Bab 31: Wake
Editor: Hitesh_
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 was carved out of a whole piece of stone.
A huge Three-Legged Gold 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, looking 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 increase 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 Southern Wasteland! I want him to regain the glory of the Gold Crow and to retrieve the status of our clan!"
Ji Xia was praying loudly. He put Ji Hao on the altar, looking down at him. His eyes were full of affection. 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 above Ji Hao. Every drop of blood was slowly wriggling and changing shape under Qing Fu's control. At last, those drops of blood gathered into a head-sized Gold 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 descended from the air, merging into Ji Hao's body.
............
Followed by a thunderous 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 the guards of the Fire Crow Clan Mother Temple. Their muscular bodies were almost torn to pieces by the ice-knives and shocked expressions were frozen on their simple and honest faces.
Qing Fu and Ji Xia turned their heads around. They saw a bucket thick, a hundred-foot-long and one-horned black serpent wriggled into the cave while it was releasing cold air and venom out of its huge mouth. The serpent saw Ji Hao, who was lying on the altar; its gigantic tail then heavily smashed towards Ji Hao.
Ji Xia had just given more than 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 rushed 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 that was only inches away from Ji Hao's tiny body; at the same time, the spear pierced the serpent's head at 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. In the next second, over twenty black ice-knives darted out from that smoke and punctured all of the Magus Acupoints which were glowing brightly on Ji Xia's chest. Blood spurted out from his wounds, splashing all over Ji Hao's body.
Qing Fu let out a scream, then pulled three black, long needles from her coiled hair and threw them towards 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 Acupoints 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 armlet and a leather cloak.
"Those damn stinky snacks! I curse their souls to be burnt by the Gold Crow fire and never be set free... Oh, look at our little one, such a talented Maguspriest. His spiritual power is already as strong as an ordinary Maguspriest 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. Your 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 goes 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 Maguspriest. Such a powerful soul, such a talented Maguspriest..."
............
Ji Hao groaned, then opened his eyes. He saw a black cave ceiling; he also felt the soft fur beneath his body. There was a bitter taste that 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 had woken 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 above the multicoloured flame in his Dantian; and the flame was working hard to transform the Senior Magi blood into beams of multicoloured lights, then was 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 hadn't seemed to have significantly improved; however, his body had become much more solid. There was still ninety percent of Senior Magi Blood which hadn't been released yet; as for the released Senior Magi Blood, more than half of it was waiting for it to be transformed 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 was rapidly flowing towards the East; a beautiful and broad valley was quietly lying under the starlight.
Thousands of slaves moved their bodies while singing a work song, busily 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?"
Bab 32: The Cold Stream Valley
Editor: Hitesh_
"What do you mean 'talk to you like that'? Look at what you've done!"
"It has been nearly two months since you've been given this job! The Mountain of Springs where you and these slaves came from are only hundreds of miles away from here. And these slaves haven't even built up their own shelters by now!"
"You had plenty of time and all these people! But you haven't even started building the mine hole! What have you all been doing these days?"
"I'm not finished yet. Could you please tell me where the food for these slaves are? Where are the meat 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 Southern Wasteland. Ji Hao heard Ji Xia's voice; he then stopped walking, quietly watching them from the shade of the cave. He sensed strong power from the heavy swords worn around their waists. Faced with Ji Xia's reprimand, the two men just showed arrogant faces and seemed to not take Ji Xia's words seriously at all.
"Ji Xia, you're allowed to say whatever you want. We have sent five thousand slaves to you as what we've been told. From now on, you're responsible for the mining work in the Cold Stream Valley, as well as all the other affairs around here which has 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 towards 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 muddling through his work, he would never hesitate to slap him hard in the face. However, as the two men had said, he was no longer the leader of the Holy Land warriors at this point in time, which meant 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 becoming smaller in the sky, and said, "Abba, are they Ji Shu's people? Do you want me to shoot them down?"
Mr. Crow cawed loudly, spurting 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 own fault 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 pale face. His mind flashed back to what he saw at the time when he fainted. He clearly remembered that Ji Xia blocked the attack with his own body; 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 at Ji Xia, then turned around and started to observe this valley carefully.
The starlight was bright and clear. Where Ji Hao had stood was the center of the valley. This valley was tens of miles long and miles wide; a thousand-foot-wide stream was rapidly flowing through the middle of the valley. By the streamside, there were piles of gold and jade pieces.
The water of the stream was ice-cold. Though Ji Hao was a mile away from the stream, 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 streamside; those gold and jade pieces shone with an alluring light.
"Such an amazing lode!" Said Ji Hao.
"Indeed, it's a 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 thousands pieces of jade from this valley." Ji Xia then frowned and continued, "But those bastards from the Mountain of Spring only sent us five thousands of slaves with nothing else."
All kinds of knocking noises resounded throughout the valley. Thousands of slaves were singing their working songs and were busy at building their shelters. On the other side of the valley, tens of stilt 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 it pulled thick logs up to the cliff from time to time.
Near the entrances of both sides of the valley, a group of warriors were supervising hundreds of slaves building the wall. The slaves laid the foundation of the wall with thick logs; then filled two lines of logs with rocks and clay. This kind of wall would be firm enough to block the attacks from beasts.
The Cold Stream 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 Cold Stream Valley, added with other unpredictable dangers; if they don't build this wall as quick as possible, these slaves' lives would be in great danger.
Qing Fu came with a few warriors.
She smiled when she saw Ji Hao and intimately patted his head. Qing Fu then handed a fist-sized piece of red jade to Ji Xia and said, "Xia, this lode not only produces gold and jade. I asked these warriors dug thirty feet deep and we found this."
Ji Hao looked at that red jade piece curiously. That red jade was translucent and contained great heat; there seemed to have 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, and also is a kind of excellent material for making magus tools." Ji Xia popped up his eyes and said delightfully. "If we 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 Maguspriests 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. The Mountain of Spring 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 rushed 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 hundreds of powerful warriors fighting for a small piece of a 'Fire Essence Crystal', which was less than one percent of the piece in size he was holding right now.
This was truly precious. The Cold Stream 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?
Hadiah
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