Note: Regular Chapter 5/7
------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 167 - Old Friend
Ji Hao woke up.
Opening his heavy eyes, he saw a stone ceiling, which was made by black stones that were well grounded and polished.
Slightly turning his head, Ji Hao discovered that he had been lying on a flagstone that was three-zhang long, two-zhang wide, and three-foot thick. It was hard and ice-cold, not even a piece of fur had been set under his body.
The walls were also polished as smooth as mirrors. This was a five-zhang square room. Besides the flagstone that Ji Hao had been lying on, only a square stone table, and four blocks of stone that served as seats, were placed in the room.
There was a small stone lamp on the stone table; this adult-head-sized stone lamp was filled with golden oil, and a solid lamp wick was soaked in the oil and was blazing. The golden-red flame of that stone lamp had lit the entire room up, and was the only source of light in the room,
Right next to Ji Hao’s head was a big clay bowl, with a little bit of a black, sticky liquid medicine remaining in it, and had been emitting a stench that would make people sick. Ji Hao licked his lips, and discovered that his mouth had also been filled with this horrible smell, and nearly threw up.
“Hearts of scorpions, poison sacs of poisonous snakes, tails of centipedes, bladders of bats...what the...this prescription...” Ji Hao dipped his finger into the black liquid medicine then tasted it with his tongue, after which he continued murmuring with a bitter face, “And the heart of a thousand years old Blood Hook Scorpion, which is perfect for curing traumas but it tastes...”
An elderly man had been sitting beside the stone table. He was strong and sturdy, like an old pine tree, and was wearing a neat long gown made of flax. He had silvery white long hair hanging loosely on his shoulders that nearly touched the ground.
When Ji Hao had woken up, the elderly man had been sitting on a block of stone and was staring at Ji Hao from head to toe.
Hearing that Ji Hao had recognized the four main ingredients of this medicine within such a short time, the elderly man smiled with delight, slightly patted his own knee, and said, “Si Wen Ming has brought a good kid back this time, haha, have you also studied about magical medicines?”
When he spoke the two words ‘magical medicines’, the smooth and tender, baby-like face of this elderly man couldn’t help but suddenly shine with a passionate light, and seemed so enraptured that his long beard was even about to rise into the air. He looked at Ji Hao in the eyes from the side, and in Ji Hao’s eyes, this elderly man obviously was shouting that ‘I am a big master in the sphere of magical medicines! Kid, admire me!’ with his facial expression.
Ji Hao sat up from the bed, and lifted up his cloth, taking a look at his own body.
The over ten punctured wounds on his body had all perfectly healed now, not even a slight scar was left on his skin, moreover, Ji Hao felt that his newly grown muscles and skin were not weak at all, on the contrary, they were all perfectly full of strength.
He also felt that inside his body, a small strand of power that was contained in the medicine hadn’t been fully absorbed by his body yet, and was now gushing around inside his body, supplying him with an abundance of energy.
“Magical medicines, I have learned a bit about it,” said Ji Hao while smiling at the elderly man, “I was able to walk, talk and run three months after I was born, the Master Maguspriest of my clan believed that I am a genius, and was sent to the clan by our ancestors, therefore, I grew up under the guidance of the Master Maguspriest, and have learned from him for entirely ten years.”
The elderly man raised his eyebrows and said while smiling, “Eh? With only ten years of learning, you are able to recognize the main ingredients of this ‘Four Full Soup’ of mine, the inherited power of your clan must be pretty great. I assume that your clan can be counted as a big-scale clan in the Southern Wasteland, am I right?”
Ji Hao nodded, grinned and said, “The Gold Crow Clan, quite well-known in the Southern Wasteland.”
The elderly man nodded in confusion and murmured while counting with his fingers, “Hm? Gold Crow Clan? I have only heard about the Fire Crow Clan of the Southern Wasteland...have you regained your real name?!”
Another beam of passionate and exciting light flashed across the elderly man’s face, he looked at Ji Hao with an even kinder expression than before, and said, “A thousand and seven hundred years ago, I had visited the Southern Wasteland once, and was bitten by a Solder-Iron-Head Snake with green stripes, nearly dying there. Ji Song, the Master Maguspriest of your Fire Crow...oh, Gold Crow Clan at that time had saved my life.”
Ji Hao was silently shocked. Senior Magi who had lived the longest were about a thousand years old, but this elderly man had been to the Southern Wasteland a thousand and seven hundred years ago, he must be at a higher level than the Senior-level, probably a Magus King, or even a more powerful being.
Ji Hao leapt down from the flagstone, politely saluted the elderly man and said, “I didn’t know that you’re a friend of our old grandpa, I am Ji Hao.”
The elderly man then responded while nodding, “No wonder Si Wen Ming asked me to look after you, you are one of Ji Song’s offsprings. Where is Ji Song now? How has he been all these years? I am just planning on waiting for another hundreds of years, when I have some free time, I will go to the Southern Wasteland for him, and have a good chat about the good old days with him.”
The light in Ji Hao’s eyes dimmed down.
After seeing Ji Hao’s face, the elderly man briefly paused, then two streams of tears gushed out of his eyes.
“Ah...my old friend is gone...Hm...he was a bit older than me. Has he failed to break into another level? The last time I saw him, he was talking about making a new kind of magical medicine with the spirit blood of the Fire Crows, and see if it would be helpful for breaking into another level from the Magus-King-level.”
Ji Hao stayed silent. He felt that facing the friendship between two elderly men that had lasted for over a thousand years, any word would be too powerless.
Sighing sadly, the elderly man stood up and waived his hand towards Ji Hao, then said, “I am Wulong Yao, you can just call me Grandpa Wulong. Si Wen Ming dropped you here and I don’t know where he has gone after that. Since you have already come, you can just settle down and learn some good stuff.”
Ji Hao walked out of the stone room with Wulong Yao, in the meanwhile, he was silently thinking about this elderly man’s name.
Wulong Yao, Wulong as the last name, Yao as the first name. Wulong, Ji Hao somehow felt familiar with this last name, it seemed that people who had Wulong as their last names certainly came from an extremely mysterious and ancient clan, and had legendary powerful bloodline power and unique backgrounds.
Wulong Yao pushed the thick and heavy stone door open, and outside the room, was a clean and tidy paved path without any decoration, and was paved with flagstones that were grinded until they were as smooth as mirrors.
The ten-zhang wide paved path was very broad, many boys and girls who were wearing flax gowns were walking across the path. Ji Hao looked at both sides of the path, a stone door was built every other ten-zhangs on the wall, on both sides of the path. Some of these doors were open, behind which were simple stone rooms that were similar to the one Ji Hao had slept in.
Wulong Yao guided Ji Hao and walked outwards on the paved path. While walking, he pointed at a brown board that was inlayed in one of those stone doors, and said to Ji Hao, “Remember, the stone room you have slept in is number 189871, Apprentice Department, Southern, Fire.”
“Apprentice department means that you are still an apprentice in our Magi Palace.”
“Southern means that you came from the Southern Wasteland.”
“Fire means that you were born in a clan that possessed fire-related bloodline power, and your own power is also fire-related.”
“As for the number, I think I don’t need to explain more. From now on, that room is yours.”
Ji Hao nodded and silently remembered that room number, at the same time, he was greatly shocked by all those information that was contained in the number of a room.
Walking along the paved path for over nearly a hundred miles, with their walking speed, they had only taken less than ten minutes. Wulong Yao abruptly turned around and walked into another larger and more magnificent paved path.
This paved path was three li wide, and the walls build on both side were over twenty li tall. Not only large groups of people were walking on the path, in midair, a few people who were wrapped by faint and looming lights, were also flying with great speed.
[li: A length unit that was commonly used in ancient China, and today’s Chinese countryside, 1 Li = 500 meters]
Wulong Yao pointed at this paved patch and while smiling, said, “This is the Gui Path, which is ranked dead last amongst the ten main paths of our Magi Palace. The subsidiary side paths of the ten main paths are where apprentices like you live in, and people who live beside the ten main paths are all...”
Before he had finished his sentence, a thunderous boom suddenly came from over ten-li away. A brown gate located over there, was shattered into pieces by the explosive power, from where, an elderly man, whose entire body was burned black, staggered out then his head heavily thudded against the ground.