A Sorcerer’s Journey

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two silhouettes landed on a series of stairs next to a door shaped like a hexagon—it was the entrance to the Dark Sorcerers’ Headquarters at the Holy Tower of Seven Rings. As they landed, two rays of powerful elemental energies cloaked the two sorcerers as they stepped through the door.

One of the elemental energies was a bright blue water element while the other was a burning red fire element. A pair of bright eyes shone from underneath Grimm’s cloak, blistered with a crack of electric element, staring at Millie who was tagging along behind him.

Millie was shielded by a satin sheet of white mist, glistering with starry blue glimmers. The mist emitted a breath of calm subtle icy temperament, shaped like a long arctic chilly white snake slithering and floating around Millie—almost as if it was acting like a thin layer of protection membrane.

‘Hmm?

‘Has her power in manipulating nature grown this significantly?’

Suppressing his shock at this sight, Grimm calmly commented, “A Void Fortress was only constructed half a year ago for an expedition. The Holy Tower of Seven Rings launches an expedition every seven to ten year. If we were to register for a Demon-Hunting mission now or for an Extreme Hour several years later, it would not make much difference at all.”

Hidden within the white icy mist, Millie replied, “Let’s hope our first Demon-Hunting mission would send us to a peaceful orderly Foreign World. One that has a stable law that maintains its order.”

To the Demon Hunters, an “orderly world” meant that the natural law of the said world was almost identical to the one in the Sorcerer World—one that had seasons, days and nights, and also the natural law of life-and-death.

There were many conquests that were launched by the sorcerers before them that went horribly wrong. Sometimes, the Foreign Worlds that the Sorcerers visited had laws of nature that were too unique and strange; this resulted in countless Demon Hunter deaths. As for the reason for their deaths? It often came down to either being killed by some exotic creature that resided in the Foreign World or falling into the invisible claws of the incomprehensible and mystifying law of nature and order of the said Foreign Lands.

Several moments later.

Boom boom boom!

A huge and bulky Demon Hunter, one who was two-meters tall and shrouded in black smog, walked pass Grimm. There were several heads of convincing-looking wolves glaring through the dark cloak as a pair of dark red bat wings spread out of the black smog.

Grimm and Millie could not help but to lay their eyes on the powerful sorcerer for a few more moments before they stepped into the Shadow Lobby of the Demon-Hunter headquarters.

The powerful shadowy sorcerer was probably a Level 2 Sorcerer who possessed the ability to morph his body. Other than that, it would seem that he was also one of the most powerful Level 2 sorcerers. Witnessing this power, a tremendous pressure fell upon Grimm, Millie and several other sorcerers who were behind them.

In the meantime, the Shadow Lobby of the Demon-Hunter Headquarters had a glowing dark emerald light globe floating in the middle of the side lobby. Various energies filled with mystical vibes hummed solemnly in every corner of the room.

Grimm and Millie stood in front of the glowing globe as the former calmly read the messages being displayed. Then, Grimm whispered, “It has only been half a year since the commencement of the conquest, and yet there are already over two thousand three hundred Dark Demon-Hunters who signed up for the Seven Rings Demon-hunting missions. If the conquest goes on for a decade, wouldn’t there be over tens of thousands of Dark Demon-hunters squeezing into that Void Fortress? What about the number of Bright Sorcerers and Soul Slaves, whose sheer number is several times more than the Dark Sorcerers…”

It would seem that even this Void Fortress, which was amongst the lowest class compared to the others, carried over two million sorcerers from the Sorcerer World in its conquest in this Foreign World.

Of course, most of the passengers were Stigmata Sorcerers and mere Soul Slaves.

After having understood the rough idea of what was going on, Grimm faced Millie. Millie calmly replied, “Let’s sign the contract. To the Stigmata Sorcerers, we’re just some lowly Demon Hunters—the convenient tools that they have rented from the Seven Rings. It’s like an investment. As for us, the lowly Demon Hunters, we don’t have a say in who’d be our clients. We’re just pawns after all. All we can do is wait for those high-and-mighty Stigmata Sorcerers to come and pick up our contracts.”

Grimm felt a twitch on his face after hearing Millie’s painful but truthful insights.

Nonetheless, every sorcerer’s views and sentiments of the world were different. This was something that he must admit objectively. Due to his deep passion for the Sorcerer World, Grimm did not possess the materialistic and business-like mentality like Millie. Yet, he did not really want to argue with her about it too.

“Right.”

After agreeing with her, Grimm and Millie both rocked up their Soul Waves and penned their names on the low-rank contracts. As they completed their contract binding, an invisible wave rippled in the air as several elemental runes appeared in the sky. Then, as the runes disappeared swiftly without a trace, Grimm and Millie’s profiles and crystal ball contacts appeared within the dark emerald glowing globe.

After bidding each other farewell, Grimm and Millie stepped out of the Shadow Lobby and left the area.

Millie was headed to the Seven Ring World to visit her little sister Mina while Grimm was going to spend the last of his Sorcerer Essences to buy basic knowledge about the Chimeras.

A few moments later, Grimm had arrived at the Ingress of Life’s Secrets.

As soon as he stepped through the entrance, the first thing Grimm saw was an obscenely awkward looking pan vine, ensnaring any poor living creature that was unfortunate enough to cross its path. At the same time, there were a few dozen swine-looking creatures screeching in fear as they were fleeing away from the vine creature; yet, they were not fast enough—one by one, they were wrapped up by the creature’s vines. The swine-creatures were then torn to pieces before being swallowed whole. It was quite a frightening sight.

An aura of black shadows was felt throughout the room as this scene unfolded before Grimm.

Each of the vine-creature’s branches was about hundreds of meters in length; they were all highly flexible and soft, like the tentacles of an octopus. Yet, these branches and vines were still wood—they were solid and tough. If paid closer attention, one could also see a layer of black fur on the surface of the branches.

“Do you want to acquire the basic knowledge of the Chimeras or do you wish to trade for the advanced knowledge of reconstructing the Chimeras?”

An elderly sorcerer slowly emerged from the fearsome vine-creature’s branches—it was as though his torso was ejected out from the branches. He lazily stretched his body while letting out a wide yawn before posing his question at Grimm, who was standing next to the entrance.

Grimm could instinctively feel a surge of immense threat as soon as he saw the elderly Sorcerer—as though he had met his natural nemesis in the wild.

Grimm’s irises quivered and shrunk as he gasped, “Black Sorcerer!”

This threatening dread that Grimm was feeling was indeed an instinctive reaction that humans had when facing their natural predators.

Black Sorcerers were infamous for collecting human despair. It was by doing this they were able to pose an unimaginably tremendous threat to the other sorcerers in the Sorcerer World. In the Black Domain, the world where Black Sorcerers hailed, ordinary humans were considered slaves and pets for the Black Sorcerer.

“Oh, a new Demon Hunter? I see. So, you’re here for the basic knowledge of the Chimeras. That’ll be ten sorcerer essences.” The elderly sorcerer gave Grimm an indifferent glance. Grimm’s unusual behaviour and reactions were enough for him to see that this greenhorn was a newly ranked-up Demon Hunter.

Whoosh!

Grimm firmly grabbed the crystal ball, one that was shrouded in black scent, that was hurled at him.

After this short moment of exchange, Grimm realized that he was being impolite. Indeed, the Sorcerer World did forbid Black Sorcerers from entering. However, they had now signed a peace treaty with the Black Domain. Thus, it was quite possible that the two worlds were also on a collaboration of some sorts.

This Black Sorcerer was probably one of the few who was sent to the Sorcerer World from the Black Domain as a result of the two worlds’ collaboration.

After bowing to portray his sincere apology to the elderly Sorcerer, Grimm slashed open a pocket dimension in the air, took out a bundle of Sorcerer Essences and tossed them to the top of the vine-creature. Having completed his trade, Grimm hastily left the Ingress of Life’s Secrets.

Humans, no matter where their allegiance lay, would always feel a lingering dread around Black Sorcerers. As for Demon Hunters like Grimm, they would often strike up a sense of hostility towards them too.

After returning to his Demon-hunter Castle, Grimm proceeded to draw his new timetable from scratch.

Firstly, he declared that there was no longer any need to resume his intoxication sorcery in the Ascetic Prison. As a result, he could use the extra time to research on the knowledge regarding Chimeras. This should ensure some preliminary breakthrough in Chimera research on the offset of his Demon-hunting mission.

Other than that, Grimm only had 98 Mental Strength. Although he had not achieved 100 Mental Strength—the requirement to become a Level 1 Sorcerer, Grimm had decided that he would stop his daily meditation and pursue more physical training in order to drive out his body’s potential, which would increase his combat prowess in battles.

Finally, he would also need to ensure that the Myna had some combat utilities by matching his Curses and Long-ranged Teleportation abilities.

“Little Myna!” Grimm called for the Myna from his laboratory desk.

In the wink of an eye, the Myna leapt out from a reality distortion on his shoulder. Holding a walnut in his beak, the Myna let out an obnoxious laugh, “Caw caw, what is thy bidding, my beloved Master Grimm?”

In the last hundreds of years, the Myna’s feathers had grown brighter and more colourful. He even had a small golden ring on one of his talons, giving him an appearance of a noble’s exotic pet; this won him a lot of adoration from the ladies too.

“It’s about that thing we’ve discussed before. How did it go?” Grimm asked.

“Caw caw caw caw! Oh my beloved Master Grimm, don’t you worry. On your shoulder now stands the mighty Lord Myna of the Sorcerer World! I’m not like those stupid moronic parrots you find in the woods! Those things you spoke of? There was no need for me to have a hand in it at all. Erm, my master, what are you glaring at? Come on, stop glaring at me like this.”

Hmph!

Grimm gave him a contemptful curt response.

“I’ll give you one more month. If you can’t do it, I’ll have you retrieve bones back to me for one thousand times.” After berating him, Grimm turned his attention back to his crystal ball, which was gleaming with gentle rays of light, and continued on with his research on the Chimeras.

“One… One thousand? One thousand times!” After shrieking out in horror, the Myna was stunned as he stood in place for a short moment of time; then, he quickly flew away in a hurry.