The Magus Era

The Chi Ban Mountain area was vast, and apart from those battlefields between the humankind and the non-humankind, there were countless barren wastelands in that area.

Feng Xing ran in the front and led the way, moving in the complicated mountain area for big half an hour. Abruptly, between two mountains, a long and huge rift valley appeared before Ji Hao and his other teammates’ eyes. That valley was not too broad, the broadest part of it was only around two hundred zhang wide, and the cliffs on both sides of the valley were all thousands of zhangs in height.

Ji Hao had a sharp sight, and with that and the clear starlight, he saw a lot of huge bird nests on the cliffs, on both sides of the valley. In those gigantic bird nests were shacks built from straws; from time to time, people’ sounds came from them.

Ji Hao narrowed his eyes, from which golden-red fiery light sparkled. Ji Hao saw that in those bird nests on the left side cliff were some fully armored Jia Clan’s warriors guarding, while the number of human warriors guarding the nests on the right side cliff was over five times more than the number of Jia Clan’s warrior guarding on the left side.

Indistinctly, he even saw a few gigantic ballistae hiding under straws in some nests.

Starlight pouring down in spiral streams, spell symbols on those gigantic ballistae sparkled brightly under the starlight, releasing fierce and frosty sense of power that would give anyone a palpitation.

A valley that had both human warriors and Jia Clan’s warriors standing sentry duty and guarding in peace? Ji Hao whistled in surprise, slightly dragging Man Man’s arm, pulling her closer to himself. This valley was filled with a weird atmosphere, and apparently, it wasn’t a safe place.

Yu Mu leant against a rock while gasping quickly and deeply, narrowed his little beady eyes and looked around, then asked, “Feng Xing, is this place safe at all?”

Feng Xing gave a measured glance at that dark entrance of the valley, and for an instant, he was a bit hesitant. He had only heard about this place from those experienced warriors in the special army, but once he saw those warriors guarding on both side cliffs, he caught the weird feeling about this place.

From the darkness, a silhouette suddenly darted out, attempting to rush up to Ji Hao. However, Ji Hao reacted extremely fast, and when that silhouette was still over ten zhangs away from him, a sharp and solid thorn of soil abruptly thrust out of the ground, violently roaring towards that silhouette.

That silhouette reacted as well fast, after letting out a shout in shock, it bounced back for a few times and moved away from Ji Hao.

“Eh? Such a sharp power! My honored guests, is this your first time here in our Chi Ban Market? We have thousands of years of history, as long as you have enough jade coins in your pockets, you can have as much fun as you can in there. No one will ever mess around in here!”

That man, wearing a black cloak, stood straight and lifted up his mask, showing a scrawny, cunning face. What caught attention the most was the face that this man’s soil-colored skin was thickly dotted with thumb-sized, green spots, which was also a feature of non-humankind slaves.

“Spirit creature? Small spots…Are you a tree spirit?” Ji Hao looked at that man with vigilance.

“My Abba is a pure blood human being !” That man grinned so much that his pair of eyes even narrowed to two thin lines, “my Amma is a tree spirit, and she was the most beautiful one among her entire clan. That day my Abba got drunk then … here is me! Haha, I think you few honored guests have got my point!”

Pointing back at the valley with his thumb, this man then grinned and continued, “My name is Geng, my honored guests, if you need a tour guide for your very first journey in our Chi Ban Market, with only a half jade coin, I will dedicate my next twenty-four hours to you, guiding your way in the market.”

“Do you have a last name?” Feng Xing asked while curiously looking at Geng from top to bottom. A mixed race of a human being and a non-humankind slave? And his existence was as a result of a drunken mistake. Feng Xing clicked his tongue.

“Hehe, I am a lowly being, how can I have a last name?” Geng nodded and bowed to Feng Xing, explaining politely and smilingly, “My social status is that of a slave, a last name is something that only noble people can have.”

Looking at Geng’s smiling face, Ji Hao took out a jade coin, threw it to Geng and said, “Good, we just need a tour guide. Geng, we’d like to have a stroll in this Chi Ban Market, please lead the way for us. Hm, does this market only have one entrance that also serves as an exit?”

Hurriedly taking over the jade coin, Geng politely bowed to Ji Hao once again, leading Ji Hao and his teammates into the valley. While walking, he turned his head around, grinned and said, “How can this market only have one entrance? Look, the scale of our Chi Ban Market is huge. In total, this market has over a hundred entrances and exits, this is only a small one.”

Before walking into the valley, Ji Hao and his teammates all felt that the valley was rather dark, but after they entered in, they saw a huge amount of luminous plants on both side cliffs, emitting bright fluorescence, lighting up the entire valley quite brightly.

From the huge nests above their heads, some human warriors and Jia Clan’s warriors ducked their heads out, looking down at them for a while. Although these warriors all had fierce and serious looks, no intentions of fighting and killing were sensed from their eyes.

Walking for less than a mile in the valley, around ten dark human silhouettes walked over in a great rush. Among them, a hoarse and manly voice burst in excitement.

“Brother! This time we got enough jade coins and finally bought this ‘burning sun fruit’! Brother, with this fruit, you can wake up at least three hundred Magus Acupoints within a month…”

While yelling excitedly, that man abruptly saw Ji Hao and his teammates, then instantly shut his mouth. That group of people looked at Ji Hao and his teammates with extra vigilance, while speedily brushing past them. Neither of the two groups of people had made even the slightest sound.

Ji Hao took a glance at these people, and under the dim fluorescence, he saw that this group of people were all wearing heavy metal armors that were decorated with special patterns. Judging from those patterns, these people were warriors of the main human army in the Chi Ban Mountain area, coming from the absolute elite troops.

“This Chi Ban Market seems truly is a nice place!” Ji Hao gave a faint smile and said.

“It indeed is! Our Chi Ban Market has literally everything in this world, as long as you, my honored guests, have enough jade coins, this market can provide you with anything that you expect to find.” Geng boasted about the goodness of this Chi Ban Market such that his saliva even spouted out from his mouth.

Ji Hao, Yu Mu and Feng Xing glanced at each other in surprise.

For a Senior Magus, if he had a great talent and enough amount of magic crystals to support his cultivation, with severe, even crazy hard work that would leave the Senior Magus no time to sleep or eat, and if everything went right, he would be able to wake up a new Magus Acupoint every ten to twenty days; this was the peak efficiency generated by the best status of cultivation.

Therefore, waking up three hundred Magus Acupoints supposed to need at least three thousand days, which meant eight to nine years; and this was calculated based upon the best condition of cultivation.

A ‘burning sun fruit’ could enable a Senior Magi to wake up three hundred Magus Acupoints within a month, and for such kind of natural great treasure, one could simply buy one from this Chi Ban Market!

“Ha! I told you, we can find good stuff in this place!” Feng Xing couldn’t hold back his excitement anymore, patting on the leather bag tied around his waist.

“Great! I’m gonna search this market through! I wanna cook a pot of ‘hundred mushrooms, thousand spiders and ten-thousand snakes’ soup’, but I haven’t found many required materials yet.” said Yu Mu in a low voice and also excitedly, “When I have collected all materials in need, I will immediately cook them into the soup, and that potful of soup will improve the toxicity of my magic poisons by at least three times!”

Man Man wagged her head and grabbed Ji Hao’s hand, shaking in excitement, and yelled, “Delicious foods! Interesting things to play and watch! Oi! Geng! Do you have many, many bird eggs in this market?”

A stream of saliva drooled out of Man Man’s mouth corner, yet, she quickly sucked it back.