The Magus Era

The dress style of the middle-aged man was as ordinary as the grass that could be seen in every corner of the Southern Wasteland.

He was wearing a shirt that was made of coarse, jute fabric, an over-the-knee shorts made of the same material as the shirt, and a pair of shoes that were woven by thin vines; his long hair had been bound tightly behind his head with a soft yet firm vine. His simple and crude clothes were strangely clean.

The man had an upright and foursquare face, with a pair of bright and focused eyes, giving a very generous and reliable feeling. When Ji Hao first saw this middle-aged man, he even sensed a trace of father-like, gentle and kind feeling that he only had sensed from Ji Xia.

This man was a bit shorter than ordinary Southern Wasteland’s warriors in shape, only taller than Ji Hao by a head; he could never compare to those over three to four meters tall Fire Crow Clan’s warriors in height. However, this man didn’t seem thin and weak at all, on the contrary, when he stood up, every single movement of him made Ji Hao feel especially powerful and reliable, just like a bear perambulating its own territory.

Ji Hao didn’t sense any abnormal power or magic coming from the middle-aged man’s body. He was just as simple and natural as all of those ancient trees, and gigantic rocks all over the jungle. Even the sense of power of a Fire Crow Clan’s first-level Novice Magus would be much more strong and violent than this man.

Nevertheless, when Ji Hao looked at him he felt that this middle-aged man was like a vast sea, of which he was unable to know the breadth and the depth of; the feeling that this man was giving to Ji Hao, was even deeper, more mysterious and more unfathomable than the feeling that he got when he met Po.

The rain was being rolled on by the roaring gale, slapping down towards the ground along with a loud, swishing sound.

But still the entire body of the middle-aged man was extremely clean, without a single stain of water or mud. What was even more astonishing, after he had held Ji Hao and Man Man with his hands, not a single drop of rain fell on Ji Hao and Man Man’s body anymore. The gale was still roaring and the rain was still falling, but by standing beside the middle-aged man, Ji Hao and Man Man felt that the small space that they had been standing in was sunny and warm, without any wind or rain.

Coo, coo...

A pigeon with white and black feathers flew out from the middle-aged man’s sleeve, holding a grass in its beak, stood on the man’s shoulder, and started pecking carefully.

“Hehe, my little fella woke up.” The middle-aged man held Ji Hao and Man Man up, carefully lead them to a towering tree beside the river, and made them sit down. He then took a fist-sized, black jade bottle out of a leather bag that was tied around his waist.

The pigeon curiously looked at Ji Hao, while slightly coo-ing.

Mr. Crow thrust his head out of Ji Hao’s cloth, and weakly looked at the pigeon. The two birds looked each other in the eye, while letting out coos and caws from time to time.

The middle-aged man poured two thumb-sized round pills out from a black jade bottle, then pointed his finger at the two pills; the pills exploded and turned into two wisps of green smoke, then drilled into Ji Hao and Man Man’s body.

Ji Hao felt his internal organs, which had been like burning by fire, suddenly cool down; countless wounds on his internal organs started healing. Black extravagated blood started seeping out of his body through his pores in very thin streams; soon, a thick layer of black blood crust had appeared on his skin.

Man Man’s little pretty face went twisted in pain, and her shoulder started trembling. The wound that had reached her lung started squirming fast. Inside the wound, streams of green light and blood-red light were clashing and striking against each other; blood quickly gushed out of the wound. Harm and healing, the two opposite powers were conflicting inside Man Man’s body, bringing her incomparable pain.

“It’s the corroding power of the blood moon.” The middle-aged man let out a scornful sniff, and said frowningly, “You didn’t lie, it’s indeed a group of monsters that had been chasing you. These damn bastards. Have they already become this unruly in the Southern Wasteland? Little girl, your Abba...hm, he is not in the Southern Wasteland, is he?”

Man Man stared at the middle-aged man in shock, and asked, “Uncle, do you know my Abba?”

The middle-aged man smilingly nodded towards Man Man, patted her head and said, “My name is Si Wen Ming, I do know your Abba. Back when you were born, your Abba had robbed me of a hundred pills of ‘huang zhong li’, in order to strengthen your body. Haha.”

Si Wen Ming rubbed his own nose while speaking, then pressed his big hand on the wound on Man Man’s back. A thick yellow mist rose from his palm; the potent yellow mist then drew out the blood-red smoke, which had been trying to harm Man Man’s body further. The yellow mist wrapped the blood-red smoke up and started rotating; soon, the blood-red smoke lost its power, became a wisp of faint, cyan smoke and dissipated into the air.

The power of the blood-moon had vanished. Man Man’s wounds quickly healed with the nourishment of the green smoke. She opened her mouth and spat a few mouthfuls of extravagated blood out. After that she seemingly got all of her energy back, and become even more energetic than Ji Hao.

Si Wen Ming dipped a bit of the blood that had been spew out by Man Man with his little finger, then put the finger near his nose, carefully smelled it, then laughed out and said, “Haha, yeah I was right. You surely are old Zhu Rong’s daughter. Hm, if your Abba had been in the Southern Wasteland, the people who beat you into this, probably would already been parched and made into firewood.”

Man Man grabbed Ji Hao’s sleeve, which had already become pieces of rags; tears were gushing out of her eye sockets in streams. “Abba was not at home, so Man Man sneaked out to play...Old Yan died, and all of Man Man’s guards, hmm, an evil Bi Fang Clan woman had ganged up with those monsters and killed Old Yan!”

Ji Hao had been staring at Si Wen-Ming; somehow, he felt that this name was so familiar.

Ji Hao’s heart suddenly drummed when he heard the words of Man Man and Si Wen Ming. Was Man Man’s father old Zhu Rong? The Zhu Rong family? Ji Hao spent quite an effort to control his emotions and keep himself from exclaiming out - Just as he thought, Man Man was the daughter of that legendary man, who had been called the dominator of the entire Southern Wasteland.

In the legends that the Fire Crow Clan’s kids heard from those Maguspriests, the highest dominator of the entire Southern Wasteland land was the Zhu Rong family. They were not humans but gods, real gods. In the legends, the leader of the Zhu Rong family was the Fire God, who was able to control all kinds of flame in this world, and was also the highest god of the South.

As far as the legend about god was concerned, Ji Hao had been retaining a noncommittal attitude towards it. The Zhu Rong family probably was an extremely powerful clan, and they had added the title of ‘God’ on themselves. However, he surely had always been very curious about the Zhu Rong family; and now, Man Man, the youngest daughter of that legendary man, old Zhu Rong, was sitting beside him in reality, and loudly crying.

Gently patting Man Man on her head, Ji Hao then said calmly, “Alright, Man Man, the evil woman, Jiang Yao, has already been killed by me.”

Before his voice faded, a sharp, vicious scream abruptly came from the river, “You killed Jiang Yao! You damn little bastard! I, I will slice you into a thousand pieces! Damn! I didn’t even get the chance to taste that delicious woman yet, and you exploded her! I’m not interested in dead bodies! Not at all!”

The right side of Di Luo’s chest had a punctured hole in it; he was being held by two three-eyed young men, and rode on a metal centipede, rushing towards Ji Hao along the river. Behind the metal centipede, thousands of Jia Clan’s warriors, ten thousands of slave warriors were yelling and shouting, rushing over as well; each of them had an extremely ferocious face.

“Just as you said, monsters! Well, I could have ignored them if they hadn’t shown up, but since they have already rushed over, hehe...”

Si Wen Ming pulled out a black iron sword while laughing, and simply pointed the sword tip forward, towards the troop led by Di Luo.

The ground within thousands of miles radius suddenly shook, and the feeling of an incomparable great power flashed through the air; Di Luo, and the large groups of Blood Fang’s elite warriors that had been following him, suddenly froze. Their final expression went completely stiff and frozen. Along with a breeze, Di Luo and all of those Blood Fang’s warriors turned into wisps of smoke and dissipated in the air.

Along with a series of clangs, the armours, weapons, and all of their accessories had fallen on the ground.

Ji Hao and Man Man largely gasped with their mouths wide open, and couldn’t let any word out for a very long while.

TN1F ED: WAIT WTF ISN’T THAT A BIT TOO OP.

TL Note: My mouth was largely opened as well...

SR ED: I am not a fan of footnotes, but...this was the most OP move I have ever read, AND I have read a lot of CN Novels.