TL note: In ancient (even modern) China, people believing in the same religions, or those who practice certain kinds of magic, often call people from other religions or people who also practice magic, as ‘fellow’, in a very polite way.
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Chapter 116: ‘Fellow’
With the magical power of the [Mantra Dan with Nine Secret Words], Ji Hao hid the power aura that was being released from his body, and the body of Mr. Crow, then silently sneaked out of the Cold Stream Valley.
Mr. Crow had seriously been injured not long ago. Although its injuries were half recovered, its wings’ muscles were still badly hurt, which disabled it from flying. Standing in the heavy rain, Ji Hao carefully put Mr. Crow, who had shrunk its body, into his cloth, then cast an [escape magic], transformed into a hazy, watery-mist-like silhouette, and started running in the dense jungle at his highest speed.
Because of the heavy rain, the entire jungle had been filled with great water-power. Ji Hao had cast the [After-born Water Manipulating Magic], and felt like a fish that had finally gotten back into the boundless sea, swimming freely. Within a day and night, Ji Hao had run for thousands of miles.
Ji Zhuo was one of the oldest elders of the Fire Crow Clan. In the Southern Wasteland, elders that had lived long enough were the most precious wealth of a clan - they were all incredibly knowledgeable, knew about all kinds of mysterious magics and possessed secret information.
For example, in a secret valley that was located fifty thousand miles away from the Cold Stream valley, a small battle fort had secretly been built by the Zhu Rong Country. The Guards of Gods were guarding the fort all year round. And within that fort, was a transporting-magic-formation, which directly lead to the central area of the Zhu Rong Country. How could this kind of top secret information be known by ordinary Southern Wasteland Clan’s clansmen?
“Mr. Crow, if we travel day and night, we can get to the secret valley in around only seven days,” said Ji Hao in a low voice, while thrusting a round pill that was made by Qing Fu, into Mr. Crow’s beak.
Caw!
Mr. Crow flapped its wings and unhappily let out a deep caw. Only fifty thousand miles, if he could fly at its highest speed, it would have taken him only one hour to get to the secret valley, but currently, Ji Hao could only run with his feet.
Ji Hao could have borrowed Ji Zhuo’s contracted Fire Crow, however, a couple of weeks ago Ji Zhuo had fought against the enemies for a few times; his crow had been badly wounded during the fights as well, and was now trying its best to recover; therefore, this reinforcement-seeking mission could only depend on Ji Hao.
“Alright, Mr. Crow, you should rest peacefully. When you have fully recovered, we will kill all those stinking snakes together...Hm, what do you think, should we go to Pu Ban city, or wait until brother Po comes back?”
Mr. Crow popped up his eyes, seemingly lost in deep thought.
The sun rose and fell, over and over again. Three days had passed very fast. Ji Hao had been running in the jungle during the whole three days and without even taking a nap; he had already covered over twenty-thousand-mile of distance. During his journey, with the help of the [Mantra Dan with Nine Secret Words], and the cover of this endless heavy rain, Ji Hao had safely gone past a few areas that were ruled by terrifyingly dangerous beasts and had traveled over half the distance.
Mr. Crow had been taking the medicine given by Qing Fu and recovered a bit more from his injuries. He was now standing on Ji Hao’s shoulder and cawing, while flapping its wings from time to time, telling Ji Hao that he only needed to rest for another half day, one day tops, after which it would be able to fly again.
Although he couldn’t fly at its highest speed yet, at least it would be much faster than Ji Hao was currently.
Ji Hao rushed for another half a day, then abruptly stopped. He gasped deeply, and spew out a turbid sphere of waste air our for tens of zhangs far, along with a great heat. All of the raindrops that were touched by the air evaporated instantly, and a tank-thick white mist column had emerged in the air.
Breathing deeply for air, Ji Hao then locked his hands together, quickly drawing the natural power into his body from the surrounding areas. The natural power was being absorbed by the Golden Dan in his spiritual space, once it had been breathed into his body. Ji Hao had just rushed in the jungle for half a day, which had cost ninety-percent of the Golden Dan’s power; therefore, Ji Hao had now stopped, adjusting his breath, and replenishing his power.
Within the area that had a radius of hundreds of zhangs, the path of all the raindrops were weirdly twisting. Those raindrops fell on the ground while rotating rapidly, then quietly seeped into the soil, without splashing the slightest bit of water. Even the loud raining sound around Ji Hao had suddenly stopped, and the jungle surrounding Ji Hao for miles around had suddenly become very quiet. The wind stopped blowing, the trees and the bushes stopped swaying, even the speed with which the raindrops were falling became slower and slower, to the point where those raindrops even seemed to have frozen in the air.
Ji Hao had made a connection with the power of the universe with his soul. Every single movement of his could now affect the natural environment surrounding him. After Ji Hao had transformed the Yuan Dan into a Golden Dan, every single movement of his, and every slight gasp of breath, was able to cause supernatural phenomenons. Ji Hao was concentrating on replenishing his power, and made no effort to hide all those strange phenomenons.
Miles away, the rain suddenly was split by an invisible, mysterious power. Two young men, who were wearing simple clothes that were made from white flax, were barefooted, and had their hair hung loosely. Both of them were holding a bamboo stick, and walked slowly out of the jungle. Their entire bodies were extremely dry and clean.
Every step they put forward seemed as if invisible airwaves were holding their bodies up from the ground. No one would be able to tell for how long they had been walking in the jungle, because their bare feet were all dry and clean, without being stained by even a single drop of rain or mud.
Both of them were tall and sturdy, with deeply sunken eyes and straight nose bridge. Their faces were as delicate as sculptures, and their pupil was shining. Every single move of theirs had a mysterious charm to it, which was hard to describe. These two young men seemingly could draw all the attentions if they were standing in a crowd, just like swirl pools.
With faint smiles, both of them abruptly floated up into the air, stood on a branch-tip of a towering tree, looking at those supernatural phenomenon that were caused by Ji Hao, while Ji Hao was replenishing his power. Suddenly, the smiles on the faces of the two young men disappeared, instead, their faces darkened badly.
“Unity of heaven and man! This kid had reached an amazing level!”
“Do you have any idea whose student he is? Never thought that we’d meet such an interesting little kid in this Southern Wasteland jungle. It’s not easy at all to reach this level at such a young age.”
“Who else can it be? Absorbing the vast universal powers to replenish his own, who could have such a powerful ability except those few? Those Southern Wasteland barbarians could never learn such an ability. Whoever he is, he can’t be one of us.”
“Well, not one of us, then he should die.”
The two young men talked to each other for a short while, then took a quick glance at each other, nodded and slightly stamped their feet against the branch-tip, leapt into the air, trod on gusts of wind, and flew towards Ji Hao.
The two young men quickly approached Ji Hao, without making even the slightest sound. Five miles, tree miles, two miles...
When they were one mile away from Ji Hao, the wind that was brought up by their bodies, hit a raindrop, which had been floating in the air, moving it. Ji Hao sensed the movements of the raindrop, and quivered instantly, like an old spider that was huddled in the center of its net, and someone else abruptly ran into the spider’s thread, on the edge of the net; Ji Hao suddenly opened his eyes, took a glance at the direction that he sensed the movements of the raindrop from.
He saw two young men, who were wearing white and long clothes, with weird smiles and fluttering long hairs, were standing on top of the wind and were flying towards him from out the dense jungle; this scene made Ji Hao subconsciously cast a spell. Large amounts of watery mist started gathering into Ji Hao’s palm, transforming into bolts of lightning, and silently struck towards the two young men.
At the moment when the lighting darted out of his palm, Ji Hao instinctively thought about many famous, weird legends that he had learned in his previous life - these two young men were dressed so weirdly, and moved silently; even their skins were as white and smooth as if they had used foundation, how could he not think about those ghost stories?
Ji Hao had never seen anyone who was as white and handsome as these two young men, in this Southern Wasteland.
The lightning darted out silently, yet incomparably fast. The fist-long lightning bolts flashed across the air and appeared in front of the two young men, then exploded silently. The waves of soft yet strong air-streams, which were caused by the explosion, expanded towards all directions like tsunami waves, along with a gentle, yet extremely strong power that was enough to even break bones and tear human internal organs apart.
The two young men were flying towards Ji Hao with smiles on their faces, when suddenly the lightning exploded right in front of their faces and shattered their white flax clothes into pieces, exposing the white, silky, luxurious shirts that were worn by them under their outfits; at the same time, beams of bright, white lights darted out from their white silk shirts, firmly blocking the lightning’s power.
“My fellow here, hold for a second!” yelled the two young men simultaneously.
“Fellow?” Ji Hao raised his eyebrows and said, “What is that? Can I eat it?”
Ji Hao had decided to play a fool.