The Magus Era

Just now, the tablet carried in Man Man’s hand released a beam of fiery light, broke through the phantom of the magnificent mountain which was condensed by the power of the earth and the mountains, and broke his chest, harming him seriously; afterwards, the tablet imprisoned the mountain god with some kind of magical and great power and turned him into a slave.

At the moment, the sense of power coming from the mountain god’s body had become very weak, not even greater than an ordinary Junior Magus. Without rest for a very long time, and replenishing his own body with the earth and mountains that had given birth to him and had nourished him, he could never regain his huge power.

Ji Hao carefully stared at the tablet carried in Man Man’s hand.

The quality of the blood-red tablet looked very weird, neither made of gold or jade, however, that tablet had the features of both gold and jade. The tablet was six-inch wide, one-inch-thick and three-feet-long, seemed exquisitely crafted and on its surface, countless patterns of flames were embossed. Amongst the flame patterns were all kinds of fiery dragons, phoenixes and other magical, legendary animals which had fire-related powers. These animal embossments were very lively as though they were living creatures. At first glance, these animals seemed to be flying and walking across those swirl-like flame patterns.

Ji Hao clearly remembered that when this tablet had released the fiery light, the power that came along with it had made his entire body go stiff, as if he was a tiny ant seeing a god who had descended from the sky and was looking down at the whole world. His mind had gone blank, and he had felt as if he had completely lost control over his own body.

That power was so incredibly terrifying that Ji Hao would remember it till the end of his life; however, that magnificent power had only been the aftermath of the power that was released by the tablet.

“Oy! You! Can’t believe that you have just pushed me to use even this life-saving treasure given by my Abba! You’re great!” Man Man stood in front of the mountain god, carried the tablet in her hands, swinging it casually and kicking hard on the mountain god’s arm that had been supporting his own body against the ground.

“Do you have any idea about how much time it will need for Abba’s tablet to refill its power? It has to be placed under the sunrays for a whole day, a whole day! In order to refill the power that I just used back there. Now we’re in a rainy season, rainy season! How am I supposed to refill the power for this tablet?” Man Man held the tablet, hitting hard on the mountain god’s head, causing huge fire-sparks to fly off. Even Ying Yan, who was standing beside Man Man, opened his mouth when he saw this.

“Take me to your nest! Big guys like you always have nice stuff in your nests!” Man Man narrowed her eyes and yelled excitedly, “If you don’t have enough treasures in your nest, you’ll be so dead! I’m telling you, my big brother is building a new palace for my Abba, they can really use some labours.”

The mountain god had shrunk his body to be around fifty-feet-tall, weakly let a muffled sound out, stood slowly up, touched the huge hole on his chest and then walked with big steps towards the direction that he had come from.

While walking, this huge guy often turned his head back and looked at the little ball of fur held in one of the guard’s hand.

Ji Hao had just noticed that the little furry animal held in the guard’s hands, looked like a leopard in built, but smaller. The little beast was struggling and howling hard; Ji Hao also found out that the sense of power that was being released from its body had no differences from the sense of the power of the mountain god.

Ji Hao thought of what those elder Maguspriests, like Ji Kui, in the Fire Crow Clan, had told him. Magical creatures like mountain gods, would have accompanying animals sometimes who had the same origin as the magical creature. The pre-requisite was that the same power which had given birth to the magical creature and had nourished him, was powerful enough.

These accompanying animals held the same meaning to the mountain gods as blood relatives meant to humans; therefore, Man Man sent guards to sneak into the mountain god’s nest and snatch this little animal; this was why the mountain god got so angry, and chased them out, only then was lead to Man Man and beaten so badly by that little girl.

“Okay, okay, I’ll give this back to you, you can have it back!” said Man Man very happily with her eyes narrowed, “Since you’ve already became mine, this little thing should be mine too. Haha, hurry, lead the way, let’s have a look at your nest!”

The guard who held the little animal loosened his hand. The little furry thing suddenly transformed into a beam of black light and darted out, quickly climbed onto the mountain god’s shoulder, and comfortably hunkered down on his shoulder. After this, a light trace of a smile appeared on the simple and stiff face of the mountain god. He lightly patted the little animal, which was as big as only his finger, and let out a roar towards the sky delightedly.

Ji Hao looked at the simple, honest and natural smile on the mountain god’s face and smiled as well.

Mountain-god-kinds might have extremely great strength and other magical powers, however, they were nourished by the natural life force energy and power and therefore had the most simple and honest personalities. All of their smiles came indeed from the purest delight deep down in their heart, and were so truly and emotionally appealing.

Man Man wasn’t touched at all by the mountain god’s simple smile like Ji Hao was, she threw another heavy kick onto the mountain god’s butt while yelling, “Hurry! Just lead the way! What are you laughing at? Like a dumb...You dumb things are all like turned from stones, I can never have a good conversation with you. My Abba has tens of thousands of stone-dumb guys just like you, working for him, they’re all as boring as you are!”

Ji Hao quivered again, subconsciously glanced at Man Man in shock.

Did she just say that the Abba of this little girl had tens of thousands of mountain gods like this, working for him?

Even the weakest mountain god was birthed and nourished by the life force energy and power of the earth and the mountains for thousands of miles round. Not only that, to gestate a mountain god also required special environmental conditions, such as an underground cave; such mature and appropriate environmental conditions could only be coincidently found at certain, special moments. If Man Man’s Abba had tens of thousands of mountain gods working for him, then, how wide would his territory be, to allow him to find all those mountain gods?

At least, as far as Ji Hao knew, the direct and indirect territories of the Fire Crow Clan were about hundreds of thousands of miles in square; within this vast territory, there were quite a few stone spirits like his friend Stone, however, the number of mountain gods who could take control of the powers of the earth and mountains within a certain area were probably no more than five in total.

The mountain god was now gasping heavily, and running in big steps forward. The rest of the people also moved faster and closely followed him. Soon, they had rushed for hundreds of miles, and saw a towering mountain standing in front of them. The mountain god walked past the foot of the mountain and led the rest of people to a cliff.

“Whoo~Hoo~”

Along with a great roar let out by the mountain god, a beam of yellow light flashed across his body. Afterwards, the cliff silently moved. A fissure appeared on the cliff. The mountain god turned his head back and mumbled something, then walked into the dark fissure.

Lead by Man Man, the rest of the people also walked into the cliff. When they first walked in, the space inside that fissure was extremely dark; but soon, a dim light could be seen in front of them. They kept moving, and the light gradually grew brighter. Under the light, the cliff-walls on each side of the fissure, started becoming crystal and smooth, like the best quality jade; even some rocks were transparent like a real crystal.

This magical light was coming out from these crystal rocks. From time to time, natural-formed yellow spell symbols would flash through the cliff-walls, then quickly disappear. These spell symbols were all in ancient and simple shapes, gathered from the original source of the earth power. Ji Hao instinctively triggered all of his spiritual power, and imprinted all of these occasianally appearing spell symbols, deep in his soul.

Ordinary people wouldn’t get the chance to see these naturally-formed, original spell symbols with their own eyes in their entire lives.

They walked along the wide road inside the fissure for tens of miles. Then, the space suddenly became broad and bright and a huge cave with the radius of tens of miles was located inside the mountain.

The ground of the cave was formed by fine and smooth soil, which seemed very pure and rich, where an oil-like liquid could even be squeezed out by hand...Countless odd plants and flowers had been growing in the soil. Ji Hao took only one glance at them, then quickly recognized hundreds of rare and powerful herb that Qing Fu had mentioned.

Most of these herbs that were extremely rare in the jungle had been growing all over this cave, some of them even had been growing for thousands of years.

Between the roots of these herbs, different sized precious stones had been piled up on the ground as if they were ordinary stones; ruby, sapphire, emerald, crystal, all kinds of precious stones were shining with piercing, multi-coloured, bright lights, and each of them contained great earthly power.

However, what had been most attracting, wasn’t any of those precious stones, neither were it those rare herbs; instead, it was a pool, with the radius of over a hundred feet, and located right in the middle of the cave.

The pool contained a kind of thick and sticky, khaki liquid. A dense, earthy scent was emitting from the liquid, making Ji Hao feel a very uncomfortable itching in his throat.

Ying Yan exclaimed out, “So much essence milk of the earth? How many years does it need to gather a whole pool of it?!”