Chapter 56: Awakening
Wrapped by a raging fire, Ji Hao felt that his mind had left his body, and he fell into dreamland.
...
In the blue, clear, and boundless sky, tens of gigantic, three-legged Gold Fire Crows, with wingspans of over miles length, were floating in the air. Each Gold Fire Crow was cinctured by a golden, fiery light. Tens of golden halos were sparkling, like treasure beads, decorating the sky.
Laid under the blue sky, were lofty mountains, high ranges, and the vast primitive jungle, partly covered in mist.
Over ten thousands of naked people, with shaggy hair and dirty faces, were standing on top of a mountain. In their raised arms they were holding a few bleeding prey high, desperately looking up at those Gold Fire Crows, which were motionlessly floating in the air.
A white haired and bearded, elderly man, with a wisp of blood hanging in the corner of his mouth, raised his trembling arms, and shouted hoarsely to the largest Gold Fire Crow, “Ow powerful being, created and nourished by the nature, please, pity us, our humble, vulnerable clansmen!”
“We don’t have sharp claws and teeth, neither do we have great power to fight against our predators.”
“We don’t have keen eyes, neither do we have powerful wings to run from all kinds of deadly dangers.”
“We couldn’t find enough food, our clansmen starved to death one after another; we couldn’t build a shelter, storms and lightning are continuously killing our people. Too many of us died for nothing.”
The largest Gold Fire Crow headed down slowly, looking calmly and peacefully down at the elderly man, and said, “Human, your kind was favored by the nature; you have the most powerful bloodline, rivalling the dragons and phoenixes...Human, what can we do for you?”
“Power! And Hope!” shouted the white-haired elderly man, “We only need the power to survive!”
The Gold Fire Crow stayed silent, quietly looking at the people on top of the mountain.
Accompanied with a great roar, a smilodon [1] rushed out from the jungle, smashed tens of weak men to death with its huge paw, swallowed them afterwards, and burped in satisfaction. Finally, it turned and walked slowly back into the jungle.
A tank-thick, skewbald serpent wriggled out of the jungle, opened its jaw towards to the crowd and lightly took a breath. Tens of people were sucked into its mouth while crying and shouting; they were swallowed whole by the serpent.
A large group of vultures disregarded the tens of Gold Fire Crows, which were floating high in the air and didn’t release even a bit of their power, quacked and dived towards the group of people. Each one of the vultures grabbed one or two humans, and flew with great speed towards another mountain some distance away.
“Power, and hope,” the largest Gold Fire Crow signed, and said, “we can share our power with you, please share your hope with us.”
“With the heaven and earth as our witness, let us make this unbreakable pact. We, the Gold Fire Crows, will give the power within our blood to you. We will guard you in this jungle, help you to survive and to breed. In exchange, you will shield our souls, and keep us away from...from that frightful and eternal darkness.”
...
Tens of Gold Fire Crows raised their heads and cawed to the sky simultaneously. Their bodies started to radiate; countless golden blood drops seeped out from the roots of their feathers. Each drop of blood then transformed into a human-head-sized golden Fire Crow and rushed down.
People who were standing on top of the mountain opened their arms, welcoming those falling golden Fire Crows into their chests.
Those small, golden Fire Crows, which were transformed from blood drops, rapidly seeped into the chests of these people, turned into hot golden light streams, and flowed quickly around inside their bodies. Amongst thousands of interleaving meridian channels of human bodies, tens of dim channels lit gradually up.
Wisps of golden light streams ceaselessly seeped into those lit up meridian channels, and set those channels ablaze with its great heat. Flushed by the golden light stream, bean-size Magus Acupoints started to glow On those blazing channels.
At first glance, inside each person’s body, the tens of blazing meridian channels formed a totem, which looked similar to a three-legged Gold Fire Crow.
Soon, all the people on the mountaintop seemed to have been set ablaze. Their bodies were all wrapped by faint golden flames, which were growing more and more dazzling; on their skins, light spots emerged one after another. Flushed by the Gold Fire Crow blood, their Magus Acupoints were quickly awakening; nourished by the blood of the first generation of Gold Fire Crows, the Magus Acupoints of these people became extremely powerful in the span of tens of breaths.
Each of the tens of meridian channels contained tens to hundreds of different-sized Magus Acupoints.
All of these Magus Acupoints awoke at the same moment, spurted out roaring golden flames, which turned every person on the mountaintop into a golden, fiery man.
A winged, black tiger rushed out of the jungle, going towards those ‘frail’ humans as usual.
However, those people, who would not utter even a slight sound when being killed and swallowed by it, all roared now out. A man, whose body just doubled in size and reached a length of five meters, rushed towards the black tiger with big steps and threw a heavy punch to the tiger’s head.
In the next moment, the tiger exploded into a cloud of blood mist and fire sparks.
A stream of raging flame darted out from the man’s fist, which was swinging in the air, sprayed to tens of miles away like a river of lava, and crashed against another mountain at some distance. The tens of thousands feet tall mountain blew up suddenly and melted by the stream of flames, leaving a huge lake of lava, with a hundreds of miles radius, on the ground.
“Power!” Everyone on the mountaintop raised their arms high, let out thunderous shouts and cheered towards the Gold Fire Crows floating in the sky.
The largest Gold Fire Crow calmly looked down at the people, who were submerged in ecstasy, and said: “Humans, listen! You have abandoned the infinite possibilities of your own bodies, and chose to inherit the power of us, the Gold Fire Crows therefore, from now on, you shall call yourselves the offspring of us, the Gold Fire Crows. You’re going to build altars to consecrate us, send us your offerings on time; you shall praise the name of our Gold Fire Crows kind every day and night!” The voice of the Gold Fire Crow reverberated throughout the sky.
Afterwards, wisps of gold and purple mist rose from the jungle and the air, drawing towards the tens of Gold Fire Crows floating in the air.
The Gold Fire Crows opened their beaks happily, and breathed the golden and purple mist in. Their bodies started to grow bigger, and the lights cincturing them became brighter; the glow emitted from their pupils, became more and more profound, which made them look like gods, standing high above the masses; Who could never be violated by anyone or any kind.
...
“The Fire Crow Clan’s people are not really the offspring of the Gold Fire Crows. Our ancestors only gained drops of blood from the Gold Fire Crows, awakened their meridian channels, and imitated the meridian channels of the Gold Fire Crows. What they gained from the Gold Fire Crows was only a practicing method of the Gold Fire Crow’s kind,” murmured Ji Hao.
“Humankind is just humankind. The meridian channels contained in the human body are incalculable, while the Gold Fire Crow body only contained tens of them. The potential of humankind should be hundreds, thousands, even over ten thousands of times greater than that of the Gold Fire Crows.”
“We shouldn’t count on the outside forces; we can only count on our own bodies for the greatest achievements.”
Ji Hao smiled; he suddenly understood that the bloodline power of the Gold Fire Crow kind wasn’t enough to make him strong. The only path to the top was to practice harder and harder and to discover the infinite potential hidden in his human body.
Ji Hao opened his eyes. Fiery lights darted out from his pupils, he felt his blood was boiling, flushing inside his body like a tide. Tens of meridian channels were blazing inside his body. He felt a great pain within his eyes, and a burning heat in his feet; additionally, he felt that there was a sphere of flame choked in his chest, which he had to let out.
Along with a loud bang, the flame which was blazing within Ji Hao’s body suddenly bursted out. A three-legged Fire Crow slowly opened its wings within the flame.
With the help of the powerful, Senior Magus blood, Ji Hao skipped the eleventh and twelfth level of Novice Magus, completely activated his bloodline power within a short moment, gained three special talents of Gold Fire Crow bloodline, and became a Junior Magus.
------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Smilodon: A large Sabre-Toothed Cat of the Pleistocene Epoch