The Magus Era

The fiery cloud rolled in the sky. The fire dragon, which had half of its body hiding in the cloud, flipped its tail and sent up a crimson cloud of smoke, even dyeing the sky red.

The fire dragon stared at Ji Hao with its large eyes while murmuring, ”Hm, my master invited you over. Hm, do you have any wine? I traveled all the way, and didn’t even take sip of water!

Ji Mo and the other Gold Crow Clan men hurriedly treated the fire dragon with rice wine. Vats after vats, the rice wine was served to the dragon while the dragon opened its mouth, gulped and gulped. In one breath, the dragon engulfed over a thousand vats of rice wine produced by Gold Crow Clan.

Ji Hao seized this short while and hurriedly went home.

The small building was the same as before, but the small yard had become much larger. The ground was paved with flagstones, and the yard was almost filled with wicker baskets, which contained classified and cleaned herbs. Some herbs were already dried in the sun, but some were newly picked, and still had fresh juice seeping from the roots. The yard was suffused by a slightly bitter, yet nice herbal scent.

Qing Fu sat in the yard, with a few nimble-handed, pretty girls sitting around her, helping her with what she had been doing. A large black jade jar was placed in front of her, with a few spell symbols sparkling dimly on it. Qing Fu was holding a blade jade pestle, and had been carefully grinding a ‘raging fire thunder vine’.

The thunder vine was soft yet strong. Therefore, Qing Fu had to work pretty hard to grind it. The pestle released beams of black light and sealed the power of the herb, to disable the power of the herb from getting lost during the grinding process.

Ji Hao walked into the yard with big steps. Seeing that Qing Fu was busy, he slowed down, gently and quietly walked to Qing Fu and squatted. He conveniently picked a fruit from a fire grass in a basket beside him, then threw into his own mouth. The fruit of the fire grass was especially spicy, but with a sweet aftertaste. And the longer one chewed it, the sweeter it would taste. At last, the sweetness could reach straight into one’s heart from the tip of the tongue. Fire grass only grew in Southern Wasteland. Therefore, Ji Hao had never seen it in anywhere else.

However, fire grass fruits were rich in fire power. Ordinary Southern Wasteland children would catch a nosebleed if they ate too many fire grass fruits. Therefore, since Ji Hao was a little kid, every time Qing Fu saw Ji Hao sneakily eating fire grass fruits, she would certainly…

A not so heavy, yet not so gentle slap landed on Ji Hao’s head. Like always, Qing Fu said to him with a deep, strict, yet warm tone. ”No! Fire grass fruits can perfectly cast the moistness and coldness away from human bodies, but you can’t eat it as fruits.”

Qing Fu stared at Ji Hao with brightly sparkling eyes while raising her pestle, pretending to knock Ji Hao’s head with it.

Ji Hao chuckled, took over the pestle and put forth his strength on those thunder vines in the black jade jar. The thunder vines were already halfway ground, and Ji Hao was way more strengthful than Qing Fu. Therefore, as the spell symbols shone brightly on the black jade jar, the thunder vines in the jar were ground into a jar of sticky liquid by Ji Hao following a quick series of clangs.

”Amma, I’m back. Ah, nothing changed in Gold Black Mountain.” While grinding the herbs, Ji Hao said bland tone.

”We now have many more children than before.” Qing Fu narrowed her eyes and laughed happily, ”The few large clans nearby are all willing to marry their girls to our Gold Crow Clan boys. In the recent few years, we are having more and more children in the clan.”

Qing Ru stood up and pulled Ji Hao up as well.

Ji Hao stood straight, while Qing Fu measured the height difference between him and herself. Finding that she couldn’t even reach Ji Hao’s armpits now, Qing Fu sighed in surprise and said, ”Ah, my Ji Hao has grown up. He’s an adult now, not a kid anymore…Hmm, come on, tell Amma, have you met any nice girls out there? Which stage are you now at with her? When can I hold the babies of my Ji Hao?

Ji Hao’s face instantly turned twisted. Why would the topic suddenly change into this?

”Amma…” Ji Hao murmured weakly.

”Do you know any good-looking girl? If you do, just bring her back and let Amma see…If you don’t, the little girl called Man Man is not bad. She’s healthy, and her family is powerful. I think she can have many babies.”

Qing Fu looked at Ji Hao with her pair of brightly sparkling eyes while she continued especially seriously, ”Ah, never mind. Men are always with low efficiency. Amma knows many pretty young girls. Later, you go…”

Ji Hao turned around and ran straight away, leaving faint shreds of afterimages while flashing across the air, rushing out of the yard.

”Amma, Lord Zhu Rong wants to talk to me. If I finish early, I will come back for dinner. Please cook a few boar ribs and roast a few sweet potatoes for me!”

Ji Hao rushed out swiftly. Qing Fu paused, then laughed and shouted, ”Leave the pestle, why are you running so fast?”

Clang! The black jade pestle brought up a cold beam of light and accurately fell into the jar. Qing Fu grinned, raised her head and looked at the fiery dragon, which was lying on Gold Black Mountain and gulping wine, then smilingly nodded.

Po and Gui Ling stayed in Gold Crow Clan while the fire dragon rose back into the sky, brought Ji Hao and flew to the south. Less than three-hundred miles away from Gold Black Mountain, a hundred miles in radius volcano vent appeared among mountains. Ji Hao clearly remembered that this was a pure mountain area without any volcano. But now, a volcano vent appeared in this place, and was filled with boiling lava, with a few smaller sized fire dragons comfortably lying in it and taking a nap.

Above the volcano vent was a dragon-scale-like mirror, floating in a raging fire. The mirror was decorated with patterns of flames, and had been releasing beams of red divine light, shining on the surrounding area. Ji Hao clearly saw the images of countless familiar mountains and rivers flash across the mirror, which meant this mirror had been watching the entire area around Gold Black Mountain. If anyone approached the Gold Black Mountain, he or she could be discovered through this mirror immediately.

”My master sent these few little ones and me to guard in this place. This volcano, my master created it himself.” said the fire dragon slowly, ”And this mirror, ha, anything that happens in million-mile-radius around your Gold Black Mountain, my master will be the first to know. He will inform us to make the moves and prevent any danger. Hmm, I heard the little kid Man Man is going to marry you, is this true?”

Ji Hao gave a bitter smile, looked at the fire dragon and threw a question back, ”Says who?”

The dragon straightened its neck, looked at Ji Hao and responded with a great confidence, ”My Master told me! Just make it hurry. It’s good for Man Man to marry, because as a married woman, she won’t come back and bully us again. Or she would just come every a few days and pull off our scales to make weird stuff!”

Ji Hao was speechless.

A scorching hot stream of lava swooshed up for thousands of meters high, on top of which, a fiery gate opened rumblingly.

Ji Hao followed the fire dragon into the fiery gate. At first glance, Ji Hao saw Zhu Rong, who was covered in a long red cloak. Zhu Rong’s face was pale, and he had been coughing ceaselessly.