The Magus Era

At the end of the valley, the Chi Ban Market appeared before Ji Hao and his friends’ eyes in a rather abrupt way.

They couldn’t see the sky. Numerous tightly connected floating mountains layered up upon the Chi Ban Market, firmly blocking the sky without leaving even the slightest crack. On the bottom of those floating mountains, countless enormous spell symbols were sparkling, letting out a great and violent sense of power.

‘Buzz, buzz, buzz…’ A deep and resonant buzzing noise resounded across the entire space. This immense magic formation formed from those mountains floating ten-thousand miles high from the ground affected the surrounding natural powers and vibrated the air, causing that loud and constant buzzing noise.

Pressured by that terrifyingly great magic formation, Ji Hao felt that his body had become much heavier and even his breath had become more difficult than before. He raised his head, looking at that great-scale magic formation in shock. ‘Such a tremendous sense of power! I’m afraid that this magic formation can even suppress and crush Divine Magi.’ thought Ji Hao.

The air was blocked completely. Surrounded by a group of gigantic mountains, an immense basin was the main body of the Chi Ban Market.

The exit of the long valley that Ji Hao and his friends came through was located on the hillside of a cliff. In the end of the valley was a small flat area, connected with tens of winding, flagstone-paved paths, extending in all directions.

Standing by the edge of the flat area, Ji Hao leant his upper body slightly forward, looking down at the basin that had the radius of nearly a thousand miles. Inside the basin, streets were lined up in a perfect order that even looked like a chessboard from the above; tall poles standing on both sides of each street, and on the top of each pole were tens of different sized luminous pearls hanging.

Tens of millions of different sized luminous pearls lit up the entire Chi Ban Market, illuminating all of those buildings by the streets.

Those enormous, luxurious and magnificent palaces built from gigantic rocks and metal-concrete structures were obviously run by the non-humankind; while those simple stone or wooden buildings that had ancient and plain architectural styles belonged to the humankind.

Stores run by the humankind and non-humankind were all mixed together, and countless people, non-humankind beings and other rare and strange creatures, had been walking across the streets, in and out of those stores. Ji Hao gave a quick glance, and in his field of vision, there were at least thirty over a-hundred zhang tall old tree men, slowly walking on the streets.

In the basin that was nearly a thousand miles squared were hundreds of thousands of different scale shops, however, these shops were not all that the Chi Ban Market had.

On those soaring cliffs surrounding the basin, numerous flagstone paved roads formed a complicated traffic network, connecting countless enormous caves into one. The entrances of those caves were unimaginably huge, such that even those gigantic treemen could easily walk in and out.

Guarding before the entrances of those caves were either Jia Clan’s warriors who held their heads high, or Human warriors who stood perfectly straight. Some caves were even guarded by non-humankind creatures that had gained human shapes through cultivation, but still had features of their original forms remaining on their bodies.

For example, less than three miles away from the small flat area that Ji Hao and his friends were standing on, and on the top of a great mountain, a hundred sturdy human-shaped creatures that had the heads of eagles, were standing in a straight line before a cave. Those sturdy and muscular human-shaped creatures had arms of human beings but legs similar to bird legs. Their sharp claws scratched the ground, squeezing out large pieces of fire sparkles from time to time. The sense of power releasing from the bodies of these eagle men was badly disordered, mixed with a fierce and dense bloody scent. Without a doubt, these were all fierce animals who had slaughtered countless lives and luckily walked on a path of cultivation, somehow, gaining the shapes of human beings.

In this Chi Ban Market, these eagle men had built their own force, constructed their own caves and started business transactions with other kinds.

Besides the cave of these eagle men was another magnificently great cave, guarded by tens of muscular men who had the heads of dragons and bodies covered in dragon scales. These dragon men were all over five-zhang tall, wearing luxury golden armors, holding heavy, exquisitely crafted halberds, feet coiling with watery clouds and entire bodies releasing sharp sense of power.

“This is the Dragon King’s cave. They came from the East Ocean, the easternmost place of the East Wasteland.” seeing Ji Hao staring at those dragon-headed men, Geng hurriedly gave a grin and explained to him, “In the Dragon King’s cave, you can find all sorts of rare treasures. If any of you, my honored guests, have the power with the nature of water, you can just go in there, and find yourselves all kinds of natural treasures that can improve the cultivating-efficiency of oneself as a Senior Magi who has water powers. You can find anything you need in there.”

Clicking his tongue, Geng then lowered his voice and continued, “The dragon kind are very wealthy. In the Dragon King’s cave, you can also find some extremely precious stuff those rarely exist in anywhere else. For example, the monthly top-1 treasure they have launched recently is a ten-thousand years old ‘water dragon ginseng’. By eating that water dragon ginseng, an ordinary human being can gain three-thousand years of extra life, while the life span of a Senior Magi who had water powers can be prolong by eight-thousand years!”

Ji Hao turned to Geng in a great shock.

Prolong the life span by eight-thousand years?! This was almost as long as a Divine Magus’s entire life. One could easily imagine that even Devine-Magus-level powerful beings would give whatever they had for that ten-thousand years old water ginseng.

“The price for that water ginseng starts from five-billion jade coins, without any upper limit!” Geng licked his lips and continued, “Until the end of this month, whoever offered the highest price can have the water ginseng. As for where did the highest price go by now, as a lowly being, I have no qualification of knowing that.”

“Whoa! Dear Amma!” Man Man raised her hands and tried to figure out how much five-billion actually was by counting her ten fingers. In the meanwhile, she said, “Five-billion jade coins, the starting price?! So much money!”

Man Man’s pair of beautiful eyes were filled with astonishment. The life span of the god-kind was much longer than the humankind, and Man Man was only a little kid, therefore, he couldn’t understand what eight-thousand years of extra life could mean to those Senior Magi, Magus Kings, or even Devine Magi, whose life-times was about to run out.

Ji Hao raised his head and looked around, finding that on those sharp cliffs surrounding the basin, were at least hundreds of cave like the Dragon King’s one.

Obviously, goods sold in stores down in the basin probably were all in the low to mid grades, while goods sold by people who had the qualification to open up a cave on the cliffs, dominating a mountain peak all by themselves, were all top-grade treasures.

However, those top-grade goods were not something that Ji Hao and his friends could afford with their current powers.

Even though that Si Wen Ming had just awarded Ji Hao and his teammates with a huge sum of jade coins, they still couldn’t afford treasures like that ten-thousand years old water ginseng.

“Our Chi Ban Market is divided into four parts, which are the East Market, South Market, West Market and North Market.” said Geng extra carefully, “The East Market mainly sells weaponry and military supplies, West Market mainly selling magic medicines, South Market mainly sells slaves, and North Market mainly deals in rare treasures. What do you, my honored guests, want to buy?”

Fang Xing blinked his eyes and clicked his tongue, smiled then said, “I’ll go to the East Market for some powerful enchanted arrows. I’ll go by myself, and if anything happens, we can contact through the magic talismans.”

Yu Mu raised his pair of chubby arms and rubbed his own hands hard, and said, “I’ll go buy some rare poisonous mushrooms, snakes, spiders and something like that. Hm, the rarer and more poisonous, the better. I’ll go by myself as well. Hm, I might also go find some precious spices.

After settling down the contacting methods and the time of leaving, led by Geng, Ji Hao and Man Man walked into the Chi Ban Market through a small path.