A Sorcerer's Journey - Chapter 130

Chapter 130: Sorcerer Civilization

Master’s wife Alice presented dozens of strange delicacies exclusive to sorcerers one after another, setting them on the table before everyone.

Grimm used a dinner knife to cut a thin slice of bloody green meat and placed it in his mouth. He abruptly felt an indescribably cool and refreshing sensation inside his mouth before his body then broke out into a cold sweat. It was like bathing in a hot spring after a brutally cold winter, warming a person’s heart.

Grimm could not help but let out a pleased sigh.

There was an exotic creature that looked like a snail about the size of a baby’s fist steeped in a type of good wine known as Tirolan.

Following the demonstration of Master’s wife Alice, Grimm picked up a steel skewer and dug out the already drunken little animal from the shell. He readily ate the pink, soft-bodied creature.

In the split second it entered his mouth, Grimm only felt a rich and mellow flavor spread out within. And then something incessantly jiggled between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, before slowly sliding down into the depths of his throat.

Inside a boiling mushroom soup was a strange-looking fish which was continuously spitting bubbles and devouring small multi-colored mushrooms by the mouthful. The fish appeared unafraid of the boiling soup surrounding it.

Grimm lightly scooped out this strange-looking fish and delivered it inside his mouth…

A candle was lit on the dinner table, taking the place of more “modern” magic lights—it was a flickering form of illumination which went beyond brightness and darkness, filling the atmosphere with warmth, intimacy, and mystery.

A total of six people were sitting at the dinner table. Besides Peranos, Alice, Garnigel[1], and Grimm, there were two more people who actually lived on separate floors, one above and one below Peranos. The both of them had the position of an academy dean.

“Haha, you all don’t know the expression that old female snake from Compass Academy showed at that time. She actually made that treasured disciple of hers go find Grimm within the Mysterious Realm to bother him and the result was that disciple being driven out on the third day! Hahaha! This time it is very likely that darling disciple of hers did not obtain the qualifications to be a reserve Demon-Hunter at all…” Peranos was exceedingly pleased with himself. On account of his sewed up face and his overly exaggerated expression, he appeared even more malevolent.

Madam Alice smiled. Aware that Peranos was extremely pleased with this only disciple of his, she also softly added, “Everything is good about this child, Grimm. Ai, it’s just that he loses himself in the pursuit of knowledge and doesn’t take good care of his health.”

Grimm gave an embarrassed smile. Master’s wife’s compliment was truly too well done.

Even Grimm, receiving praise in the presence of a couple of deans, could not help but feel somewhat proud of himself.

His face revealing nothing else, Grimm simply continued to smile in embarrassment. He took a toothpick and stuck it in the purple fruit that looked like a human eyeball which was placed in a wine cup. He took a light sip of the drink.

“Heh heh, you old bag of skin. Both Quiet Spring and Grimm. Your foresight in regards to disciples is actually not bad.” The old sorcerer who lived on the floor above Peranos spoke laughingly, wearing a black robe with a huge, cross-shaped bluestone sword at her back, her face still shrouded in mist.

Peranos picked up something that looked just like a silkworm chrysalis, peeling the shell and eating the meat inside. Facing the black-robed sorcerer, he gave a smug smile and said, “How about it? Bluestone old hag, how about we talk it over—I’ll move upstairs and you move down?”

Haha…

The female dean living upstairs from Master Peranos chuckled once.

The present female dean did not resemble that male dean who carried a huge bluestone sword on his back but still covered her facial features. An exquisitely smooth and fair pair of cheeks could be seen through the shroud of mist, appearing to be just as smooth and fine as the skin of a newborn baby. The female dean lifted a cup of green juice to the corner of her mouth. Inside the fruit juice were densely packed red organisms, similar to small tadpoles moving about, that flowed into the female dean’s mouth along with the juice.

The female dean looked at the other two sorcerer deans while smilingly shaking her head and Madam Alice muttered.

“Hmph… want to move upstairs? Wait for Quiet Spring or Grimm to have their own sorcerer tower. You can move to any level of their sorcerer tower.” The Black Isotta Academy dean who Peranos called Bluestone Old Hag stated with a smile.

Pfft, haha…

Master’s wife Alice, who had been having a conversation with the female dean, couldn’t help but smile once again.

Peranos very fiercely glared at Bluestone Old Hag and whispered, “Your meaning is that I have no hope of advancing to Stigmata Sorcerer? Old hag, sooner or later there will come a day you will understand…”

…

The next day, only Grimm and Peranos remained in the laboratory.

Peranos finished hearing Grimm’s account of the Holy Tower Tryouts and was overwhelmed with shock. “You obtained 63,000 points?”

Grimm nodded. He asked suspiciously, “What’s going on? Do these points have some other use?”

Peranos, upon seeing Grimm’s confirmation, unexpectedly stood up with emotion. His eyes gleamed as he said, “It has no use for others that qualify as reserve Demon-Hunters. But when it comes to you, someone who is about to receive World-Core Fragments, it is tremendously useful, okay!? It’s because there is a direct relation between the amount of World-Core Fragments you receive and your points! Contrary to what one might expect, sorcery essence is minor and the crucial point is you will get even more recognition from the principal source of the sorcerer world. This will allow your Demon-Hunter career to proceed a lot more conveniently in the future, particularly during the time when you’re still a low-level Demon-Hunter.”

Recognition from the principal will of the sorcerer world?

Grimm frowned. “What is that?”

Peranos explained, “In the event that the principal will of the world gives recognition, you will receive protection from the world-core if you meet with an Otherworld life form in a place that has the acknowledgment of the principal will of the world. Generally speaking only level four stigmata sorcerers can get sanctuary from the world-core.”

Grimm was momentarily stumped for words. However, he silently lowered his head and said, “However, Master, I can obtain even more world-core fragments but can’t prove the sorcerer world is approaching…”

Peranos was startled, his emotional expression slowly subsiding. After a moment of silence, he sighed. “This type of matter is not something you should worry about. The sorcerer world can be said to have its own rules that it plays by; you only need to work properly on your own performance. One day, in the event that you can become a stigmata sorcerer or even a celestial sorcerer, this type of matter will be within your scope to ponder over.”

Grimm peered at Peranos and then quietly nodded.

Peranos gave a sigh. “Good. Since you have already ensured you can become a formal sorcerer and received so much recognition from the source of the sorcerer world, I will inform you the specific use of the principal will’s sanctuary.”

After saying this, Peranos lost himself in his memories for a moment. He then said in a low voice, “Every civilization shares one common point. In the wake of constant conflict, the ones who plunder become stronger but not because war consumed. Those without inherent strength grow progressively weaker. This is precisely the natural difference between civilized worlds and empirical worlds. Our present sorcerer civilization has every single stigmata sorcerer go through a sorcerer tower with the soul experiencing a hard to describe enormous amplification. Thus shocked slave corps were established from surrounding worlds in order to plunder even more slaves and knowledge! Only… this was only a large side of sorcerer civilization, nothing more.”

The matter of the slave corps, Grimm already realized to some extent and was too amazed as a result.

It was general knowledge which students could access owing to the sorcerer world being called by the surrounding worlds as the World Slave Owner.

However, Grimm listened to Peranos’s meaning and it seemed as if the sorcerer civilization still had a largely differing point from other civilizations. He couldn’t help but ask in astonishment, “What else is there about the sorcerer world?”

Peranos smiled coldly and said, “The sorcerer world also has space fortress technology from ancient sorcerers together with the principal will invasion technology that was obtained after the second time the civilization had a war. After these two technologies were mutually layered, the present sorcerer world solely has principal will stronghold invasion technology! So every foreign world invaded by the sorcerer world inevitably will have a blood-colored moon orbiting the sky… It’s the principal space stronghold the sorcerer world used to invade the foreign world.”

Grimm gaped, dumbstruck.

Grimm had indeed read mentions of a blood-colored moon being described from an awful lot of ancient books and records but never thought this was the principal space stronghold the sorcerer world used to invade.

Peranos said while smiling, “And after you become a Demon-Hunter you can follow the principal space stronghold campaigns into alien worlds. The closer to the principal will space stronghold, the greater the protection of the principal will you will receive. No matter if it is magic restoration or the strength of sorcerer covers, they will all experience tremendous enhancement.”

Sorcerer covers?

Grimm was astonished. “What are sorcerer covers?”

Peranos looked at Grimm with mirrored astonishment. “In your Ashen Mask, isn’t there already a sorcerer cover? This is exactly the embodiment of the sorcerer world’s principal will. Hn… For one, your sorcerer cover isn’t all that similar, seeming as if incomplete. I’m not too knowledgeable in this field because, in the end, I am an arcane sorcerer. In short, in an alien world where the principal will of the sorcerer world is not present, sorcerer covers would not be useful at all—if it is present, the sorcerer cover would become a powerful all-around defense.”

Eh?

This was the first time Grimm gained new understanding regarding this defensive cover.

Grimm was under the impression that Peranos had finished speaking, but Peranos then gave a mysterious smile and said, “In fact, the sorcerer civilization also had a strong point you know about. Because it exists, sorcerers can ignore the distance between endless worlds and cut across the endless void, arriving at the precise coordinates of a destination without stopping.”

Huh?

He also knew about ignoring the distance of the endless world and passing through the void to reach a destination?

Grimm furrowed his brows in reflection.

According to his knowledge that mentioned world structure, there were only two ways if one wanted to go from a world to reach a remote unknown world.

One was to continuously go through a passage which looked like a honeycomb that was closely linked to the materialistic world according to coordinates until arriving at the destination.

Even if worlds had a close connection, the majority of connections were fairly concealed. So much so that sometimes a rift with the dimensions of a tiny crystal ball would precisely be that so-called close connection. Wanting to go from one world to cross into another world was actually somewhat challenging if the rift couldn’t be found.

Inferior life forms were basically incapable of breaking open the defensive layer between worlds. Advanced life forms would prompt the principal will of the world to repel them, and facing the backlash of a world’s principal will was not a laughing matter.

What was called the principal will of the world was similar to the relationship between countless cells of a human body and the will of a soul.

Another way was going through the empty world from the material world’s “shadow.”

However, going through the empty world required using a life form’s material energy at all times making it extremely easy to die in the endless void. Moreover, the endless void still had terrifying void creatures.

(Void creatures are not civilized. They are the rejected rules between wills of the world given form, another form of life that maintain the stability and existence of the endless world within the rules of the endless world.)

If a living organism from a material world failed to return to the material world in time, they would inevitably be obliterated to death by the creatures of the void. Material world life forms would also instantly be reduced to oblivion.

When it came to sorcerers, only after stigmata sorcerers set up a sorcerer tower to act as a lighthouse could they rely on their own powerful magic to roam the indescribably vast void to seek other material worlds. A stigmata sorcerer wanting to rely on this method to search for other worlds, if unlucky, might possibly spend thousands of years without the slightest harvest.

In that case, what power did the sorcerer world rely on to ignore the distance in the void and reach precise coordinates?

Grimm contemplated the things he knew…

Suddenly!

Grimm thought of something, appearing pleasantly surprised as he shouted. “Destiny lever!”

Other civilizations that wanted to invade new worlds inevitably had to constantly travel back and forth from their original world and each and every world until reaching their target. However, sorcerers only needed to use the reversal power of the destiny lever. After paying a certain price, they could reach any known coordinate in a short time!

Of course, the more life forms that were present in the world, the higher its ranking, and the greater the distance that needed to be crossed in the void, which entailed a greater price. For some excessively remote locations and the opposition being powerful life forms, to actually go over still required contemplating the question of “fulcrum”…

At the same time, Grimm had a doubt within his heart…

Previously, a war among civilizations had broken out twice in the ancient sorcerer world. What sort of civilizations were they in the end?

Why could the sorcerer world prevail once and then lose before running away?