A Sorcerer's Journey - Chapter 70

Chapter 70: The Purple Key

On the 72th floor of the Black Isotta, Peranos’ lab.

Peranos gazed at the three black sorcerers’ heads and was feeling the special negative energy coming off from them. Peranos’ head was like a ragged, sewed-up ball, and his pupils gazed at them wildly, as if they were popping out. He checked the energy again and again, and it seemed that he was doubting its very existence.

It was after a good while that Peranos realized his social faux pas in front of his student; he turned serious again as if to show that he had witnessed such strange things a lot.

Noticing that Grimm was trying to refrain himself from laughing, he knew his disgraceful manner had already been exposed. He then snorted. “Tell me then, what happened exactly? Since when do black sorcerers swarm on the Sorcerer Continent, and how could you have killed three?”

Grimm narrated everything he had seen, heard, and inspected, as well as his thoughts on the trip.

Peranos was surprised by Grimm’s adventure, yet his satisfaction with him grew.

“As I’ve reiterated, knowledge brings power. However, knowledge itself is not enough; you need to use it smartly, and I see you’ve comprehended this well! But how could those students believe that hunting down a few puppets controlled by a foreign land creature is gonna complete this inside mission? I’m definitely gonna talk about this with their mentors.”

After having said this, Peranos pondered and then cried, “You said it was a creature from foreign lands? How did that creature communicate with the humans in the Sorcerer World?”

“I have no idea.” Grimm shook his head.

Grimm was not acquainted with communicating with the foreign lands, nor was it an area of study for students to dabble in.

After a cursory reflection, Grimm said, “It seemed that his messages were conveyed to us through his will. And there was a huge mirror at the underground palace. This is a piece of it. I collected it after I broke the mirror. I thought there might be information in it that can trace its world’s coordinates.”

Peranos took that piece of glass excitedly. “Aha! Boy, you might get super rich! I’ll call for the master of the Holy Tower to project his will to verify the authenticity of this information. If it’s confirmed, then the master will reward you accordingly. Mind you, the master is a level-six sorcerer, a Stigmata Sorcerer!”

“Level-six… a Stigmata Sorcerer?!” Grimm murmured, looking up at his mentor incredibly, and then he asked in his mind:

‘Isn’t that the top level sorcerer? And powerful than that would be the ruler governing the endless world—the Celestial Sorcerer.’

Stigmata sorcerers’ power wasn’t as formidable as that of a Celestial Sorcerer, who could kill an approaching sorcerer student without realizing it. However, Stigmata sorcerers would still cause much trouble for students, and the power gap between them and the students was so wide that they were better left undisturbed.

‘Guess these sorcerers must have no interest in seeing me, a student!’ Thinking about this, Grimm was relieved yet started praying for that Devil Lord from foreign lands who was audaciously using children to collect innocent humans’ souls. Now that he was being investigated by a level six sorcerer of the Holy Tower, God knows whether the world he was in could steer clear of his exploration.

If the six masters were to be united as allies, since each owned the sorcery tower of their respective academies on the twelfth section of the Seven Rings Holy Tower, things that ensued would not concern Grimm at all.

It was beyond Grimm’s expectation that this mission would experience such a big twist.

“Ah…Good luck to this Devil Lord from foreign lands. I wish you haven’t triggered these sorcerers’ curiosity. Otherwise, we will see you being cut into slices in their labs.” Grimm sniggered. “I was just on a mission to clear a black sorcerer, yet I found out about this lord’s will projection and it revealed his world’s coordinates! That’s quite a surprising windfall.”

At the time, Peranos had left for rooms above the 90th floor of the Black Tower where more mysteries were buried deep. Even some of the official sorcerers were not allowed to set foot there.

Grimm didn’t waste any time. He pulled out the Devil’s Pact, extracted the fire ball on it and deposited it in a tube, and then he started analyzing how this element creature was composed.

Element creatures were created by using the element activation sorcery, which relied on knowledge of elemental energy and biotics. In the process, except for basic elemental control, a complete, proper, biological sketch for the creature had to be conceived.

Generally, because of the limited level of knowledge and wisdom, low-ranking element sorcerers tended to choose creatures existing around them as the prototype to build a sketch creature in their mind, while higher-level sorcerers opted for stronger ones from foreign lands or from the remains of some historic creatures as the prototype, but a proper motivator was a requirement. Besides, the element-activated creatures created through the latter method were more powerful; it would take both expertise and tremendous amount of time to finish.

As for expertise in this field, Grimm had gained insights about the aspects of biotics after his studies on Life Code, which was enough to analyze this motivator he got from that foreign land creature. Based on this analysis, an element creature sketch would then be likely to be outlined.

The process would be time-consuming, and the most important part was inspirations to carry on the work. In short, it wouldn’t be accomplished within a short span of time. But it was said that some highly talented sorcerers had created element-activated creatures same from what they had in mind without using any motivator.

Research on how motivators could lead to an element creature was not a short-time work. It needed sufficient study and constant inspiration. Hence, Grimm didn’t rush and turned his attention to other sorceries, and only when inspiration occurred to him, he’d make some adjustment to the outlined creature in his head.

…

In Grimm’s hand were two element books belonging to Peranos. One was ‘Fire Element Density Fire Shield Sorcery’, and the other was ‘Destructive Force of Fire Blast Sorcery’. Being collected by a level three sorcerer, they were surely excellent books, and Grimm was reading them to reinforce his Body of Fire and the Eternal Flame properties.

According to Fire Element Density Fire Shield Sorcery, fire element took up nearly no space and could cluster into high density in a short time, thus forming a defensive fire element shield— a profound use of element energy. Having flipped through it, Grimm felt confident that an in-depth understanding and flexible practice about this fire shield could be achieved in one or two years.

Destructive Force of Fire Blast Sorcery introduced the fire blast sorcery. The content was very complicated and was even too arcane for students. Apart from sorcerers, possibly only Grimm—a student who had the gift of Body of Fire—could study this book.

However, while reading it, Grimm was distracted by its extensive research. The fire blast sorcery was powerful because it utilized the antagonistic nature between fire and water elements. Historically, this water-fire-don’t-mix property had been studied by ancient sorcerers for power, but the author of this book went further. He/she explored into the cause of why the sorcery developed using the antagonistic fire and water elements was more powerful than the sorcery created by means of non-antagonistic wind and fire elements. In the end, he discovered a force that had the potential to destroy all. It was called the D-Force.

The author’s study ended just there though. D-Force would not interact with any known physical matter or sorcery, nor could it be collected. So no use had been found for it. But what this book had found was still instructive, and it had made profound progress in certain aspects. Therefore, sorcerer Peranos had collected it in his library.

A thought came to his mind and Grimm’s eyes twinkled.

“Perhaps, I’m supposed to learn something like the water and radium elements.”

Learning water element was merely for the fire blast sorcery; Grimm wasn’t sure whether he could master it while being a student and which was listed as his biggest goal for the time.

Delving into radium element was to study the propulsive property of water and radium elements and to prepare himself for that rare symbol and the twig.

Grimm was over-excited about this and totally forgot about time.

…

Rat-a-tat!

Someone knocked the table.

Grimm raised his head, wearing his dark eye circles, and asked, “What’s the matter, mentor?”

Seeing Grimm’s exhausted look, Peranos’ delighted face was touched a little bit.

Afterwards, Peranos gradually eased his excitement, stroked Grimm’s head as if he was an elder family member, and murmured, “Boy, haven’t you rested for five straight days?”

Grimm was shocked by this closeness. Noticing Peranos’ sincere eyes, he then relaxed and asked, limbs lost for positions. “It has been five days?”

Grimm’s stamina had indeed risen because normally three days was his limit.

“Look at you! Don’t be deluded that your stamina is now better, so you can overuse it! A sorcerer doesn’t live by pursuing higher goals; they needs to enjoy life, as ordinary people do.”

That being said, Peranos threw a purple key to Grimm and said, “As your mentor, I command you to take a rest!”

Those harsh words were filled with Peranos’ concern for Grimm.

Grimm took the purple key. It was as long as a finger and was shining. He was surprised, asking, “What is this? I could feel the strong space waves. It has a will.”

“This is the Friendship Key of the Black Isotta. It is your award from the master of the Holy Tower. That glass piece does contain the coordinates of that creature’s world. That world was far, far away, and the information about its exact location was vague, but it’s only a matter of time before we locate them.”

The sight of this purple key reminded him of Lefay’s golden key.

“So…what can I do with this Friendship Key?” asked Grimm tentatively.

Peranos’ face went dark, and he said gloomily, “To achieve Black Isotta friendship? Isn’t not enough?”

“Hum,” Grimm noticed the anger on the old man’s face and replied immediately, “Eh…It’s enough. It’s the luckiest thing in my life to have this key. Haha.”

Perhaps it was because of the caring actions of Peranos, Grimm answered in a freer and easier manner. The teacher-student relationship between them seemed to have changed.

“Through this key, you could summon the Holy Tower master’s soul servant of the master thrice. Mind you, a servant belonging to a level six sorcerer. Alright, off you go and have a rest.” Peranos drove Grimm out of his lab.