Note: Elder Iron Mountain will be named Elder Iron Yan from this chapter on.
________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 206 - Horrible Bugs
After burying the warriors who had fallen in the battle, the migrating troops of the Rong Mountain Clan continued with their journey.
A small troop of eight hundred slave warriors, eighteen Jia Clan warriors, and a greedy, stupid warrior who had been the manager of this small troop, had all been added to the migrating troops of the Rong Mountain Clan. They were slaves. They had been sold to the Rong Mountain Clan by Ji Hao at a very low price - one piece of leather. The tungsten steel mines within the new territory that were very hard to explore, were waiting for them.
The migrating troop could move forward at the highest speed for seven hours every single day. The rest of the time was used for resting, cooking and eating. The Curly-Horned Cattles could run for over three-hundred miles within an hour. With this speed, the migrating troop arrived at a thousand-mile round highland area.
Continuing to move forward in the undulant highland area, a mountain range that was covered in thriving jungles, was located right in front of the troop. Technically speaking, this mountain range also belonged to the Rong Mountain area, but a grassland transformed from a small fracture had split these two parts of the Rong Mountain apart.
After the surprise attack, the troop hadn’t encountered any other serious threats. Ji Hao had broken through to the level of Senior Magus, therefore, the fighting efficiency of the guarding team of the migrating troop had improved largely. On top of that, Mr Crow was hovering overhead the troop all the time, while being on the lookout for anything from the surrounding areas. It would inform any possible danger, whether from wild beasts or other unknown enemies, well ahead of time. Because of all this, the migrating troop had finally arrived at their destination all save and sound.
Ji Hao was holding the long, black dagger and rubbed the edge of the dagger slightly with his forefinger. A wisp of black wolf fur mixed with his blood was set ablaze on the dagger’s edge.
Accompanied by a swooshing sound, over ten thousand Tusked-Wolves that were a zhang tall, rushed out from a valley that was in front of the troop, while howling. A strange blue flame spurted out from their bodies, and gushed ceaselessly from out their nostrils, jaws, and ears. Some of the weaker wolves were soon burned to death, but the stronger ones survived, rushing madly around the valley and setting those slightly withered bushes and grass in the valley ablaze.
[Cold Fire Deadly Curse]
This was one of the elementary-level magic curses of the Gold Crow Clan, and was greatly effective against animal groups, which consisted of large quantities of individuals but where each individual had low strength. In the Magi Palace, Ji Hao had learned the advanced-level spells of this [Cold Fire Deadly Curse]. On the jade slip, which this spell was written on, Ji Hao had found a footnote indicating clearly that the origin of this spell was the Fire Crow Clan of the Southern Wasteland. It also said that if anyone was interested in digging deeper into this spell, they were free to visit the Gold Black Mountain of the Southern Wasteland to find more changes of this spell.
Learning an advanced-level spell that originated from his own clan made Ji Hao gain a deeper understanding of the Magi Palace.
“But, Mr Crow, this one is actually much more useful than the one grandpa Ji Kui had taught me.” Ji Hao was staring at the those blazing wolves that were rushing all around the valley with narrowed eyes, grinned and said, “Our old [Cold Fire Deadly Curse] infuriates wild beasts and make them risk their lives in order to make them fight madly for us. But, this advanced-level spell has been improved by some soul-attack spells, which drives these animals insane. This is why none of these wolves have even tried to hurt us yet.”
Mr Crow let out a caw, leaned its head aside and looked seriously at those wolves, which gradually had become quieter now and had been burned into ashes in the fire.
“When we have an opportunity, we have to send all these spells that our Gold Crow Clan clansmen can use, back to our home.” Ji Hao calculated carefully and continued, “At least, these spells could improve the battle effectiveness of our Maguspriests by fifty percent. Such a great deal!”
Loud sounds of whipping were coming from behind Ji Hao. The warriors of the Rong Mountain Clan were driving the slaves who were carrying all kinds of tools and were walking in the steaming hot valley. They dug up the soil, deeply burying the ashes of the plants and the bones of the wolves in the ground, after which they cleaned up the remaining plants and bushes that had survived the flames.
More and more clansmen of the Rong Mountain Clan were joining the team that was cleaning the valley. This valley, which was tens of miles long and around three miles wide, would become their new residential area. A thousand muscular warriors had already begun lumbering and lifting rocks, preparing to build a fifty-zhang-wide wall in the only entrance of the valley in order to shield the entire valley behind it.
After all, this was a totally primitive piece of unexploited land. On the first day, Ji Hao had wiped a group of Tusked-Wolves out, but at night, eight different kinds of wild beasts had secretly followed the bloody scent and came near the valley, attempting to launch surprise attacks on the clansmen of the Rong Mountain in the valley.
Elder Iron Yan, who was in charge of this immigrating troop, accidentally became the first wounded one amongst the entire troop. As a Senior Magus he was embarrassedly bitten on his toe by a highly poisonous, Three-Tailed Cat that was hidden under a fallen leaf. Although it was not a big deal, this accident made everyone become more vigilant.
By working together and after spending quite an effort, Ji Hao and his teammates had finally been able to kill the majority of the wild beast and drive the remaining ones out of the valley. The carcasses of the dead wild beasts had been pulled in the valley, thanks to which the clansmen wouldn’t have to worry about food for at least a month. However, these carcasses had also attracted more predators. Although Mr Crow was floating right above the valley while releasing its sense power to frighten the wild animals away, the jungle surrounding the valley never became quiet.
Every day, new groups of wild beasts would try to approach the valley, and Ji Hao’s team would kill huge numbers of them. In the meanwhile, they would also encounter those mysterious creatures that were bred and nourished by nature itself, such as different-sized stonemen and other living creatures who had become sentient.
Every time they encountered such kinds of creatures, Ji Hao, who had been hanging out with all of the mysterious natural creatures since he had been a little kid, would become the main force of coordinating work.
Those stonemen, who were the kindest, simplest, and most generous, soon accepted the Rong Mountain Clan people, and began to see them as reasonable new neighbours. Ji Hao had used his good old method - bribing these stonemen with vats of delicious booze and made them allies of the Rong Mountain Clan.
Those treemen were easy to deal with as well. After Yu Mu, who had a great amount of defensive fat, blocked an attack that had been launched by three treemen simultaneously, and Man Man had smashed a violent treeman that was obsessed with slaughter into pieces, all the treemen living within a thousand miles around the valley had silently accepted the Rong Mountain Clan clansmen.
As for the other kinds of creatures, such as evil spirits and ghosts, threatened by the powerful and mysterious Magi spells that were performed by Ji Hao, Shaosi, and Taisi they had all made pacts of peaceful coexistence with the Rong Mountain Clan, one after another. From now on, as long as the Rong Mountain Clan didn’t initiate attacks on these creatures, they would never go against the Rong Mountain Clan.
With Ji Hao’s smooth communicating and negotiating skills, a few powerful and influential spirit beasts, which had been cultivating for quite many years, had moved into the newly built altar of the Rong Mountain Clan and became guarding spirits of this new village. All Rong Mountain Clan needed to give them in return was enough amounts of blood from either humankind or beasts kind each year.
After the big part of a month had passed, lines of cabins had been built orderly in the valley, as well as a new minefield. Elder Iron Yan couldn’t wait to gather all the most experienced mine workers amongst the troop, locate the tungsten steel and officially start the exploitation.
Three days later, when the mine had been excavated to a depth of a hundred and fifty zhang, large chunks of tungsten steel ore could be dug out.
Right when everyone was happily and excitedly shouting and cheering, a loud and abrupt howl came from the mine. Followed by the howl, countless human-head-sized black bugs flew out along with a buzzing sound. A few slave warriors, who were working in the mine, didn’t have enough time to flee and were easily torn apart by these crazy bugs. After having torn the slave warriors, the bugs swallowed their bodies completely, including the bones.
A great numbers of black bugs gushed out from the entrance of the mine in a formidable array. All of the Rong Mountain Clan clansmen were frightened badly, and rushed hurriedly back above the ground.
_________________________________________________________________________
Edited by SecondRate and Dylan
Translated by XianXiaWorld