A Sorcerer’s Journey

“Hey, you’ve been stunned silent in there since I entered here ten minutes ago. Are you gonna climb up or not?”

Glenn was jolted back to reality with a start on hearing the sudden urging. His knees nearly collapsed. He then propped himself up by leaning against the rail! In his surprise, he stammered, “Who are you?”

After Glenn recovered his intelligence, he found a girl standing at the door of the tower. The next second, he noticed her blue eyes. He was sort of relieved because it was not her who had tracked him. She didn’t have that pair of green eyes.

“Quick, get out of here. Don’t dawdle! The weird things in this tower won’t happen again once there are two or more people in here!” The girl continued her yelling.

This girl was terribly overweight. Glenn estimated that she weighed 400 kilos. That was Glenn’s only impression of her. Yet the next occasion they met, Glenn would be more deeply impressed.

Glen had no intention to argue with this rude, mysterious girl. He rushed past her, got out of the water tower and the yard that surrounded it.

It was already midnight. In the moonlight, the water tower just seemed like usual — tattered yet stately erected. Glenn didn’t want to tarry and went directly to the Black Tower. On the wall of the Bounty Section, he wrote: “4,000 magical stones for 100 Beauty Clams.”

Before leaving the Black Tower, Glenn asked a service person about the date and time, and he was ensured that he had stayed in that water tower for about an hourglass.

After the official work, Glenn headed off to Lafite, who had been simmering in fury, for Glenn had been late for an hourglass. Yet the anger between the couple melted when skins contacted!

The following day was when Glenn and his mentor were scheduled to meet.

Glenn went to the Black Tower and arrived at the 79th floor, where Sorcerer Norris lived. Norris, Varro and the cat were already there, awaiting Glenn’s arrival. There was an adult female with them.

“Glenn, come! Today, you’ve been called here to learn the basic sorcery of intoxication.”

Norris rattled on about the history of this sorcery. After that, he introduced the female beside him, who turned out to be his wife. The woman seemed taciturn. She hadn’t spoken during Norris’ 15 minute long tirade.

According to Norris, his wife was a gourmet. She excelled in cooking puffer fish.

“Glenn, this is puffer fish. We fished them for you. They are of significant medicinal value.” Norris’ wife smiled gently. The smile was charming. What was also enchanting was her small yet perfectly proportioned figure and her blond hair that rolled down to shoulder. Her face was enlivened with the gleam of her hair. Yet Glenn was astonished when he noticed a mouth on each of her palm.

The cat was also at the table with an apron before its chest. It made an annoying noise when swallowing its saliva produced on seeing the fish served for Glenn.

“Hey. These fish were brought here from the Foreign Land. And Norris built that large tank and raised them with great care, or they would have gone extinct.” The cat said that without moving its eyes from the fish. “Today you’re being served this for a good reason. You’re too weak! You have a body constitution of 4 points. But eating one fish will boost your constitution up by 3. Remember, the first fish has to be swallowed up whole in one go.”

“A three point rise? Are you serious?” Glenn grunted towards the cat, which didn’t answer his question.

At that time, Norris’ second disciple Varro walked to Glenn and offered him an ivory dagger.

“It’s a small world. I didn’t expect we would be both studying under Sorcerer Norris. This is a little gadget I collected. It was made from a sorcerer’s nail — a level three sorcerer!”

Glenn accepted it, and he found that the dagger was irregularly indented. He felt it using his hand and said, “It’s sharp!”

“Try and use your magical strength to activate it!” Varro exclaimed.

Glenn followed Varro’s suggestion. The second the magical force ran over the dagger, it caught on fire, which then glittered in a pure blue shade.

After Glenn enjoyed his fish, the group broke. Glenn followed Norris to his laboratory after a sip of coffee.

Norris had a private laboratory, which was divided into nine separate rooms. It was well-equipped for research and experiments. And there were books and scrolls recording the knowledge passed on from ancient sorceries.

However, Glenn was still thinking about the Water Tower. So, he asked: “Sorcerer Norris. May I ask a question about the Water Tower? I climbed onto it before I came here.”

“Eh?” was Norris’ response.

“It was so strange, so uncanny. I couldn’t even believe my eyes and ears when I was in there.”

“So, you have been to the Black Mirror?”

“I guess so.” Glen conjectured that the thin film might be the mirror that Norris was talking about.

“It’s a forbidden place! You’re not allowed to go there!” Norris’ face became stern.

Glenn had never seen his mentor speak in a high pitch, which caused a slight trembling of his hands.

“You’d better behave yourself. There are rules governing the school and the Sorcerer Continent. But, since you’ve broken in the mirror, it won’t hurt to tell you something about it.” Norris’ serious face softened.

“1700 years ago, a sorcerer established this school— the Black Isotta School of Sorcerers! And of course that sorcerer owned the water tower. The water tower was a reservoir of mental strength, which is enclosed in separate spaces in the water tower!” Norris continued. “The energy waves the mental strength carried are so powerful that they might temporarily block the reflections of sound and sight and thus create dark, silent, dead spaces. In a space where energy waves are not that strong, reflections will be resumed, and you can see and hear things again. Strangely enough, different spaces are constantly changing position, so a sound might be repeated, so you might be misled into believing that someone was following you.”

“There’s a probability for these things to happen, but there is one thing for sure. According to your description, you must have cut through the Black Mirror, and you pierced it without knowledge of its efficacy, so your mental strength will get a bump.” Norris signified to Glenn to take a test of his mental strength.

Glenn took out his Black Crystal Ball, and his mental strength was measured at 29 points.

“Excellent, there’s a five point rise!” If Norris was not present, Glenn would have jumped into the air and waved his arm for a celebration.

“There are essentially three qualitative changes along the road of sorcery learning. The first one is to become a sorcerer. The second metamorphosis is to become a level four sorcerer — a Stigmata sorcerer,” said Norris calmly. “A Stigmata sorcerer is all-powerful. They own an army of slaves on the Foreign Land. They build it after they conquer these living beings there, and some of these armies are of over 10,000 slaves.”

“The reason why they’re so powerful was this!” Norris lifted his finger and headed up at the same time.

“The ceiling?” Glenn’s tongue slipped. He gave an answer that made himself laugh.

“The water tower! Every Stigmata sorcerer own a sorcery school, which hinges on the sorcery tower, in our case, the Black Tower. However, the water tower is the key.”

“A key to what?”

“A key to his or her power! You see, the student who accidentally intruded into the water power would very likely increase his mental strength and thus the chance of becoming a sorcerer. The Stigmata sorcerer’s power grows when a student becomes a sorcerer!”

Things began to clear out. Glenn now knew that those in high power or authority wanted sorcerers! The First-years Sorcery Test had been designed to lay foundation for the Desperaters and whoever were stronger to become a sorcerer!

Glenn held back his anger and asked Norris about the level seven sorcerers — the Necromancy Sorcerers.

“The Necromancy Sorcerers? You keep in mind one thing about them. You would be killed by their energy waves if you approached them. So, never do that. They live in the Holy Rings. That’s why they’re off bounds.”