The Magus Era

A series of mountains were standing roughly in a circle. On the side of the, over ten miles in radius flagstone, Ginger was sitting on a black cushion, with thirteen different sized, odd shaped jars, containing all kinds of creepy bugs, placed right in front him in a line, sorted according to their sizes.

The thirteen different-shaped jars were made of either wood, stone, jade or metals and were all glowing with multicoloured lights, looking like the lively colours on the bodies of the poisonous bugs. Each jar was embossed with lively patterns of poisonous bugs, and the largest one made from wood, had ten thousand and one different kinds of poisonous bug patterns embossed on it.

Amongst all the poison users of the entire Magi Palace, Ginger was one of the few, who were the hardest to deal with, and normally no one dared to upset them.

He had lived for over a thousand years. He didn’t have a wife or any children and no one knew about his family name. People only knew that he had come from the Southern Wasteland. Except for a few servant who were taking care of his daily needs, he didn’t even had an apprentice. All Ginger had in his life, were those scary, horrible and highly poisonous bugs.

Fifty years ago, with the help of the Magi Palace and paying a huge fortune, Ginger had killed the queen of a nest of Gu that had lived for over ten thousand years. He then had merged his body with the power and soul of the queen, becoming even quieter and weirder that he had been before, which caused even fewer people to come close to him.

[Gu: (simplified Chinese: 蛊; traditional Chinese: 蠱; pinyin: gǔ; was a venom-based poison associated with cultures of southern China. The traditional preparation of gu poison involved sealing several venomous creatures (e.g., centipede, snake, scorpion) inside a closed container, where they devoured one another and allegedly concentrated their toxins into a single survivor. Gu was used in black magic practices such as manipulating sexual partners, creating malignant diseases, and causing death. The Gu queen that was killed by Ginger was a natural formed Gu, which according to legends, was much much more powerful and mysterious than ordinary artificially fostered Gu.]

“Good, good my dear cute little babies, we will get you some delicious meat very soon,” gently patting those jars in front of him and Ginger said, while his green eyeballs looked as muddy as that of zombies. There was no way you would be able to discover any traces of humanity in them.

“Fresh, warm, the sweetest human meat,” blinking his eyes, Gingered chuckled, then paused and continued, “Well, not exactly, monsters meat actually. So they might not taste that well, but at least, the quantity is satisfying.”

“Tens of thousands of them,” taking a long and deep gaso with satisfaction, Ginger stroked those jars, which looked smooth and shining because of the hundreds of years of rubbing and petting. He then repeated with a low voice, “Tens of thousands of them. Those kids indeed are fighting really hard, bringing so many foods all at once.”

Tens of apprentices of the Magi Palace were holding special banners that were particularly made by Ginger himself, and had been walking quickly around the gigantic flagstone, according to Ginger’s arrangement. While walking, they had also been waving those banners, from which, multicoloured, different sized bug eggs were rising and falling on the huge flagstone like a heavy rain, after which they silently merged with the stone at a visible speed.

Every poisonous banner had over a million bug eggs hidden in it. Now, all those egg bugs had deeply been drilled into the ground. If someone would be capable of seeing through the flagstone, they would see that underneath that thick flagstone, a terrifyingly great amount of bug eggs had been buried in the ground in a thick layer, distributed throughout the area that had a radius of over ten miles.

This scene would drive anyone, who were particularly afraid bugs, completely crazy.

However, in Ginger’s eyes, such a scene was the most beautiful one in the whole world, and all this would be just simple. A bunch of idiots, who had been rushing to their deaths, would run into this area and suddenly be surrounded by millions of poisonous, newly-hatched bugs, then all these bugs would rush up, eat those idiots up without leaving even a puff of bone ash, so beautiful.

Jiang Yong was standing quite far away from Ginger, with a few Southern Wasteland Society boys standing beside him.

Over ten zhang away from them, were a few Dark Ocean Society’s apprentices.

They were watching Ginger setting the magic poisonous bug formation, eyes filled with fear and respect. At the same time they were whispering to each other about those great achievements made by Ginger. His cruel methods, weird personality and scary living style, all these had made Ginger look like a devil in the hearts of Magi Palace’s apprentices.

Only Jiang Yong had been staring at Ginger with a bit different expression. He knew that Ginger was born in the Bi Fang Clan, which meant Ginger was one of his clansmen, but about a thousand years ago, Ginger had left the Bi Fang Clan and never went back to the Southern Wasteland.

Nevertheless, he believed that blood was always warmer and thicker than water, especially since all clans had been valuing the bloodline relationships the most, therefore, Jiang Yong thought that he was somehow qualified to talk loudly in front of Ginger.

Hesitating for a while, Jiang Yong carefully walked behind Ginger, politely kneeled on the ground and kowtowed to him for a few times. He acted very devotedly and had kowtowed quite hard, even making a few muffled booms against the ground, and had knocked a small hole out of the solid flagstone.

“What the hell?” Ginger stopped what he had been doing and yelled harshly in a cold voice, “Go hide as quickly as you can, later when those idiots rush into the formation, it will be your job to jump out and track them! Kowtow to me? I have nothing nice for you!”

“Dear ancestor,” said Jiang Yong extra politely.

Suddenly, a thumb-sized, three zhang long, thin yet with a tank-sized head, extremely weird-shaped centipede, which had over a thousand sharp feet and was pure black, darted out from Ginger’s sleeve and wrapped around the neck of Jiang Yong. Those sharp feet easily pierced into Jiang Yong’s skin, and the huge head opened its jaws, spurting a stream of air that had a faint blood scent, right to Jiang Yong’s face. Jiang Yong’s face instantly turned purple in front of this sudden frightening experience.

“Ancestor!!” this stupid body yelled one more time.

“Who the hell is your ancestor?!” Ginger yelled then chuckled, turned around and took a scornful glance at Jiang Yong, letting out a few frosty sniffs. After that, he took out a handful of thumb-sized, translucent, smooth and tender-looking bug cocoons, threw into his own mouth one after another, which he chewed happily as if he was chewing a handful of peanuts.

While eating his special snack, Ginger said in his creepy cold voice, “You’re Bi Fang Clan’s boy? Don’t you know what I had said back then when I left that stupid place? I had told them, if any Bi Fang Clan’s little bastard ever dared to show up in front of me, they would be looking for death.”

Jiang Yong’s face now turned deadly pale. He looked at Ginger while being terrified deeply, he truly hadn’t known anything about that. After all, that had happened a thousand years ago, who would tell him about this old story that was not glorious at all?

“Normally, when you walked into my eyesight in the Magi Palace, I just pretended to not know where you had come from, and didn’t say anything,” Ginger threw all the cocoons in his hand, into his mouth then took out another handful of them, and continued “But today, you particularly came to me, if I don’t kill you right away, I’ll seem to have become a man who failed to keep his believes.”

Jiang Yong began quivering, hurriedly screamed out in a trembling voice, “A-ancestor! Plea-please spare my life, I, we, our Bi Fang Clan has been bullied quite badly by someone else! Our, our territory, half of our territories were snatched!”

Ginger paused and stopped chewing.

A short while later, Ginger narrowed his eyes and said in a bland tone, “Why does Bi Fang Clan’s territory have anything to do with me? But, interestingly enough, I didn’t think that there was someone in the Southern Wasteland who dared to provoke the Bi Fang Clan, hm, so you came to me now. You’re not attempting to ask me to seek revenge for the Bi Fang Clan, kill the one who made your clan lose your territories, who happens to be among the few kids coming our way, luring enemies into this formation, are you?”

Jiang Yong stared at Ginger in shock. He had never thought that Ginger could be so wise, that he would point the whole truth out within no time.

“Ancestor, you…”

Ginger closed his eyes, slightly sighing, raised his head and glanced at the sky, then abruptly threw a heavy slap on Jiang Yong’s face.

Followed by a loud slapping sound, Jiang Yong was sent flying for over three miles away, and smashed right into a cliff, causing even half of his body to be stuck in the cliff.

“Close, close, they’re coming.”

Ginger murmured while at the same time, a faint layer of mist rose from the ground, silently shrouding all the Magi Palace’s apprentices behind him.

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Edited by SecondRate

Translated by XianXiaWorl