Chapter 174: The Dawn Sages
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A hundred and fifty years later!
In the Sorcerer World, “a hundred and fifty years” would carry different meanings in various time and dimensions.
To a normal healthy human in the Sorcerer World, “a hundred and fifty years” was basically his entire lifetime. This was Old Ham’s entire lifetime too.
To the sorcerers academies in each of the tower regions, “a hundred and fifty years” was one and a half round of the Holy Tower Qualification Battle. During this period of time, countless other gifted apprentices, like “Ice Age”, “Bell-sound Dictator” emerged too.
Nonetheless, to some full-fledged sorcerers “a hundred and fifty years” was nothing but a short amount of time that could come to pass just by running one experiment. In the eyes of these real sorcerers, these boastful, conceited top-ranked apprentices were just a bunch of kids who were fooling around. Every sorcerer had such an experience when they were younger. Thus, most of them would respond to all of this with a smile.
To the Tree of Life of the Holy Tower of the Seven Rings, a hundred and fifty years?
It was merely a formation of annual rings on the tree, just a measly five-diameter increase on the annual ring.
Thus, the seasons changed as days glossed by. The Sorcerer World continued to change and flow, in its own unique rules and ways, spanning the long stream of time. Beneath the bright noon sun, Grimm stood next to his bed in the castle, quietly sipping his fragrant afternoon tea.
Twenty years ago, Angelis, Grimm’s neighbour, had finally returned from the Void Fortress. He used around a hundred and thirty years to complete his usual demon-hunting missions.
Usually, progressing through the Foreign Worlds and completing demon-hunting missions would take over hundreds of years. Sometimes, these missions could take over two hundred years.
And to these Demon Hunters, they did not only need to battle against countless creatures from the Foreign Worlds throughout their progress in the Foreign Worlds, they needed to handle something far worse—taking out the rogues that were defying the sorcerers’ domination and the few guardians of the respective Foreign Worlds. They had to keep on doing that until there were no other lifeforms that could threaten the voidship. And when that happened, their mission would then be considered complete.
Meanwhile, Angelis and the Little Myna appeared to be discussing something as their wry laughter echoed across the grounds.
Right after coming back from his Demon Hunting mission, Angelis immediately went for another trip in the Foreign Worlds. Three years later, he came back and began some academic pursuits with Bright Sorcerers. Thus, in the past two years, Angelis had been visited by a lot of Bright Sorcerers. As time went by, their visits slowly became much less frequent.
The Bright Sorcerers were different from the Black Sorcerers.
Bright Sorcerers were not only socially functional and friendly people but they also tend to form groups that shared collective academic progress and knowledge. This sharing of knowledge was mostly done by small groups that were formed by a handful of willing Bright Sorcerers. Through doing that, they could strengthen the bond between fellow Bright Sorcerers while also compensate for the academic blind spots that they, the Bright Sorcerers, tend to overlook.
The Bright Sorcerers who had achieved significant breakthrough in their research would then be recruited by the “Dawn Sages”, an organization formed by the Elemental Sorcerers from the Holy Tower of the Seven Rings. When that happened, these Bright Sorcerers would receive an abundance of resources and privileges within the group.
Angelis was one of those who got to join the Dawn Sages—the achievement he gained from his three-year research opened up a window of opportunity.
Of course, these had nothing to do with Grimm at all. The Dawn Sages were only interested in recruiting the Stigmata Sorcerers and the other top elites amongst the Arcane Sorcerers and Bright Demon Hunters. The Dawn Sages was a platform for the top elites from the Sorcerer Continent in making academic exchanges and collaborations—there was no room for a low-level Dark Demon Hunter.
The Dark Demon Hunters from the Sorcerer World were mostly monstrosities that had gotten used to various harsh environments, maximizing their capabilities in the frontlines of various operations. Therefore, Grimm, a sorcerer whose interest was to pursue ground-breaking academic knowledge, was not considered an authentic full-fledged Dark Demon Hunter.
After having his afternoon tea, Grimm disappeared from the window view quietly and headed to the alchemy lab.
There were only less than twenty years before reaching the due date of the Demon-Hunter mission. Although Grimm did not have much success in his research on Destructive Energy, he was, luckily enough, able to acquire enough strength to live through the next Demon-Hunter development conquest via constant meditations, double-evolution of ancient Voodoo poison formula Lianti, replenishment of the Magic Power within his low-level Demon-Hunter equipment, and the powerful protection from the Original Will that was contained in his sorcerer barrier.
At least now, Grimm was not a weakling compared to the other senior Level 1 Demon Hunters. In fact, he was far sturdier in his defense compared to most of them.
In the past century, Grimm’s attributes had changed quite significantly.
Mental Strength: 98, Magic Power: 919—1087
Constitution: 325, Stamina: 212—255, Strength: 195—384, Vitality: 130—184
The only thing that Grimm lacked at the moment was to train and enhance the various attributes he had. For now, Grimm only had about 98 Mental Strength. If he were to train it up to 100, he would then be able to allocate more time into doing physical training instead of meditating.
When the time was ripe, Grimm would then be able to stop the evolution of the Lianti poison and focus more on training all the attributes that came with his constitution.
After years of training using the Ascetic Prison from being tempted by delicious food, Grimm’s 10 basic elements’ resistance had been raised to around 230—370.
If only he could raise these already unusually high elemental resistances by combining them with a mixture of powerful defense from his stamina and the sorcerer barrier’s powerful protection from the Original Will…
In the Alchemy Lab.
Forging a Mystic Eye for the Mask of Truth was an extremely difficult task. Despite having taken extra vigilant steps in carrying it out, Grimm still could not avoid making mistakes in the forging process twice in a row. The first time was acceptable, yet, the second mistake almost cost him dearly as it nearly undid every effort he had put in before this.
However, after spending some sorcerer essences, Grimm was able to purchase some valuable magic ingredients that were able to, fortunately, save all the fruits of his labour.
Thus, even though he had income from clearing Demon-Hunting missions, on top of his Demon-hunting allowance, food temptation training ingredients and his original sixty-three sorcerer essences, Grimm was now only left with a dozen sorcerer essences.
In just a month’s time, the Mask of Truth would break out of its initial form.
It would then possess both Ultrasonic Sorcery and Mystic Eye, becoming Grimm’s ideal version of the Mask of Truth. Although it was still a long way to go before it reached its mature form, the day for that to happen was not that improbable anymore.
Sitting at his usual spot, Grimm silently dipped his quill in high-tier Magic Ink and started to draft down sophisticated sorcerer runes.
After approximately half an hourglass’s time, Grimm, who was drafting down a nervous system on the Mask of Truth, suddenly frowned as he put down his quill and took out his crystal ball.
‘Hmm? It’s her?’
After pondering for a moment, Grimm decided to charge it up with Magic Power and established connection with the imagery that was connected to the other side of the crystal ball.
A beautiful, voluptuous feminine figure appeared in the crystal ball. It was Claudia, one of the Despaired, whom he had encountered during the Gory Test. Other than that, they had worked together during the Holy Tower Qualification Battle but was exiled from the battle zone by one of the three sorcerer-apprentices from Section 11 via activating someone else’s runic badge.
Still, despite being forced out of the qualification battle and had half of their points left, Claudia had already earned enough points to become a Demon Hunter for the Holy Tower of Seven Rings.
The only regretful thing was, Claudia was only able to rise up to become a full-fledged Sorcerer seventy years ago. This, essentially, made her one of the last in her batch to graduate from being a disciple.
As for Kyrie from the Black Isotta Sorcerer Academy, whom Grimm was more concerned about, according to Sam, who was actively contacting him, he was not able to be promoted to be a full-fledged Sorcerer. At this rate, he might be stuck forever in the Holy Tower all his life.
Other than that, the “Earth Heart” Wicky, another difficult opponent whom Grimm had no way to deal with, another difficult opponent who also possessed unique knowledge in sorcery too had ranked up to be an official Sorcerer a hundred years ago. Grimm was able to establish contact with him once via his crystal ball due to him being still interested in the secrets behind the “Wicky Activated Reincarnation Great Sorcery”.
Glimmering within the crystal ball, Claudia lightly bit her rosy lips while throwing an alluring gaze with her starry and seductive eyes. Then, she quipped with her sweet voice, “Grimm…”
Furrowing his brows, Grimm replied immediately, “If you’ve got something to say, just say it. Also, we’ve got nothing to talk about if it’s about what happened the last time.”
Despite having formed a brief alliance, Claudia was not a pleasant sight to Grimm. In fact, he did not like her at all.
After ranking up to being a sorcerer, Claudia wanted Grimm to be her sorcerer spouse. Needless to say, Grimm rejected her right away.
After all, Lefay, his sweetheart during his Sorcerer-Apprentice days, was still warmly residing in his heart. Besides, Grimm was too engrossed in pursuing more knowledge in sorcery—he had no time and energy to spare in committing to another sorcerer spouse.
If he could finish his Demon-hunter mission and return to the Black Isotta hundreds and hundreds of years later, by then Laftie would have ranked up to be a full-fledged Sorcerer too. This would be a good thing for Grimm—they could then spend an eternity together.
However, if Lefay still had not ranked up to be a sorcerer by then, three hundred years would have passed since Grimm became a sorcerer. In other words, Lefay would most likely have died of old age by the time he returned. If that was the case, Grimm would have to deal with the great despair and immense heartache as he accepted this cruel reality.
Having met with Grimm’s cold rejection, Claudia was not upset at all. Placing her pale snowy finger on her lips, she threw him a seducing smile, “Teehee, if it’s something you’re unwilling to do, my dear Grimm, I surely wouldn’t force you to do it. If you don’t want to be my sorcerer spouse, perhaps you and I could become a temporary romantic couple, a romantic fling if you will.”
“Nonsense.”
Without hesitation, Grimm cut off the crystal ball’s power. Then, he stood in place and pondered a long time before turning towards Millie’s Demon-hunter Castle that was next to his.
In accordance to the law, Demon Hunters were required to make an appearance in the Demon-Hunter Headquarters fifteen years prior to the due date of their two-hundred-year missions—this was to ensure that they could better schedule their missions.
In other words, “two hundred years” was just an estimation. The actual length of time needed would still depend on the confirmation from the Holy Tower’s scheduling. It was possible that after Grimm appeared in the headquarters, there was a Stigmata Sorcerer forging a Foreign-World Conquest and thus he could depart almost immediately. Of course, he might still need to wait for decades before he could depart.
Nonetheless, looking at how frequent the Sorcerer World had been forging Foreign-World Conquests recently, if he showed up and registered for a Demon-Hunter mission now, he might be able to receive a new mission within just a few years’ time.
In half an hourglass’s time, two silhouettes swooshed up into the sky and disappeared among the vast traffic of Demon Hunters and flying machines in the clouds.
Grimm and Millie were now headed towards the Dark Demon-Hunter Headquarters.