Chapter 184 - Surrounded
A spirit puppet made from cork fleetingly rushed across the door of Ji Hao’s room. At exactly the same time when the puppet passed across Ji Hao’s door, a thumb-size, green magic crystal glowed on its chest. Simultaneously with that, a short and cold-sounding sentence darted out of the green crystal like a sharp arrow and only in Ji Hao’s room, none of the other apprentices who were nearby had heard it.
Before the puppet had arrived, Ji Hao had been carefully looking with his head down at the bone talisman. It was made from a bone of a Senior Magus Level beast and had exquisitely been grounded into a square piece. Nourished by the great internal power of the beast, the bone had a white glow, just like a piece of jade and was incomparable solid.
The edges of the bone talisman were embossed with exquisite phoenix-feather-like patterns, which represented good luck. In the middle of the bone talisman there were a few ancient-style spell symbols embossed. Ji Hao had learned pretty intensive about spell symbols in the Magi Palace for the past few months, but he still was unable to recognize the origin of these spell symbols that were embossed on this talisman.
Ji Hao was holding the bone talisman in his hands and felt it being heavy and cold. It had a special calming power that made people feel at peace. Ji Hao sensed also a slight trace of mysterious power that seemed hidden deep within the bone talisman, but with his current abilities he was unable to tell what kind of power it was.
Ji Hao had raised his said and was going to thank Taisi when the dark silhouette flashed across his door and the cold-sounding sentence had come in. Hearing the sentence, the scrawny face of Taisi suddenly turned deadly pale, and within his hollow eye sockets, his eyeballs turned completely black. Whether it were the pupils or the whites of his eyes, both had turned deep dark, frightening and full of despair black!
The black colour of Taisi’s eyes seemed so extremely evil and cold that even Ji Hao felt a bone-piercing cold when looking at those eyes.
“Do they…want to die? Why…why force me!” Taisi stood slowly up while murmuring in an ice-cold voice; the last bit of humanity within him instantly disappeared. Taisi was standing in front of Ji Hao, looking like a thin, pale paper doll that was surrounded by death and emptiness. In the next moment, a stream of death power gushed suddenly out of Taisi’s body. With only a slight vibration of this stream of power the stone table and the stone blocks in Ji Hao’s room had immediately turned into ash, which silently dissipated into the air. With only the slightest bit of movement of his feet, Taisi’s body glided swiftly away, as if he weighed absolutely nothing, just like a thin piece of paper. Only a shred of afterimage was left behind his body; even Ji Hao had been unable to clearly see him moving.
So fast, he moved astonishingly fast! Ji Hao’s eyes popped in shock. He didn’t have enough time to stop Taisi, and could only activate his fiery wings and catch up with Taisi. Creating large numbers of afterimages, Ji Hao finally rushed at the side of Taisi.
Usually, Taisi was so weak that even walking would cause him to be out of breath, but now he was gliding in the air like a real ghost, and was able to cover tens of zhang with the slightest of movements of his feet.
Streams of cold power continuously gushed into Taisi’s body. Ji Hao was rushing beside Taisi for a short while and sensed that Taisi’s body was turning colder and colder, and the power hidden inside his body grew more and more evil. Gradually, the cold power releasing from Taisi’s body made even Ji Hao begin quivering.
“Taisi, don’t be thrown into confusion! If you want Shaosi to be safe, you must stay safe first!” shouted Ji Hao. He then took a deep breath and abruptly grabbed Taisi’s hand. At the same time, the Golden Dan inside his spirit space started rotating rapidly, along with which, a warm stream of power was forcibly injected into Taisi’s body through his hand.
Taisi instantly quivered, and his black eyeballs slightly trembled, after which, his dark eyeballs, which were supposed to be white to begin with turned slightly lighter in colour, and he slowly regained his humanity. Taisi turned his head, glanced at Ji Hao, and nodded at Ji Hao, while a black stream of blood gushed out from the corner of his mouth.
All this time, the human-shaped puppet was rushing really fast ahead of them. These kind of puppets were made by the Magi Palace in great quantity as servants, with over-a-hundred years old cork. These puppets were specially made for the purpose of handling ordinary housework like laundry and cleaning for apprentices of the Magi Palace. Therefore, they were not made with too much fighting capacity, at the most they were as powerful as elementary-level Novice Magi.
However, the puppet rushing ahead of Ji Hao and Taisi, had obviously been remodeled and improved by some powerful and skillful Magi; it had a few ‘strong wind’ spell symbols embossed on its body, which would let out gusts of fierce cyan wind when it moved. These cyan gusts of wind would rotate around its legs and allowed it to move for over a hundred zhang within the blink of an eye. The speed with which this puppet moved, was amazingly great.
Many apprentices were walking or running through the broad path, quite a number of them had their fighting beasts and puppets walking behind them. That is why, Ji Hao and Taisi rushing closely behind a puppet seemed nothing wrong and extremely normal in the eyes of those apprentices, no one had even noticed them.
After having rushed for over two hours while following the puppet, they arrived at the Ding Road from the Gui Road. Not long after that, they saw the puppet jump into a transportation magic formation that would lead them outside of the Magi Palace.
Ji Hao and Taisi hurriedly followed, and left the Magi Palace as well through the transportation magic formation. Outside the Magi Palace, the puppet led Ji Hao and Taisi, and rushed into a jungle for a small half of an hour, after which a few trained riding birds abruptly showed up on the flat area in front of them. The puppet hopped on the back of one of the birds, the bird flapped its wings and darted into the air right after that.
Ji Hao and Taisi didn’t want to risk riding those large riding birds that had been prepared for them by the enemies, instead, Ji Hao let out a long whistle, followed by which, Mr Crow suddenly rose into the air from Ji Hao’s shoulder, and expanded its body into over a-hundred-zhang length. Mr Crow carried Ji Hao and Taisi, while flying closely behind the puppet and the bird ridden by it.
The bird being ridden by the puppet was only an ordinary black-feathered roc. It was at the elementary Junior Magus level of power and was able to fly over a distance of a hundred thousand miles within a day. Mr Crow was a spirit beast the Senior Magus level of power, he could transform his body into a streak of light and fly over a distance of over a million miles within a single day. Therefore Ji Hao and Taisi had easily caught up with the puppet and still had enough time to fly around to check the surrounding environment.
After flying for a day and two nights, a vast and seemingly boundless mountain range appeared in front of Ji Hao and Taisi. In the middle of the mountain range, was a magnificently huge mountain. Half of that mountain was covered in a thick layer of snow, and seemed extremely spectacular.
“What task did Shaosi came out for this time?” Ji Hao turned his head around and asked Taisi.
“A-thousand-year-old ‘Snow Fragrance Thoroughwort’!” said Taisi, gnashing his teeth at each word. “Near Pu Ban City, Snow Fragrance Thoroughwort can only be found on the Silver Top Snow Mountain. A master Magi tutor of the Magi Palace offers twelve ‘Magus Acupoints awakening pills’ as a reward for hundred Snow Fragrance Thoroughworts.”
Ji Hao glanced at Taisi and said, “Magus Acupoints awakening? Both you and Shaosi have already reached the peak of Junior Magus level of power, you need at most half a year to naturally break into the Senior Magus level of power, why do you need that kind of medicine?”
Taisi narrowed his eyes and gasped deeply, then responded, “Shaosi and I can’t break into the higher level that easily. Our Magus Acupoints are way too stubborn, so we will need about three years to naturally break into the Senior Magus level of power. Apart from that…”
Ji Hao breathed deeply, he suddenly understood why Taisi seemed to wish to speak but had stopped on a second thought. “Is Shaosi still thinking about the favour I have done you? Twelve Magus Acupoints awakening pills…she was planning to give me a share, wasn’t she?”
Taisi gritted his teeth and stayed silent. Soon, he began incanting a strange spell in a low and gabbling voice, along with which, a creepy sound that would make people quiver came from his body.
“Mr Crow, follow up!” Ji Hao gritted his teeth as well, let out a sneer and patted Mr Crow’s back.
On the magnificent mountain in front of Ji Hao and Taisi, in a sheltered valley, Shaosi was sitting in a nest of snow with a serious face.
Tens of three-zhang long, snow white large spider had surrounded Shaosi, and were staring at her with their silver-compound eye. The air was filled with sword-edge-like glowing silver threads, which had formed tens of layers of gigantic nets and had firmly enveloped Shaosi.
Not far away from her, tens of black stone monuments that had green sparks on the surfaces, floated above the snowfield. Those sparks had formed a few thin and twisted spell symbols. Gusts of frigid wind continuously darted out from those black stone monuments, transformed into whirlwinds upon the ground and swooshed towards Shaosi.
One of Shaosi’s shanks was tightly wrapped by a black gust of whirlwind, and a black layer of ice was spreading on her leg.
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