A Sorcerer’s Journey

Two months later.

Among all the mission messages from the Battle Command of several Void Fortresses, seven Rank-2 Honor Badge missions were issued in plain sight!

This was an unforeseen situation for most Demon-Hunters who were pursuing their life conquest in a Demon-Hunting expedition.

“Unlock any one of the Snowthread King’s Seal-of-Will Shackles under the advanced Ancient Seals of the Darkborne Kingdom, Lightglow Kingdom, Darkglow Kingdom, and the First Acraepoid Kingdom. Earn one Rank-2 Honor Badge upon the completion of the task.”

These were four Rank-2 missions posted by Grimm on behalf of Bone Bell Stigmata Sorcerer.

Except for the Darkborne Kingdom which was destroyed in the World Gate battle a century ago, the difficulty of the other three Rank-2 Honor Badge missions was as comparably challenging as the Rank-1 Honor Badge mission of killing the World Lord.

Personally speaking, the missions would be devastatingly arduous and impossible to accomplish unless one had been endowed with particular luck and wisdom.

“Search for the topographically weak plate faults of the Infernal Spirit continent to form an accurate coordinate drawing. Earn one Rank-2 Honor Badge upon the completion of the task.”

For this Rank-2 mission, first of all, it required a specific professional knowledge to complete. Secondly, it bore a considerable risk of failure in its execution.

It was hard to tell where the weak plate was. It might not even be on the continent but in the seabed deep under. The Demon-Hunters might not be able to find it even if they used decades for the mission. It was likely that after decades of hard work and dedication, they would end up failing the mission.

Wicky devoted his attention to this particular mission. In addition to searching for the hidden world clues that the Celestial Sorcerer feared, this was his biggest hidden task to be completed in this expedition.

After all, Wicky was already famously known as the Earth Core during his time as a sorcerer-apprentice. He had substantial research on geological knowledge under his belt.

“The formation of the fallen Arcaepoids’ organization leads to divergence from Arcaepoids’ principal will. The innate condition of this mission is to enslave the Arcaepoid civilians with the Infernal Gods’ ideology. The Infernal Gods’ Wanted List extended to those who try to overthrow the Ruling System set by the God’s Apostles or degenerate completely. Earn a Rank-2 Honor Badge upon the completion of the task.”

This mission was primarily announced to the Level-3 Demon-Hunters as it required indispensable poise and wisdom behind the enemy lines.

Of course, usually, the Dark Sorcerers were the main players in these kinds of tasks, and they must have influential sedition and disguised wisdom.

Grimm’s Eucharist Alienation Sorcery was a very powerful camouflage sorcery, hence his research on camouflage behind enemy lines was ample.

The first step to disorient the Race Will was to eradicate the race’s worship of historical heroes and their ancestors, get rid of their myths and legends, which would subsequently create a variety of Wills and ideologies.

The second step after eradicating the worship of the ancestral heroes was to obliterate the once common Race Will and desire that would subsequently result in chaos.

The final step was sedition. The trick was to provoke the so-called ambition and enthusiasm in order to impose a new rule system for the race, which would allow the Sorcerer’s Will to invade their ideology. It would eventually result in destroying the original glorious civilization system and they could only obey the Sorcerer’s Will.

“Find the coordinates of the World-Core. Earn one Rank-2 Honor Badge upon the completion of the task.”

The World-Core might appear in any form in this world, but one thing was for sure, the World Guardians kept an eye on the World-Core at all times.

This mission was probably the hardest of all the stated tasks.

In the eyes of any ordinary Demon-Hunter, this mission seemed bound for failure.

If it was not for the guidance from the Celestial Turtle in the Sorcerer World, it was almost impossible to find the Black Sea Whirlpool even for Grimm who had traveled to the World-Core twice, let alone other sorcerers who tried to attempt doing so.

There were just a handful of people who knew the clues, they now had to determine the exact coordinates…

The closer World Guardians were to the World-Core, the stronger their powers would be. Even the Stigmata Sorcerer would not underestimate such a level of power, let alone Level-3 Sorcerers.

Hence, this mission could be considered incidental.

When a world was completely occupied, no matter where or how the World-Core was hidden, it would inevitably be discovered by the World Lord to adapt to the Principal Will of the original World. This was the so-called replacement of the World Lord.

At the moment, black moss had crawled all over the ruins of the Dark Destroyer Kingdom.

Abyssal Moss—Long before the abyss civilization invaded the Ancient Sorcerer World, Abyssal Moss had already existed in a distant unknown world, experiencing countless world invasions.

These were small but remarkable lifeforms. Again and again, they went through the process of adaptation, elimination, and re-adaptation, and finally, they developed the most dominant memory of the Vitality Pool. They could even invoke repulsion from the World Force.

These minute lifeforms could easily be run over and fed on by creatures from the endless world, but eventually, all creatures in these worlds would find that these lifeforms were the ultimate winners.

Simply because… they were changing the world!

A world that had never experienced the abyss catastrophe would never understand the abomination of this seemingly insignificant creature and its existence.

Without truly understanding the horror of such meager creatures, they would never comprehend the powerful civilization system which was the abyss civilization in the Ancient Sorcerer World.

It was unquestionably the reason why the Ancient Sorcerers would suffer such a miserable and devastating loss where they could do nothing but flee.

***

Grimm, Solumn, Millie, and Claudia were sitting comfortably in Grimm’s temporary laboratory in the Void Fortress where he was nursing his injury.

The Fortress was armed with the strictest protection and the highest level of care. Without Grimm’s special permission, this secret room would be inaccessible to the other three, which was only a few hundred meters away from the Battle Command.

Solumn proudly displayed his Demon-Hunting outfit in public. He sat in front of the round table in a stern manner, holding a small bottle containing matured Abyssal Moss specimens in his hand.

Currently, the matured Abyssal Moss could be seen everywhere in the Dark Destroyer Kingdom, and it continued to spread to the surroundings.

Traces of black breath—the abyss breath—dissipated from the Abyssal Moss.

The abyss breath was mildly poisonous and corrosive.

These abyss breaths were harmless towards the Sorcerers and ordinary human beings. A small trace of abyss breath produced by a tiny amount of Abyssal Moss was merely like an innocuous fart.

However, if the Abyssal Moss were to spread widely across the whole world, nature would kick in and it would initiate a fatal abyss cataclysm throughout the whole world!

Biological creatures would begin to go extinct in large numbers due to the deadly epidemic until all the residue species in the world began to adapt to the abyss system and slowly transformed into abyssal organisms.

“I will spend the next fifty to sixty years with seventeen other Demon-Hunters who share the same mission to perform the abyss expansion in the Gutta Vassal Kingdom. Rank-3 Honor Badges will be produced based on the mission completion perfection level.” Solumn said in a deep voice.

Rank-3 Honor Badge—the most sought after achievement among the Demon-Hunters. It was the fastest way for each Demon-Hunter to improve his status, but it seemed like an impossible goal to achieve even for Level-2 Demon-Hunters.

Grimm stared at the Abyssal Moss in front of Solumn. After a moment of silent contemplation, he spoke, taking Solumn by surprise, “I have an idea to greatly increase your chance of earning the Honor Badge.” Millie and Claudia were equally shocked.

Solumn asked in surprise with a hint of excitement, “What is it?”

“One hundred Sorcerer Essences, I will trade it with the experimental data, along with the results, that I have obtained recently.”

Upon his remark, Solumn gritted his teeth anxiously. One hundred Sorcerer Essences was quite a hefty amount!

Millie uttered suddenly, “If you really do have a shortcut to earn the Rank-3 Honor Badge, I’m very much interested. Count me in! I’ll share the deal with Solumn, fifty Sorcerer Essences from each of us to make it a hundred. What say you?”

Originally, Millie did not take on the Rank-3 Honor Badge mission that involved the Abyssal Moss expansion. Now that she had heard about Grimm’s lucrative suggestion, her heart fluttered in glee.

“Deal.”

Grimm nodded and turned towards Claudia. “What about you?”

As Grimm turned his attention towards Claudia, her blood-red lips gapped slightly, revealing the snow-white teeth behind them. She bit her fair and long finger as she hesitated. After a moment, she gazed at Grimm, looking at him flirtatiously and said in an irritatingly greasy voice, “Hee hee, obviously, I will follow Lord Grimm according to the original plan. Compared to the opportunity to obtain another Rank-3 Honor Badge, Lord Grimm’s intelligence and wisdom are my priority. You see, we are all busy competing with the Demon-Hunters for the Honor Badge, but Lord Grimm has already started a forward-looking experimental program a month ago, way ahead of the other sorcerers.”

Grimm and Millie were somewhat conflicted when it came to Claudia’s collection and charm of ancient black sorcery, but Solumn was indifferent.

Grimm did not respond to Claudia’s flattery, instead, he turned around and shouted, “Little Myna, bring me my experimental work!”

“Caw! Caw! Right away!”

From the inner room, Little Myna scooped out a delicate crystal bottle.

Although the crystal bottle also contained Abyssal Moss, its physical structures were seemingly more hideous and aggressive than the moss specimen in Solumn’s bottle, the pitch-black corrosive and poisonous gas that the moss emitted was seemingly thicker and more intense.

“This is the Abyssal Moss from Infernal Spirit World that I have cultivated since two months ago, using the preserved specimen of the Level-3 Arcaepoid carcass and a small amount of this world’s World Lord’s blood. From the preliminary tests that I’ve conducted, the results show that the survival rate of this Infernal Spirit World version of the Abyssal Moss in this world is more than ninety percent, and the survival rate of the matured version of the Abyssal Moss in your hand is approximately fifty to sixty percent, at best.”

The Abyssal Moss in Grimm’s hand attracted curious glances from Solumn, Millie and Claudia.

Even though they had been informed of news regarding the Battle Command that had attempted to cause a large scale epidemic in the Infernal Spirit World using Abyssal Moss and the speculation of its corresponding missions, no one had ever thought of cultivating the diffusion props themselves.

But, Grimm had…

Was this the wisdom revolution that set people apart?

With this bottle that contained the completed Abyssal Moss, and the combination of Millie and Solumn among the other competing Demon-Hunters, the Rank-3 Honor Badge would almost certainly be in their hands.

This was an essential prop that could be considered as illegal beyond the rules of Honor Badge missions.

For such a prized possession, Grimm was selling it for merely a hundred Sorcerer Essences. The main reason was to pave an emotional attachment bridge for the future battle for the Infernal Spirit Scriptures.

“Awesome! One hundred Sorcerer Essences, deal!” Millie and Solumn hurriedly dug into their bags for Sorcerer Essences.

Solumn frowned as he realized that he had less than fifty essences, but he quickly retrieved a golden gibbon corpse and placed it in front of Grimm.

“Oh? Living flesh! Nice.”

After Grimm inspected the quality of the corpse, he nodded in satisfaction and accepted the corpse as replacement for ten Essences from Solumn.