A Sorcerer’s Journey

There were four criteria to create a Chimera.

It required a huge amount of living flesh, a living heart that could go on beating forever, a Carcass Refinery and an Elemental Soul.

Then, there was also required knowledge for the re-modifications and upgrading procedures of a Chimera—the basic formulation and re-modifications of living flesh, reactive stimulation of a living heart and the synthesis upgrade of an Element Soul. As for Carcass Refinery, it was the key to granting life to the Chimeras.

Carcass Refinery was wisdom passed down from the ancient Black Sorcerers. The means and procedures of the refinery process were mostly left unmodified. In other words, learning how to create a Chimera was the same as learning how to differentiate the various materials and components for creating the Chimeras and also the different matrix patterns of the Carcass Refineries.

Grimm had seen results of a living flesh formulation and re-modifications before—the massive re-modifications of the Tjugealong Stone was one such example.

As for why one needed to stimulate a living heart, after the host dies, his or her heart would suffer a huge drop in its power output. Thus, the Sorcerers would require a higher form of knowledge to stimulate it to pull it back to its full potential. This was what Julni meant when she traded the living heart with Grimm back then.

As for the synthesis technique of the Elemental Souls, it was a process equivalent to combining and synthesizing several natural Elemental Souls, upgrading them into one superior entity via artificial means. The collected natural Elemental Souls can only be used for the synthesizing process once. Therefore, the amount of Element Souls used was a deciding factor as to whether this sorcery was one of a “high grade” or not.

Unlike the other newly ranked up Demon Hunters, Grimm had developed his own unique thought process in viewing the knowledge available to him after doing research alone for a long period of time.

He had learned to ignore the useless gimmicks that were decorating the surface of any knowledge presented to him. By doing so, he could master new knowledge in a much shorter time.

For example, his ways of learning the Carcass Refinery.

To other Sorcerers, their priority after acquiring the knowledge was almost always about memorizing every single detail about Carcass Refinery—the protocol, matrix patterns, literally everything about it. However, the matrix of the Carcass Refinery had 6 main energy pillars, 216 reactive energy joints, 7792 energy intersection flux, and 3537994 basic rune inscriptions.

That was not all.

Amongst all the 3537994 basic rune inscriptions, there were about 273600 runes that required modifications and reprogramming in accordance to the data of the living flesh being used.

In short, this was going to be an astronomically massive memory load for any full-fledged Sorcerer.

Yet, Grimm was different. To Grimm, “learning” meant reverse engineering any of the existing Carcass Refineries; by doing that, he would reorganize, analyze and conclude the rules and laws behind the object of his learning.

As such, whenever Grimm needed to formulate a Carcass Refinery, he only had to analyse the data of the available living flesh and scribe down the 273600 basic runes, and the work it from there using logical deductions. When all that was done, he could freely create any carcass anytime as he wished.

The two ways of learning seemed to lead to the same results. However, it’s quite easy for one to miss a crucial difference behind this.

The former, the “memorizing everything” technique, only allowed the learners to learn whatever knowledge and techniques that the other Sorcerers had discovered. It’s a rigid recall-and-recycle, which contributed nothing new to the literature. The latter, however, utilized one’s critical thinking, which then enabled the learners to see the bigger picture and the underlying workings under any knowledge presented to them. And thus, the learners not only learned new knowledge, they also get to create their own knowledge.

The knowledge that they discovered and create their own could then contribute to the vast literature in the academia of the Sorcerer World… allowing more innovations and breakthroughs. It would keep fresh ideas, new discoveries flowing and evolving, like an actual living being.

***

A month later.

In the alchemy lab, Grimm couldn’t hold his joy as he looked at a completed rune formula on his desk.

The first phase of engineering The Mask of Truth was finally done!

Even after combining Ultrasonic Sorcery and Mystic Eye, the total storage within the Mask of Truth was only expended by 10%. This meant that there was still a huge amount of potential for future development for the mask.

If things went according to plan, Grimm could install both eagle-eye technique and Boundless Eye sorcery into the Mask of Truth, developing it further towards its full potential, after returning from his Demon-hunting mission.

Overjoyed, Grimm put down the quill that he used to pen down the last rune earlier and sealed back the various Magic Ink bottles. Then, he extended his gentle pale hand to reach a weird self-extending paper.

Pop!

Like a ripple rocking across a calm lake, a surge of Magic Power pulsed out of Grimm’s palm and then, swiftly, the weird paper suddenly was wrapped up into a ball. In less than a second, it morphed into a grey ivory mask—one that could fit onto Grimm’s face perfectly.

A huge swirling rune was printed on the mask—it was the enchantment for the Supersonic sorcery.

As soon as Grimm put on the Mask of Truth, he could feel that the world had changed in an instance.

It felt as though…

There was a thin layer of membrane appeared in between reality and the laws of Truth.

Everything in the world followed the lead and guidance of various specific rules and laws of nature and reality. Yet, most living beings could only see the surface of this “reality” and couldn’t see through the true laws of Truth underneath.

Even the wise Sorcerers were cursed with the limitations of their senses; all they could only do was to attempt research after research to peek through the veil of reality.

The result of that was “Sorcery”.

And this all led to Grimm’s plan with the Mask of Truth. The mask’s purpose was to boost up the Sorcerer’s own senses—the senses to peek through the various laws of reality, to see the Truth behind reality!

Thus, the name “Mask of Truth”.

Instinctively, Grimm took out two wooden broken branches. Then, using his calm eyes—as calm as a frozen lake, Grimm calmly stared through the Mask of Truth. Suddenly, a lightning-runed bright iris appeared on the eyes of the mask. The Boundless Eye function was now activated.

Whoosh…

Then, the lightning rune scanned at the broken branches in a flash!

Yet, in that brief instance, in Grimm’s eyes, that swift lightning rune didn’t look like any kind of rune to him. It appeared to be a lightning bolt that was moving about on the broken branches.

It was like an actual Lightning Elemental was zipping on the surface of the broken branches with the speed of light.

After moving about for a short moment, the lightning bolt stopped at the broken parts of the branches; in a flash, a Lightning Mirror appeared on the spot and started to glimmer fiercely. As the lightning bolt continued to scan the Lightning Mirror, Grimm felt as though electric current running through his body.

Psst!

What’s going on…

“So… when I was observing the broken branches, I wasn’t really acquiring knowledge and wisdom about any lightning runes at all. But rather… it was my soul that was passively responding to and receiving data from the moving lightning bolt. There was a brief moment I could feel that I was absorbing a quarter of whatever data the lightning bolt had acquired. In other words, if I use the Boundless Eye to scan anything three times, it could save me decades of research as a sorcerer-apprentice?”

As his eyes glimmered with joy and surprise, Grimm continued on with his deduction.

“So there were several lightning element joints that one could find from these two broken branches. Who knows how many secret joints one could find in there. Yet, there is one thing that’s for sure… these lightning joints follow a certain rhythm… a rule… and I’m absorbing data from them. As I am doing that, my body’s attributes and elements will start aligning with that certain rule. That means I could turn my body’s attribute into the same one as this broken branches whenever the rule of this lightning ascends.”

Yet!

Even if I’ve turned my body to align with this “lightning rule”, what good would it do for me?

Nonetheless, Grimm had never really seen any use of the electric elements found in these broken branches even up to today.

If there was a need to find out the deeper workings behind the electric power of these two broken branches, he had two means to do it. He could perform experiments after experiments, like the ancient Sorcerers, to acquire results through sheer luck. Or, he could study the energy source and foundation of this “lightning rule”, and then deduce out its use.

Yet no matter the outcome, it was a must for Grimm to absorb the energy and data from them and change his body’s attributes to uncover the secrets behind these two broken branches.

Grimm couldn’t imagine just how many years he would need to acquire data from the lightning joints without the aid of the Boundless Eye. He might need tens of thousands of years… perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years…

Only the Great Necromancers possessed the longevity to make such observation.

Without the power of being a full-fledged sorcerer, or leveled-up Stigmata or Great Necromancer, there’s no way one’s soul could live on for over an era and be functional enough to make such observation. That’s the balance of nature for all things in the world.

And an era in the Sorcerer World was ten thousand years—about 43,800,000 hourglass time.

A moment later.

“Myna!” Grimm yelled out loudly.

In less than a second, the colourful flashy Myna leapt out of a blob of reality warp appeared on Grimm’s shoulder.

“Master Grimm! Don’t you know it’s utmost impolite to disturb a great mighty parrot’s afternoon nap? You ought to know that… ahem, what is thy bidding?” After seeing the bone in Grimm’s palm, Myna immediately behaved as it reminded him of a certain painful memory.

Grimm turned and looked at Myna.

Caw caw caw caw!

Trying to glaze through the awkward moment, Myna spoke as he pointed at Grimm’s Mask of Truth, “Caw caw! Oh my, my beloved Master Grimm had finally finished the first phase of engineering the Mask of Truth! Congratulations! Oh, I can totally see Master Grimm’s unique taste and innovation… it’s quite obvious that this is a huge revolutionary work of art in the Sorcerer World! Look at it. The mysterious and yet surreal aura around it. Oh my, I couldn’t help but be amazed by it after seeing it with my small and unimportant eyes. Can you see that? The color, the engravings… oh, it’s like the work of God…”

Fifteen minutes later, Myna was out of words as he felt his throat was dried up from speaking so much. Grimm finally spoke, “Are you finally done? If you’re done with your *ss kissing, I need you to fly to the Life Tree and do what I asked of you earlier. Hmph, if you don’t produce any result, you know what consequences await.”

After receiving a stern glare from Grimm, Myna swiftly zoomed out of the window.

Myna was always speedy in flying; his flight speed was even faster than Grimm. Grimm had always wondered how this little thing flew so fast.

An hourglass time later.

Using his long-ranged Teleportation spell, Grimm’s face was turning dingy as he looked at the Life Tree that was still far away.

The teleportation could only send him to an area halfway between his Demon-Hunter Castle and the Life Tree. It was most probably that this darn parrot had forgotten to add in some decimals when calculating the coordinates, and thus he was sent to this spot after departing from his original coordinates.

Hmph!

So… his small brain and soul had limited his ability to make simple calculations too?

A brief moment later, Myna leapt out of a reality distortion bubble and landed on Grimm’s shoulder.

“Ah! One month! Come on, just gimme one more month! Your beautiful, noble, loyal, pure, sincere, gentle, kind Little Myna will definitely produce the result you want…”

Looking at the bone that Grimm was about to toss out, Myna’s face turned pale almost immediately—Grimm was aiming to toss the bone at the Life Tree, where a lot of Sorcerers were gathering at.

If he were to retrieve the bone while barking like a dog in front of so many, Myna’s precious reputation would all be ruined.

Pulling back his arm, Grimm shot a glare at Myna on his shoulder. After a long moment of silence, Grimm replied sternly, “Sure. I’ll give you one more month! If you can’t do it in a month, you’ll need to retrieve the bone 1000 times like a dog.”

After that, Grimm furiously flew back to the Demon-hunter Castle.

As he looked at Grimm flew to a great distance away from him in the sky, Myna finally snapped.

“This damned Grimm Beast! Don’t you forget me, the Lord Myna, devoured your Soul-fire Prime back then. How dare you speak to me like this! This little prick! If I get really pissed, I could just go ahead and gulp down a bottle of poison! I’ll drag you down to the pit of death with me. Oh poor me… I, Lord Myna, returned to this endless world to live a lavish life… not to be tortured like this, you darn summoned Grimm Beast! You think I, the great Lord Myna, will obey you? One day you’ll be like that old twat too… become my servant’s materials. If you’ve got the balls, don’t use this stupid bone trick or some dimensional spell… don’t…”