A Sorcerer’s Journey

It was a chaotic and unpleasant underground space.

A fierce sorcerer was madly whipping and herding a group of gigantic captives and slaves from another world.

It was a group of creatures that looked like praying mantises at a height of seven to eight meters tall. On their chests were soft feathers, and they were chained by a few black locks. They were marching along the whips of the sorcerer, ten in a row. Each of the creatures had eyes filled with hatred and fear as they looked at the sorcerers in the air.

They had already lost their basic instincts for survival and were no longer fighting back, all the courage they ever had was gone.

Grimm flew past these creatures, void of any feelings of pity. The whipping sounds and the chains clanking formed a rhythm that drifted along the small area.

Roar!

It was the yawning sound made by a creature that was a mixture of an eagle and a lion. It was thirty meters tall, yet docile like a small kitten. There was no spirit left in its eyes, it had lost every bit of its will to fight.

This creature was at least on par with a Level 2 sorcerer!

With just one look at this creature’s selling price, Grimm shook his head dejectedly and flew away.

Clap, Clap, Clap…

Hundreds of Sub-humans from other worlds with beautiful faces and alluring figures stood on a high-rise round stage. The name of the opera was “The King of Great Sorcerers”. It told the tale of how great the sorcerer civilization was, how advanced and majestic it was compared to other worlds. Most of the sorcerers nearby were entertained by it. Such an occasion was a highly anticipated one for Bright Sorcerers as they would gather around and socialize with one another.

Ironically, these slaves worshipped those sorcerers that enslaved them. Such behavior drew a lot of attention from other sorcerers.

Grimm hovered in the air to watch the show until the end, which was when the slave auction would then begin. The performers undressed without being told, shivering and entirely naked, they stood quietly on the stage while their masters promoted each one of them to the surrounding sorcerers.

A lot of sorcerers were interested in these well-trained slaves from other worlds.

With that, Grimm made a move to leave the slave auction. Slaves were not what Grimm needed at the moment, and he was not interested in such a boring event. He flew directly instead towards a slave market that looked like a ferris wheel.

Huh?

Grimm was distracted halfway there by a few small creatures caged in a slave merchant’s stall.

With a pair of half-green-half-transparent wings, these creatures had three pairs of limbs just like a bee, and a face similar to that of human beings. They wore a small flower on their heads, their whole body was no bigger than the size of a human’s palm. All of them were trembling in fear and despair.

“Jack-Jack, these, at thirty thousand Magic Stones each, could be very helpful for room-cleaning. The odor of their body helps us to stay calm and focused. Of course, its effects are not as strong as the Love Vials. Still… these little creatures taste really good. If you get used to it, they could be delicious.” said a sorcerer in black robes with a sinister look on his face.

The Dark Sorcerer’s complexion was ghastly, his face covered with small black holes like a rotten old bark with locust eyes all over his body.

A Rain-dew Flower Spirit?

Eating one of these creatures never even crossed Grimm’s mind…

However, other than room-cleaning, once the Gold Ginseng had sprouted and grown into a tree, it might need some creatures as company. These Rain-dew Flower Spirits made a fine choice.

Grimm made up his mind and stated, “I need these to clean my rooms, but not too many of them. I’ll have two, one male and one female.”

With a gesture, Grimm took out a few high-grade Magic Stones and placed them on his palm.

“Jack-Jack, a new Demon-Hunter Sorcerer you must be eh?” the sorcerer said as he stared at Grimm with his reddish dark eyes, as though they were secretly laughing at him.

Afraid of making mistakes, Grimm asked calmly, “Why?”

The sorcerer smiled and shifted his gaze to the ground.

“Every Demon-Hunter Sorcerer that has ever fought in a war would know, these grass spirits are born from the forces of nature and life of the earth from other worlds. They might be affected by the concept of other worlds, separating them into male and female identities, yet they can change their body structure to adapt to their surroundings or even split their cells into two in order to produce new generations,” the sorcerer replied with those reddish dark eyes still mocking Grimm silently.

Grimm did not mind the way those eyes looked at him. He made a mistake on something that was of basic knowledge. He was a joke to the sorcerer.

He had assumed that only elemental beings had no sexual differences. Grimm realized now that such grass spirits born from the law of the world were the same.

Perhaps those dragons living in the underworld of the sorcerer world were unisex as well, since they were made by the ancient civilization when they changed the world’s law?

Grimm connected many dots in his mind with this sudden realization. He was not ashamed by his foolishness as he said, “Oh? Is that so… Thank you for your explanation. Please get me any two of these Rain-dew Flower Spirits.”

Surprised at his unshaken response, the Dark Sorcerer stopped his mockery of Grimm and moved towards his merchandise.

“You are an indifferent one eh.”

The Dark Sorcerer pulled two Rain-dew Flower Spirits out and threw them into a smaller cage without any feeling of pity. He then said, “This Sealing Cage is on the house.”

Grimm took the cage, nodded to the two tiny creatures in it and passed the Magic Stones to the Dark Sorcerer. A deal was sealed.

The Dark Sorcerer left Grimm alone with his new purchase and greeted other sorcerers who were interested in the Rain-dew Flower Spirits.

With the cage in his hand, Grimm flew towards the skyscraper ferris wheel a few kilometers away.

It was a ferris wheel with a diameter of three hundred meters, tied on it were cages and cages of Sub-humans and human slaves from other worlds. Each cage stated the creature’s ability, benefits, and price. Interested parties would just have to take the number of the cage they wanted to purchase to the sales counter.

Just like other sorcerers, Grimm examined each of the caged “merchandise”. He stopped at a cage holding a green-skinned human-like creature.

Peranos had summoned such creatures before as a Soul Slave. It was gifted with the skill of mixing food ingredients for human sorcerers.

Grimm searched for its signboard on the ferris wheel.

[Gnaw: It is gifted with the skills of seasoning and food preparation. It does not possess a Gourmet’s knowledge of food, yet it can cook really well. Selling for three pieces of Sorcerer Essences. Note: This creature only lives around one hundred and fifty years to one hundred and seventy years. Use Honey Essence Salt to greatly slow down its aging process.]

Huh?

It could only be traded with Sorcerer Essences.

One hundred grams of Honey Essence Salt was sold for one high-grade Magic Stone. To slow down the aging process of this creature, one would have to spend ten grams of Honey Essence Salt every month.

After analyzing the pros and cons, Grimm gave up on the idea of buying Honey Essence Salt.

In Grimm’s plan, he only intended to enhance his survival ability in war among worlds. The Delicacy Captive passive ability would do the trick but he did not need a Gourmet to be his Soul Slave. He had no intention of cultivating a Gourmet and the cost needed to buy Honey Essence Salt was too high.

Grimm finally made up his mind and flew towards the counter.

After stating his Demon-Hunter castle residential address, he signed a contract with the slave master. He took out the remains of his World’s Core from the Dimensional-Gap, a large piece of Sorcerer Essence that was broken into three small balls were then handed over to the slave master.

The slave master passed Grimm an emblem with a complex design. Grimm took it and left.

Grimm spent an hourglass of time in this gigantic slave market. He headed to another underground space in the Seven Rings Holy Tower known as the “Time-Space Square”.

This was a quiet and spacious underground square.

On the pale white cement floor of the underground square stood innumerable tall altars that were gathering an enormous amount of energy. From time to time, excited sorcerers stepped onto an altar while guardians activated the altar’s energy reserve. Once it was ready, those sorcerers would be wrapped by a pillar of energy and disappear from the scene. Some destinations only required seconds while some required hourglasses.

These doors of Time-space Altars were the access points to the worlds conquered by the sorcerer world.

Grimm checked out the price of using a Time-space Altar door. The nearest world cost thirty Sorcerer Essences. Only a few altars could perform long-distance travel at an outrageous cost of up to thousands of Sorcerer Essences.

On each of the time-space doors, it was stated what materials were available in that world, the lifeforms habitating it and description of its effect to the sorcerer world’s fundamental law.

At the edge of the square, there were a few Time-space Altar doors still under construction. One of them was almost complete while others were only halfway done.

Generally, every Stigmata Sorcerer had a world which was conquered solely by him. Every resource and creature was a private property of that Stigmata Sorcerer.

However, when a Stigmata Sorcerer had conquered too many worlds, or when it was an alliance of Stigmata Sorcerers that conquered a world, none of them can reap the resources out of it. Therefore, such time-space doors were made so that Demon-Hunter Sorcerers could pay for the entrance fee and utilize its resources.

In a nutshell, this was a contribution from Stigmata Sorcerers to the sorcerer civilization.

After his visit to the Time-Space Square, Grimm took a tour of the Seven Rings Weapon Square and the Internal Affairs of the sorcerer world. He went back to the Street of Exquisite Cuisine and bought the items he was not ready to spend his Sorcerer Essences on before.

Under the Tree of Life roots, there were countless of underground spaces, each of them was connected to others like an ant’s nest.

On the way back to his Demon-Hunter castle, Grimm tried to make some sense of his thoughts.

A world war was an invasion of a powerful civilization to cultivate the resources and creatures within that world. Perhaps it was actually a practice similar to a Delicacy Captive, to seek better tasting delicacies and food essences in other worlds, regardless of its size?

These worlds were forced into evolution, to become bigger and richer in resources, to provide arms for the sorcerer civilization to conquer other worlds?

In terms of the world organization, creatures were merely its cells, and a world was the whole body?

High up in the sky, Grimm was spotted as a small dot leaving the roots of the Tree of Life.