Note: Regular Chapter 3/7
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Chapter 158 - Rich Soil
Only to move against the hurricane that was transformed from natural energies and powers, and surrounded the Midland, and get into the real Midland world, had cost the gigantic turtle a whole month.
During this month, Ji Hao sat on the turtle’s neck and watched more and more gigantic creatures continuously showing up from all directions. Dragons, phoenixes, turtles, skylines, and other magical rare creature, which Ji Hao couldn’t even name.
He had also seen amazingly great scale armies, which were formed by metal ships moving forwards against the hurricane with great difficulty. From time to time, Jia Clan and Yu Clan warriors also showed up on those metal ships.
From a great distance, Ji Hao could clearly sense the proudness coming from these three-eyed and four-eyed monsters, as if they were standing high above the masses.
Different from the army that they had encountered in the boundless void, this time, those metal ships had only flown past the caravan at some distance away, without coming over and mentioning something like tax collection. Ji Hao was very much expecting these people to come over and create trouble, but got disappointed eventually.
After the turtle had completely broken through the hurricane and set its feet in the Midland world, Ji Hao felt that he definitely could use an extra pair of eyes.
In this Midland world, a lot of natural physical rules that he used to be familiar with in his previous life, didn’t work here at all. Too many magical and odd scenes had totally overturned Ji Hao’s common sense.
For example, once they had gotten into the Midland world, the gigantic turtle had walked past a sea, which was an isolated, floating see, without any seabed to hold it in. The sky-blue seawater was crystal-like. Within the sea, one could see all kinds of marine biodiverse creatures, and on the surface of the sea, islands and rocks were floating.
Countless huge fishes were swimming around and playing with each other in the water. Abruptly, a group of whales would swoosh over, after which, large schools of other fishes would diffusely flee away in fear. Some of the bigger fishes, which were very frightened, would jump above the surface of the sea. The hurricane that was blowing across the void, would then swoop them over, making them fly over the entire sea, and fall in the oceans that were on the surface of the earth.
Ji Hao had also seen that above a beautiful piece of land, thousands of green, thriving mountains were floating in a line, just like a pearl necklace formed by land.
Between those floating mountains, waterfalls crossed in the air like white, flying watery dragons; those strong, roaring watery dragons seemed to have jumped onto the next mountain from the first mountain, in a magical and unspeakable way; they would merge with more waterfall streams on the second mountain, then rush towards the next mountain.
Every time the wind blew across the watery dragon-like waterfalls, large amounts of watery mist would rise in the air and fall down on the lands while showering under the sunrays, leaving the sky above the group of islands full with rainbows.
A silvery and long bird call lingered around the ears of Ji Hao and the people of the caravan. Large flocks of beautiful white cranes, holding all kinds of ganoderma[1] within their beaks, flew across the void. These cranes had large shapes, each had a wingspan of over a hundred zhang; they slowly and leisurely flew across the void, from one piece of land to another piece of land. Beside them, tidewater alike clouds drifted by from time to time.
These cranes looked very proud and elegant when they were flying; none of them showed any panic when flying past the gigantic turtle.
Gui Three threw tens of vats of delicious booze towards the air while laughing happily, followed by which, a few old big cranes that had blood-red feathers on their heads, instantly dived down, excitedly pierced their long and sharp beaks straightly into the booze vat, and began swallowing the delicious booze. Of course, the ganoderma held in their beaks would fall down, and fought over by those happily laughing caravan guards.
Ji Hao coveted those ganoderma so much, each one of them was about a zhang wide, wrapped by the sense of magic power, and seemed strangely fresh and juicy. No one could tell how many years those ganoderma had lived and how much natural energies they had absorbed, but what was certain, was that those ganoderma were very beneficial for human bodies.
Ji Hao instantly took out a vat of booze and threw it towards an old crane. His ‘trade’ went quite well, a cyan ganoderma fell down from the old crane’s beaks, and Ji Hao grabbed it as quick as he could. The jade-ruyi-shaped ganoderma suddenly cracked after it had fallen into Ji Hao’s arms, and wisps of cyan fog that contained the power and energy of the ganoderma, rose from the crack and drilled into Ji Hao’s mouth, nose and ears. Instantly, Ji Hao felt his soul was warming up and becoming comfortable, and his soul power had quickly improved by at least fifty percent.
[TL note: Ruyi is a curved decorative object that serves as a ceremonial sceptre in Chinese Buddhism or a talisman symbolising power and good fortune in Chinese folklore. Word Ru Yi means ‘as wish’ literally in Chinese.]
“Meat!!” While Ji Hao, Gui Three and the other caravan people were doing this special trade for ganodermas with those beautiful large birds, Man Man leaped hundreds of zhang high from the ground into the air, then fell on the head of one crane, raised her hammer high, and seemed to be intending to smash the poor bird’s head immediately.
The story of burning the cello and boiling the crane, which was the story about the offence against good cultures must have been talking about this. Ji Hao sighed and went speechless, hurriedly yelled at Man Man, “Man Man! These birds are nice, they have sent us many good stuff! Just let them go! If you want to eat some meat, the caravan have quite a lot of delicious meat in storage!”
Man Man paused, then let out a big sigh, rubbed the huge head of the poor frightened crane and said, “But you’re so pretty, I’m just wondering if you taste good.”
Shaking her head, Man Man finally released the poor crane, which she had thought to be her prey, and jumped down from the crane’s back. After Man Man had leapt down that poor crane let out a shrill call, and followed by its voice, the other cranes instantly raised their speed and fled away from the caravan city as quick as they could.
Looking at the group of large cranes flying away towards a piece of land which was covered in clouds and mist afar, Ji Hao activated his |Gold Crow Pupils| and was able to see that, that piece of land was entirely covered by all kinds of glowing, sparkling precious herbal medicines, which had lived for many, many years.
Along with a swishing sound, a beam of gold light flashed across the sky above the gigantic turtle, after the flock of cranes had left.
Ji Hao was barely able to see that it had been a gigantic roc with golden wings, even with his great eyesight. That magnificent roc had wingspans of over hundred miles, and was flying through the void with a slight trace of proudness and ego; it hadn’t even taken a single glance at the gigantic turtle and flew straight away at lightning speed.
Ji Hao silently measured the flying speed of that golden roc, and shockingly discovered that this roc was flying at least a hundred times faster than the gigantic turtle. With such an amazing speed, no wonder people said that the golden roc kind was the ancient, magical and legendary creature, which possessed the quickest flying speed in the entire world.
This was the Midland, the core of the whole world, which had boundless rich soils and was the most magical place in the world.
Ji Hao held his breath, while greedily looking at all those surrounding in explainable, yet very real magical sceneries.
The gigantic turtle kept moving forward step by step, walking past quite a few pieces of land, then finally stopped on the piece of land that was called Sweet Wine.
The gigantic turtle landed steadily on the ground, then let out a long roar of relief towards the sky. The Sweet Wine was where the center of the Spirit Turtle Caravan was located at. Once they arrived at this piece of land, the caravan was truly at home. Hearing the turtle’s roar, countless people happily rushed out of surrounded cabins.
Ji Hao, Si Wen Ming, and Man Man didn’t join the celebrating party that was thrown by Gui Three and the other caravan members. Led by Si Wen Ming, the three of them rode on Mr Crow’s back and left the Sweat Wine, continuing forwards to the central great land.
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[1] Ganoderma: A mushroom with a shiny cap which typically grows on dead or dying timber, found in Asia and North America. Preparations made from it are credited with various stimulant and health-giving properties. It is commonly known as Reishi.