The Magus Era - Chapter 32

The Coldbrook valley

“What do you mean ‘talk to you like that’? Look what you’ve done!”

“It has been nearly two months since you’ve been given this job! The Springs Mountain, where you and these slaves came from are only hundreds of miles away from here. And these slaves didn’t even build up their own shelters by now!”

“You had plenty of time and all these people! But you didn’t even start to build the mine hole! What have you been doing all these days?”

“I’m not finished yet. Could you please tell me where are the foods for these slaves? Where are the meats for our fighting beasts and beasts of burden? Where are all the equipment we’re gonna need for exploration and mining work? You just wasted the whole two months here!”

Under the starlight, Ji Xia was waving his arms and yelling at two men, who seemed lazy and haughty.

The two men were wearing metal armours that were very rare in the South Wasteland. Ji Hao heard Ji Xia’s voice; he then stopped walking; quietly watching them from the shade of the cave. He sensed strong powers from the heavy swords wore around their waists. Faced Ji Xia’s fulmination, the two men showed arrogant faces and seemed didn’t take Ji Xia’s words serious at all.

“Ji Xia, you’re allowed to say whatever you want. We have sent the five-thousand slaves to you as we’ve been told. From now on, you’re responsible for the mining work in the Coldbrook Valley, as well as all the other affairs around here, which had nothing to do with us.”

The two men laughed out loud and whistled sharply. Two ‘iron claw bald eagles‘ with the wingspans of tens of feet soon landed in front of them. The two man hopped on the eagles backs; the eagles then rapidly rose high into the air, hovered around and flew toward the Gold Black Mountain.

Ji Xia raised his right arm angrily, then he paused; his arm froze in the air.

Before, if Ji Xia found any man muddled through his work, he would never hesitate to slap him hard in the face. However, as the two men said, at this point in time, he was no longer the leader of the Holy Land warriors, which means he had no right to do so.

Mr.Crow abruptly landed on Ji Hao’s shoulder.

Ji Hao then walked up to Ji Xia, looked at the two eagles which were gradually becomming smaller in the sky and said: “Abba, are they Ji Shu’s people? Do you want me to shoot them down?” 

Mr.Crow cawed aloud, spurted wisps of fire from his beak.

Qing Ying quietly showed up beside Ji Hao. He pulled out an arrow and started yelling excitedly while he was waving that arrow.

“Yes! Hao’s right! Let’s shoot those bastards down! I only need a single shot for that from this distance!”

Ji Xia laid his arm down, tapped Ji Hao’s head and said smilingly: “Don’t. That was their faults for not doing their jobs well. But, we can never violate the rule of our clan. We can never take the initiative to hurt our own people.”

Ji Hao gazed at Ji Xia’s pallid face. His mind flashed back to what he saw during the coma. He clearly remembered that Ji Xia blocked the attack with his own chest; the boiling hot blood of Ji Xia splashed on his body and face. Ji Hao could never forget this.

“Sure, I won’t do anything to them. Unless they do something to me first.” Ji Hao smiled to Ji Xia then turned around and started to observe this valley carefully.

The starlight was bright and clear. Where Ji Hao standing in was the centre of the valley. This valley was tens of miles long and miles wide; one a-thousand-feet-wide brook was rapidly flowing through the middle of the valley. By the brookside, there were piles of of gold and jade pieces.

The water of the brook was ice-cold. Though Ji Hao was a mile away from the brook, he could still sense the chill from it. Ji Hao could hear the swish and gurgle of water washing out those gold and jade pieces by the brookside; those gold and jade pieces were shining with a luring light.

“Such an amazing lode!” Said Ji Hao.

“Indeed, it’s an surprisingly large and rich lode. After we got here, your Amma did some exploration; she found out that the mineral resources here were buried relatively shallow, which will be easy to dig. We can easily get a hundred thousand pieces of gold and tens of thousand pieces of jade from this valley.” Ji Xia then frowned and continued: “But those bastards from the Springs Mountain only sent us five thousands of slaves with nothing else.”

All kinds of knocking noises were resounding through the valley. Thousands of slaves were singing their working songs and busy at building their shelters. On the other sided of the valley, tens of stilts cabins were already built up.

On the cliff, tens of Fire Crow Clan warriors were working hard on building the watch post. A few long vines were dropped down from the cliff and pulled thick logs up to the cliff from time to time.

Near the entrances of both sided of the valley, a group of warriors were supervising hundreds of slaves building the fence wall. The slaves laid the foundation of the fence wall with thick logs; then filling two lines of logs with rocks and clay. This kind of fence wall would be firm enough to block the attacks from beasts.

The Coldbrook Valley was in the extreme North of the Fire Crow Clan’s territory. The valley was surrounded by primitive jungle. A lot of dire beasts were living in the surrounding jungle of the Coldbrook Valley, added with other unpredictable dangers; if not build up this fence wall as quick as possible, these slaves’ lives would be highly dangerous.

Qing Fu came with a few warriors.

She smiled when she saw Ji Hao and intimately rubbed his head. Qing Fu then handed a fist-sized piece of read jade to Ji Xia and said: “Xia, this lode not only produce gold and jade. I asked these warriors dug dirty-feet deep and we found this.”

Ji Hao looked at that red jade piece curiously. That read jade was translucence and with great heat; there seemed was some kind of liquid flowing inside it. Under the starlight, this red jade piece was shining with a bright fiery light.

“Hmm? ‘Fire Jade Pith’? This is the treasure which can largely and rapidly improve the power of Senior Magi with the natural abilities of fire control, also is a kind of excellent material for making magus tools.” Ji Xia popped up his eyes and said delightfully. “If send this to the Clan as tribute, one piece of ‘Fire Jade Pith’ can be worth more than thousands of pieces of gold and jade!”

“We have to let those elder Magusreists know that we have found the ‘Fire Jade Pith’ here as quick as possible. Tell them that they should send more warriors to guard this valley. And, Xia, you need to start hunting with Ying after the sunrise. They Springs Mountain people haven’t brought any food for these slaves.” Said Ji Fu in a low voice: 

Ji Hao took the ‘Fire Jade Pith’ from Ji Xia’s hand then sent his spiritual power into the jade piece. He suddenly sensed a great power which was gushing into his body from his palms. He felt like that he was drawn into a lake of lava and almost screamed out.

Ji Hao was half shocked and half surprised. This piece of red jade was not ‘Fire Jade Pith’, instead, it was a piece of ‘Fire Essence Crystal’. In Ji Hao’s previous life, he had seen that hundreds of powerful warriors fought for a small piece of ‘Fire Essence Crystal’, which was less than one percent of the piece in size he was holding right now.

This was truly precious. The Coldbrook valley was a great treasure indeed.

No matter who guarded this valley well and sent the gold and jade to the clan as he had been required, he would earn the reward and thankfulness from the clan. Would Ji Shu be so kind to let Ji Xia have this credit?