A Sorcerer’s Journey

“Use your mental strength to evoke the magical force…” Glenn was sitting in his room and was reading A Guide to Meditation.

“Magical force is powerless itself; it has to be controlled by mental strength,” mumbled Glenn.

Glenn had stayed at the Duke’s manor for five days, and he had done nothing but studied the Guide. Fortunately, he had conjured up a little bit of magical power in the morning.

But Glenn needed to seek ‘knowledge’, plus mental strength. Magical force would be put into effect only when the practitioner used his/her mental strength, which was to be gained in large part through acquirement of knowledge.

Glenn sat before his desk morosely and was scratching his hair restlessly. He had been more enchanted with sorcery ever since Lafite, a student, produced the vine that tied up Robinson.

“Glenn! Glenn!” A loud noise came from the yard of the manor.

It was a distinctive voice – shrill and rattling. Glenn knew that it must be Robinson. Although Glenn harbored strong antipathy towards the prattling Robinson, he wanted to be engaged in something else for a distraction.

“What’s up?” Glenn hid the book under his pillow, put out the candles and sped out of his room to greet Robinson.

“Hey, Glenn,” Robinson said with a big smile, “have you heard of the Dark Wells?”

“The Dark Wells? No, I haven’t. What are they?” Glenn inquired as he smoothed out his long silky robe, which he had obtained as a gift from a nobleman in the previous port.

As one might say, “Clothes make the man.” Now, with this sumptuous elegant-looking robe, coupled with the serious look on his face, Glenn appeared as if he was a man of gentry.

“Seriously, you haven’t? Come with me, then, or you will regret it for the rest of your life,” said Robinson mysteriously as he dragged Glenn’s arm and ran out of the manor.

After half an hour of running, they arrived at a boisterous bazaar by dusk.

The streets were lit red by the numerous candles which were hanging in the air, supported by lines stretching between the opposite shopfronts. Vendors were peddling foods, candies, and toys from their trolleys. Glenn was curious and wanted to try everything. He had rarely hung out at night since a curfew was in place for all ordinary people in Bi Seer City.

However, nothing in the bazaar seemed to be of any interest to Robinson. He was thinking about the Dark Wells.

He then dragged Glenn by his arm and bulldozed his way through the sea of people.

After around ten minutes of sprinting, they arrived at a manor.

“Here we are!” Robinson exclaimed as Glenn stopped, gasping for air.

In front of them was a manor larger than the Duke’s. It was nestled in a thick and leafy jungle.

Moonlight shone upon the large trees surrounding the manor, and beams of moonlights were reflected by the shuffling branches to the windows of the manor, making the place more mysterious.

Young couples were strolling out the archway of the manor at the time, with surprising smiles on their faces.

Glenn and Robinson were led to a grim-looking hall after paying two gold coins of admission fee.

A wrinkled old woman was at the entrance and she handed each of them a transparent stone. The old woman had dim eyes that starkly contrasted the gleam of the stones, and her yellowish teeth were indented as if they had been gnawed by some animal.

“Have a good time,” said the woman.

But Glenn was still confused about the stone in his hand.

“You see the wells out there? There are over 70 of them. You pick one and drop the stone in, and then you can talk with ‘people’ from the Foreign Land.”

“The Foreign Land?” Glenn gawked.

“The Foreign Land! You think we are alone out in this universe? No, the human world and the sorcerer world, they’re just only a part out of the many worlds,” explained Robinson proudly.

“Weird creatures might surface from the well occasionally, but generally it is safe and really exciting,” Robinson went over to a well, leaving Glenn alone.

Glenn flipped the stone before he headed off to a well, eager to have a conversation with an ‘alien’.

Reaching the edge of a well, Glenn inclined his body forward, and peeked into the well. The water in it was calm and glossy like a mirror. And it was around six feet deep.

Glenn drew a deep breath and flung the stone into the well, creating countless ripples across the water surface.

Almost instantly, an oddly-shaped creature with unclear features emerged in the water.

The creature swam up but stopped when its gray antennae reached the surface. It then broke the surface and exposed its bust in the air. It studied Glenn in curiosity.

“Are you a sorcerer?” the creature asked.

It was incredibly strange. Although Glenn was sure that he got every word of what the creature said, he was certain that he didn’t hear it or, at least, not through his ears. It was as if the message had been directed straight to his brain or something.

“Who are you?” inquired Glenn.

“Don’t speak! You fool, communicate using your soul!” the creature scowled at Glenn’s mouth-speaking. It seemed that it could not make out a word of Glenn’s speech.

“Didn’t you know that the Foreign Landers communicate through soul?” It added.

“Soul?” Glenn’s face darkened. But at least he knew he could receive and understand messages sent by souls. But he did not know that it was because of the stone that conjured the creature up or because of his gift.

Living things from the Foreign Land communicated using their souls. They didn’t talk and some of them didn’t have hearing ability at all.

“Are you a sorcerer?” the creature asked the question again.

“Urh…” Glenn stuttered, “No speaking, then how…”

“You answer my questions by nodding and shaking your head, okay? A nod is a “yes”, and a shake means “no”, are we clear?”

Glenn nodded with force.

“Are you a sorcerer?”

Glenn shook his head.

“Then what are you? A human?” said the creature rudely.

Glenn gave another nod.

“Damn it. I traveled all the way here to talk with a human?” It shook its head disappointedly.

“Still, I will answer two questions according to the fairness principle in effect on the the Foreign Land, since you have technically answered two of mine,” It said seriously.

“But since your voice makes no sense to me, I will instead tell you two pieces of information. First, I am a level four star denizen from the Star City of the Foreign Land. Second, in terms of energy level, I am basically a level two sorcerer on the Sorcerer Continent.”

The star denizen then disappeared into the water the moment it finished speaking.

Glenn was embarrassed by the fact that the little creature was not willing to waste another second of its time to talk to him.

Glenn now knew that there were many different worlds out there. He was also told by Robinson that encounters between humans and ‘people’ from the Foreign Land foreboded evil if they were made not through the Dark Wells.

“The strange creatures that appeared back in the governor’s house in Bi Seer City – the swimming jellyfish, the paper man, the giant tongue – are they from a different world, too?” Glenn wondered.