A Sorcerer’s Journey

Within a split second of opening his eyes, Glenn quickly stood up and surveyed his surroundings, on guard.

What?

Those bloodstained corpses of the Otherworld Beings were all gone.

However, the two samples of the Otherworld Being organs he had taken were still there. He remembered everything and registered that it was real and he had indeed had a single intense round of fighting.

He wrinkled his brows and threw the two samples into the space pocket. Discovering the translucent halo on the top of his head, he was startled and used a hand to try touching it—only for his hand to pass through. There wasn’t any reaction of energy waves whatsoever.

What is this?

Oh, that’s right!

Glenn suddenly looked up at the sky. It was still overcast and without the slightest abnormality. Glenn then ran quickly to the edge of the competition stage. It was still hazy gray below, making it seem as if the competition stage he was on was located above the clouds.

Glenn slowly sank into contemplation.

His loss of consciousness had absolutely not been caused by physical exhaustion or the like. Glenn did indeed have a huge battle with three Otherworld Beings of the same rank as school guardians. However, on one hand, those three had all been fairly injured, while on the other, the Flame Greed Giant had had a huge increase in strength after devouring their hatred and the Bloodlust Doll had caused erosion for a long period with his radioactive stone.

Once Glenn had succeeded in dispatching the first Otherworld Being, the pace of the following fights was already in Glenn’s grasp.

So Glenn did not have a chance to use the Black Isotta Friendship Key again.

But later on, after the fight had ended, Glenn had felt a burst of unbelievably terrifying might that pressed down on him while he was catching his breath to recover. The extremely weak Glenn only had the time to raise his head and stare as an eye slowly opened from behind a several hundred meter rift before he completely lost consciousness under that horrifying pressure.

Underneath the Ashen Mask, Glenn’s eyes lost focus as he got caught up in the recollection.

Could it be…

That the gigantic eye behind that black rift was the Seven Rings Holy Tower’s Necromancy Sorcerer? If that were so…

Sure enough, as far as that great existence was concerned, was he merely an organism inside a tiny bottle?

The other party could only observe through the mouth of that bottle, yet that organism which was so puny had long fainted out of fear felt from the other party’s frightening might.

It if were like this…

During the time of the single charge in the ruined tower within the Black Isotta School, Master Peranos had already explained that the illusory mirror inside the tower ruins was perpetually powered by the Black Isotta tower owner’s spiritual power. There were all kinds of illusory boundaries within the ruined tower that stimulated and used the mental energies of all unknown Sorcerer-Apprentices. Also, passing through all the way contributed to advancing as a formal sorcerer.

But before entering the tower ruins, was that huge eye in the sky precisely that Level Six Sorcerer tower owner that was trying to tell them something?

That, in the great and majestic Necromancy Sorcerer’s eyes, the students were merely tiny insects in a bottle?

*RUMBLE RUMBLE!*

Unexpectedly, following a noisy burst of violent movements, human-sized mechanical puppets rose up from all around the competition stage. Sometimes called mechanical marionettes, the seventh to eighth boundary layers of the Black Isotta used two of this type of advanced marionette units as guards.

Reportedly, this type of marionette art was the same as what was handed down by the ancient sorcerers. But the present sorcerer world was only competent in mechanics while only the Sky Holy Tower still preserved knowledge like this.

The sorcerer continent might have the occasional sorcerer that researched mechanics but it was only used as personal auxiliary transformations. Mechanical marionettes, mechanical armor, and those legendary level sky fortresses were absolutely out of reach.

(Cities in the sky and Sky Holy Tower are very important areas in the sorcerer world and will touch upon its ancient historical civilization as well as the evolution history thereafter. The late stage of the second phase of this work will slowly uncover the mysterious veil of the sorcerer world’s long history.)

Hm?

There were approximately seven- to eight-hundred mechanical marionettes. Around half of them appeared to have been kept in good condition while the other half had different degrees of damage and loss of function.

At this moment, space distorted in the center of the competition stage before a single undamaged mechanical marionette appeared—only a fire attribute light barrier was bound to it.

*Ding…*

Within Glenn’s soul, there was a crisp ringing sound before several paragraphs of a message appeared.

“Every student on the competition stage has a chance to fight against worker-ant grade mechanical puppets by themselves.”

(Note: The students that did not go up to the competition stage to get the summit reward doesn’t have this opportunity. Mechanical puppets are divided into three grades—worker-ant, soldier-ant, and commander-ant.)

“Worker-ant grade mechanical puppets have an immunity to curses using personal information and illusory techniques that hinder awareness. They can defend against: slashing type physical attacks of 220~250 degrees, vibration type physical attacks of 150~200 degrees, negative energy type attacks of 120~350 degrees, and positive energy class of attacks that measure 170~210 degrees. They can exert 120~250 degrees for standard physical attacks, corroding ray attack of 230 degrees, and disintegrating light waves of 270 degrees.

“Worker-ant grade mechanical marionettes were the most rudimentary marionettes that ancient sorcerers used in their campaigns. They’re also called cannon fodder-grade marionettes. Since their construction cost was expensive along with other shortcomings, their position was quickly replaced in modern times by low-level familiars of sorcerers.

“You presently have one hourglass of time to study the past traces left on the worker-ant grade marionettes from all previous apex students. Later you can pick whether or not to do battle with the worker-ant grade marionettes. You can independently leave the secret mirror at any time without points being deducted. You can also defeat the worker-ant grade marionettes before being directly sent to the Seven Rings Holy Tower.

“After a year, all the sorcerer world’s apex-level Sorcerer-Apprentices will obtain the Sorcerer World’s World-Core Fragments as a reward based on their accumulated score. The World-Core Fragments can be substituted for sorcerer essence to be used in transactions in any Holy Tower of the sorcerer world.”

The Sorcerer World’s World-Core Fragments…

As expected, it was the sort of thing that Master Peranos had spoken of…

Glenn sighed silently. He then merely glanced at the marionette bound to the center of the competition stage before beginning to slowly walk all around the competition stage.

Among these marionettes, half merely retained slight surface damage on their bodies while their internal structure was uncompromised. Clearly, so long as the power source was activated they would immediately be able to fight again.

In other words, all the previous apex students of this competition stage, even if half were able to make use of their power in an Otherworld, they did not have the qualifications to do so against the cannon fodder the ancient sorcerer world used in campaigns against Otherworlds.

As for the other half that were destroyed, Glenn started to study those marionettes one by one.

Highly penetrating methods were used to destroy the marionette’s core. There were marionettes with all four limbs chopped off. Mystical methods were utilized to cause the marionettes to explode from the inside. Various kinds of elemental attacks were used that had damaged the marionettes to end up with strange and weird appearances. There were even also a few that had met with grotesque curses.

Glenn studied them one by one.

This one marionette had an imprint of a fist on its stomach that had actually directly destroyed the entire mechanical insides of the marionette…

What?

‘All four limbs of this puppet were snapped off but it does not appear to have been done by a technique of brute force. Use of a hurricane’s tearing strength? Or maybe earth element to crush. No way is it a curse or the like, right. Eh? How did these engraved scars come about? Don’t tell me it’s certain threads utilizing the principle of thermal expansion and negative thermal expansion[1]…’

Huh?

The inside of this marionette’s head was actually blown up and appeared dissolved. Corrosion property? But the core of the marionette was positioned at its stomach. Could it be some energy attack of the marionette was obstructed?

Eh?

A petrified marionette…

Glenn stood before the damaged marionettes one by one. He only observed the marionettes that were destroyed and did not take a look if they did not look to be harmed. Suddenly, Glenn seemed to have finally realized something and retreated several tens of steps to return to the front of a marionette he had overlooked before.

This marionette seemed to be a bit different.

Although it was undamaged, it appeared to be a bit bulkier?

With this thought in mind, his eyes behind the Ashen Mask narrowed slightly. He then slowly extended a hand to attempt to sense whether or not there was some problem inside the marionette.

But when Glenn’s hand actually penetrated the marionette before him without the slightest obstruction, Glenn’s pupils suddenly contracted!

Illusion! This was actually an illusion! There basically weren’t any puppets here!

In an instant, Glenn felt himself being drenched in cold sweat. Among all the previous apex students there were a number of super prodigies he basically thought were incomprehensible. Extremely nightmarish students even more frightening than Glenn. (The time Glenn entered school was comparatively late. His knowledge and grasp of rank is already the most top-notch amongst the students.)

Soon afterward, among those that were more meticulously examined by Glenn, there were two other mechanical marionette forms that caused Glenn to feel a burst of uneasiness.

One of the marionettes only had a layer of metal granules remaining; the other marionette had both intact hands installed at the feet and both feet installed at the hands while completely lacking a head.

Speaking of the former, Glenn simply felt that student’s unknown attack was terrifying. But with the latter, Glenn got a sense of hard-to-describe oppression. A student could take a mechanical marionette and perform a study on it without breaking it whatsoever, even taking away a head and treating it as spoils of war?

Time passed.

After a period of one hourglass of time, the mechanical marionette at the center of the competition stage, at last, lost its bindings. It opened its mouth and launched terrifying waves of black light toward the sky.

Yet…

Following the wake of stifling calm at the competition stage, there was a flash of a similarly dark but reddish ray of light that came from the direction of the sky. Immediately, the mechanical puppet that had just obtained freedom was submerged in large waves of a frightening blaze.

Space distorted; Glenn had broken the badge and disappeared from the competition stage.

The competition stage slowly returned to stillness.

Among all the apex students that had destroyed marionettes, many had come out of an empty place which contained nothing whatsoever. There were three of such absolutely empty places including the one Glenn had recently arrived in. Only, Glenn himself had not noticed anything unusual about such an absolutely empty place.

No. In history there ought to be students discovering these unusual locations, leaving behind a permanent spiritual illusion.

They are the history of this competition as well as the… footprints left behind by those apex students.