A Sorcerer’s Journey

“Wait a minute!”

Grimm had a sudden epiphany; he realized that it was a Water-Crystal Turtle that had surfaced on top of the lake. The translucent Water-Crystal Turtle caught Grimm’s interest and he rushed towards the lake and shouted, “Natural Elemental Soul!”

The Natural Elemental Soul was a soul that was nurtured by the natural environment. For sorcerers, it was known as one of the elemental spirits that had reproduced itself via an asexual reproduction system.

The soul would be one of the most important criteria to form Chimeras, and only the first generation of the soul would be useful; the offspring would often be regarded as a normal soul although both might look the same outwardly. The elemental strength of the Soul would depend on the environment that it was nurtured in, whereby some of its capabilities in certain areas would be strengthened accordingly. Hence, the strength would also be affected if the environment was being disrupted.

Undoubtedly, the soul that Grimm was looking at was the first generation of the Water Element Soul.

Bang!

Grimm took a step forward and drew elemental energy from the lake underneath within the radius of tens of meters around him. A strong gust of wind caused turbulence on the surface of the lake and created flurries of wind that could be measured up to a Level 12 magnitude. The waves kept slamming onto the surrounding bed of rocks.

What about the translucent turtle?

Although the Natural Elemental Soul had an advantage in a nurturing environment, its ability was way below that of a Level 1 creature when faced with Grimm that was capable of sourcing from the natural surrounding energy.

“No…” The turtle mumbled, it was shocked and on alert as it tried to form a swirl of water around it for protection.

Unfortunately, it was unable to compare with Grimm’s power. Grimm cast away the protection effortlessly, it was as if a helpless girl was being stripped of her clothes by a gang of gangsters. In the blink of an eye, the protecting shell of the turtle was being stripped bare.

“Huh? It is interesting to see such a low-ranked creature having the ability to communicate.” Grimm remarked under The Mask of Truth while he walked towards the turtle. Grimm was surrounded by flames that deflected the water splashes that were near him, there was no way the turtle could defend itself against Grimm.

It was an ironic moment when the Natural Elemental Soul that was well known for its ability to control the elemental energy could not even draw any elemental energy from its surrounding environment when faced with a sorcerer that had greater power. All of the sources of energy near their surroundings were being controlled and stripped away by Grimm.

“Oh greatness from another world, if possible, I am willing to give anything and at any cost, in return for you to spare my life.” The turtle tried to move its fins to control the few water pillars left around it, while it begged Grimm out of fear of losing its life.

‘You could give anything at any cost?’

Grimm disregarded every one of the turtle’s defenses, while moving closer to it with the flames around him fending off every harm that would go near him. Grimm’s white and delicate palm penetrated through the body of the turtle and reached towards the core of its body. He held onto the beating Soul Flame and replied in a deep voice: “To me, this Natural Elemental Soul is everything that you can give.”

Grimm’s voice was cold and showed no sign of emotion, only a clear image of the greed and evil intention of sorcerers to get a hold of the lifeforms from other worlds, the word creepy would best describe them.

The lifeforms from another world that came into contact with the sorcerers’ ethnic group could hardly understand them with the wisdom they had.

The sorcerers might have their advantage in power, wisdom and civilization; however they were often associated with ruthless acts such as robbery, murder, and even slavery.

Of the extensive list of historical records on the ethnic group of lifeforms found in the world, there was none that could be compared to that of the sorcerers, no matter how the ethnic group managed and secured its group’s position. In addition to that, no one could understand how sorcerers could achieve such outstanding power although they were the same species as normal human beings, sharing the same way of life.

The moment Grimm got hold of the Elemental Soul, the translucent turtle started to shiver and beg Grimm as its last attempt for survival, “No… I was thinking that my eternal longevity would be of use to you! At least, letting me live would be more beneficial to you than taking my life.”

‘Your eternal longevity?’

Grimm sneered and replied, “Eternal longevity is way out of your league, now that I think about it, you would not even be ranked as a Level 1 creature, such an ignorant creature you are…”

“No! Eternal longevity is my naturally inherited ability, and it has got nothing to do with lifeform ranking.” The turtle rebutted as it felt that there was still hope to survive. It struggled visibly as Grimm had almost completely extracted the Natural Elemental Soul.

‘Naturally inherited ability?’

Grimm paused for a moment.

If the turtle was being truthful, would it be possible that the surrounding natural environment of the small underground lake had developed an eternal longevity ability on the turtle?

However, the ability of Eternal Longevity might not be valuable to non-aquatic lifeforms. It could have just been lucky to be born in an underground environment with the presence of water, while having the geographical advantage of an enclosed environment that had protected it from the natural disasters and the exploration of other higher level lifeforms. Moreover, these Amonros looked highly upon the source of water.

‘It might just be a joke to claim that it had the ability of Eternal Longevity!’

The ability could somehow be similar to the eternal life that the Great Necromancer had; he was ranked on the top of the hierarchy of lifeforms. The ability could either be achieved by receiving energy support from the entire world, or disrupting the world’s law of balance and looting energy sources from other worlds.

‘Just for how long did this turtle exist…’

Grimm slowly stopped his extraction process and grinned, he then asked, “If so, how many centuries of eternal life have you had?”

“Centuries? I am not sure how it is measured.” The turtle said and paused for a moment. It then continued saying, “However, the world was ruled by the Lava Giants when I was born, Amonros were merely food for the Lava Giants to feed the Lava Dragons.”

Hmm?

All of a sudden, Grimm’s expression changed! Although the turtle could not specifically remember which year it was born, however, Grimm noticed something unusual from what it had told him!

Grimm loosened his grip on the Soul of the translucent turtle, hid his evil intention and greed under his mask, while he displayed a seemingly rational and wise look. Grimm said in a cold voice: “Then, I will spare your life, in return, you have to give me the knowledge that you have.”

“You mean my knowledge? What would that be?” The translucent turtle felt a sense of relief and asked.

“The natural phenomenon of interaction between the evolution of the outer layer, and the law of the natural world that lies in the inner layer of this endless world. This phenomenon can be divided into four different parts, the realm of the phenomenon, history, inter-relationship, and truth. The entire lifespan that you have had throughout your eternal life had accumulated an extensive part of your historical knowledge,” Grimm explained to the turtle.

A sorcerer’s life is the greatest wealth that any sorcerer could possibly have.

The past experience of ignorance, failures, regrets and findings could be leveraged to identify paths that they should take in the future. The knowledge accumulated throughout the life of a sorcerer could impact their understanding and decryption towards the unknown future, eventually impacting the way they reacted to it.

Even for Grimm that had the ability to communicate through Dimensional Gaps, he was still required to leverage his past memories and experiences to expand his ability of imagination. There were no shortcuts or deceptive actions that could falsify such an ability and it could only be obtained from accumulated experience in one’s lifetime.

Similar to a sorcerer’s knowledge, it was accumulated bit by bit and learned by using their own wisdom, eventually achieving the state of a lifeform that was able to defy rules.

“Then, what can I do, to pass on my knowledge to you?” The translucent turtle asked, portraying signs of hope.

Grimm grinned secretly under his mask, hidden from the turtle, and gave a toneless reply, “Knowledge can only be obtained through Soul Inheritance or accumulation, there is no other practical way of obtaining it. You can only speak to me slowly about knowledge that might be useful to me through soul communication. In order to know what would be useful and relevant to me, you would have to imagine yourself being in my situation, and only speak the essence of it.”

The translucent turtle paused for a moment, and replied in distressed: “What should I do, only to be able to relate and provide you with clues that might be useful to you, master?”

Hehe…

Grimm let out a snicker, and he suddenly spat out a plume of fiery soul, he replied in a cold voice, “Once you have merged with my soul, and become my Soul Slave, you will then be able to relate your knowledge to me automatically!”

No…

The translucent turtle realized that something bad was about to happen, it struggled to break free, however its effort was meaningless when faced with Grimm.

A few moments later.

Grimm opened up his left hand which was holding the soul of the translucent turtle, he replied in a calm manner, “Do you understand now?”

The Water-Crystal Turtle had shrunk from the size of slightly more than a meter to only three centimeters; it floated in the air like a small crystal ball. The fiery soul inside the crystal ball was coated with a thin layer of water element.

“Yes, I get it now, Master. You would like to discover the historical knots of this world and identify resources from its historical remains,” The Water-Crystal Turtle replied while it floated gently above Grimm’s arm.