The Magus Era

In Feng Dao Mount, the foods were eaten up and the wine was drunk to the dregs.

Priest Tong Jiong raised a wine pot and shook it for quite a while. After the last drop of wine fell into his mouth, he cast his eyes on Mr. Crow with disappointment and said, "Little crow, is this all you have? You don’t come here every day, so why didn’t you bring more?"

Mr. C7row blinked and spread his hands.

He came here with Ji Hao to look for treasures, not for a picnic. He brought these foods and wine because he was an eater. In the journey, these foods and wine could satisfy his cravings. Before the journey started, how could he know that in a place called Feng Dao Mount, a gluttonous priest named Tong Jiong was actually be sealed in a jade board?

Sighed slightly, Tong Jiong dropped the wine pot and filled the jade board up with his face while looking at Ji Hao pitifully and saying, "Will you come to visit again? If you come again, can you bring more meat and wine? You bring me ten-thousand potfuls of wine from the heaven, and I’ll give you one lecture. How’s that?"

Ji Hao blinked his eyes, looking at Tong Jiong. "May I ask about your cultivation level?" Said Ji Hao with a dry laugh.

Tong Jiong laughed and hurriedly responded, "My Dao is the great Dao of natural magnetic force. My soul has already merged with the great Dao of nature. I will never die as long as this world exists. Am I qualified to give you a lecture?"

"A saint?" Ji Hao stared at Tong Jiong in shock.

Tong Jiong was a little embarrassed. He scratched his scalp and pondered, then slowly nodded and said, "My soul can never die or be destroyed, so you can call me a saint if you insist. But, a true saint can merge his or her soul with the great Dao of nature, as well as split his soul from the great Dao of nature. A true saint should be able to freely come in to and get out of the great Dao of nature, as easily as reading his or her own palm prints. That’s what a true saint can do."

"I sent my soul into the great Dao of nature, but my soul can’t come out. Or in other words, in the vast great Dao of nature, my soul has to stay extra careful to keep itself from being assimilated by the great Dao of nature. Otherwise, I would become a puppet of the great Dao."

Pondering carefully for quite a while, Priest Tong Jiong smiled at Ji Hao and continued, "I think I can be counted as a ninety-five percent saint, right?"

Ji Hao understood what he said. Looking at Tong Jiong, he asked another question, "Then, the ones who sealed you..."

Tong Jiong narrowed his eyes and said blandly, "Seventy percent, eighty percent, ninety percent, but all weaker than me. Because they were weaker than me, they needed to drug me and seal me in here."

"It has been so many years. I wonder what level these old friends are at now." Tong Jiong gave a long sigh.

"Were they really too ashamed to take your treasures?" Ji Hao asked curiously while fiddling with the pair of calabashes. The surface of the calabashes was smooth and lustrous, looking like the best white jade.

Tong Jiong looked at Ji Hao with laughter. Having laughed for a while, he gave a reply slowly, "It’s possible for the Tai-Yi magnetic force flag. It can turn the space upside down, disorder the universe, and mess up the time and space. Being trapped in it, even a saint would need to spend a lot of time to free him or herself. This is a great treasure, indeed."

Smiled faintly, Tong Jiong then pointed at the pair of calabashes and continued in a mild tone, "But, if I don’t tell, who could know which one of these two is the dead calabash and which one is the living calabash? Without a proper method, anyone who opens the dead calabash would immediately suffer the first intent of killing from the world. Only saints might survive that, and they too have a fifty percent chance of dying directly!"

Ji Hao’s face darkened a little. He took out the Tai-Yi magnetic force flag and smiled bitterly while asking, "If they dared not to take the pair of calabashes, this flag..."

Tong Jiong smiled even more brightly. "This Tai-Yi magnetic force is one of my three spirit treasures. It’s a reasonable thing that I merged the powers of these three treasures together. So, once this flag is separated from the pair of calabashes for more than ten thousand miles, it would immediately gather the natural magnetic forces and set a great formation to trap the enemies. Then, the dead calabash would fly over to kill the ones trapped by the flag."

Tong Gong squeezed his eyes to Ji Hao and continued, "They were weaker than me, so they couldn’t break the seal on these three treasures, and dared not to destroy the seal with violence. And, they couldn’t split the treasures evenly. Therefore, they left these treasures here...Far from eyes, far from the heart. These are genuine treasures. If they take these, and look at them everyday without being able to use them, wouldn’t that be a tremendous suffering? Would that be frustrating? Wouldn’t that shake their hearts of Dao?"

Ji Hao paused in shock. He looked at the three treasures and silently wondered which one was the dead calabash and which one was the living calabash. If he wrongly opened the dead calabash, he would have to take a strong strike from it, wouldn’t he? And, since these three treasures were tightly connected, would the Tai-Yi magnetic force flag remain unmoved while the dead calabash launched a severe strike?

"Elder, you’ve eaten a ton of food that we brought!" Ji Hao looked at Tong Jiong with a fake smile.

"But my little friend, I’ve told you quite some ancient secrets, haven’t I?" Tong Jiong was also wearing a fake smile on his face. "Especially the story about the three ’Pengs’. In the present world, how many people can tell you about them? Isn’t my story-telling worthy of a nice meal?"

Having remained silent for quite a while, Ji Hao raised the pair of calabashes and said, "The human beings are facing powerful enemies. I should use the power of the living calabash..."

"Oh, oh, someone knowledgeable guided you here." Tong Jiong said quickly, "The first trace of life-force in the living calabash is absorbing essence natural powers and generating a magical spring that can boost up your power and cultivation. And, your increased power and cultivation will be especially pure, like the power of a saint. Good idea, good plan! I’ve been trapped in here for countless years, and indeed, a measureless amount of spring has accumulated in the living calabash, but..."

"Letting you out will be impossible. Elder, can you change to another condition?" Ji Hao said immediately.

Tong Jiong frowned and remained silent. His face filled up the entire jade board and his eyes blinked, fixed on Ji Hao.

Suddenly, Tong Jiong turned to the entrance of the cave and said, "Crazy woman? Why’re you here? How did you find this place? And you, ah, oh, Bitter Bamboo Mountain Master. Old bamboo, that time you bloomed and grew so many seeds, but phoenixes dropped on you and took ninety percent of your seeds, almost collapsing your foundation of Dao. You disappeared since then. How come...Do you now have the guts to come out?"

Ji Hao was startled. He slowly turned around and saw Dragon Mother standing by the entrance, her face filled with excitement. Standing beside her was a tall and scrawny priest, whose face was covered in a faint green mist.

"Hah, I was right! I was in the starry void, passing by this area, and I sensed your smell. Hah, I followed the smell. Then you’re...You’re Priest Tong Jiong, aren’t you? You took one thousand, three-hundred and seventy-two dragon eggs from our dragon-kind, and ate them all. Boiled, fried, steamed, grilled, you ate them all! Have you enjoyed that meal? Were you happy? Were you satisfied?" Dragon Mother even trembled excitedly.

Ji Hao narrowed his eyes. Dragon Mother truly had an...acute sense of smell.

Ji Hao then couldn’t help but take a glance back at Tong Jiong. As he thought, this old Priest Tong Jiong was truly not an easygoing one!