TL Note: My dear readers, I have a feeling that the real story is about to begin!
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Chapter 80: The Temporary manor
The fiery flood dragon had been flying fast ahead of Ji Hao, with its feet on the fiery cloud.
Behind the fiery flood dragon, Ji Hao was standing on the back of a gigantic roc, and controlling the huge bird, while following the fiery flood dragon at about a thousand feet distance.
Behind Ji Hao were hundreds of large-scale birds, which were flying in a line; each of these large birds were carrying a couple of young boys and girls, who were at about the same age as Ji Hao. These boys and girls were the three-thousand young slaves that had been carefully selected from the Fire Crow Clansmen.
The red cloud was rolling low in the sky, the fierce hurricane had been lashing hard on these boys and girls along with the heavy rain. Those young kids who barely had any power couldn’t even keep their eyes open in the wind, and some weak girls were crying in fear; however, the hurricane rolled all of their wailing away after they cried out, making it impossible for leaving any trace of their voices.
Not everyone could be as powerful as Ji Hao, who was capable of riding on Mr. Crow’s back and had been hanging around in the jungle. Amongst these three-thousand young slaves, no more than a few tens of them had some experience with riding on flying beasts. The rest of them hadn’t even tried to go hunting alone in the jungle. They were just a group of kids, who had barely grown up and left their parents’ protections.
They were put onto the backs of these gigantic birds without any preparation, and were flying fleetingly in the air tens of thousands of feet high from the ground. Added with the ruthlessly blowing of the fierce hurricane and being lashed on by the heavy rain, they already had difficulty with holding themselves onto the backs of the gigantic birds, without being blown away.
The fiery flood dragon had flown for quite a long while, before it finally slowed down under the command of the middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man turned his head back with a disapproving look on his face, and shouted harshly towards Ji Hao, “Such a group of dirty, stinking barbaric, useless things. Those couple of little girls, stop crying! Is there anything worth to cry for? If you don’t stop, you’ll all be whipped to death!”
Then the man pointed his finger at Ji Hao, and harshly yelled, “Kid, you better keep these low-life slaves of yours under control, if they ever make any mistake, no one would be able to save you from a terrible beating. If you’re lucky, all of your bones would be broken, and if not, you’ll just die for good. How much could your stupid barbarian’s live be worth?”
Ji Hao was totally pissed off by the middle-aged man’s words, wisps of fiery light were even spurting out from his pupils. However, the repeated warnings given by Ji Zhuo, Ji Xia, Qing Fu, and even Ji Fang, before he left the Cold Stream Valley, started to flow in his head; therefore, Ji Hao could only hold his temper back, silently bended his waist, politely saluted towards the middle-aged man and said, “Dear Mister, you’re absolutely right, I will keep my eyes on them.”
At that moment, the roc ridden by Ji Hao had finally caught up with the fiery flood dragon. Ji Hao took a human-head-sized leather bag from around his own waist and threw it into the middle-aged man’s hands.
The man threw a surprised glance at Ji Hao, ripped the leather bag opened and looked inside, all of sudden his cold and mean face had burst into a bright smile, even his tone had become a lot softer than before. The man then said to Ji Hao gently, “Hadn’t thought that...a little kid like you would be the most reasonable person of your clan. You’re much better than those clansmen of yours. Haha, my name is Ying Yan, you can just call me uncle Yan. Don’t you worry, I’ll look after you from now on.”
Ying Yan proudly weighed that leather bag in his hand, then satisfied he tied it around his own waist.
During the rest of the journey, the fiery flood dragon’s flying speed had decreased; those boys and girls on the gigantic birds’ backs could finally suffer less. Although they still couldn’t open their eyes while facing the heavy rain, at least they didn’t have to worry about being blown away by the fierce hurricane anymore.
Ji Hao let a bitter smile out. Inside the leather bag were fifty pieces of highest quality Fire Essence Crystals that were carefully picked out by him from the Cold Stream Valley during all these days. These highest quality Fire Essence Crystals were small in size - each being as big as only an adult thumb - however, the fiery power contained in each of these crystals could compare to a tank-sized, ordinary Fire Essence Crystal.
Ying Yan had seemed very unhappy about everything and everyone ever since he had arrived the Cold Stream Valley. He had been especially picky and mean while talking to the Fire Crow Clan’s people.
Ji Hao had been flying behind him so far and hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him. He had finally slowed the fiery flood dragon down and turned back to Ji Hao, Ji Hao had taken this opportunity and handed the fifty top quality Fire Essence Crystals to him; as expected, Ying Yan turned into a gentle and polite ‘elder’ from a mean, noble master, within only a moment.
“Bribery, amongst the entire Fire Crow Clan, who could understand things like this? Even Ji Kui, the Master Maguspriest, wouldn’t think about something as this,” murmured Ji Hao in his head. After Ying Yan turned his head back, Ji Hao curved his mouth downwards and silently complained about Ji Xia and Ji Zhuo.
They were flying towards the Northwest for a whole day and night, without resting for even a minute. They had already flown twenty-thousand-mile away from the Cold Stream Valley. By now, those boys and girls who were lying on those huge birds’ backs, were all foaming at the mouths; more seriously, their entire bodies had gone stiff. After they had flown past three lofty mountains that lied in a triangle formation, a large, sky-blue lake suddenly appeared before their sights.
Ji Hao was sitting on the roc’s back and activated the |Gold Crow Pupils|, clearly saw that, upon the water surface of the thousands of miles wide lake, countless human-head-sized, nearly translucent, breathtakingly beautiful flowers were silently blooming under the heavy rain.
These flowers had a similar shape as a lotus, only there were more petals on these flowers than there were on a lotus, causing them to overlap each other. Each flower had at least over a hundred petals.
Under the heavy rain, the petals of this kind of flower seemed especially elastic. Countless raindrops dripped on those petals and were rebounded, darting towards all directions, like beady and transparent pearls. Above the lake, countless crystal-like water drops had been swishing in the air, which could be seen clearly. This scene was extremely rare and beautiful.
Beside the lake stood a cliff that was so high that it even reached into the sky. Someone had opened up a flat area with immeasurable power, and built a great, magnificent palace on the flat area.
Ji Hao noticed that sharp stairs were built on the grassland by the lake, directly leading to a wide square in front of the palace gate. Tens of feet wide stairs were built straightly upwards, firmly standing under the great rain; there were nine hundred-ninety-nine stairs in total between the square in front of the palace and the grassland by the lake.
Located on the edge of the square and the end of the stairs, was a heavy, thick and ancient style arch that was decorated with a line of statues of all kinds of ferocious beasts. The arch was emitting a very strong sense of primitive and vigorous power. Under the thousand feet tall arch, nearly a hundred tall and muscular warriors with bronze armours and long bronze spears were guarding in a line; near the feet of each of these warriors, a strong battle beast had been lying on the ground.
Bright light could be seen flashing brightly in the eyes of these warriors, all of them were giving a cold and powerful vibe. Under their feet, fiery clouds were blazing and rolling - all of them had been standing on fiery clouds instead of the ground.
Ji Hao carefully looked through these warriors with his spiritual power. What he saw made his mouth fall wide open and exclaim in his head. These warriors, who were guarding the arch were all elite warriors similar to the five strongest warriors amongst his personal slaves; they had already broken half through into the Senior Level.
Flying across the arch and the wide square, Ji Hao saw that outside of the front gate of the palace, which opened up in the cliff, eight sturdy warriors, who were also wearing bronze armours, were on guard there. All of them were peak-level Senior Magi; the power that could be felt coming out from their bodies, was even more dense and fierce than that of Ji Xia.
Eight fiery flood dragons were lying beside the feet of these eight warriors. Ji Hao sensed the same strong power coming from the bodies of these fiery flood dragons as from those Senior Magi. The feeling of such power made him subconsciously tighten his body; even breathing under such power had become difficult.
“Hurry, hurry! Do not stand there! Come on down!” The fiery dragon ridden by Ying Yan slowly descended from the air. Ying Yan then leapt down from the fiery flood dragon’s back, slapped his hands hard and started pressing Ji Hao and those young slaves, “Stop standing and doing nothing there! You bunch of uneducated kids, come on down! Hurry!”
Ying Yan then said to Ji Hao anxiously, “common, we need workers here! This temporary manor hasn't been used for over hundreds of years. Our young master got bored at home recently, and thought of this flower-viewing temporary manor. You should clean this place up as quickly as possible, our young master will be coming to stay for a while.”
Ji Hao shook his head hopelessly, and started to command those young slaves who had carefully been selected from the Fire Crow Clan’s slaves, to do what Ying Yan had said.