws were beneath its belly. Ji Hao was captivated by its perfect body shape.

“A little flood dragon! Fled away, such a shame. Otherwise, we could have had it chopped. The Flood dragon's meat…is the most delicious thing in the world.” Said Ji Xia, he looked at that black stone and complained. “I’ve had flood dragon meat for once, when I was a little kid and my father was still alive. That flavor… oh, my… Hao, if you ever get the chance, you have to try the flood dragon meat!”

Ji Hao explored all sorts of emotions when he heard what Ji Xia said. Was the flood dragon, the legendary powerful creature that is only one kind of food to warriors like Ji Xia?

Suddenly, a green shadow flashed through the jungle; an arrow silently appearing in Ji Xia’s face.

Ji Xia laughed out loud, slightly flicked his finger and shuttered the arrow into pieces. Then he shouted out: “Ying! Haven’t you eaten yet? I felt no strength from this arrow! Or… Did your wife drain you?”

“My big brother! Don’t misguide the kid! Is this Hao? I only saw him once when he was only a newborn.”

Along with the voice, a tall and slim young man darted out of the woods. He was running really fast, even left a large shadow behind him. Following this young man, were other two hundred young warriors, who were also tall and slim.

All of these young warriors were holding long bows, with big leather bags tied around their waists, containing sharp arrows.

Ji Hao stared at the young man who was talking to Ji Xia, soon recollected all information about him. “Uncle! Are you tired from coming all the way here?” Said Ji Hao.

That young man was Qing Ying, Qing Fu’s blood brother. The warrior leader of the Qing Yi Clan.

Ji Hao happily looked at Qing Ying.

The warriors that stood behind Ji Xia leapt off from the back of mammoths one after another, opened their arms and hugged those Qing Yi Clan warriors.

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 30 - Faint

After the Qing Yi Clan warriors joined Ji Xia’s troop, the troop started moving forward faster than before.

The Qing Yi Clan warriors were born in the jungle. The primitive jungle was like their own backyard. Additionally, the Magusreists in the Qing Yi Clan were best at communicating with all kinds of magical creatures of the jungle and deal with those poisonous miasmas.

The two hundred elite warriors came with Qing Ying were leading the way in front of the troop. The troop has never encountered any other problems by followed their guiding.

“Wooo-hoo!“ Qing Ying let out a shout, ran up and hopped to grabbed a long vine, swung over the troop then dropped himself onto a towering tree. He smoothly found a couple of bird eggs in a nest and cracked them straight into his mouth.

Qing Ying wiped his mouth satisfyingly, then swung backward. He flipped a few times in the air and quietly landed beside Ji Hao. Qing Ying gave Ji Hao two bird eggs and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Hao! Don’t be so quite! Why’re you sitting here all day? You don’t even look like a young man, you know? You look like those elders in the clan. Come on, follow me! Let’s hang out! Look, over there! It’s a nestful of ‘iron beak parrots’!”

Qing Ying shouted out abruptly and pointed at a tree miles away.

Ji Hao was just turned his head to look at that tree while Qing Ying had already hopped on a branch and pulled the arrow free; the sharp arrow whizzed through the air. A faint cyan light appeared behind Qing Ying, formed a pair of cyan wings which were rapidly flapping in the wind. The arrow was wrapped by a wisp of cyan smoke and darted miles away in the blink of an eye.

That tree which was pointed at by Qing Ying was thousands of feet tall. Tens of beautiful ‘iron beak parrots’ were hovering and tweeting around a huge nest built on a branch. Suddenly, all of those birds howled simultaneously and been shot down by the single arrow shot.

“Wow! Amazing!” Ji Hao popped up his eyes and exclaimed out loud. He had a great eyesight, which allowed him to clearly saw that all of those parrots were pierced by the arrow through the middle of their eyes and falling from the air; all of their feathers were undamaged.

“Of course!” Qing Ying leapt off and said proudly. “Hao, I, your dear uncle! I’m the most handsome man; the best shooter; and the youngest Senior Magus in the Qing Yi Clan!” Yelled Qing Ying while he was leaping between branches.

Qing Ying didn’t stop the boast; he quickly got under the towering tree and picked up those dead parrots. However, soon he started screaming and fleeing backward, because a large group of ‘ghost face bees’ were madly chasing him.

“Help! Xia! Brother! Help me! Damn! Bees! I hate these mad bees! Why did they nest in the grass!”

Qing Ying put his arm around his own head and ran toward Ji Xia. The ‘ghost face bees’ were not highly venomous; however, once been stung by this kind of bees, the wounds could itching like hell. Usually, people couldn’t help to scratch their skins after been stung by the ‘ghost face bees’; sometimes they even scratched their own skins off.

Ji Xia walked up to Qing Ying half laughingly and half annoyingly. He grabbed Qing Ying and threw him into the troop, then opened his mouth and spurted a large stream of fire, burned those bees into ashes.

Qing Ying took a seat next to Ji Hao, he has not yet recovered from the fright. “Damn! Those mad bees…” Qing Ying complained loudly.

Ji Hao looked at him, laughed out and said: “Uncle Ying! I thought you’re the youngest Senior Magus in your clan! How could you be frightened by a group of beeS?”

Qing Ying held his head high, looked at the rosy sun and said shamelessly: “Of course, I’m the youngest Senior Magus… I just…haven’t been able to wake my ‘magus caves’ up… yet.”

Qing Ying has brought the troop a lot of fun during the journey. He was always jumping around like a monkey, making all kinds of small troubles which made people laugh.

Day after day, the troop was still traveling through the jungle. Qing Ying loved hunting. He hunted a lot of beasts for Ji Hao to eat with his excellent hunting skill. Sometimes, Qing Ying just simply wanted to shoot something; and Ji Hao, he was practicing on the ‘Bu Tian Bu Lou Magic Spell’, which allowed him to swallow as much as he had.

The two of them have made a perfect team on hunting and eating animals. With the power of the ‘Bu Tian Bu Lou Magic Spell’, Ji Hao was growing more and more strong. His body gained more power and his blood blushed the red net of bloodline power much quicker than before.

Ji Hao’s body has been improved by the dragon blood. The potential of his body was far greater than the ordinary human beings. Added with all of those beasts he has swallowed recently, Ji Hao’s physical power has already went far beyond the Novice level. However, he was controlling his strength and power intentionally, kept his grade in the eleventh level as a Novice Magus.

Soon, they have traveled for fifty days. It was a quite afternoon, a few Qing Yi Clan warriors flew back and shouted loudly.

“Brother Ji Xia! Brother Ying! We’re only fifty miles away from the Coldbrook Valley!”

Qing Ying was boringly sitting on the leader mammoth’s head with his bow holding in his hands. He let out a cheer when he heard those warriors and darted away through the trees, soon disappeared in the jungle and left a piece of cyan shadow behind him.

Ji Xia and Qing Fu stood up and looked into the jungle.

With those mammoths, they could get to their destination in two hours at top.

Ji Hao also stood up and looked into the jungle. The Coldbrook Valley, where Ji Shu wanted them to come. Ji Hao has made his mind, no matter how difficult this could be, he was going to make Ji Shu and his people regret their decisions and take the consequences.

Ji Hao took a deep breath, turned around and smiled to Qing Fu, tried to say something to her. Suddenly, a ball of fire spurted out from his chest. He felt like that a volcano has just erupted inside his body; a large amount of hot air released from his internal organs and steammed his bones and muscles. Ji Hao spat a mouthful of hot blood and grabbed toward Qing Fu then fell in a faint.

The leather armour Ji Hao was wearing was burned out by his high body temperature. Tens of twisted blood-red spell symbols were emerging from the smooth skin of his slim yet sturdy body. Those spell symbols were continuously beating and quickly disintegrating one after another.

“Is the magic seal cast by Magusreist Ji Kui dissapearing? This… Ji Kui said that this magic seal would gradually disappeared after Hao’s physical strength went beyond the Junior Level!” Qing Fu and Ji Xia exclaimed simultaneously.

Ji Hao saw countless phantoms flashing through his eyes; his ears were buzzing and he couldn’t hear Qing Fu or Ji Xia.

“Gee, the Senior Magi blood? Hm…little guy, that couple, who you called Abba and Amma… They love you so much… the tie of blood… Even I, am jealous at you!” The voice of the mysterious man came from Ji Hao’s spiritual space.

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 31 - Wake

Ji Hao felt utterly powerless.

He saw a simple and crude cave, with tens of torches placed on the wall. He also saw a primitive altar that carved out of a whole piece of stone.

A huge three-legged Gold Fire Crow totem was painted on the wall with unknown beast blood mixed with mineral pigments. Under the firelight, the Gold Crow’s eyes were shining with a magical light, looked down at Ji Hao.

Ji Hao sensed the wild and ancient vibe of this cave; he felt like he was wrapped by an intangible atmosphere; and he heard countless voices were whispering in his ears.

“My dear ancestors. I, Ji Xia am giving my blood to my child, to add his power and strength, to wish him a better future. My dear ancestors, please bless my child. Please make him stronger than me; make him the best warrior in the South Wasteland! I want him to regain the glory of the Gold Fire Crow and to retrieve the status of our clan!”

Ji Xia was praying loudly. He put Ji Hao on the altar, looked down at him. His eyes were full of love. He grinned then pulled out a bone knife and quickly cut his own wrist with it.

Qing Fu was sitting beside Ji Xia. She had now stood up and started to recite an ancient spell. She looked pale and weak. Along with her voice, a strange humming noise came from the air.

Ji Xia’s blood was dropping from his wrist. Those blood drops hadn’t fallen onto the altar directly; instead, they were floating overhead Ji Hao. Every drop of blood was slowly wriggling and changing shape under Qing Fu’s control. At last, those blood drops gathered into a head-sized Gold Fire Crow with great heat and intense light.

Qing Fu then cut her own wrist as well, send her blood into the Gold Fire Crow.

“My dear ancestors, gods and ghosts. I, Qing Fu am begging your pity. Please bless my son with health, safety and happiness.”

After her blood melted into the blood-crow, countless spell-symbols started to emerge from the blood-crow. Qing Fu’s face became even more pale.

The newborn, Ji Hao was lying on the altar, gazing at his parents stunningly.

The blood-Crow slowly fell from the air, merged into Ji Hao’s body.

…………

Followed by a thundering bang, a gust of cold wind broke into the cave with countless black ice-knives wrapped in it.

A couple of badly mutilated human bodies were thrown into the cave by the sharp wind. Those were guards of the Fire Crow Clan Mother Temple. Their muscular bodies were almost torn to pieces by the ice-knives and the shock was frozen on their simple and honest faces.

Qing Fu and Ji Xia jerked their heads around. They saw a bucket thick, a-hundred-feet-long and one-horned black serpent wriggled into the cave while it was spurting the cold air and the venom out of its huge mouth. The serpent saw Ji Hao, who was lying on the altar; its gigantic tail then heavily smashed toward Ji Hao.

Ji Xia just gave more than a half of his blood to Ji Hao, which largely reduced his power. Once he saw that serpent, he let out a growl; two streams of flames then darted out from both of his arms. A dragon scale shield and a mulberry-wood spear appeared in the flame. The shield blocked the serpent’s tail which was only inches away from Ji Hao’s tiny body; at the same time, the spear pierced the serpent’s head in a lightning speed.

“Who are you! How dare you have invaded our Holy Land!” Ji Xia shouted out. His voice showed a trace of confusion. “How did you get in? This is our Mother Temple! This is the Fire Crow Clan’s Holy Land!”

While Ji Xia was shouting at the serpent, the serpent’s body exploded into a cloud of black smoke. A black figure emerged from that smoke and waved its hands toward Ji Xia. At the next second, over twenty black ice-knives darted out from that smoke and punctured all of the ‘magus caves’ which were brightly glowing on Ji Xia’s chest. Blood spurted out from his wounds, splashed all over Ji Hao’s body.

Qing Fu let out a scream, pulled three black long needles from her coiled hair then threw them toward that black figure.

The three black needles pierced the figure’s body; it let out a howl, opened its mouth and breathed out a wisp of cold air. The cold air suddenly transformed into three thumb-thick ice-knives then went through the three ‘magus caves’ on Qing Fu’s chest.

…………

Beside a blazing bonfire, the little Ji Hao was staring at Ji Kui curiously with his bright, watery eyes. Ji Kui was wearing a bone armet and a leather cloak.

“Those damn stinky snacks! I curse their souls to burn by the Gold Crow fire and never be set free… Oh, look at our little one, such a talented Magusreist. He’s spiritual power is already as strong as an ordinary magusreist, even though he’s only a newborn… Such a lovely creature… They’ve almost killed you!”

Ji Kui then bit his own finger and drew a set of complicated spell symbols on Ji Hao’s body with his blood.

“Xia, You haven’t finished your blessing ceremony. You and Qing Fu’s blood has missed the perfect moment to merge with our little one’s body. I could only seal your blood inside his body with my magic spell. This magic seal will gradually disappear after his physical strength went near the Junior level, and your blood will be slowly absorbed by his body after that.”

“Don’t worry, nothing could ruin his talent… My magic seal might affect his warrior practice, but he’ll still be a powerful Magreist. Such a powerful soul, such a talented Magreist…”

…………

JI Hao groaned, then opened his eyes. He saw a black cave roof; he also felt the soft fur beneath his body. There was a bitter taste remained in his mouth, which was so familiar. That was the medicine made by Qing Fu.

The fat bear put its head near Ji Hao’s face and gave a large grin when it realised that Ji Hao has wakened up.

“Hey, fatty. Where’s Amma?” Ji Hao looked at the slobber that hung at the bear’s mouth corners and asked. He then pushed the bear’s head aside.

The internal heat inside his body was resealed. He sensed that the Senior Magi blood from his parents was floating overhead the multicoloured flame in his Dantian; and the flame was working hard to transform the Senior Magi blood into beams of multicoloured lights, then absorbed by his body.

Ji Hao felt an inexhaustible power from his body. He looked at the cave wall next to him, then chopped it with his hand.

His hand deeply cut into the rock wall. He felt like that he was cutting a piece of tofu with a sharp knife.

His strength seemed hasn’t significantly improved; however, his body has become much more solid. There was still ninety percent of Senior Magi Blood which hasn’t been released yet; as for the released Senior Magi Blood, more than a half of it was waiting for transformation by the multicoloured flame.

“Senior Magi Blood, so powerful!” Ji Hao leaped up from the ground and waved his fists.

He looked around, then walked out of the cave. He saw a brook that rapidly flowing toward the East; a beautiful and broad valley was quietly lying under the starlight.

Thousands of slaves beard their bodies, singing a work song and busy in lumbering with sweat streaming down their backs.

A haughty voice came from not far away.

“Ji Xia, you’re no longer the leader! You’re just like us now! What makes you think you could talk to us like that?”


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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 32 - The Coldbrook valley

“What do you mean ‘talk to you like that’? Look what you’ve done!”

“It has been nearly two months since you’ve been given this job! The Springs Mountain, where you and these slaves came from are only hundreds of miles away from here. And these slaves didn’t even build up their own shelters by now!”

“You had plenty of time and all these people! But you didn’t even start to build the mine hole! What have you been doing all these days?”

“I’m not finished yet. Could you please tell me where are the foods for these slaves? Where are the meats for our fighting beasts and beasts of burden? Where are all the equipment we’re gonna need for exploration and mining work? You just wasted the whole two months here!”

Under the starlight, Ji Xia was waving his arms and yelling at two men, who seemed lazy and haughty.

The two men were wearing metal armours that were very rare in the South Wasteland. Ji Hao heard Ji Xia’s voice; he then stopped walking; quietly watching them from the shade of the cave. He sensed strong powers from the heavy swords wore around their waists. Faced Ji Xia’s fulmination, the two men showed arrogant faces and seemed didn’t take Ji Xia’s words serious at all.

“Ji Xia, you’re allowed to say whatever you want. We have sent the five-thousand slaves to you as we’ve been told. From now on, you’re responsible for the mining work in the Coldbrook Valley, as well as all the other affairs around here, which had nothing to do with us.”

The two men laughed out loud and whistled sharply. Two ‘iron claw bald eagles‘ with the wingspans of tens of feet soon landed in front of them. The two man hopped on the eagles backs; the eagles then rapidly rose high into the air, hovered around and flew toward the Gold Black Mountain.

Ji Xia raised his right arm angrily, then he paused; his arm froze in the air.

Before, if Ji Xia found any man muddled through his work, he would never hesitate to slap him hard in the face. However, as the two men said, at this point in time, he was no longer the leader of the Holy Land warriors, which means he had no right to do so.

Mr.Crow abruptly landed on Ji Hao’s shoulder.

Ji Hao then walked up to Ji Xia, looked at the two eagles which were gradually becomming smaller in the sky and said: “Abba, are they Ji Shu’s people? Do you want me to shoot them down?”

Mr.Crow cawed aloud, spurted wisps of fire from his beak.

Qing Ying quietly showed up beside Ji Hao. He pulled out an arrow and started yelling excitedly while he was waving that arrow.

“Yes! Hao’s right! Let’s shoot those bastards down! I only need a single shot for that from this distance!”

Ji Xia laid his arm down, tapped Ji Hao’s head and said smilingly: “Don’t. That was their faults for not doing their jobs well. But, we can never violate the rule of our clan. We can never take the initiative to hurt our own people.”

Ji Hao gazed at Ji Xia’s pallid face. His mind flashed back to what he saw during the coma. He clearly remembered that Ji Xia blocked the attack with his own chest; the boiling hot blood of Ji Xia splashed on his body and face. Ji Hao could never forget this.

“Sure, I won’t do anything to them. Unless they do something to me first.” Ji Hao smiled to Ji Xia then turned around and started to observe this valley carefully.

The starlight was bright and clear. Where Ji Hao standing in was the centre of the valley. This valley was tens of miles long and miles wide; one a-thousand-feet-wide brook was rapidly flowing through the middle of the valley. By the brookside, there were piles of of gold and jade pieces.

The water of the brook was ice-cold. Though Ji Hao was a mile away from the brook, he could still sense the chill from it. Ji Hao could hear the swish and gurgle of water washing out those gold and jade pieces by the brookside; those gold and jade pieces were shining with a luring light.

“Such an amazing lode!” Said Ji Hao.

“Indeed, it’s an surprisingly large and rich lode. After we got here, your Amma did some exploration; she found out that the mineral resources here were buried relatively shallow, which will be easy to dig. We can easily get a hundred thousand pieces of gold and tens of thousand pieces of jade from this valley.” Ji Xia then frowned and continued: “But those bastards from the Springs Mountain only sent us five thousands of slaves with nothing else.”

All kinds of knocking noises were resounding through the valley. Thousands of slaves were singing their working songs and busy at building their shelters. On the other sided of the valley, tens of stilts cabins were already built up.

On the cliff, tens of Fire Crow Clan warriors were working hard on building the watch post. A few long vines were dropped down from the cliff and pulled thick logs up to the cliff from time to time.

Near the entrances of both sided of the valley, a group of warriors were supervising hundreds of slaves building the fence wall. The slaves laid the foundation of the fence wall with thick logs; then filling two lines of logs with rocks and clay. This kind of fence wall would be firm enough to block the attacks from beasts.

The Coldbrook Valley was in the extreme North of the Fire Crow Clan’s territory. The valley was surrounded by primitive jungle. A lot of dire beasts were living in the surrounding jungle of the Coldbrook Valley, added with other unpredictable dangers; if not build up this fence wall as quick as possible, these slaves’ lives would be highly dangerous.

Qing Fu came with a few warriors.

She smiled when she saw Ji Hao and intimately rubbed his head. Qing Fu then handed a fist-sized piece of read jade to Ji Xia and said: “Xia, this lode not only produce gold and jade. I asked these warriors dug dirty-feet deep and we found this.”

Ji Hao looked at that red jade piece curiously. That read jade was translucence and with great heat; there seemed was some kind of liquid flowing inside it. Under the starlight, this red jade piece was shining with a bright fiery light.

“Hmm? ‘Fire Jade Pith’? This is the treasure which can largely and rapidly improve the power of Senior Magi with the natural abilities of fire control, also is a kind of excellent material for making magus tools.” Ji Xia popped up his eyes and said delightfully. “If send this to the Clan as tribute, one piece of ‘Fire Jade Pith’ can be worth more than thousands of pieces of gold and jade!”

“We have to let those elder Magusreists know that we have found the ‘Fire Jade Pith’ here as quick as possible. Tell them that they should send more warriors to guard this valley. And, Xia, you need to start hunting with Ying after the sunrise. They Springs Mountain people haven’t brought any food for these slaves.” Said Ji Fu in a low voice:

Ji Hao took the ‘Fire Jade Pith’ from Ji Xia’s hand then sent his spiritual power into the jade piece. He suddenly sensed a great power which was gushing into his body from his palms. He felt like that he was drawn into a lake of lava and almost screamed out.

Ji Hao was half shocked and half surprised. This piece of red jade was not ‘Fire Jade Pith’, instead, it was a piece of ‘Fire Essence Crystal’. In Ji Hao’s previous life, he had seen that hundreds of powerful warriors fought for a small piece of ‘Fire Essence Crystal’, which was less than one percent of the piece in size he was holding right now.

This was truly precious. The Coldbrook valley was a great treasure indeed.

No matter who guarded this valley well and sent the gold and jade to the clan as he had been required, he would earn the reward and thankfulness from the clan. Would Ji Shu be so kind to let Ji Xia have this credit?

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 33 - Savage

The fat bear immersed its entire body in the brook, then slapped its huge bear palms hard onto the surface of the water. The water then splashed up and sent up a five-feet-long, pure white and scaleless fish. The fat bear largely opened its drooling mouth, caught the fish then swallowed it instantly, then let out a few cheers.

In the valley, a part of slaves were still working hard to build shelters and the fence wall; the other part of slaves have already started making simple stone tools for mining works under the supervision of a few Fire Crow Clan warriors.

Ji Hao was standing on the fence wall, which was nearly built up and frowningly looking at those slaves who seemed so lifeless.

In the South Wasteland, the mining work has always been extremely dangerous and heavy. Even a strong man with the healthy body would probably be disabled after working in the deep and dark mine hole for two to three years. However, there were very few healthy men among the slaves Ji Hao was looking at; nearly a half of them lacked an arm or a leg; the rest of them were either children or old people; even a few sick people who couldn’t walk straight were there.

A half of them wouldn’t last even a minute in the mine hole. Where did Ji Shu found all these wastes? Ji Hao thought.

Ji Hao gave a sigh, then shouted to Ji Ying, who was supervising those slaves: “Uncle Ji Ying, just pity those poor kids! Set them off into the jungle to find some fruits. They can do nothing around here anyway.”

Ji Ying was holding a whip; he lashed the ground annoyingly then took a glance at those poor scrawny kids who couldn’t even carry a piece of wood, then growled: “Damn Ji Shu! When I become stronger, I’ll have to kick his *** and teach him some rules!”

“Take these useless kids away! The two of you! Send them to the back of the valley where there’s a piece of wild fruit woods. Let them fill their stomachs then bring all those fruits back to us!” Ji Ying said to a couple of warriors who were standing behind him.

Ji Hao shook his head then turned around, looked into the dense jungle. In the morning, just after the sunrise, Ji Xia went into the jungle and started hunting with a group of warriors. Feed thousands of people wasn’t easy at all, which would need at least hundreds of hunted big animals.

A few slaves were carrying huge stones even taller than themselves on their backs and gasping heavily. They walked up beside JI Hao step by step, then put those stones into the fence wall heavily. These slaves’s bodies were bared without even a leaf to hide their private parts. The crocodile tattoos on their skins showed that they came from the Bloodcrocodile Clan, which was a subsidiary clan of the Black Water Serpent Clan.

The Fire Crow Clan and the Black Water Serpent Clan have been fighting against each other for decades; it was not uncommon for them to captured and enslaved people from each other and their subsidiary clans. Ji Hao checked the few slaves working beside him with his spiritual power, found that they were all Novice Magi under the second level.

“Yohohoho~ Yo! hoho~”

A strange shouting came from the jungle. A few figures flashed through the jungle then countless trees started shacking. A couple of spears darted out of the jungle along with the ear-piercing sound of sharp winds started by them.

At the next second, a few slaves were speared and nailed on the fence wall.

“Enemies…” While Ji Hao was shouting, a tall and strong man rushed out of the woods and ran up to Ji Hao. This man was almost naked; his waist was wrapped around by a small piece of fur; and his whole body was covered with thick black hairs; a wooden stick was holding on his hand.

The wooden stick held in his hand was as thick as Ji Hao’s lap and as long as Ji Hao’s height; it was covered with dried blood. The man was only an inch shorter than Ji Hao; but his shoulder was half a feet wider than Ji Hao’s shoulder, which made him seemed like a human-like chimpanzee. He raised the stick high in the air then let out a growl and smashed it down toward Ji Hao’s head at the same time.

Ji Hao grabbed a spear which was leaned against the fence wall beside him then let out a growl as well.

The appearance of enemies was too abrupt, which left Ji Hao no time to cast any sorceries or magic spells; he could only fight back with his physical strength.

All of the black hair covered the strong man’s body then straight up; a cloud of black smoke appeared faintly behind his body. Inside the smoke, a red tiger head was roaring silently. A wisp of powerful black smoke then spurted out from the stick and transformed into a tiger claw, slapped toward Ji Hao’s face rapidly.

Obviously, this strong man was a Junior Magus warrior. Only magi in the Junior or higher level can transform their powers into a certain shape. Usually, a Magus’s strength will go beyond ’twenty-thousand stones’ when he or she reached the top level as a Novice Magus; once he or she upgraded to a junior Magus, his strength will grow to ‘thirty-five stones’ bottoms; added with his or her bloodline power, a Junior Magus' punch will be at least two times stronger than a top level Novice Magus.

Before Ji Hao triggered his internal power, the spear bumped against the stick.

The strong man stared at Ji Hao happily. He only saw a ball of faint light shining behind Ji Hao, which means that Ji Hao has already started to make the connection with his bloodline power but hasn’t triggered it yet; and Ji Hao was only a twelve level Novice Magus tops!

“Die… Meat… Delicious kid…” The strong man murmured, his arms started swelling, which showed that his has used all his strength.

“Savage! Damn cannibal Savage! Fight! Fight! Kill them all! Damn! Ji Hao! Step back! Quick!”

‘Bang!’ The spear and the wooden stick exploded into pieces simultaneously. The explosion didn’t hurt Ji Hao at all. He slightly shook his arms and looked at the strong man. He found that the man was not as powerful as he thought.

Different from Ji Hao, both of the strong man’s palms were broken into several pieces; blood spurted out from his wounds. He stared at Ji Hao in shock while he was sent flying backward.

“Kill!” Ji Hao growled. He was half shocked and half surprised.

He was controlling his power and strength intentionally and keeping himself in the eleventh level as a Novice Magus. However, he has only used six percent of his physical strength just now and completely beat a Junior Magi up.

“The magical ‘Bu-Tian Bu Lou Magic Spell’ gained me extra strength; the dragon blood gave me a perfect human body; and the Senior Magi blood from Abba and Amma, it was so powerful!” Ji Hao cheered silently in his head.

He then let out a growl, grabbed a pair of axes from two warriors’ hands and rushed toward the strong man.

Tens of Savages rushed out of the woods while screaming and shouting. Ji Hao waved the axes and broke into the crowd of Savages like a whirlwind. Soon, the tens of fifth to sixth level Novice Savage Magi warriors were all chopped into pieces by Ji Hao. Blood splashed everywhere.

“Kill!” Ji Hao growled hoarsely. His pupils turned red. More Savages rushed out of the woods continuously. Ji Hao then madly darted toward them.

Hundreds of Savages were slaughtered by Ji Hao in the blink of an eye. The ground was littered with body pieces.

Suddenly, an angry growl came from the jungle. A three-meter tall man who was plump and sturdy then rushed out. Three red light spots were brightly shining on his chest, which means that he was a Senior Magus who had three ‘magus caves’ waken!

The Savage Senior Magi grabbed a savage warrior who was running beside him and threw hard forward.

The poor savage warrior let out a deep howl while darting toward Ji Hao like a human cannonball. Ji Hao sensed a strong wind came along with the human－cannonball when it was still tens of feet away from him. He felt a strong chest pain and he couldn’t even breathe.

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 34 - Four Eyes

“Break!” Faced the poor Savage warrior who was thrown at him as a human cannonball, Ji Hao dropped the axes, locked his fingers together then cast a spell silently; at the same time, he thrust his hands forward, palms facing the Savage warrior who was about to hit on him.

The spell and hand gesture cast by Ji Hao made a connection with the vast nature power, which now have gathered into an invisible wall shielded Ji Hao behind. The poor human-cannonball-warrior exploded into a red cloud of mist along with a loud bang, once he hit on the invisible nature-power wall.

The air shock waves even sent Ji Hao flew backward.

Mr.Crow didn’t take any action. He gripped Ji Hao’s shoulder and gazed at the jungle behind the Savage Senior Magus with his red and beady eyes; didn’t even took a glance at the Savage Senior Magus.

“Juicy little kid… You smell so good… Must be tasty!” The Savage Senior Magus roared and took a big step toward Ji Hao. He was nearly a hundred feet away from Ji Hao; however, with a single step, he has now standing right in front of Ji Hao.

“Go away! You disgusting fat!” The horrible smell of the Savage Senior Magus almost made Ji Hao throw up. He overlapped his hands frowningly and quickly triggered his internal power. Soon, all of his internal power condensed into a thumb-sized fiery lightning ball on his palm.

The fiery lightning ball then swelled into the size of a human head. Followed by an earth shacking thunder, a ten feet long lightning darted out of the fiery lightning ball and struck right onto the Savage Senior Magus’ huge fat belly.

The lightning burned out the dense black hair on the Savage Senior Magus’ belly instantly and has his dirty, oily skin bared. countless sparks of lightning wrapped his body and made loud crackling noises. Some of the lightning sparks struck on the ground and left hundreds of fist-sized holes.

The Savage Senior Magus held his own stomach with trembling hands and staggered a few steps back. Though Ji Hao could never hurt the Savage Senior Magus with his own physical strength, he had triggered the ’Nine Secret Word’ and borrowed power from the nature, which temporarily yet largely improved his power and strength. Even so, he still failed to cause any harm to the Savage Senior Magus’ body; but he had successfully forced the Savage Senior Magus back.

“Little bastard! I’m gonna eat your bran!” The Savage Senior Magus let out a roar and stamped down hard on the ground; caused an intense ground shaking which nearly made Ji Hao fall.

Ji Hao fleetingly drew back.

“Savage! This is our Fire Crow Clan’s territory! Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Ji Ying flew toward Ji Hao with a spear held in his hand. His body was wrapped by a fire stream, which made him looked like a fiery shooting star. He then landed in front of Ji Hao and firmly shielded him behind.

The spear made of mulberry wood was sparking; and the obsidian spearhead was spurting flame flakes. Ji Ying then lunged his spear at the Savage Senior Magus‘s chest for hundreds of times in the blink of an eye.

However, Ji Ying’s attacks seemed hardly hurt the Savage Senior Magus. The Savage Senior Magus stood firmly on the ground and put his palms together; a mace[1] tattoo in his right palm lit up then a mace appeared in his hand.

Ji Ying only had two waken ‘magus caves’ while the Savage Senior Magus had three of them. Judged from physical strength, Ji Ying was not the the Savage Senior Magus’ rival at all. The mace and Ji Ying’s spear struck against each other; the shock impact pushed Ji Ying backward and fell hard on the ground. A small part of Ji Ying’s leather armour broke into pieces by a slight touch of the mace.

Along with a sharp wind, Ji Lang, who was guarding the back of the valley flew up to Ji Ying. As same as Ji Ying, his body was warped by a fire stream as well. He flashed across the air and switched position with Ji Ying, then leaped up and jammed his knees hard into the Savage Senior Magus’ face.

The the Savage Senior Magus’ face was smashed instantly. Blood spurted out from his eyes and ears. He howled desperately, threw his mace away, turned around and fled backward with his face berried in his hands.

At this time, Ji Ying has already stood back up. He held his spear tight and darted toward the Savage Senior Magus with a lightning speed. At the next second, the spear went through the Savage Senior Magus’ chest and punctured his heart. The Savage Senior Magus screamed out, twitched a few times then fell on the ground.

Thousands of savage warriors rushed out of the woods. However, all of them froze when they saw the Savage Senior Magus, who was lying on the ground and covered with blood. They stunningly gazed at the Savage Senior Magus, the most powerful warrior in their tribe. Their best warrior have been beaten up, which frightened them badly; they didn’t know what to do next.

The Savages were the robbers living in the jungle of the South Wasteland. They didn’t have a homeland, didn’t know how to plant or raise animals; neither had any idea about Magureists nor elder Magi. They would eat every old or weak member of their own tribes. Just like wild animals, they moved around the South Wasteland Jungle, robbed every clan they met and ate whatever they could found, included people.

The Savage Senior Magus was the leader of this Savage tribe, also was the most powerful warriors among them. The rest of Savage warriors started yelling and screaming when they realised that their leader had already been knocked down.

Inside the dense jungle, a tall figure in black was standing in the shadow of a tree and murmuring dissatisfiedly: “Told you. These wastes’re useless. They’re even more stupid than animals! We have to do it ourselves if we want the prize.”

The tall figure then walked out of the shadow and said: “Let’s make it quick. The two Senior Magi just had their ‘magus caves’ waken, they’re not bad. Besides, they’re tall and pretty, those old ladies gonna like them. They’ll be worth a fortune!”

Another tall future waked out as well and said: “Let’s do it together then. Catch them alive as quick as possible. And that little guy, he can cast a spell in such a young age… most importantly…look at that delicate face, someone’s gonna pay lots for that.”

Ji Hao picked up the axe witch was threw on the ground by himself earlier and chopped toward the Savage Seinor Magus’ neck. He used all of his strength, chopped the the Savage Seinor Magus’ neck hard for nearly a hundred times then finally beheaded him.

The Savage Seinor Magus’ body was still twitching intensely after that. A while later, a huge stream of blood spurted out from his broken neck and the twitching stopped.

“Such a strong life force! And he was a Senior Magus with only three waken ‘magus caves’!” Ji Hao exclaimed silently.

Then Ji Hao heard this heavy footsteps came from the jungle. He suddenly sensed a murderous vibe.

Ji Hao then raised his head and saw two men was walking out of the jungle. Both of them was over three meters tall and wearing full metal armours. Except their faces, all of their body parts were well protected by the exquisitely crafted armours, including fingers.

Their faces was in an odd bronze colour. One of them was holding a bola[2] and the other one was holding a heavy sword.

Ji Hao stared at the two man’ faces in shock —— Both of them had an additional pair of eyes located beyond their eyebrows. They were four-eyed people!

“Fight! Fight with your full strength! Damn! It’s the Jia Clan warriors!” Shouted Ji Ying and Ji Lang simultaneously.

————————————————————
[1] Mace:A mace is a blunt weapon, a type of club or virge that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful blows. A mace typically consists of a strong, heavy, wooden or metal shaft, often reinforced with metal, featuring a head made of stone, copper, bronze, iron, or steel.

[2] Bola: A \type of weapon in use during the Clone Wars and later the Galactic Civil War, consisting of weights attached to an interconnected cord. The weapon was capable of wrapping around an individual's neck and breaking it.

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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 35 - Invulnerable

Ji Hao felt like an electricity current passed through his body; his whole body broke out in gooseflesh and his tiny hairs stood up.

He discovered all sorts of emotions from Ji Ying and Ji Lang’s shouting; there were tension，shock, even a slight trace of fear.

Ji Lang and Ji Ying held their head high and their weapons tight, took three big steps forward and faced the two Jia Clan people fearlessly. They might not be aware of that fear berried deep down in their hearts while Ji Hao certainly was.

“Uncle Ji Ying, what the hell is Jia Clan?” Ji Hao looked at the two four-eyed men quickly walking toward him and shouted to Ji Ying.

“Drawback! Hao! Back!” Ji Ying gripped his spear and growled. Streams of fire spurting out from his body; and his body almost turned translucent in the raging fire. ”They’re ghosts from Jia clan! Stay away from them!”

“Hehe…hehe…” The Jia Clan warriors curved their lips and chuckled disdainfully.

looked at the spooky enemies, Ji Hao took a deep breath. The purple light spot which was condensed by his internal power appeared in between his eyebrows and started rotating fast, continuously drawing the surrounding power of nature into Ji Hao’s body.

Ji Hao slightly shook his body then started to recite the ‘Nice Secret Words’. At that moment, the edges of him became hazy and indistinct. Along with a muffled thunder from the air, Ji Hao pointed his left hand at the sky and his right hand at the earth; his pupils then started shining with a frosty light. At the same time, a chill wind whooshed through the air.

The ground under the two Ji Clan warriors’ feet started moving like water. Tens of arm thick thorns of dirt thrust from the ground. The tips of these thorns were shining with the same frosty light as in Ji Hao’s eyes. Under the control of Ji Hao’s power, these thorns were harder than steel.

However, these sharp and hard thorns then shattered into dust against the Jia Clan warriors’ armours. The Jia Clan warriors stayed still; and their armours were sheeny without even a trace left by those thorns. Their mocking laughter turned louder and their eyes turned colder.

“Ji!” Ji Hao snapped. All the plants surrounded suddenly started shacking. Hundreds of towering trees withered and collapsed and large pieces of grass scorched rapidly. Only a few plants near the two Jia Clan warriors were wrapped by a green light and started growing madly; their leafs and vines expanded hundreds of times in the blink of an eye. Affected by Ji Hao’s magic power, these leafs and vines became as hard as rebars and twined around the Jia Clan warriors’ bodies like serpents.

Those huge vines coiled around the Jia Clan warriors and wrapped them into a large green cocoon; then started wriggling and wringing, made a gravelly raucous noise.

“Such a boring trick!” A cold and gibing voice came from the green cocoon. Just when the voice faded, the cocoon busted by a power from the inside; countless pieces of leafs and vines were blown away by the impact power. Two Jia Clan warriors calmly broke loose from the cocoon and continued walking in big steps.

“Hao! Step back!” Ji Lang growled. “These Jia Clan people are monsters! Only Senior Magi can deal with’ em!”

“Ji Hao didn’t listen to Ji Lang. He locked his fingers together and triggered the ‘Nice Secret Words’ orderly. The power of ‘Nice Secret Words’ allowed Ji Hao to connect his own internal power to the power of nature. The nature power around him started rotating like an invisible whirlpool. A small spark emerged from the air then started a great fire around Ji Hao. Nine arm-thick and tens of feet long fiery snakes darted out of the blazing fire and rushed toward the Jia Clan warriors with great heat.

The fire snakes hit right on the Jia Clan Warriors’ chests; but they didn’t even blink when it happened. They only threw a mocking glance at Ji Hao and kept walking. The nine fiery snakes exploded with a loud band at the very next second, shed sparks and smoke and fell with a great splashes of fire near their heavy armours, failed to leave even any trace on them.

Ji Hao attacked the Jia Clan warriors for three times with all of his best sorceries. The lethality of his attack was even greater than an elite Junior Warrior’s attack; however, the two Jia Clan warriors weren’t harmed even a little bit. Ji Hao couldn’t sense any magic power from the two Jia Clan warriors, which means that they took all of attacks only with their strangely strong defensive capability.

“Shoot!”

Growls of a few Qing Yu clan warriors came from behind Ji Hao. Tens of long arrows hurtled toward the Jia Clan warriors.

The Jia Clan warriors gave a scornful laugh, then closed their eyes. Qing Yi clan warriors are the best shooter in the South Wasteland. The tens of arrows hit on their closed eyes almost simultaneously; which gave Ji Hao a spurt of great joy. However, after less than one second, his heart sank heavily; he felt cold and hopeless like he was drowning in the Cold Brook in the middle of the valley.

All of the Qing Yi Clan warriors guarding the Coldbrook Valley were middle-level Junior Magi, even some elite Junior Magi. The arrows shot by them could easily puncture tens of towering trees in miles away. But just now, their arrows smashed up against the Jia Clan warriors’ eyelids!

The Jia Clan warriors blinked and shook off the dirt left by smashed arrows; then took a few big steps forward, walked up to Ji Ying and Ji Lang.

Ji Hao stared at the two Jia Clan warriors nervously. What kind of freaks are they? Even their eyelids are indestructible like iron walls and shattered the arrows of the best shooters in the South Wasteland! Ji Hao thought.

Ji Ying darted out ahead of Ji Lang. He leaped up from the ground, held his spear high and pierced toward one of the Jia Clan warrior’s heart; at the same time, the spearhead spurted out a raging flame.

Ji Ying injected all of his power into his spear; a great heat then emitted from the spear; the earth started shacking intensely and the soil started melting rapidly. Soon, a thin layer of lava has covered the ground near Ji Ying and spread to the surrounding areas.

The Jia Clan warrior who was facing Ji Ying held the bola in his left hand and took a step aside then twisted his body at a weird angle, dodged Ji Ying’s attack; the spearhead sliced through the air an inch away from his face, but didn’t touched even a hair of him.

Ji Ying missed his target. Before he landed back on the ground and adjust his gestures; the Jia Clan warrior threw a punch at his throat instantaneously. Ji Ying then let out a very muffled moan, lost his breath and showed the whites of his eyes.

After that, the Jia Clan warrior raised the bola and heavily hit Ji Ying’s back head with it. Ji Ying shouted out in pain, fell hard on the ground and twitched his body ceaselessly.

“Ji Ying!” Ji Lang growled and leaped up, rushed toward the Jia Clan warrior who was standing in front of Ji Ying. The other Jia Clan warrior seemed already foresaw his plan; once Ji Ying moved his feet, he put a heavy shield which was abruptly appeared from nowhere in front of his partner. Ji Lang didn’t see this coming, he bumped hard against the shield; his head broke instantly and blood spurted out.

Ji Hao’s pupils constricted to the pinpoint size when he saw what happened.

The attacks of this two Jia Clan warriors were so clean and straight; seemed like they’ve practised thousand of times on this.

Ji Ying and Ji Lang, two powerful young Senior Magi were knocked down by a single attack each. Ji Hao felt that the Jia Clan Warrior weren’t even humans, they were more like two fighting machines!


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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 36 - Crisis

“Ha! Hehe…”

“Yo hohoho!”

“Ho ho! Ho!”

Seeing Ji Ying and Ji Lang lying on the ground and trying to struggle back up with faces covered in blood, all of the Savages, who was badly frightened by Ji Hao’s slaughter and struck dumb by the death of their leader, have now started shouting and jumping for joy.

Due to the generally low intelligence of these Savages, their behaviour was animal-like. Once their leader has been defeated, they would turn and flee right away; but if their leader has gotten the upper hand in a battle, they would become the most ferocious warriors and tear every single enemy into pieces!

At this point of time, they picked up their weapons and turned around, glared at Ji Hao and the Coldbrook Valley behind him while shouting and clamouring. The scary enemies just killed their leader have been knocked down by their honoured guests, which largely encouraged these flurried Savages who were just about to run.

“Human! A lot of humans! Meat! Delicious meat!”

“Olds, chewy! Youngs, tasty!”

“And women! Hey! Women! Hehe…women, mine!”

The Savaged was drooling and yelling while they approached Ji Hao carefully. The bigger their steps were, the greater courage they had. Abruptly, one among them gave a growl, then thousands of Savages started rushing toward Ji Hao and the Coldbrook Valley with their weapons raised high.

“Hao! Step back! Quick!” A Qing Yi Clan warriors shouted to Ji Hao from the top of the unfinished fence wall.

Tens of Qing Yi Clan warriors then pulled their bows and shot hundreds of arrows in the span of two breaths.

Wisps of arrows whizzed through the air and flew into the Savage crowd like an intense rain. The remarkable shooting skill of the Qing Yi Clan warriors allowed every single arrow winded a unique path through the air like snake-wiggling.

The arrows went through one, and two, and three, even more of the Savages’ throats. Each of the arrows pierced, at least, three Savages’ throats; one of them even punctured fifteen madly running Savages’ throats then finally stuck in the ground slantingly.

Immediately, blood splashed everywhere, covered the earth and the sky.

A few Savages who were running in front of the crowd fell on the ground, howled and struggled painfully with their hands around their punctured necks, then died soon.

The momentary courage of the Savages has now gone without a trace. Those Savages luckily survived the arrows started screaming terrifyingly; they dropped their weapons and fled in the opposite direction of the Coldbrook Valley with all of their remained strength.

The two armoured Jia Clan warriors frowned and shook their heads.

“These useless wastes! These Savages are no better than animals! They’re even not qualified to be slaves! We have to do this ourselves!” Said the Jia Clan warrior who held a bola in his hands. He then sneered and continued: “The two of us are enough to capture the entire valley!”

The Jia Clan warrior with heavy shield and sword let out a sneer as well and said: “We still need these Savages to send all these captives out of the valley for us. We can’t let those arrow men kill all of them!”

The Jia Clan Warrior hung his shield on his belt then held his sword with his left-hand and crooked his middle finger of the other hand toward Ji Hao ; slightly raised his the left corner of his upper lip and said with a mocking smile: “Hey, little kid, such a young Magusreists. you’re really good! Come, let us see what else have you got!”

Ji Hao took a deep breath. His black pupils suddenly turned into a gold red colour; nine spell symbols of the ‘Nine Secret Words’ loomingly appeared around both of his pupils. The power of the ‘Nine Secret Words’ began to drag the nature power into Ji Hao’s body, even darkened the dayglow tens of feet around Ji Hao.

The Jia Clan warriors curiously looked at Ji Hao and showed no sign of attack. Obviously, they didn’t take Ji Hao serious at all, they were just curious about what Ji Hao was going to ‘perform’ for them.

“Hao! Back! You can’t deal with 'em!” Ji Ying shouted. He was hit hard on the back head by the bola warrior and almost lost his consciousness; he has now leaped up from the ground and raised his ablaze spear and stabbed toward the Jia Clan warrior’s neck. The spear left a huge arc of fiery light in the air.

The life fore of the Senior Magi were extraordinarily strong. The heavy bola punch may have the head of an ordinary man smashed; however, Ji Ying was only felt dizzy after he was hit by the bola, and soon recovered from it; rose and fought again with his full power.

At the same time, Ji Lang, whose forehead was bumped and broken, face covered with blood, leaped high in the air as well. He jerked out a black dagger and poked toward the other Jia Clan Warrior’s face.

In the meanwhile, he also shouted to Ji Hao: “Hao, draw back! Quick! Everyone stay back! Back! Back!”

Ji Hao calmly looked at Ji Ying and Ji Lang, didn’t move.

Mr.Crow quietly stood on Ji Hao’s shoulder and ruffled his feathers. He fixed his eyes into the dense jungle, where all these enemies came from and totally ignored the two Jia Clan Warriors.

Ji Ying and Ji Lang cast their counterattacks simultaneously. However, the two Jia Clan Warriors suddenly stretched out their arms at exact the same moment and grabbed the necks of Ji Ying and Ji Lang, smashed them hard to the ground.

The earth shook intensely; Ji Ying and Ji Lang’s body then deeply bumped into the ground.

“Kill!” Ji Ying gave a roar from the hundreds of feet deep hole his body crushed into, then jumped out of the hole with his body wrapped by a blazing fire and rushed toward the Jia Clan warrior again.

“We’re Senior Magi from the Fire Crow Clan!” Ji Lang spat a mouthful of blood out and also jumped out of the other hole. His dagger has gone missing when he was hit into the ground; he has now clenched his fists and throwing punches to the Jia Clan Warrior.

“They’re way stronger than you! Way stronger!” Ji Hao gnashed his teeth and growled in a low voice. “Why’re you have to be so stubborn？Do you have to risk your lives against these guys?!”

Both of the two Jia Clan warriors took a step aside and easily dodged the attacks of Ji Ying and Ji Lang. Their actions were so unified, which gave a weird feeling that was very hard to explain. They avoided Ji Ying and Ji Lang’s attacks with only one simple step; then crooked their arms and leaned their upper body forward, struck hard on Ji Ying and Ji Lang’s lower bellies simultaneously with their hard, hammer-like elbows.

Ji Ying and Ji Lang were sent flying backward instantly like cannonballs; their body sliced though the air, started a sharp air steam even cut a tens of feet long and five feet wide ditch into the ground. The two of them then fell on the ground heavily near Ji Hao’s feet; their eyes widened and blood gushed out of their mouths.

This time, they were seriously injured; couldn’t rise again even with the strong life force of Senior Magi.

The Jia Clan warrior with a sword then crooked his finger and sneered to Ji Hao again: “Come on, little guy, let me see have you got!”

“You think I’m stupid?!” Ji Hao showed his middle finger to the Jia Clan warriors without a thought of weather they could understand the meaning of this hand gesture. He then grabbed Ji Ying and Ji Lang with both of his hands and resealed the power inside his body, transformed into a steam of fiery light and disappeared.

At the next second, Ji Hao appeared near the entrance of the valley with Ji Ying and Ji Lang held in his arms.

“Retreat!” Ji Hao shouted while running madly toward the end of the valley. “Uncles, retreat! The enemies are too powerful! We have to wait for Abba and other warriors to come back! Retreat! Just leave these slaves here!”

Tens of Qing Yi clans warriors quickly drew close to Ji Hao; other Fire Crow Clan warriors who were guarding the valley followed Ji Hao and ran toward the end of the valley as well.

However, two figures then broke into the valley like a tornado. They burst into the crowd of Fire Crow Clan and Qing Yi Clan warriors and sent tens of them flying; these warriors then fell hard on the ground thousands of feet away and couched up blood ceaselessly.

Ji Hao stopped running; because he saw the Jia Clan warriors were waiting in front of him with that mocking sneers on their faces.

They moved too fast, Ji Hao didn’t even saw how they broke into the valley clearly.


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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 37 - Puppet

Ji Hao stopped by the two Jia Clan warriors. The slaves near Ji Hao were all huddled up on the ground and trembled in fear.

From the Cold Brook laid aside, the fat bear jumped out abruptly. The bear’s fur was soaking wet; it leaped high in the air and raised its huge paw and slapped toward one of the Jia Clan warriors.

“Faty! Get away!” Ji Hao’s eye corners twitched; he let out a growl anxiously.

The bear’s beady eyes turned into a blood red; thick strands of viscous white saliva hung from the corners of its mouth; every single of its hairs risen on end like steel needles; and the huge bear paw started a gust of fierce wind. The bear showed no sign of stop.

The Jia Clan warrior aimed by the bear raised his head, threw a sideway glance at the bear with that mocking smile remained on his face. He then quickly took a big step sideway, moved to under the bear’s body and punched the bear’s belly with his right fist.

This punch sent the gigantic bear flying into the air. The bear flew a mile away like a small—flying-mountain, then pitched into the Cold Brook. The water rapidly turned red and then bear slowly floated up, drifted down along with the water flow then got stuck by several giant stones in the middle of the brook.

At the end of the valley, swirls of dust rose thousands of feet high in the air. Tens of Fire Crow Warriors who were guarding the end of the valley were rushing toward Ji Hao and the others.

They shouted aloud when they saw the two Jia Clan Warriors; looming fiery lights appeared behind their bodies. They raised their arms and threw their spears to the Jia Clan warriors across a distance of miles.

Tens of Mulberry wood spears were all wrapped by the blazing fire and darted toward the two Jia Clan Warriors in different paths, blocked all the possible side steps that the Jia Clan warriors might take to dodge the attack.

The Jia Clan warrior with the sword turned his head and gave a creepy smile to Ji Hao, who was having a very serious facial expression. The Jia Clan warrior then took the shield which was hung around his waist and raised it high then cast an odd spell. The shield suddenly emitted an eye-piercing light; the light soon formed an immense light-shield in front of the two Jia Clan warriors.

At the next second, all of the spears then shuttered against the light-shield along with a thundering bang, while the light-shield stood firmly without even a shake.

Ji Hao noticed that there was a familiar totem embossed on the surface of the Jia Clan warrior’s shield — A tower with a blood-red eye floating on top of it. That eye was shining with a blood-red light, very life like. Ji Hao gazed at that eye, shivered subconsciously.

Another Jia Clan warrior dropped his bola and soothed the bone joints of his fingers. He thrust his hands toward the tens of Fire Crow warriors who were rushing toward him and his partner. His ten fingers then started flicking like he was playing a pipa[1].

The air near his fingertips then started popping; countless fist-sized, dagger-like sharp gusts of winds darted out from near his fingers and suddenly hit on those Fire Crow warriors’ bodies.

Every single flick of the Jia Clan warrior’s fingers sent hundreds of gusts of winds toward those Fire Crow Clan warriors; these dagger-like winds broke their bones, pierced their arms and legs, hollowed their chests. Those Fire Crow warriors had no preparation for this; they were trembling intensely and vomiting blood; seemed as weak as grasses under the attack of these weird winds. soon, all of the Fire Crow warriors were sent flying backward by the rain-storm-like sharp gusts of winds.

“So vulnerable! I’m disappointed. Haven’t met any real rival yet.” Said one of the Jia Clan warriors.

The other Jia Clan warrior stooped flicking his fingers. Wisps of smoke rose from his ten finger tips, which caused by the friction between his fingers and the air.

Ji Hao gnashed his teeth and started at the two horrible enemies.

The shield was nothing but a magus tool with extraordinary defensive power. However, Ji Hao didn’t sense even a trace of magical power from the guy who just knocked tens of Fire Crow Clan warriors down by flicked his fingers, which means that he was only popped the air with his physical strength and easily smashed a Fire Crow Clan warrior team.

Mr.Crow stretched his wings and slightly moved his claws which were gripped Ji Hao’s shoulder; a trace of cruelty flashed through his blood-red pupils.

Ji Hao patted Mr.Crow and slightly shook his head. He has known Mr.Crow since he was a newborn baby; he clearly understood the meaning of Mr. Crow’s actions.

There’re some more powerful enemies who were hiding in that dense jungle all these time, which was why Mr.Crow didn’t pay any attention to the Jia Clan warriors and kept a vigilant watch to the jungle.

“You’re very powerful. However, this is our Fire Crow Clan’s territory.” Ji Hao stared at the two Jia Clan warriors who wasn’t even gasping after all this, and said seriously. “No matter where you came from, you have invaded our territory, you…”

“This place is far, far away from the centre of your Fire Crow Clan, we’re not afraid the revenge from your clan at all. Are you trying to stall us? Little guy, I have to admit that you surprised me. This cleverness of yours will make you worth even more!” The Jia Clan warrior with sword interrupted Ji Hao’s speaking. He looked at Ji Hao up and down with his four cold eyes.

The other Jia Clan warrior picked up his bola, waved it then grinned and said to Ji Hao: “You’ll be worth a fortune. I feel like I’m looking at piles of gold and jade. We can live a happy and comfortable life for a long while.”

All the warriors guarding the Coldbrook valley were knocked down by this time; groups of Savages rushed into the valley.

These Savages had no sense of rules，they started damaging everything once they got into the valley.

Thanks to Ji Shu and his people, there were nothing like foods or equipment worth to be rubbed in the Coldbrook valley. The Savages rummaged for a while then fixed their eyes on those slaves who were still huddled up on the ground.

“Meat! Smell so good!” Savages rubbed their hands and walking toward those slaves. They have fought hard for quite a while; at this point, they were all starving. The Savages could eat all living things; now these slaves who were powerless to resist were the best food to them.

A friction-sound came from the jungle. Three enormous metal beings walked fast out of the jungle along with the cracking branch sounds.

Ji Hao looked at the three gigantic things stunningly — They looked like three huge metal spiders; the bodies were over twenty feet tall and the spider legs were nearly a hundred feet long, which allowed them to move surprisingly fast.

Soon, the three metal spider got into the Coldbrook Valley. They opened their mouths and made an ear-piercing sound. The Savages who were approaching those slaves started screaming immediately and trying to block the sound by cover their ears with their hands. They then left those slaves and fled away.

The three metal spiders quickly walked up behind Ji Hao while driving Savages away and slowly lowered their bodies.

The body of the metal spider in the middle opened a crack abruptly; A cold voice came from inside it.

“Tie all the captives up. Now we only have to wait until the other people to come back and take care of them too, then we can finish this perfect hunting.”

The voice paused for a second, then chuckled: “It’s worth the wait. We have waited in the damn jungle for over a month. I’m very satisfied for our harvest this time.”

————————————————
[1]Pipa: A plucked string instrument with a fretted fingerboard


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[xianxiaworld]

Chapter 38 - Counterattack

Ji Hao’s heart was in confusion.

Ji Hao could explain the full metal armours which were wearing by the Jia Clan warriors with his previous life knowledge, but this three incomparably exquisite and agile walking-metal-spiders were completely beyond Ji Hao’s imagination.

“Haha, you southerners are really ignorant. I bet you’ve never seen anything as terrific as this. Hm, once we sell you at a good price, us, the ‘Blood Tooth’, can purchase another two best quality ‘Sword Edge Spiders’, then it’ll be even more convenient for us to travel around the South Wasteland Jungle.”

The Jia Clan warrior with shield and sword sensed Ji Hao’s astonishment and confusion, he pointed at the metal spiders and boasted：“Hey, little guy, these are ‘Sword Edge Spiders’, the fighting puppets crafted by Xiu Clan’s master craftsmen; they running very fast, with good defensive quality, and… we’re very satisfied with their large-scale-lethality. They’re the most suitable equipment for travel around in this rough mountain area.”

“Toba, you talk to much.” Along with a metal friction sound, a metal ladder stretched out from the metal spider’s body. A young man, who was tall and thin, wrapped his cloak around himself and slowly walked down the ladder.

Ji Hao looked at the young man, popped up his eyes.

The young man was only tow-fists-long shorter than the Jia Clan warriors, he has an extremely slim body shape; at the first glance, his waist was even no thicker than the Jia Clan warriors’ arms.

The young man’s skin was as white as the best mutton fat jade[1]; his face was like an exquisitely carved sculpture, breathtakingly beautiful but with a slight trace of evil. Ji Hao even felt this young man was too pretty that even didn’t look like a human. The purple cloak he was wearing was also extraordinarily ornate. Ji Hao recognised the texture of the cloak; it was the best quality silk; on its surface, there was complicated pattern embroidered with multicoloured silk threads by complicated embroidering process.

In the South Wasteland, people mostly use hides to make clothes, even the most primitive self-woven linen is very rare. Abruptly saw a luxurious cloak like this, Ji Hao got a strange feeling of time and space travel.

More astonishingly, on the forehead of the young man, there was an erect eye located between his eyebrows; the erect eye was a circle bigger than the other eyes, and was rolling agilely in his eye socket; circles of looming blue lights was flashing in the erect eye.

“Three…three eyes?” Ji Hao was stunned, gazed at the young man.

“Hm, what’s wrong with three eyes?” All three eyes of that young man narrowed down simultaneously and looked at Ji Hao coldly and said. “As my captive, little guy, your attitude should be more respectful. For example, if you kneel down right now, I can make you suffer less.”

The young man then frowned and continued: “What’s that look? Do you think I’m a freak? To me, you people are freaks, monsters, barbarians, dirty and stupid savages! Stinky jungle apes!”

“Toba, Toao, what are you waiting for? Just tied this kid up. We can use him to treat his father later… His father is different from those two new Senior Magi. You don’t want to deal with a powerful Senior Magi with over forty waken ‘magus caves’, do you?” The young man then twitched his mouth corners downward and showed a face of disgust, waved his hands and said.

The ‘Sword Edge Spiders’ were really high-speed equipment; they got into the Cold Brook Valley in only the span of a few breaths after they walked out of the jungle. Until the three-eyed young man showed up in front of Ji Hao, a troop rushed out of the jungle.

There were over two hundred of sturdy men with fierce looks in the troop. All of these men were over two-meter tall and wearing simple metal armours; their skins were as dark as irons; their right hands were holding heavy shields and left hands holding swords and other weapons.

These men were walking fast and orderly; they separated into groups of three and moved alternately and covered mutually. Every move that these men made left Ji Hao with an elite warrior impression. They followed the metal spiders and got into the Coldbrook Valley, started to tie those harmed Fire Crow Clan warriors with vines and give commands to those Savage warriors.

The three-eyed young man heard the troop, unconsciously took a glance back and gave an order loudly: “Kill all old, sick and disabled people! It’s a shame to waste foods on those garbages. Tie all the strong warriors and slaves up. This time. we’re gonna make a good price.”

Toba and Toao also distracted by the troop for a moment.

Ji Ying any Ji Lang were badly injured, and Ji Hao was only a Novice Magus. Though Toba and Toao have always been very cautious, now they have relaxed their vigilance.

Ji Hao took this chance. He dropped Ji Ying and Ji Lang, who were still coughing up blood from time to time, and whispered the ’Nine Secret Words’. Once Ji Hao’s voice faded, the ground under Toba and Toao’s feet suddenly became a pool of slurry. Toba and Toao shouted out, fell into the slurry pool and unpreparedly and soon submerged in the slurry pool.

The three-eyed young man jerked his head back when he heard the plump, and stared at Ji Hao as if Ji Hao was a ghost.

Three ‘Sword Edge Spiders’ eyes emitted a piercing red light; they then leaped high into the air and speared toward Ji Hao’s chest with their long metal legs. The ‘Sword Edge Spiders’ moved fleetingly, Ji Hao couldn’t even saw their moves clearly.

Luckily, Ji Hao had no need of defense. Mr.Crow enlarged its body into his real size in a blink of an eye; streams of fire darted out from every single feather on his wings; he then flapped his enormous wings toward those metal spiders for three times. Instantly, cracking sounds came from inside the metal spiders’ bodies; all three of them were then sent flying by the fierce air flow.

The metal spiders were sent flew miles away and fell hard on the ground; their bodies were still wrapped by a blazing fire and soon became glowing red, finally turned into a puddle of iron melt.

Mr.Crow then rose high into the air and grabbed toward the three-eyed young man’s head with his huge and sharp claws.

The three-eyed young man raised his head panickily, a blue light flashed across his erect eye; then a sharp gust of cyan wind darted out from his erect eye. The cyan wind quickly dilated to thousands of feet wide and started rotating rapidly.

The cyan wind wrapped up Mr.Crow’s body and rolled him high to the air. Numerous sharp wind knives lashed his steel-like hard feathers and splashed fire sparkles.

Wisps of hot blood dropped from the air. Mr.Crow was harmed by the wind from the three-eyed young man’s erect eye.

Angry roars came from the slurry pool. Toba and Toao tried everything to get rid of the slurry; however, there were nothing to hold or step on in that pool. It seemed that they couldn’t
get out of that slurry pool for a while.

Ji Hao found out the weakness of the Jia Clan warriors — They had enormous physical strength but knew nothing about magical power and sorceries.

Went from one extreme to another. If the Jia Clan warriors only had physical strength, then what about the three-eyed young man? Ji Hao thought.

“Kill!”Ji Hao let out a growl. His body then transformed into thousands of fire sparkles and appeared behind the three-eyed young man at the next moment. He locked his hands together, cast a spell then palms struck on the three-eyed young man’s back with all of his power.

All three eyes of the young man were nearly popped out from his eye sockets. A stream of blood spurted out from his mouth; he felt like even his internal organs were about to flew out of his boy through his mouth.

“Bastard!”

Toby and Toao finally sank to the bottom of the slurry pool. They stamped hard on the pool bottom and then leaped high into the air, heavily landed on the ground beside the slurry pool.

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[1]Mutton fat jade: Creamy white Chinese nephrite is referred to as 'mutton fat jade', and most of it is found near the city of Hotan in China.

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