A Sorcerer's Journey - Chapter 146

Chapter 146: Black Sea Whirlpool

Seven months later.

Grimm appeared to be the same as usual, sitting before the desk while dressed in loose sorcerer robes. A part of him was using his spiritual power to copy the other world spiritual script written on the spellbound devil’s pact. At the same time, he was using a crystal ball to observe the subtle fluctuating reactions of the spiritual layer in an attempt to find some kind of hidden pattern within.

And like this, he sat at the table motionless for several hours. After what seemed like forever, Grimm instinctively took out the split branch and focused his attention on the cross-section of where the branch split before once again putting it away.

He stretched himself. After his bones beneath his loose robes “cracked,” Grimm stood up.

He walked until he arrived at the glassware covered by the black cloth and observed for a moment before once again letting the black cloth drop. He also went before an alchemical smelting furnace to survey the internal temperature, verifying the alchemy material was in the theoretical target regulated state and took out some lumps of magic stones to replace the magic stones around the alchemy furnace that were drained of energy.

Knock. Knock.

Amidst such an easy and comfortable environment, there was a soft knock at the room’s wooden door.

Grimm walked toward the wooden door which softly opened with a creak and the old butler was standing in front of him while holding a cup of frozen coconut milk. Taking the coconut milk, Grimm took a slight sip before he asked, “Is there any news?”

“Yes, Master. There is already confirmation that the apex sorcerer-apprentices that arrived at the Seven Rings Holy Tower will proceed towards the world’s core three days later.” The old butler bowed his head and softly replied.

Apart from the somewhat mechanical voice, it was impossible to tell whether this old butler was a marionette or human being.

Three days later?

After Grimm stopped in place to reflect a bit, he knit his brow. “It seems like this prototype model of the ‘Grimm Elemental Great Staff 1.0 Reinforced Version’ can only be half-refined. Yes, let’s wait for this magic staff to be completely refined. Then I can properly prepare those materials and actually be able to try to refine the truth mask’s prototype.”

With this in mind, Grimm also had no option but to once again open his last one-time use space pocket and methodically collected his experiments within it. He had to go prepare to accept the apex sorcerer-apprentice reward of world-core fragments following the holy tower qualifications.

…

Three days later.

Wearing his moisture armor and ashen mask, with his elemental great staff official version 1.0 in Grimm’s hand, he stood together with the four other apex sorcerer-apprentices, side by side.

Nairo was still entirely coiled in floating metal chains. It seemed as if she used those “omnipotent” metal chains for everything outside of her indifferent face and golden fall of hair above the metal sphere.

Yupao still wore black robes from head-to-toe with dark and fierce eyes continuously giving an unwavering glare toward Nairo herself. Regarding Grimm on one side who wasn’t worth more than a glance, it seemed as he did not take Grimm seriously at all.

As for the other two bright sorcerer-apprentices, there was one male and one female. They absolutely did not have any desire to interact with Grimm, Nairo, or Yupao. All their clothes were rich and vivid sorcerer robes, leaning on enchanted staffs and wearing tall horn-shaped hats.

The gigantic Celestial Cordillera drifted and flew in the sky. More and more, it got closer to the peak of the Seven Rings Holy Tower and the magic elemental cloud layer vortex of the dusky sky.

Ss!

However, the few sorcerer-apprentices all did not care about getting closer and closer to the cloud layer vortex. Instead, they were attracted by the sight before them of the Seven Rings Holy Tower’s imposing grandeur and the strangely shaped aura field.

This really wasn’t the conventional shape a sorcerer tower was constructed in the sorcerer world.

All around the huge tower of the tall Seven Rings Holy Tower appeared to be countless mechanical arms incessantly retracting. No matter if it was sorcerers, mechanical objects, or other living things, each and every one flew in bubbles toward these mechanical arms. Afterward, all these arms actually seemed to deliver them into the fleshy membrane of the Seven Rings Holy Tower wall. And following a strange and majestic energy fluctuation, the meaty membrane took everything that was on the mechanical arm within itself right away.

The entire process was similar to this Seven Rings Holy Tower monster taking all the food the mechanical tentacles were carrying and stuffing it into its belly.

The complete extent of the Seven Rings Holy Tower’s height seemed like another “frightening version” life tree. The Celestial Cordillera that was not small in size flew up the side of the Seven Rings Holy Tower, approaching the holy tower’s topmost elemental vortex cloud layer with great effort.

Those voidships and sorcerers by far tinier than Celestial Cordillera by a large margin all yielded to the Celestial Cordillera’s route in succession.

At this moment, the Celestial Cordillera not only extended a head of a turtle[1] but also had four black rock claws extending out from the inside of the mountains coming out. The four limbs moving back and forth amidst the rumbling and rolling sounds of rock friction, gradually “slipped” toward the elemental cloud vortex and went in.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

After the momentary feeling of one’s body stretching like noodles, the numerous sorcerer-apprentices then just felt a maritime space of endless black seawater appear before their eyes, right below them.

Crash! Crash! The imposing and majestic waves of the sea were heard. Grimm and the other sorcerer-apprentices standing on top of the Celestial Cordillera all looked behind them toward the distant black sea at the same time. The sharp tip of a dorsal fin that was who-knows-how-many several hundred meters long crested the waters before once again disappearing back into the sea, a vast expanse of sea waves rushing forth around it.

Buzzzzz…

Farther away, a several tens of meters-long mechanical giant bee surpassed the Celestial Cordillera at incomparable speeds. It was so fast they could only clearly see the remnant shadow already fading away in the extreme limits of their field of view with the black sea surface showing traces of air torrents.

“What? Really! It’s Sky Holy Tower. What is…”

The Celestial Cordillera’s complained in an unhappy voice before it turned its black head with a sound of massive rocks shifting. It turned to face Nairo, Yupao, Grimm, as well as the other two bright sorcerer-apprentices and said, “When you guys return, everyone should shout for me. Otherwise, I might not automatically take you all back to Seven Rings Holy Tower if I’m asleep.”

Having said this, the Celestial Cordillera’s huge rock limbs ferociously paddled. Grimm and the others only felt a gale arrive in their faces and the next moment they already appeared over a kilometer away.

‘So fast!’

As Grimm exclaimed in admiration in his heart, another burst of a gale came around and they once again appeared over a kilometer away in the next moment.

After less than half an hour, the “smooth and dignified” black maritime space gradually disappeared. An immense black whirlpool atop the black sea emerged for no reason at all. It seemed as if some kind of invisible energy magnetic field made the surrounding black seawater all spiral out into this whirlpool.

In the split second the Celestial Cordillera sank to the vacuum whirlpool below sea-level, a deafening sound of majestic sea waves entered their ears. However, just a moment ago, during the time above the whirlpool, there hadn’t been any sound whatsoever.

The extensive black energy of the vacuum of the whirlpool was so dark one could not see the bottom. The bottom did not have any light and the surging seawater all around the whirlpool flowed.

The Celestial Cordillera stopped at the mouth of the whirlpool and the heart of the sky. It appeared like an eatery was going to fall on top of a mere housefly.

Whoosh!

A sorcerer that sat on top of a red carpet flew over. The tall horn-shaped hat on the sorcerer’s head unexpectedly bore a magic lantern with a strange shape that resembled some bizarre bioluminescent fish of the world of the seafloor.

“Seven ring guardian, I’ll take these children with me to the world-core, okay?” The sorcerer on the flying carpet was a woman. She spoke to the Celestial Cordillera.

“I will defer to the sorcerer world guardian’s will,” the Celestial Cordillera said solemnly.

Then fantastic energy lifted Grimm and the others from the mountain peaks that were the back of the giant turtle, gently delivering them to this sorcerer world guardian’s flying carpet.

Grimm felt amazement feeling this invisible and not easily understandable mystical energy.

This felt similar to not dragging and carrying them to the flying carpet but rather moving the entire sorcerer world while they did not move, then automatically delivering them so they stood above the flying carpet,

This…

Was this precisely that absolute control of nature force?

The other sorcerer-apprentices all had looks of astonishment and wonder. A giant scroll on the back of a bright sorcerer-apprentice actually floated up and then apparently gathered some information before once again rolling itself properly and returning to the back of this bright sorcerer-apprentice.

This sorcerer world guardian’s flying carpet seemed to be capable of unlimited expansion. Grimm and the others didn’t feel the slightest bit crowded after standing on it, nor did they ever imagined what they thought to feel soft was, on the contrary, as solid as a wooden floor.

This female sorcerer world guardian looked at the sorcerer-apprentices on top of the flying carpet.

The most conspicuous was naturally Nairo. Her entire body was covered by twisting black metal chains and merely exposed a head covered with golden hair—her apathetic gaze calmly looking at everything around them.

At this time, even though she also fell onto this flying carpet, the ball of chains from the beginning maintained a bit of distance from the carpet.

Yupao was covered from head-to-toe in dark-gray sorcerer robes with the top of his head covered with two fire elemental circles. At first glance, it seemed like some magic sorcery tool but one used fine perception they can discover these were constantly maintained fire element spells of some sort. The circle located on top of his black hair, contrary to what one might expect, was bright and colorful and had a foreign dress style.

At the same time, Yupao’s black sorcerer robes also had decorative patterns of red clouds. It was like the hot cloud of volcanic ash spell Grimm had previously seen him release before.

Generally speaking, it was very rare for robes of sorcerers to have these strange and weird decorative motifs.

Then, the female sorcerer cast her gaze toward Grimm.

A tall and sturdy body covered from head to toe in metal armor. On his waist hung a gray pouch and a strange dagger. Within his hands held a handmade, simple and crude but original in approach magic staff. Long golden hair spilled down, with a deathly pale mask covering his face.

Within the mask holes were eyes glittering with intelligence and exposing a trace of manners, he nodded his head.

“Yes.”

With an indifferent reply, the female sorcerer cast her sight words that bright sorcerer-apprentice with the giant scroll behind their back.

After examining them, the female sorcerer nodded her head and said, “You all bear in mind, that after arriving at the world core, you must at all times maintain peace and respect and must not have any conflict breakout whatsoever between other towers’ sorcerer-apprentices. When the sorcerer world guardian accords you all the deserved rewards to become official sorcerers, and if you also have the thought of leaving the world-core, you can automatically be linked to the world-core’s destiny lever and convey yourselves to the center of the black sea whirlpool.”

Amongst the sorcerer-apprentices, only Grimm and the bright sorcerer with the scroll on their back were a bit shaken. They appeared to be startled by the term “destiny lever.”

They’d actually, really will see this destiny lever that had already altered the sorcerer world’s destiny once?

Nairo, Yupao and the other bright sorcerer, however, remained unmoved. Clearly, they did not know at all the significance of the destiny lever as far as the sorcerer world was concerned.