Outside Yao Mountain City, Ji Xia was wearing a coa.r.s.e cloth, standing in a farmland with his lower legs covered in mud. He was happily looking at those Yao Mountain people, who had been transplanting rice seedlings.
Holding a handful of tender seedlings that had a beautiful green color, Ji Xia murmured in praise, "What a fertile land! Only by farming can we feed countless people. This is indeed good, but I always feel a little less manly if our people don’t have to fight wild beasts in the jungle anymore."
Ji Xia was a man who grew up in Southern Wasteland jungles. He had been fighting against all kinds of wild and fierce beasts since he was little. In Southern Wasteland, which lacked fertile farmlands, men had picked up weapons and hunted wild beasts to feed their families and clansmen. In comparison with Southern Wasteland people, ordinary people living in Pu Ban City were short of warrior spirit, despite the fact that Pu Ban City was much richer than Southern Wasteland jungles.
"Training can never stop." Rubbing his own chin, Ji Xia grinned towards an elder standing not too far away and said, "When this busy farming season is over, we have to gather those kids up as quickly as possible and make them train hard. This is not a peaceful world. Our kids have to be capable of killing, so that our people can live a good, stable life."
"Yes." The elder grinned back, glanced at Ji Xia in respect and admiration, then politely responded.
"Yes!" Around Ji Xia, many Yao Mountain people who had been working hard in the farmland loudly responded as well. Their laughter then spread out along the wind to far away places. Their faces were all filled with sincere admiration when they looked at Ji Xia. As Earl Yao’s father and a powerful Divine Magus, Ji Xia was still willing to put aside his social status, come down to the farmland and work with the most ordinary clansmen. This had touched everyone.
Somehow, Ji Xia had already earned the respect and admiration of all Yao Mountain people.
From a broad path in the distance, a patrolling light cavalry quickly swished over. Hundreds of warriors with light leather armors were mounting on cyan-furred giant wolves, rus.h.i.+ng across the road. Wherever they reached, groups of children would excitedly follow them, running while wielding the wooden sticks or stone axes held in their hands and shouting with strong voices.
Delightedly, Ji Xia looked at those energetic children, laughed out loud and said, "All good kids, haha! They will be trained well, and all become decent warriors."
Bending his waist and inserting the tender seedlings into the soft paddy field, Ji Xia then straightened his body and began yelling, "Right, in these couple of days we have taken a large flock of beast down. Those beasts should have been cleaned already by now. Every family can have half a large beast. Don’t forget to collect your meat after you finish your jobs!"
Clapping his hands loudly, Ji Xia laughed and continued, "Let those kids eat more. Let them grow faster, then get married and have more kids! Haha! Kids will have their kids, and generation after generation, our Yao Mountain territory can become stronger… Our clan can grow more powerful!"
Ji Xia’s words were simple and honest. In these days, if a clan wanted to grow stronger and bigger, it had to depend on generations of new blood. For a clan, the number of males could roughly decide the number of warriors, and with more warriors, the clan would naturally grow more powerful.
Yao Mountain people working in the farmland all laughed out loud; their laughter came straight from their hearts. Especially those who used to be slaves and were freed by Ji Hao to become Yao Mountain people, some of them were so moved that they even had uncontrollable tears flowing down from their eye corners.
Before, how could they even dream of a life like this? With their own farmlands, their own houses, and a nice lord who would hand out fresh meat to each family and allow their kids to eat well and grow… What a kind lord! These Yao Mountain people were excited and grateful, and by now, they could even die for Ji Hao, for Ji Xia and for Yao Mountain territory.
A shrill and quick series of warning clangs suddenly came from a long distance away. Following that, from the horizon, which was hundreds of miles away from this farmland, a black stream of smoke swooshed right up into the sky. Next, tens of more dense and black streams of smoke rose up and warning bell rings came from all directions. After that, over a thousand dense streams of smoke rose one after another.
In the towers over the city gate on all four sides of Yao Mountain City, the alarm bells cast from divine gold rang with a loud and resonant sound. Wave after wave, the bell rings even made the ground quiver slightly. Within a second, the bell rings spread to a big half of the entire Yao Mountain territory, covering the area with a radius of nearly a million miles.
A buzzing noise came from underground, along with which, countless hazy silhouettes of legendary powerful animals, including dragons, phoenix and Qi Lin, flashed across the city wall. Large ancient spell symbols emerged from the city wall, glowing splendidly. Streams of splendid glow and warm power spread out from Yao Mountain City, then rose from the earth that had a radius of ten-thousand miles. A ten thousand miles in radius protective magic screen enveloped the entire Yao Mountain City and the group of villages and towns around the city.
The ground quaked intensively as Ji Xia roared out, leaped into the air and transformed into a stream of fiery light, swiftly flying into Yao Mountain City. Ji Bo, who was a Divine Magus brought over by Ji Xia from Gold Crow Clan in Southern Wasteland, walked up and said, "Brother, in the northeast, the most peripherally stationed troop was destroyed. From a whole thousand boys, none of them managed to survive."
Buzz! Right beside Ji Xia and Ji Bo, a rectangle-shaped mirror made from divine gold floated up. The sixty meters long, thirty meters wide mirror was entirely glowing with a golden light while countless images flashed quickly in it.
That was the most peripherally stationed troop in the northeast side of Yao Mountain City. Normally, there were a thousand warriors stationed in a fort in that area, led by three Senior Magi. These warriors were mainly responsible for expelling beasts that approached the surrounding villages, and killing some fierce beats that might threaten people living in that area.
The fort was entirely cast with molten lava, and it was a small-scale battle fort built according to the standard of the armies of ancient human emperors that Ji Xia learned after he inherited the power of ancient master Supreme Magus, Ji Liao.
The fort had quite a great defensive power, and it was connected with the other forts through long distances. Once it was attacked, all the other, over a thousand, different sized forts would all react swiftly.
The images showed in the mirror was what happened just now…
A hundred human-shaped silhouettes zipped up from a great river which was located less than ten miles away from the fort. The one hundred silhouettes sliced the air open and dashed swiftly towards Yao Mountain City, leaving shreds of visible white traces in the sky. While they flew past the fort, one of them raised his right hand and slightly pressed down. Next, the five-hundred meters squared fort collapsed all of a sudden, leaving an enormous handprint miles in radius, that sank into the ground for over three hundred meters deep.
A thousand warriors were stationed in the fort, but none of them fled out. However, as the fort was destroyed, the warning system in Yao Mountain City reacted immediately, and the Heaven and Earth great formation based on the city was fully activated.
The hundred human-shaped silhouette rushed to the Heaven and Earth great formation at lightning speed. One of them let out a resonant growl and next, each of them took out a brightly glowing, six feet long spear, which was made from an unknown crystal. They all then heavily poked on the magic screen created by the great formation.
Countless spell symbols burst from those spears. The Heaven and Earth great formation was shaking slightly while faint groups of spell symbols spread out from the center, and waves of ripples were stirred up.
"They, can they actually break the magic screen of the Heaven and Earth great formation?!" Ji Xia widely opened his eyes in shock and said, "d.a.m.n you, b.l.o.o.d.y non-humankind monsters, how did they come here?"
Ji Xia and Ji Bo looked at the northern side together. That area was a vast territory, that belonged to the humankind. Without a spy to coordinate with these intruders, who were a whole hundred divine-magus-level elite Jia Clan warriors, how could they possibly break into Yao Mountain territory so noiselessly?