The Magus Era

In a quiet valley and in front of a cave, with the light of a bronze oil lamp, Po was teaching Luo Shan techniques of tool-crafting.

The two of them had been fiddling with a piece of Shou Shan red bronze. Po’s finger stroked across the natural and complicated patterns on the bronze block while telling Luo Shan about the powerful spells of material-purifying that were created by himself, based on his knowledge and experiences. That spell Po created could also add the power of the great Dao into magic tools.

The human-head sized red bronze block had been glowing with a faint red light. Where Po’s fingers stroked across, visible changes happened to the thick patterns on the bronze block. Those patterns had become smoother and more natural, and for some reasons, seemed livelier now.

Lou Shan had been cultivating himself under Po’s guidance till now. By now, he was already largely different from ordinary boys. His body shape had become slim and well proportioned, not as strong and sturdy as the other boys at his age. One could not see any large muscle on his body either.

Faintly, Luo Shan now had a special and unworldly vibe that only belonged to cultivators. Especially his pair of sparkling eyes, they seemed like top-grade beads and had a nice, pearl-like luster. Neither his power nor life-force was perceptible. Instead, those were well restrained; every move made by Luo Shan was smooth and natural and contained an aura of mysteriousness.

Po was teaching while Luo Shan listened carefully to him. Meanwhile, Luo Shan’s ten fingers had constantly been changing motions, mimicking Po’s hand motions of tool-crafting magic.

Abruptly, Po raised his head and cast a glance at Ji Hao’s cave which was near the mountaintop. After that, he slightly shook his head with a smile and murmured, “Eh? Woman? Is this that so-called ‘outer evil and inner trial’? Ah, brother, my brother, this time you’re on your own.”

Luo Shan raised his eyebrows, sneakily put his face near Po and asked, “Shifu, what woman? What ‘outer evil and inner trial’? Is there a woman in my uncle’s room?”

Po laughed loudly, then raised the bronze block and gently knocked on Luo Shan’s head and said, “How old are you? Thinking about these things already? I, your Shifu, am going to see a qualified set of bronze swords crafted by you within three months, if you fail to do it, you will be kept indoor for three years… and this is not negotiable!”

Luo Shan gasped quickly in pain as his little face had turned badly twisted.

Beyond the quiet valley and in a leeward spot, Yu Mu had been standing beside a giant pot set on the snowfield. The bonfire was blazing while hundreds of thumb-thick, multicolored centipedes were boiling in a colorful soup. The dense fragrance of the soup was sealed by Yu Mu with magic and could only linger in the area three-foot in radius around the pot; not even a single trace of the fragrance from the pot of soup managed to spread out.

He straightened his chubby face in full concentration and looked after this pot of centipede soup carefully. Those hundreds of colorful poisonous centipedes were genuine treasures that he spent small half a month to dig out of the snowfield. Drinking this potful of soup up, he could at lease wake up over a thousand more Magus Acupoints, and that could save him around a year of severe cultivation.

Around a hundred meter away, Feng Xing was lying on a large pine, sneakily reaching his head towards Ji Hao’s cave and trying to look into it.

“Oi, I think that little woman is planning something bad! I, Feng Xing, such a handsome man, have shown up around her for at least a hundred times during these few days. Yet, she didn’t even take a single glance at me. So I know that she’s up to something malicious!”

“Just as I thought, this little woman is indeed up to no good. See, she stealthily got into Ji Hao’s room in midnight. She’s planning to murder Ji Hao!”

Feng Xing turned around, looked at Yu Mu and said seriously with a bitter face, “Bloody fatso, I was going to save Ji Hao from an extreme misery. I was going to shelter him from the danger. What do you think? Am I an especially decent man?”

Yu Mu picked up a pair of bronze chopsticks, raised his head and quickly gave a sideway glance at Feng Xing while saying, “Bollocks! That girl smells so good that even I want to bite her in the most fleshy part of her body and see if she tastes good too…With such a beautiful girl walking into his room by herself, would Ji Hao need your help? Shelter him from the danger? Do you think Ji Hao would need you to shelter him from the danger?”

Feng Xing rubbed his own chin, remained lying on the branch and looked at Ji Hao’s room while saying, “How could I not be helping him? I bet if Ji Hao truly did something to that little woman tonight, hehe, someone will soon do some horrible things to him!”

Speaking the last few words, Feng Xing raised his pair of fists and smashed them heavily down.

Yu Mu paused, looking at Feng Xing confusingly and asked, “Who?”

Feng Xing gave a weird smile, lowered his voice and murmured, “These days, you’ve busy with those children, but I’m not like you. I’ve been hanging around and hearing about many things. When Man Man was talking to someone, I heard she say that Great Libation likes Ji Hao very much!”

Yu Mu popped out his eyes in shock and said, “Great Libation? Zhu Rong? Eh? Is Ji Hao truly going to be the Fire God’s son-in-law?”

Yu Mu dropped the chopsticks and instantly leaped up, leaping and jumping under the pine. He narrowed his pair of little eyes and looked at Ji Hao’s cave while saying, “Oh my, this woman is indeed a ‘huge disaster’! If you were with her, you would truly be sheltering Ji Hao from serious danger. Oh my, that pair of hammers!”

Shaking his head, Yu Mu lowered his voice and asked, “That woman, how did she get into Ji Hao’s room?”

Feng Xing showed a rather mysterious face, rubbed his chin with his right hand for a very long time then gave a weird laugh.

Near the dojo Ji Hao built, which was separated from the dwelling area of the three-thousand selected children by only a wall, Shaosi had opened up a cave. A few rooms were excavated in this simple cave. Man Man loved to be with someone else. Therefore, she was living in here with Shaosi.

In one room, Taisi was lying on a piece of leather and had been snoring loudly.

In another room, Man Man was lying on a flagstone with the pair of hammers held in her arms and was also in a deep sleep.

On the flat area outside the cave, Shaosi was quietly standing under an old pine narrowing her eyes and looking at the direction of Ji Hao’s cave, while her pair of hands flexibly fiddling with a few old, square shaped magic talismans which were made from black turtle shell.

As Shaosi’s fingers flicked quickly, those magic talismans let out streams of green fluorescent light that made them seem even colder and spookier in the dark.

“Man Man, someone had taken something from you, and you don’t even know! Eh!” In the strong blowing wind, Shaosi slightly sighed. Then, her pair of straight eyebrows raised and instantly released an extreme coldness, just like a pair of sharp swords that were suddenly pulled out from the sheaths, enough to make anyone quiver in fear.

Shaosi’s body flashed in the air and silently disappeared. In the next moment, she directly appeared outside Ji Hai’s cave. After she had absorbed the Candle Dragon spirit pearl, Shaosi gained the power of teleporting. Because of which, she was the most terrifying one among all of Ji Hao’s close friends as she could appear and disappear suddenly, and was extremely hard to keep away.

The sweet scented, soft and tender body of that girl bumped into Ji Hao’s arms. Ji Hao only felt that his entire body was suddenly wrapped up by a warm sphere of air, and even his soul had shaken for moment as his entire body softened.

He gripped the Flame Dragon Sword tighter. Ji Hao hadn’t decided how to deal with this girl yet. Should he cast this girl out? Or should he do anything else? All of a sudden, a cold stream of air swooshed over, and Shaosi showed up beside Ji Hao just like a ghost. She locked the girl’s neck with her long, slim and strong fingers, then conveniently tossed the girl outside.

The girl screamed while being thrown tens of meters away by Shaosi, embarrassedly thudding into the thick layer of accumulated snow.

“Mannerless! It’s midnight, how dare you, a lowly maid, break into Earl Yao’s residence? Don’t you know the rules?” said Shaosi in a bone-piercing cold voice. Afterward, she nodded to Ji Hao and said, “Ji Hao, select a few smart boys from those students of mine to be your close guards. Otherwise, as Earl Yao, you don’t have someone to even make tea for you. This is not good.”

Coldly holding her head high, Shaosi then walked out through that layer of Yu Yu’s divine light with her chest puffed out. She grabbed that sweet-scented girl’s neck and silently disappeared.