The Magus Era

In a secret basement, which was sealed by multiple powerful magics, Ji Hao witnessed the horribly great lethality of the city-destroying demon crossbow.

The city-destroying demon crossbow looked like a giant box from the outside; it was three-zhang long, eight-foot wide, six-foot tall, and was purely black. On its surface, streams of glowing lights flew across, following which, a large number of spell symbols lit up one after another, like a flowing water stream. What came next was a slight noise, along with which, a thumb-thick, three-foot long arrow darted out, accurately piercing into layers of magic sealing screen in front of it.

Those sealing screens were released by a defensive magic formation that Wuli activated earlier; the defensive power of this sealing screen equaled to the top-grade defensive power of that portable city-fort that belonged to the Di Family, which Ji Hao had seen back in a battle. That arrow released by the city-destroying demon crossbow bumped heavily against those thick layers of sealing screen, while being tailed by thousands of sparkling spell symbols, which looked like shooting stars. After a loud and clear popping noise, a fist-sized hole was opened up on those sealing screens, which layered up in front of the crossbow.

A sizzling noise lingered in the air, along with which, countless electric bolts surged out of that hole of the sealing screens, and in a blink of an eye, those powerful sealing screens blasted out all together. Even that defensive magic formation on the ground was disintegrated as well. Thousands of pieces of magic crystals, which were piled up at the center of that defensive magic formation were swiftly drained of power and turned to a puff of ash.

“Good stuff!” Wuli slapped hard on the city-destroying crossbow, passionately boasting to Si Wen Ming, “I only have twenty of these in my storage, but on the battlefield, these can be fantastically ideal weapons for massive killing… absolutely your perfect choice. The Di Family can never figure out a way to hold off the attacks launched by city-destroying demon crossbows.”

“The attacking speed is a bit slow.” Si Wen Ming tried his best to pick out some flaws of this city-destroying demon crossbow, “After filling it up with enough amount of crystals, it still requires seven to eight minutes to launch an arrow…This speed is fine for attacking objects that can’t move, like cities, but for killing living warriors, it’s not even as efficient as ordinary crossbows…so the price…”

Wuli’s eyeballs rolled quickly in his eye sockets. He then again slapped on the city-destroying demon crossbow and said, “The price remains the same, but, if you buy twenty city-destroying demon crossbows from me, for each one of them, you can have three-hundred newly crafted heavy armors for free. Three-hundred sets of armors, in the latest version, my old friend, you should be satisfied this time, aren’t you?”

Ji Hao wasn't paying any attention to the bargaining between Si Wen Ming and Wuli, he had been completely focusing on that defensive magic formation which was destroyed by that arrow just now.

The city-destroying demon crossbow was indeed highly destructible, and this defensive magic formation, which was powerful as that portable city-fort Ji Hao had seen before, was actually destroyed by a single arrow shot launched by it. If such a horrible weapon was put on battlefields, Ji Hao couldn’t even imagine how terrifying it would look like when an arrow like that went roaring into a troop of warriors.

What was especially hard to expect, Wuli’s family even dared to directly sell such kind of destructible weapons, and straight to the humankind! These greedy creatures, they could literally do anything for money!

Reasonably, for powerful weapons of mass destruction like this, shouldn’t they take the initiative in providing these weapons to the Blood Moon, for the Blood Moon to destroy the human army in battles? But the fact was, according to Wuli, the Blood Moon people didn’t even know about the existence of these city-destroying demon crossbows at all. Moreover, the only twenty city-destroying demon crossbows were now stored in here, in the warehouse of their Chi Ban Market shop; even Wuli’s family didn’t have any more in their own storage!

What a group of principle-less, bottomline-less, unscrupulous five-eyed monsters who were all, completely frenzied for money!

Ji Hao gave a complicated glance at Wuli. Sometimes, such an enemy who had no sense of moral and bottom-line, and knew nothing but profits, looked indeed,.. very adorable.

The first price Si Wen Ming offered was three rare and natural spirit mines. The reason why those mines were called natural spirit mines was that, all materials extracted and purified from those mines could reach the natural-level in quality, and that was called natural-level because these materials contained a slight trace of power of the original natural law, and could create boundless possibilities.

Those three natural spirit mines were located over a hundred-thousand mile away from the Chi Ban Mountain defensive line, in the South. Si Wen Ming offered Wuli the specific locations of these three mines and promised him that, when the Wu Family exploited those three mines, human army forces would be there to ensure their safety.

Wuli was noncommittal to this price Si Wen Ming offered, instead, he brought Ji Hao and Si Wen Ming down to the basement, showing them the terrifying power of the city-destroying demon crossbow by himself.

Although the attacking speed was indeed a bit slow, when twenty city-destroying demon crossbows worked together, a continuous series of attack was basically doable. Upon the genuinely high lethality of these city-destroying demon crossbows, low attacking efficiency wasn’t a big flaw at all.

“Twenty city-destroying demon crossbows with complimentary six-thousand sets of armors, I also want two-thousand ballistae, thirty-thousand triple ballistae, hundred-thousand heavy crossbows, three-hundred thousand top-grade bows. In addition of all these, I want six-hundred thousand sets of armors and weapons. For all these, I want the greatest ones, no defective pieces.” Si Wen Ming looked at Wuli and said in a serious tone, “Three natural spirit mines, if not enough, I will make up to you with magic crystals.”

The fat on Wuli’s body was shaking intensely when hearing Si Wen Ming, in the meanwhile, his five eyeballs had been swiftly rolling in his eye sockets. Those short and chubby fingers of his quickly flicked for a while, then he said hurriedly, “Oh my great Mirage Moon, are you actually planning to arming your entire human army that is under the command of your human Emperor, with the top-grade weapons and gears produced by our Xiu Clan?”

“This is very risky!” said Wuli, while looking at Si Wen Ming with five narrowed eyes. While speaking, he was carefully observing the slightest change of Si Wen Ming’s facial expression, “My old friend, my respectable old friend, this is way too risky. The throne of Emperor of the Blood Moon has just switched its owner. Now Dishi Yanluo is in charge, who is a pure butcher, cruel, brutal and heartless. He is a lowly, nasty being, who could turn against anyone within a second. To sell you such a stunning number of products this time, is truly, too risky for us.”

“Emperor in Power of the Blood Moon doesn’t have the right to supervise your Mirage Moon.” Si Wen Ming narrowed his eyes as well, looked at Wuli and said, “I know the biggest shareholder of this shop of yours is no one else but the Emperor in Power of your Mirage Moon…”

“You shut up!” Wuli had nearly leapt up from his seat in a sudden shock. He then screamed at Si Wen Ming, “How did you know that?! Eh, even if you know, you can’t say it out loud! This business belongs merely to our Wu Family, doesn’t have anything to do with any other people, not to mention our highest Emperor. This business doesn’t have anything, anything to do with our Emperor!”

“Prepare the products I need according to the numbers I just gave you. I want you to deliver those products to me today… I will take them when I leave.” Si Wen Ming stared straight at Wuli and said in an extra serious tone, “The information is sold to me by yourself. The Di Family is about to launch the deadly attack to us, I don’t want to see too many of my warriors fall in the battle.”

“I need those, Wuli!” Si Wen Ming pressed both of his hands on Wuli’s shoulders and said in a low yet forceful voice, “Prepare the weapons and armors that I need, I want the best stuff instead of the cr*ppy ones. Every piece has to be a top-grade one, crafted by one of the most powerful master craftsmen himself. For this, I will give you, just you, my friend, some extra compensation, to show my gratefulness.”

Wuli’s round, smooth and fleshy cheeks shook intensely. He pondered for a while, then patted heavily on the city-destroying demon crossbow beside him and said, “Two more natural spirit mines. I suddenly remembered that I have another twenty city-destroying demon crossbows in the storage… so forty in total, and all the other weapons and armors you asked for, I can give you all.”

He then raised his chubby, short arm, gripped Si Wen Ming’s arm and continued with a twisted face, “Although we are good friends, business is business. You have to give me additional one billion top-grade magic crystal pieces to fill up the deficit. Oh and, my family needs a few of well-trained, Magus-King level battle beasts, can these be counted as that compensation you mentioned just now? A few kids of our family have just stepped into their manhood… I will present those battle beasts to them, as gifts.”

Si Wen Ming raised his hand and shook Wuli’s hand, then let out a long breath and said, “Deal.”

While hearing all this, Ji Hao couldn’t help but nearly be soaked in cold sweat. Only by now did he finally breathe out loud.