The Magus Era
Chapter 88: Make a Run For It

Ying Yan satisfyingly moved all of the earth essence crystals from the essence milk pool into the jade bottle.

These extremely hard and heavy crystals were the purest essence of the earth energy and only a sesame-sized crystal piece of it weighed nearly a million ‘stone’, not to mention that these crystals had countless magical usages and effects.

If magical treasures were made with the earth essence crystals, the finished magic treasures would be especially heavy and incomparably powerful; only peak-level and above Senior Magi could use that kind of magic treasure freely. Weapons and armours that were forged from ordinary metals would shatter into ashes once being touched by magic treasures made from the earth essence crystals.

If you would grind a human-head-sized piece of earth essence crystal into powder and blended it with water from the Magical Spring of Heaven and Earth’, then scattered it into soil, it could turn the soil within a thousand miles round into extremely fertile, magical land that would become the perfect field to plant all kinds of rare and magical plants, including medicinal herbs and flowers.

Nevertheless, the most important usage of the earth essence crystal was to be the core of some specially powerful and magical, large-scale battle formation.

For example, Ying Yan’s old master liked to set a kind of powerful, terrifying magical formation, called the ‘Flying Preventing Magical Formation’ with the earth essence crystals around his own palace. The earth essence crystal contained an extremely powerful, magnetic-force-like earth power, and after this magical formation had been set up in a certain area, even Magus Kings wouldn’t be able to fly within that area, instead they would only be able to walk on the ground step by step.

The variety of magical usages had given the earth essence crystal spheres an unimaginably high value l, which Ji Hao was still unaware of.

This time, Ying Yan had taken ninety-nine percent of the essence milk of the earth from that pool, added with so many of the earth essence crystals; this could even compare with all of his property that he had gathered in his life. Therefore, Ying Yan couldn’t help but laugh from ear to ear, even the pores on his face seemingly bloomed like flowers.

Ji Yao woke up, while laying on the ground and slowly moved his body.

Ying Yan didn’t notice that one piece of earth essence crystal under Ji Hao’s body had completely been absorbed. After Ji Hao digested that human-head-sized earth essence crystal piece, his physical strength had only increased by around a hundred thousand ‘stones’, however, the firmness of his body had improved by hundred times.

Ji Hao observed the inside of his own body with his spiritual power. He was very satisfied when he saw that every single vessel, meridian, bone and even internal organ of his, was shining with the special light of the earth essence crystal. Especially those interleaving meridians had expanded over ten times wider than before; now those meridians felt like rapidly flowing rivers. The inside of those meridians were now completely unblocked, looked as pure and clean as mirrors, and all of parclose and blocks had been swept away by the incomparably powerful earth energy.

The tens of Man Man’s guards stood up as well, satisfyingly soothing their joints.

The rest of the essence milk of the earth had been absorbed by Ji Hao and the tens of guards, without leaving even a single drop. A few Senior level guards had gained great benefits from the essence milk of the earth, their faces were even blushing in delight. The few Senior Magi kicked and punched each other, and found out that the same attacks that could have harmed their bones before, now only made their bodies slightly shake. Their bodies’ conditions had been improved by many times, and could now easily take the attacks that they never could before.

“Do not stand there laughing for nothing! Since you’ve all got some benefits from that pool, now carry these precious stones back for me!” yelled Man Man on the other side of the cave, while grabbing a handful of precious stones and threw them towards those guards. Hit by the stones, those guards all howled out in pain.

During the time that Ji Hao and the guards were in the pool and were absorbing the essence milk of the earth, Man Man was commanding the mountain god to pick the largest and most shining precious stones in the cave out, and piled it up into a nearly fifty feet tall hill in the cave.

Ruby, emerald, sapphire, diamond, jade, and many other different coloured precious stones that Ji Hao couldn’t even tell the names of, were piled up in the cave. The eight lights emitted from the hill of precious stones made it so that people couldn’t directly look at it. Man Man was proudly sitting on top of the hill of precious stones, smilingly swinging her legs.

“Hurry, carry all these back! All mine! These are all Man Man’s!” yelled Man Man while laughing happily, “These stones are so colourful! I like them! Pretty! Take them back and inlay them on the walls of my palace, I want to make those girls jealous!”

After shooting a glance of dislike at Ying Yan, Man Man then continued, “Old Yan! The few granddaughters of yours are so dumb! I must make them jealous enough to die!”

Ying Yan opened his mouth, looking at Man Man with a pitiful face; the huge smile on his face was suddenly gone without a trace, instead, he now seemed as if he was going to cry but failed to shed a tear.

Those guards hunted a few gigantic beasts from the jungle, skinned them and used their skin to wrap the precious stones that were carefully picked out by Man Man, into tens of huge packages; Ji Hao and each of the tens of guards carried one package on the shoulder and left the mountain god’s nest.

Man Man seemed to be in a very good mood. She was happily walking at the front, holding a very large plantain leaf as an umbrella, and was humming an unknown melody.

The mountain god had been following Man Man around with heavy steps. Man Man never stopped giving him orders, making him climb a tree and steal bird eggs, or ordering him to take the honeycomb of poisonous bees from some tree holes, and before he was done with that, Man Man ordered him to lift a large piece of the ground to find lots of eatable, fresh plants roots.

The mountain god had a very simple mind and an inexhaustible strength, therefore, he simply followed all of Man Man’s orders. In the jungle they walked by, almost all dweller-creatures had been disturbed by Man Man and the mountain god, letting out complaining sounds.

Ji Hao looked at Man Man, who had been leaping around the jungle excitedly, gasped in admiration and said, “Man Man is such a happy girl!”

Ying Yan had been walking side by side with Ji Hao, he subconsciously let out a bitter smile when he heard Ji Hao’s words, then said, “Yes, she is just...too happy, so happy to cause the other young masters great headaches...that’s why they told her to come to this manor...”

Ji Hao took a glance of shock at Ying Yan.

Ying Yan instantly covered his own mouth with his hand, lightly slapped his own face, lowered his voice and let out a few hollow waves of laughter and said, “Haha, haha, this...Ah...the weather today is really nice!”

Ji Hao looked up at the grey sky, with a mass of thick, rainy clouds rolling up there; the downpour rain had been swooshing down from the sky, a few floating hills over their heads were now blowing by the fierce hurricane, quickly drifting towards the other side of the jungle, like a few falling leaves.

“Yeah, yeah, such good weather!” Ji Hao seriously responded Ying Yan and said, “Just after two more months, when the rain stops and the sun comes back out, we will have fresh, delicious mushrooms to eat.”

Ying Yan appreciatively nodded towards Ji Hao. This kid really knew how to chat, he must have a great future! thought Ying Yan. He then said, “Yes, yes! Not to mention anything else, our Southern Wasteland jungle can be considered as the most fertile land in the whole world. Hmm, boil the freshest red-dress mushrooms, along with the newborns of colourful winged sparrow, into a thick soup. That flavour! Can’t even describe it!” said Ying Yan while licking his own lips.

Ji Hao and Ying Yan quickly became a pair of huge fans of delicious food, started discussing all kinds of special foods of the Southern Wasteland jungle, aloud.

Man Man had been running and jumping all the way, leading Ji Hao, Ying Yan, the mountain god and the tens of guards back to the manor. She jumped onto the mountain god’s shoulder, letting the mountain god carry her, and slowly walked up to the stairs.

Ji Hao carried a huge package of those precious stones, walked up the stairs as well, while chatting happily with Ying Yan. Soon, they got to the square in front of the manor.

Under the arch, Man Man looked at the surrounding in confusion, and said, “These bunch of lazy things, old Yan! Grab them out and whip them good! What? Don’t they need to guard in the rainy days?! Whip them and teach them how to do their jobs! With me, it’s fine, but if Abba had caught them not doing their job as they should have been, their heads would have been chopped off!”

Ying Yan’s face went dark as well. He rolled up his sleeves in anger and walked up to Man Man.

As Man Man just had said, not a single person had been guarding under the arch. There were tens of guards that ought to be here, but none of them had been doing their job. Ying Yan was clearly aware of how strict the rule of his master was for guards who were absent from their jobs, even beheading them would be nice treatment; more seriously, this could even drag their entire clan into trouble.

Ying Yan frowned, looking at surrounding. He didn’t believe that those guards went away by themselves.

Suddenly, inside Ji Hao’s spiritual space, the white mist quickly gathered inwards; the gigantic figure of the mysterious man then emerged from the sphere of mist afterwards which the mysterious man shouted out in a resonant voice.

“Run!”

Following the mysterious man’s voice, Ji Hao let out a great growl as well. Every single hair on his body had stood up, and he suddenly sensed an invisible, extremely ferocious, yet miserable atmosphere that had been surrounding them all this time.

“Run! Ambush here! Run!” Ji Hao shouted out. At the same time, he leapt up into the air, grabbed Man Man down from the mountain god’s shoulder, dragged her and turned around, running down through the stairs.