Chapter 215: The Stone Cave Laboratory
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
From the entrance of the Camphroagate Tree, Grimm flew into the entryway which looked like a long baguette, standing at hundreds of meters tall.
With the discovery of Camphroagate Worms, the sorcerers had developed a new ‘Camphroagate Traveling Potion”. The underground labyrinth of the Camphroagate Tree by now had been ransacked by the Demon Hunters umpteen times. Most of the underground labyrinths of other Camphroagate Trees too suffered the same fate.
Grimm had been formally verified by the Battle Command to receive a Level 3 badge of honor. All that’s left was to wait until the end of the expedition. Then the people from the Holy Tower of Seven Rings would award him themselves.
With a badge of honor, Grimm would be able to have some local commanding positions in the next demon-hunting expedition.
No need to fly long distances into the undergrounds, Grimm who had gone inside the Camphroagate Tree was getting close to the Myna. Therefore, Grimm, who had full mana, performed a long-distance teleportation spell and vanished from where he stood.
In the next moment, the scene in front of him became blurred. He reappeared in an enclosed lake beneath the surface.
“Caw! Caw! My dear master, you’ve returned!”
The Myna was standing by Grimm’s shoulder. It was indulging in a fruit made from flesh which was exclusive to the Shadow World. The Myna’s feathers were shining ever more brilliantly. Its body appeared to have gained some weight—like a puffy ball of meat.
Grimm acknowledged the Myna with a short ‘umm’. He looked at the Water Crystal Turtle which was floating on the lake silently. He then looked at the laboratory which was carved out from the cave wall sitting afar. Everything was still the same. He asked, “Anything happened during this period?”
The Myna put away its half-eaten fruit and smugly proclaimed,” What could happen? With your loyal Myna servant here, beating those dog-legged tiny sorcerers was naturally, a piece of cake.”
Myna was referring to those patrolling slave monster legions.
“Master.”
Only in this small piece of underground lake area could the Water Crystal Turtle maintain its one-meter long body as well as its immortal physiques and longevity.
Grimm quietly stood on the smooth, even surface of the lake. Nobody could know what he was thinking about beneath the pale gray Mask of Truth. An intelligent look filled his eyes. After some pondering, Grimm did not dive down immediately to the bottom of the lake to study the secrets of the enclosed Lightning Mirror room. Neither did he pay any attention to his Soul Slave, the Water Crystal Turtle. He walked straight toward the stone laboratory that was carved out from the cave wall.
Grimm’s footsteps made ripples on the lake surface. They produced a crisp, clinking sound.
Grimm slightly waved his magic staff. As the magic power flowed out, a layer of magical array in the lab cave started to glow brilliantly. The lines on the magic array lit up and came into life; tracing the array before dissipating.
“Oh… this poor fellow—he’s not dead yet.” Myna spread its wings and tilted its head; pretending to show sympathy.
There was a Vaiduryarion Golden Amonro strapped on top of the lab table. The golden flame on its tail was almost dying out. The nutritional fluids had dried out. It was in a state of paralyzing hibernation.
The front left limb of the Amonro had already been cut off and turned into a muscle specimen for further research. Its tail spine was impaled with numerous little tubes. It appeared that they were collecting its golden flames for Grimm’s future research.
There was a refined metallic zip attached to the lower-left corner of its abdomen. It seemed to have been used frequently to get a direct look inside the internal structures and functions of its organs.
As for the other two Vaiduryarion Golden Amonros, Grimm had sent them out to collect fire crystals at the volcano area. They had been imbued by Grimm’s sorcerer seal. The other demon hunters would not mistake them as enemies from the shadow world.
“The Amonros have great adaptability, at least much higher than the humans from the sorcerer world.”
Grimm refilled the empty feed tubes with nutritional fluids as he looked at the contraptions that were collecting its golden flames. The collected level was not up to Grimm’s expectations.
No longer bothered about the lab table, Grimm looked toward another direction.
At a similar lab table made from stone, Grimm neatly arranged high-purity fire crystals on a magical hexagram array. A simple crystal barrier was set up on the table to prevent leakages and concentrate the fire elemental energies within.
In the middle of the magical array, thirty-seven pieces of bright red fruits were quietly burning. Who knows how many years it would take for them to hatch completely.
Previously, it would take the lava lake and the Heart of the Lava to hatch the fruits. Grimm had actually intended to replace them with magical arrays that could concentrate energies from high-purity fire crystals. Now, it seemed to have some effects as there wasn’t much rejection.
Grimm nodded his head in contentment.
If he could successfully hatch these offsprings of the lava, they would become one of Grimm’s precious specimens. Studying the characteristics of these kinds of elementals was the basic path to becoming a rank two sorcerer.
In the various methods that Grimm had come across, studying the characteristics of elementals was in general, most helpful to sorcerers in mastering the transformation of their body compositions into elementals.
At the other end of the lab tables, torn pieces of flesh were sitting within tens of jars of nutritional fluids. Some of them were glowing in a green hue.
Grimm walked closer to them and observed for a moment. The nutritional fluids had started breaking down the pieces of flesh. Their muscle fibers were wearing down and slowly quivering, like pieces of jello.
These were the activated flesh, painstakingly cultivated in accordance with the highest standards required by Grimm in terms of the ratio of chimera to activated muscles.
When a creature dies, its internal cells start to develop consciousness; devouring each other and form a ‘prolonged life’. This is what’s known as an activated flesh. Black Sorcerers, through careful cultivation, cultivate the mysterious cells in jars. Finally, they would select a large number of supercells that could support the ‘intensified fusion’ process, where they become part of the chimera’s body.
Although the whole process sounded utterly sinister, from the perspectives of a high-level knowledge of the Law, it was a milestone breakthrough in the studies of the secrets of life and death of the dark sorcerers.
Although Grimm was able to acquire these activated flesh from the void fortress with sorcerer essence, the quantity was still too little compared to what a real black sorcerer needed.
But they were sufficient for the purpose of chimera research.
After doing his rounds, Grimm finally came to the middle of the laboratory. A cloud of dark flames was burning furiously. In the middle of the flame was the Heart of the Lava, glowing in a golden color.
There wasn’t a lot of changes from the looks of the Heart of the Lava at this moment. Even though it was wrapped up in the Greedy Flame Giant’s void fires, the heart was still absorbing fire energies from its surroundings. Each time the heart pulsed, the patterns of the surrounding fire would be faintly interrupted.
“So, the secrets of the Vaiduryarion matter lies within the Heart of the Lava?”
Grimm came to this deduction as he watched the golden capillaries covering the Heart of the Lava.
There were some resemblances between the networks of capillaries on the Heart of the Lava and the Vaiduryarion Golden Amonro that was lying on the lab theatre.
Moreso, the fire-nullifying ability of the Amonro’s spine tail appeared to follow the erratic pattern of the pulse of the Heart of the Lava. There were similarities within the chaotic movements.
After studying them quietly for a while, Grimm took a look at the Vaiduryarion Golden Amonro on the lab theatre. It was slowly recovering back to its state of hibernation. Grimm left the laboratory without paying any more attention to it.
It looked like it would take months and years before the Greedy Flame Giant could evolve by absorbing the Heart of the Lava. This was also one of the reasons why Grimm did not follow Millie to do free missions.
Without the support of the Greedy Flame Giant, Grimm’s battle strength would be dramatically reduced.
Upon his return to the calm lake surface, the Water Crystal Turtle slowly poked its head out from its shell. It said slowly, “Master, I’ve succeeded in sealing the Enigmatic Amonro you passed to me in this crystal using the seal of the essence of water.”
The Water Crystal Turtle slowly opened its mouth. There was a clear, translucent water crystal within.
Inside the crystal lies a living soul of a struggling Enigmatic Amonro. At the abdomen of the Enigmatic Amonro, a dim, life-like image of a blood puppet was projected outward.
Grimm picked up the water crystal with his hand.
The Enigmatic Amonro, enclosed within the crystal, was the Enigmatic Amonro that was previously sealed using the blood puppet. It had now been sealed for a second time using Water Crystal Turtle’s special powers on Grimm’s order.
Since one of the materials of the Bloodlust Puppet in the water crystal was Grimm’s blood, he planned to capitalize on some of their hidden links to create the core of a sorcerer’s flying device that could be controlled using long-distance spiritual energy.
Although a sorcerer’s flying device might appear to be redundant, it would save a lot of mana and could build up speeds, drastically reducing the travel time of sorcerers for long travels. It was the preferred choice for many of the alchemist sorcerers.
After keeping the water crystal, at the sound of ‘plop’, Grimm dove down to the bottom of the lake.