The Magus Era

Ji Hao slightly waved his hand in the air, following his move, waves of cyan-coloured roared out, cut off all reed within the area that had a radius of ten miles.

Clouds of reed catkin puffed into the air. The wind transformed into soft yet withy ropes, which tied those reed up and slightly tightened, turning those puffy reed into bundles of fire sticks, placing them orderly next to the bonfire.

Watching this, Ji Mo and all of his warriors popped their eyes out in shock, as if their eyeballs were going to fly out of their eye sockets. These people had met countless muscular and brave warriors, who were good at swinging their huge axes or machetes madly and hacking everything in front of them, but had never seen such a magical controlling skill.

Ji Hao’s spirit power was amazing, that allowed him to flexibly and accurately control the wind; even among those master Magi Tutors in the Magus Palace, the number of people who possessed such a high-grade controlling skill was very few. In Ji Mo and his warriors’ eyes, with this controlling skill, Ji Hao seemed even to be a bit mysterious and unfathomable.

“It turns out that you’re all Gold Crow Clan’s people.” A few bonfires were built up on the clean benchland. Yu Mu captured a large amount of chubby fishes from the river, and was now grilling them on the bonfire. A marvelously nice scent of grilled fish quickly spread out.

Vats of delicious wines that Feng Xing exchanged with his credits were opened one after another. Ji Mo and his warriors filled their own wine pots up over and over again, pouring the wine into their mouths while passionately asking Ji Hao about the recent situation of the Gold Crow Clan. When Ji Hao said that the Gold Crow Clan was now appreciated by Prince Zhu Rong Tonggong, and had been growing and expanding rapidly, Ji Mo and his warriors couldn’t help but shout out in joy and excitement.

Ji Mo and his warriors were Gold Crow Clan’s clansmen too, but they had never stepped into the Southern Wasteland.

Having had enough wine and delicious grilled meat, and shrouded by a warm and passionate atmosphere, Ji Mo held Ji Hao’s hands and began telling his own story in detail.

That was many, many years ago. Guided by the leaders of a few local clans of the Southern Wasteland, the Blood Fang, a bunch of slave dealers, sneakily attacked the clan of Ji Mo’s ancestors. They didn’t have the chance to report to the Gold Black Mountain and seek for help, because the Blood Fang easily breached the entire clan.

Elderly people were slaughtered immediately, while younger people and children were marked as slaves, sent to the Midland by the Blood Fang. After enduring untold hardships and sufferings, they finally arrived in the Midland world.

“According to our ancestors, the number of people in that batch of slaves, who were captured from different clans in the Southern Wasteland and sent to the Midland, was over a million,” said Ji Mo blandly with the wine pot held in his hand, “But that was a long and rough journey. Our ancestors had been through all kinds of deadly dangers in the void and suffered attacks launched by different void beasts. At last, only less than a half of them had made it to the Midland alive.”

Over ten zhangs away, Yu Yu, who was lying on that grass mattress and had been in a deep sleep, opened one eye, gave Ji Mo a sideway glance, then yarned towards the sky. After that, he lazily turned his back at Ji Hao and Ji Mo. No one noticed when he plugged his ears with a pair of hand-made straw ear plugs.

Ji Hao sighed and sighed, while pouring another potful of wine for Ji Mo, then said, “Blood Fang, those bloody monsters…but, I have already avenged your ancestors, brother Ji Mo. All of their elite forces and their new leader named Di Luo were killed by us.”

Ji Mo raised his eyebrows, staring at Ji Hao with a complicated look, then raised his wine pot.

Ji Hao grinned, raised his bowl of wine as well and clinking it against Ji Mo’s, then both of them bottomed up. Seeing this, Ji Mo’s warriors, who were surrounding Ji Mo and Ji Hao burst a wave of cheers and shouts. The atmosphere was growing more and more passionate. A few warriors, who were injured by Feng Xing earlier, found Feng Xing and started a drinking game with him.

Even Yu Mu, that terrifying, monster-like poison user, was now surrounded by a few warriors, who were asking him about how to make delicious grilled fish and meat.

Only Man Man, Shaosi and Taisi didn’t join the party. Instead, they stayed with the altar. Taisi had built a circle around the altar with beast bones and had been murmuring some fake spells intentionally, starting a few gusts of cold wind to swoosh around the altar.

Ji Mo and his warriors guessed that Taisi was doing some kind of magic with the altar, therefore, none of them tried to interrupt him. The area that had a radius of over ten zhangs around the altar, Taisi, Shaosi and Man Man, was completely clean. Not a single person showed any attempt to approach them.

Ji Mo took another sip of the wine, then lifted his fringe up, showing a bone-deep mark of slave.

“I was a slave too. My grandfather, my parents and me, we were all born in mines. Those monsters marked us when we could barely walk, and made us work in those dark, hell-like mines when we were able to lift things.”

The living environment of non-humankind’s mining slaves was extremely poor. Those mines were all dark, and filled with all kinds of unpredictable dangers. During the mining work, large-scale underground caves would be dug through very often, and fierce beasts would attack mining slaves through those caves. For all the above reason, the death rate of mining slaves was incredibly high.

Ji Mo watched his families and friends die one after another in the mine. He saw the girl he loved be raped violently by a Jia Clan’s supervisor in the mine, and then been killed brutally.

Calmly, Ji Mo told Ji Hao all of his experiences, as if he was telling someone else’s story.

He then pointed his finger at his warriors, who were still gobbling, continuing blandly, “They were just like me, all slaves at one point of time. They all have the same slave mark as mine.”

For quite a few times, Ji Mo tried to escape from the mine he worked in, but he had never succeeded. Every time when the non-humankind caught him back, they would beat him savagely, then send him to work in an even worse mine. Nevertheless, he survived. Ji Mo managed to survive every horrible mine disaster and fierce beast attack, and had never stopped toughening himself bit by bit, finally activating the Gold Crow bloodline power contained in his body.

Among those mining slaves, the older generations would teach all of their knowledges orally to the younger generations. With that incomplete and fragmented knowledge, Ji Mo had managed to wake up his Magus Acupoints and cultivate himself into a Senior Magus.

Once again, he agitated the other mining slaves to escape and started a rebellion with over ten-thousand slaves. They killed a large number of non-humankind supervisors, including that one who had raped and killed his beloved girl. He ended that one’s life himself.

At that moment, a storm troop under Si Wen Ming’s commander, which were targeting especially those mines under the non-humankind’s control, launched the surprise attack on the mine Ji Mo had worked in. Ji Mo and his fellows collaborated from within with the troop from the outside, and that large-scale mind was destroyed thoroughly. The non-humans were killed and slaves were all set free.

After that, Ji Mo and some of his brothers joined the standing army set in this Chi Ban Mountain area, forming a Dare-to-die corps, hunting the non-humankind.

“I want to go back to the Southern Wasteland. I want to bring my parents’ bone ashes back there and bury them well in the Gold Black Mountain. This is the only wish of generations of our people as mining slaves… We dreamt about that day when we could return to our homeland and merge our own souls with the souls of our ancestors.” Finishing the pot of wine up, Ji Mo then said, “But, we can’t go back yet… We’re too ashamed to go back.”

Pointing at the slave mark on his forehead, Ji Mo continued, “Before we kill enough non-humankind, before our glory can wash off our shame, we can’t go back.”

“Therefore, we stay in this Chi Ban Mountain, to crush as many of the non-humankind as we can!”

Letting out a long breath that contained a dense scent of wine, Ji Mo said in a low voice, “It’s so amazing that we met you here in this Chi Ban Mountain, my compatriot, my brother… we have the same blood!”