Standing on the city of great calamity which belonged to the Red Sun, Ji Hao was curiously stroking a golden statue.
According to Yi Di, who witnessed the power of a city of great calamity, these golden statues standing on the wall of each city of great calamity could easily shatter the earth hundreds of miles in radius, and kill over one-thousand spirit turtles, which had amazing defensive powers, with one strike.
Ji Hao gently stroked the golden statue. With his sensitive fingers, he sensed the fine grains on its surface, that ordinary people could not see. His spirit power was drilling into the statue like water flows. Ji Hao wanted to figure out the structure of this golden statue. It would be even better if he could draw a plan for this kind of a statue.
Thanks to Great Liberty, Ji Hao gained all Polo Do's memories. As a sage from the Flow Moon, Polo Do memorized almost all records and books kept in Yu Dynasty. From his memories, Ji Hao had learned a lot.
Magic formations, spell symbols, drugs, puppets, large-scale warships, flying forts… Ji Hao leaned nearly everything. But sadly, the cities of great calamity were purchased from Pan Yu world by nobles from Yu Dynasty with high prices. They bought the cities of great calamity, but didn't have their structural drawings. Therefore, Ji Hao had no way to find out how these cities were designed and built.
Inch by inch, Ji Hao sent his spirit power into the golden statue, carefully discovering its secret.
The cities of great calamity dispelled the clouds in the sky as they flew back to Liang Zhu City at their highest speed, against a strong wind. The cities were filled with non-humankind warriors. On the ground, countless non-humankind warriors had also been marching back to the north as fast as possible. They were gasping loudly for air.
On behalf of the twelve families in power, Polo Jia made a serious request to Emperor Shun and asked the humankind to help the non-humankind defend against the rebellion.
Ji Hao immediately extorted them. He said that Emperor Shun was a noble being, while Emperor Shennong and Emperor Xuanyuan were venerated, legendary beings. Therefore, without enough benefits, the human emperors would never help the non-humankind to restrain the human warriors in Liang Zhu City, who had now been rampantly damaging the city.
After a series of bargaining, the three cities of great calamity were given to the humankind, coming under Si Wen Ming's direct control.
Ji Hao and the others hopped onto a city of great calamity and headed to Liang Zhu City along with the non-humankind army.
"Indeed a treasure…As I always believed, extortion is how you get rich." The structure of the three-hundred-meters-tall golden statue was extremely complicated. Countless hair-thin energy channels existed inside it, connected by billions of complicated, multi helical structured spells. Therefore, Ji Hao needed to concentrate all his attention to trigger these spell symbols with unknown functions.
A heavy cough could be heard. With a sulky face, Piji Nu walked out from behind a decorative golden flowerpot.
"Marquis Yao!" Maybe because the non-humankind had now been making requests to the humankind, Piji Nu was much politer to Ji Hao.
"Aha, Emperor Piji Nu, what a surprise to see you here! The weather is nice, isn't it?" Stroking the golden statue with both hands, Ji Hao talked some nonsense.
Piji Nu's eye corners twitched.
When the troop took off from Chi Ban Mountain, the weather was indeed warm and sunny. But, it was already midnight now, and the sky was covered in thick dark clouds. Bolts of thunder sizzled and flashed in the dark clouds, as a heavy rain seemed to fall right away.
'The weather is nice?'
Piji Nu gave a brilliant grin and responded, "The weather is nice indeed…I have the best fruit wine here. Would you like some? The wine was made by my great-grandfather, with ten-thousand-year-old red berries as the main material. It is top-grade, very good for your soul cultivation."
"Just say what you want to say!" Ji Hao said straightforwardly, "I'm busy at cracking the structure of your city of great calamity, so I have no time to waste on you."
Piji Nu's face twitched slightly. Giving an embarrassed smile, he said, "Aha, alright, I'll just say it out…You know, as the Emperor of the Piji Family, I do have a high income each year. But, my personal income is not completely disposable. Back in Pan Yu world, I still have a large family to support."
"Un-huh, go on." Ji Hao put his face almost against the golden statue, whereupon he opened his erect eye and released a clear beam of light to the surface of the statue. A few spell symbols sparkled on the statue, while a feet-wide area turned translucent, exposing the spell symbols in an extra complicatedly structured magic formation inside it.
Seeing Ji Hao brazenly stealing the results of the wisdom from Pan Yu world masters, Piji Nu had an anger rising from his heart. But soon, he restrained the anger. With an almost-sweet smile, Piji Nu said to Ji Hao, "So, I saved for many years, and even pledged with my future income to make a sum of money. With that money, I purchased…"
"Your spirit beast, right?" Ji Hao finally turned around and threw a glance at Piji Nu.
"Yes, my sky dominator!" Seeing Ji Hao finally paying attention to him, Piji nu hurriedly gave the warmest grin and continued, "I hope you can understand. Without it, I am weakened by at least seventy percent. I can't live without it!"
Ji Hao's fingers finally left the golden statue. He straightened his waist, held his hands behind his body, and looked at Piji Nu from head to toe.
"What do I get?" After ten whole minutes, Ji Hao began talking, "Why would I give the sky dominator back to you for nothing? You see, you offered us three cities of great calamity, so Emperor Shun agreed to persuade the human forces in your city to give up. Three cities of great calamity!"
Ji Hao showed Piji Nu three fingers to emphasize the great value of the three cities of great calamity.
Piji Nu's expression changed slightly as he said with a low voice, "I am willing to pay any price to redeem the sky dominator, but…"
"But, you don't have money at the moment, right?" Shaking his head, Ji Hao also lowered his voice and said, "Alright, I don't need you to redeem your spirit beast with money. I, Marquis Yao Ji Hao, am never a greedy person!"
Piji Nu was shocked by Ji Hao's shamelessness — He extorted three cities of great calamity from the twelve families in power, and yet, he claimed that he was never a greedy person!
However, the three cities of great calamity were public properties of the humankind now…In a certain way, Ji Hao was truly not greedy.
Breathing deeply, Piji Nu lowered his voice and said, "Alright, please tell me, what do you want? I have to make this clear though, the sky dominator is indeed very important to me, but you shouldn't push this too far."
"How would I?" Ji Hao narrowed his eyes and looked at Piji Nu from up to down, then said, "Let's be friends!"
Smiling brightly, Ji Hao reached a hand out towards Piji Nu, and said, "Everyone needs friends, right?"
Piji Nu stared at Ji Hao in shock. A while later, he abruptly grabbed Ji Hao's hand and said, "Are you asking me to sell information about Yu Dynasty? I have to tell you that my dignity will not allow me to sell you any information about my Piji Family!"
"That'll be enough… I only need to know about the other eleven families!" Ji Hao smiled even brighter.