Note: Regular Chapter 1/7
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Chapter 170 - Choose
The resplendent sunlight was shining on Ji Hao’s face. He had been squatting in a nursery garden of herbal medicinal plants, with a jade bucket held in his hand. The deep-blue coloured soil was thickly dotted with finger-thick and snake-shaped herbal medicines. Ji Hao carefully poured the, in the jade bucket contained, poisonous liquid, which was a mix of eighteen different kinds of poisonous snakes’ venom and the blood of thirty-six kind of wild beasts, into the nursery garden.
The sticky poisonous liquid flowed down and seeped into the soil through thin channels. Everywhere the liquid reached, the three-feet long, snake-shaped and multicoloured herbal medicines began shaking internally, just like starving poisonous snakes that were madly shaking their bodies and scramble for food.
Not long after, all the herbal medicines in the nursery garden had begun shaking, at the same time, hissing sounds were coming under the ground, from the roots of these plants. Visibly, a few herbal medicinal plants had grown three inches taller, and a bud of a flower slowly rose from the top of it, while a pungent fishy smell spread out from the flower bud. From the grassland around the nursery garden countless multicoloured poisonous snakes leisurely wriggled towards the few plants following this fishy smell. They happily coiled their bodies and laid under the plants, which had flower buds, and spew mouthfuls of poisonous mist out.
Ji Hao wiped the cold sweat on his own forehead, ten let out a slight sigh of relief.
Only fearless people like Ji Hao, who had been dealing with all kinds of poisonous snakes and insects in the Southern Wasteland since being little kid, were able to take the responsibility of raising these Snake Spirit Plants.
A few days earlier, Ji Hao had seen a few pretty and spoiled female apprentices, who had come from large-scale clans of the Midland, despairingly and staggeringly rushed out of the nursery garden while crying and screaming. The prettiest two girls even accidentally bumped against a stump and passed out when they had been madly waving their arms and trying to get rid of those poisonous snakes coiled around their arms.
After that, Ji Hao hadn’t seen those girls around here within the recent few days.
Ji Hao spent a whole morning on taking care of the Snake Spirit Plants and gained sincere praise from a Magi tutor of the Magi Palace. Apprentices who were raising the Snake Spirit Plant like Ji Hao did, were a total of thirty-hundred, but within only a few days, the Snake Spirit Plant raised by Ji Hao had grown two inches taller and a time thicker compared to the Snake Spirit Plant raised by other apprentices, and had grown flower buds a couple of days earlier than was usual.
The Magi tutor who was specifically responsible for raising all kinds of rare and powerful herbal medicinal plants, had already made Ji Hao an offer; this tutor told him clearly that he was quite talented with regards of raising herbal medicinal plants, and if Ji Hao was willing to become his student, he would teach him everything he knew.
Ji Hao had thanked this tutor with a smile for his offer but hadn’t make the final decision. He had joined the Magi Palace for only over four to five days ago, and hadn’t yet figured out what he would like to do and how he would do it.
In the afternoon and inside a miles broad, huge cave, which was filled with raging earth flames and hot airwaves, Ji Hao bared his upper body like another thousand of apprentices, while holding large iron hammers, hammered a piece of glowing red and soft iron on the anvil; fire sparks darted out from the iron pieces from time to time.
The loud hammering sound was as loud as thunder, and the powerful sound waves hit directly against the walls of the cave, then reflected back. The entire cave seemed to be burning, exploding, crazily twisting and rotating, just like the piece of soft iron on the anvil, the shape of which was changing quickly.
Ji Hao subconsciously activated the [Mantra Dan with Nine Secret Words]. He had an incomparably great skill of precise body manipulation, therefore, every time when he hammered the iron piece, his hammer would hit on the most appropriate spot of the iron piece. Within only a quarter of an hour, a two-foot long and four-inch wide short dagger was shaped.
Beside the glowing red anvil, a large vat of light-blue coloured spring water had been emitting a bone-deep sense of cold power. Ji Hao threw the formed dagger into the water, right after which, a loud sizzling sound came from the vat and the water contained in the vat began bubbling, but soon quieted down.
Ji Hao grabbed the dagger out from the water, and held the shining and sharp dagger in his hand. He picked a piece of iron ore up from the ground and slightly chopped his newly forged dagger on the iron ore piece. Along with a slight cracking sound, the iron ore piece was split into two, and the edge that had been cut, was as smooth as a mirror.
Ji Hao gathered his internal power inside his body then injected the power into the dagger, instantly, three of the simplest spell symbols on the dagger edge lit up, one after another. These three spell symbols had improved the sharpness and malleability of this dagger by at least ten times, allowing the dagger to easily cut all kinds of natural metals in the world.
A Magi tutor who was mainly responsible for forging all kinds of weapons and armours, walked over in big steps, grabbed the dagger from Ji Hao’s hand and cut his own finger hard with it.
Along with a grating sound, the dagger edge clashed against the tutor’s finger and sent out fire sparks; not long after, a slight amount of metal powder was rubbed off from the dagger’s edge. The tutor laughed out loud delightfully and said, “It’s a top quality ordinary weapon. Ji Hao, you’re very talented as a blacksmith. What do you think? Are you willing to learn from me for a few years? After a thousand years, you can probably forge Divine-Magus-level magic treasures!”
Ji Hao remained silent, and only smiled at the tutor. Being a blacksmith for whole lifetime? He wasn’t that interested in this.
A loud boom abruptly came from aside. A few other apprentices seeing that Ji Hao had succeeded, couldn’t wait to through their own roughly shaped daggers, which were still glowing red, into the water vats.
Their rough-shaped daggers were not yet refined, and the spell symbols on the dagger edges still lacked some effort, therefore, all their daggers suddenly exploded, after been thrown into the water vat. Countless metal fragments darted out towards all directions, and punctured the powerful bodies of those few apprentices into griddles, making them howl in pain. They fell on the ground while blood spurted out from their wounds.
“Idiots! Idiots!!” The tutor who was in charge of this blacksmith cave, leapt into the air and growled out in anger, “Who sent you idiots here to waste my materials?! Kick them out! None of them are allowed to step near this working space again for the rest of their lives!”
Ji Hao slowly sneaked out of the cave under the cover of this chaos, and went to where apprentices learned to draw spell symbol.
From herbal medicines, medicine making, forging magic weapons, drawing spell symbols, to raising ghost spirits and magical creatures, making puppets, studying machines, to even studying magic formations and magic theories...two months had passed quickly, and Ji hao had gained positive appraisal from tutors of all kinds of subjects in the Magi Palace.
Ji Hao had been intentionally cultivating his soul power since he had been a little kid. This allowed Ji Hao soul to be powerful, the intelligence and ability of perception to be better than other peer-apprentices by over ten times, as well as the great spiritual power, which was hundreds of times greater than other apprentices. Therefore, when the other apprentices were still confused and mechanically copying the moves of the tutors, Ji Hao was able to figure out the intrinsic quality of a certain thing, and study comprehensively about it, then pop out more new ideas.
In Ji Hao’s previous life, he had studied all kinds of classics of countless different sects, such as the Taoism and Buddhism, and had created the [Mantra Dan with Nine Secret Words] based on all of those classics.
Now, Ji Hao had already condensed his soul power and spiritual power into the Golden Dan, and his soul power was now over ten times greater than his soul power had been in his previous life. Judging from only the scope of knowledge, Ji Hao was indeed a weirdly talented genius, and other apprentices could never compare with him.
Some birds could remain silent for whole three years, but once they let out their songs, people would be astonished.
Ji Hao was one of those kind of birds that had beautiful feathers and a resonant voice. In the Magi Palace, every Magi tutor who knew about Ji Hao’s background valued him as much as they could, but now they thought of Ji Hao being such an excellent apprentice that even brought slight thrill to those tutors, making them perplexed how to arrange Ji Hao’s study.
Two months later, Si Wen Ming, who seemed to have endured the hardships of a long journey, stood on one of the stone blocks in Ji Hao’s room, staring at him a bit annoyed.
“I have heard about you…it’s…eh…I don’t know what to say.”
“Alright, on behalf of the group of old men in the Magi Palace, I am now asking you, what on earth is the most interesting subject to you? Once you name it, the tutors in the Magi Palace, who majored in this subject, would spare no effort to cultivate you, and you will be allowed to use all kinds of related materials. As long as the Magi Palace has the materials you need, it will give you everything you want.”
Ji Hao smilingly saluted Si Wen Ming.
“I want to become the most powerful one,” said Ji Hao.
Si Wen Ming stared at Ji Hao in shock and said, “Wait a moment, I…what on earth do you mean?”
Ji Hao remained silent for a while, then looked at Si Wen Ming in the eyes and said proudly, “The most powerful means, that I want to be capable of everything, I am going to become an omnipotent Magus, and I will be the best in every subject.”
Si Wen Ming seemed to be struck dumb by Ji Hao’s words and looked at Ji Hao speechlessly with a pair of glazed eyes.
Ji Hao stood up, his face filled with proudness and ambition, and said, “Believe me, I am going to become the most powerful one!”