The Magus Era

A narrow stream slowly flowing across a small valley...

Taisi rode on the huge tiger’s back that leisurely trod on round and smooth cobblestone by the stream, walking into the valley along the narrow stream.

“This place is so desolate, is there anyone actually living in here? It’s hundreds of miles away from the camp!” said Taisi, while curiously looking around, blinking his eyes and measuring the surrounding environment.

“Some weird people just like to live in places like this.” Ji Hao held a thin bamboo stick in his hand, whipping the dense brushwood beside him. A few colorful poisonous snakes wriggled their scrawny bodies and slowly crawled out of the brushwood.

Before these few snakes could decide whether to bite Ji Hao or just flee, Man Man had already happily thrust out her arms, pinching the necks of these snakes and grabbing them up from the ground. She then tied those few poisonous snakes up with a long vine, disabling them from moving.

“We’ll have grilled meat to eat later!” While laughing, Man Man threw those few snakes to Yu Mu and said, “Fatso! You grill these!”

Yu Mu let out his symbolic simple and honest smile and took the bundle of snakes with a pair of glowing eyes. He clearly saw that all of these few snakes were the most poisonous kind among all snakes inhabited in this Chi Ban Mountain area. The more poisonous snakes could be more delicious, and with the right cooking method, these few snakes would become an incomparably delicious dish.

Moving along the valley for around seven minutes, a small entrance to a cave appeared under a soaring cliff in the front.

Dragon Candle Grui sat on a large flagstone placed in the entrance, with a large piece of leather draped on his back. Tens of talismans made from turtle shell were placed in front of him. At that moment, he had been quickly moving hands and seemed randomly pointing his fingers on those talismans, as multiple faint light streams were brought up by his fingers.

Those pure black turtle shell talismans covered in complicated and mysterious patterns rose into the air from time to time, hovered in the air and crossed each other, then silently fell back on the flagstone. Candle Dragon Gui sounded a bit annoyed, as he complained in a low voice, “For real? Not even a trace was left? How can such a person even exist in this world?! I’ve lost my old face for no reason, but I can’t catch the slightest trace of him?! How can this even happen?!”

A stream of strange, extremely well-controlled power spread out from Candle Dragon Gui’s body. He slightly sniffed, along with which, all stones in the area that had a radius of a hundred zhang around him shattered simultaneously. After that, those shattered stones were compressed into one, by a soft yet especially strong stream of power. Instantly, a large, clean and mirror-smooth flagstone appeared in front of the cave.

From a great distance, Ji Hao politely bowed to Candle Dragon Gui, said, “Elder Candle Dragon!”

Candle Dragon Gui sniffed coldly without even lifting his head, and responded, “Don’t be so loud, I heard you talking three hundred miles away. Hm... you?”

Dandle Dragon Gui, who was so impatient, even preparing to straightaway tell Ji Hao to leave, now suddenly raised his head, looking at Shaosi and Taisi with a big grin on his face. He dropped those turtle shell talismans, abruptly leapt up from the ground while laughing loudly with a hoarse voice. He flashed across the air like a beam of light, suddenly moving to before Ji Hao and his friends’ faces.

Looking at Taisi with a pair of shining eyes and a huge smile, Candle Dragon Gui waved his arms in excitement, said, “Little kid, you’re Taisi, and that’s your sister Shaosi, right? You’re orphans, brought back to the Magi Palace by some elder, right? I assume none of those old bastards have shown their interests to you, have they?”

Taisi looked at Candle Dragon Gui numbly, his facial expression seemed as bland as a dead man, not even showing the slightest change. Shaosi knew that Taisi wasn’t good at talking to strangers, therefore, she took a step forward, bowed to Candle Dragon Gui and said, “Elder Candle Dragon, what do you mean by that?”

Ji Hao pressed his hand on Shaosi’s shoulders and dragged her behind himself. After that, he smiled and nodded to Candle Dragon Gui, and said, “Elder Candle Dragon, I know that you want to take Shaosi and Taisi as your disciples. Both of them are especially talented in the field of spells and curses, and can be the perfect inheritors for your secret magic curse and spell art, am I right?”

Candle Dragon Gui paused briefly, narrowed his eyes and gave Ji Hao a measuring glance, slightly sniffed and responded, “You, you little bastard, who have nothing but dirty little tricks in his head! Even to the non-humankind, your tricks are way too despicable...However, I like those tricks very much.”

Keeping his eyes narrowed, Candle Dragon Gui looked at Ji Hao vigilantly, then continued, “If Taisi and Shaosi came by themselves, I would be more than happy to take them as my disciples right now. But here you are, coming along with them. Just let it out, what do you want from me? But I am warning you, I’m not as rich as those bloody non-humankind... I have nothing much for you!”

Ji Hao gave a slightly embarrassed grin. ‘No wonder people say that he’s the oldest and most terrifying monster of the Magi Palace, living solitarily in this desolate place, yet he can absolutely know everything.’ thought Ji Hao.

The extortion Ji Hao had done from Di Luolang happened less than two hours ago, but Candle Dragon Gui had already heard about it!

Slightly coughing, Ji Hao pointed at those dimly sparkling turtle-shell talismans, that were flying in the air, and asked, “Are you...trying to find someone?”

Hearing Ji Hao, Dragon Candle Gui’s wrinkled face instantly turned purely dark, not saying a single word for quite a long while.

Indeed, he was trying to look for someone. He had used the unimaginably great resources possessed by the Magi Palace and searched for days for the person who sneakily attacked him by the river that day. However, people sent out by the Magi Palace didn’t find even a trace. He also used the most powerful magic possessed only by the Candle Dragon Clan, and still, not a single trace of his attacker was found.

All this could only prove one fact - either the person who attacked Candle Dragon Gui was more powerful than him by quite a few big levels, or that person was dead!

Nevertheless, how could a person, who was powerful enough to sneakily knock Candle Dragon Gui out without even leaving a trace, die just so suddenly and easily? Which meant, there was only one possibility; that person was an extremely powerful one, powerful enough to give Candle Dragon Gui a leg cramp every time when he thought of that person!

What annoyed Candle Dragon Gui the most was that he couldn’t figure out why did such a powerful person knock him out for no reason and throw him in the river... why the hell did he do that?! Firstly, that person did not rob Candle Dragon Gui, secondly that person did not rape Candle Dragon Gui, but why on earth did that person knock Candle Dragon Gui out and throw him away? For what? Fun?

Candle Drago Gui’s belly was now filled with such great rage which he had no way of letting out. He could only stare at Ji Hao with a dark face and not saying a single word.

“You want to take Shaosi and Taisi as your disciples, so I bring them here to you.” Ji Hao looked at Candle Dragon Gui, smiled and said, “By the way, I also have a favor to ask. We’re planning on ambushing the armies of the Blood Moon’s Qian Family. In order to harm them as much as we can and with the minimum loss of our warriors, we have to set up a large-scale magic formation, and annihilate them with that.”

Candle Dragon Gui shook his head, responding in a deep voice, “The magic formations of our Magi Palace cannot hide from their detective light.”

Ji Hao grinned, looked at Candle Dragon Gui, trying his best to grin as innocently, honestly and adorably as he could, then said, “Therefore, on our way here, an old man with white beard suddenly showed up, and lent me four swords and a cloth with a magic pattern painted on it, saying that I have a unique gift and I am the special one, who can take the big responsibility for the entire humankind, to exterminate the non-humankind and to save the humankind!”

Sighing, Ji Hao maintained that innocent, pure and adorable look and continued, “That old man with white beard said that he was not free enough to join the war by himself, so, you’ll have to take the credit. You need to tell the others that these four swords and the formation pattern were borrowed from one of your old friends.”

The tiny flame floating upon Candle Dragon Gui’s head suddenly boosted up to over ten zhangs high. Glaring at Ji Hao, he yelled, “What? An old man with white beard?! Do I look like an idiot for you?!”

Seeing Candle Dragon Gui’s reaction, Ji Hao hurriedly changed his words, “He said, do you remember that punch by the river?”