A Sorcerer’s Journey

A Rank-1 demon-hunting mission and a Rank-1 Honor Badge shook all three to the core.

Between the three of them, only Claudia had a Rank-3 Honor Badge. Even the ones who Grimm thought and sensed were stronger—Wicky and Millie, were just ordinary ranked demon hunters along with the majority of demon hunters.

Grimm’s Rank-3 Honor Badge had already been eye-catching enough, but did he really just take out a Rank-1 mission accomplishment scroll?

This was…

Way too hard to believe.

“Honestly speaking, I got this badge completely out of sheer luck… At one point I even thought I would never be able to return to the Sorcerer World alive,” sighed Grimm.

But no matter how he explained himself, the three of them could only see results. No matter how he spun it, the truth of the matter was that he had an Honor Badge scroll from accomplishing a Rank-1 demon-hunting mission!

This was proof that Grimm… had directly changed the outcome of a demon hunting crusade!

Letting out a long huff in astonishment, Wicky, the sorcerer as tall as a mountain stared Grimm down with a serious eyeball, his gaze deep-set and his jaw clenched tight.

“Alright! I’ll join your team to the Infernal Spirit World!”

After the three signed a Seven Rings Contract, Grimm turned toward Claudia and requested, “Claudia, I’ll have to return to the academy for a few years, so if Solumn comes back from the demon-hunting crusade within that period, please ask him if he wants to join.”

Between the three, Claudia was the only one who was the closest to Solumn considering they had joined the sorcerer academy in the same year and finished the newbie trials together.

“It’s my honor to be able to help you, Mr. Grimm. Why don’t you reward me in return?” Claudia giggled as she made a seductive stance, lowering her body and baring her pale skin as she looked up at Grimm expectantly, her tone sultry and suggestive.

It was clear that this sorceress was completely endowed with the knowledge of the primal instincts between men and women.

“This sorcery…” Millie muttered as she looked at the seductive Claudia, her wide gaze barely hidden by her icy white locks.

“You’re a practitioner of Ancient Black Sorcery?”

Ancient Black Sorcery!

As he was surrounded by the mysterious scent coming from Claudia, Grimm looked at the sorceress warily. Could she be a black sorcerer?

No, that can’t be true.

A black sorcerer could never go under the radar of so many Seven Rings Emissaries in the Holy Tower of Seven Rings.

Observing Grimm’s reaction, Millie spoke calmly, “No need to be so tense. The Ancient Black Sorcery that she practices don’t count as black sorcery according to the modern Holy Tower Laws.”

Modern Holy Tower Laws?

According to the ancient Holy Tower Laws, as long as it was sorcery derived from the black domain, it would be determined as black sorcery.

According to modern Holy Tower Laws, only magic that had caused mass deaths in order to supersede other sorcerers in their magical power would be regarded as black sorcery.

As an example, the collection of life’s despair from foreign worlds under the Occult Code of Life and Death was a strong type of sorcery accepted by modern laws of the sorcerer world.

If a black sorcerer used this sorcery to lay harm on humans, only then would it be regarded as black sorcery.

As she stared at Claudia, Millie spoke, “You practice the collection of seduction?”

“Ms. Millie sure does know a lot…”

Claudia tried to fix a glare at Millie, but in the eyes of Wicky and Grimm, she looked like a cute girl acting flirtatiously.

‘So my instinct was right…’ Grimm muttered under his breath, while Wicky looked like he already knew all this from the start.

The seductive collection was close in theory to the collection of despair, but its execution and end results were the complete opposite.

If the collection of despair of a certain species would allow its user to obtain power and be able to overpower the species employing cruel methods, seductive collection, on the other hand, would utilize gentle methods to reduce the lethality of a certain species towards the user.

In conclusion, the rare Ancient Black Sorcery wasn’t considered black sorcery by the modern Holy Tower Laws.

After understanding everything, Grimm nodded and said, “Alright then. Let’s wrap things up here yeah?”

“Alright”

And so, everyone left.

Three days later.

Grimm flew his Starfall Reconnaissance Craft as he sped toward the Tree of Life.

On the Heart of Seven Rings, Grimm nonchalantly kept away the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft under the gaze of the surrounding demon hunters. A Seven Rings Snail Emissary flew over but did not ask for Sorcerer Essence after it checked Grimm’s Rank-3 Honor Badge.

When there were no void fortresses that needed to travel through spacetime, the Heart of Seven Rings was a link between the Seven Rings World and the Sorcerer World.

When a void fortress needed to transverse the spacetime gate, it would become a supportive mechanism to raise it into the spacetime gate.

The six Magic Power Light Pillars would never go out. This was the eternal power provided by the six Sorcerer Towers onto the Tree of Life.

Whoosh!

As if moved by an unseen force, his sorcerer’s robe suddenly fluttered.

For Grimm who had transversed between worlds many times in the past, riding the Heart of Seven Rings to cross the World Boundary was already a norm.

His mind couldn’t help but think back to the time when Master Peranos first led him to the Seven-Rings World a few centuries ago.

In that year…

Riding the Seven-Rings Snail Emissary, the sorcerer masters directly used the light pillars as leverage to ferry their apprentices through space-time into the Seven-Rings World.

At that time, Grimm remembered he felt that he was almost crushed by the twisting space energy. The other sorcerer apprentices did too, to varying degrees.

He was amazed by everything—by the giant sorcerer barriers held up by the Tree of Life and the Six Sorcerer Towers. The void fortress that looked like a blood moon above the clouds, the enormous heavenly water screens, and the very fact he was riding on the destiny leverage.

But now….

Grimm, along with the other demon hunter sorcerers were waiting calmly, and as they rose to the Seven Rings World, they emotionlessly flew to their destinations.

That was the difference between a sorcerer apprentice and an official sorcerer.

Sorcerer-apprentices were curious and adventurous as if they were about to encounter new wonders every single day of the future. To them, the world was too wide and vast. Thus, they always had lots of strange but wonderful ideas.

On the other hand, sorcerers had already known the laws of the world and were working day in and day out to leverage even deeper levels of natural laws until it was able to numb them.

As a sorcerer-apprentice, Grimm was amazed by the wondrous scene of rainbows consuming the otherworldly’s light on the way to the Seven-Rings Holy Tower. He was left in awe by the beauty of the scene.

A few words alone would not suffice to describe such awe.

Now if Grimm came across that scene again, he would only want to collect some rainbows as experiment specimens.

In the Seven-Rings World, a dark brown tower that was of immeasurable height stood in the center of the world like a pillar holding up the sky.

This was the Seven-Rings Holy Tower.

It was a mysterious organism that seemed to be made from an amalgamation of flesh, metal, and elemental energy.

Right now, Grimm truly felt that the tower was the Black Isotta’s goal; as if it could pierce through life and death and even history itself—the true representation of grand celestial sorcery!

If Black Isotta were to be a giant that was almost a thousand meters tall, he was like a child in comparison.

Such was the level of a Grand Celestial Sorcerer known as the Eternal Dominator, the God of Gods, or a Central God!

Grimm stared in awe for a long while.

Grimm, or any of the demon hunters around the tower, even the voidships all around the sky for that matter were only insects in comparison.

Heaving a relieved sigh, Grimm started leaving towards the direction shown by the mission scroll.

The Celestial Cordillera turtle!

Like a floating black mountain, its base was flat and took an oval shape. The from its front to its rear, it was around 1500 meters while its width was 600 to 700 meters.

The mountain itself was around 700 to 800 meters tall, while four slightly lower mountains surrounded it.

As he looked at the black mountain covered with thriving plants and vegetation, Grimm gulped. He was surely no longer as ignorant as the time he was an apprentice.

This Celestial Cordillera was the World Lord recognized by the Will of the Seven-Rings World!

Its owner was the Seven Rings Grand Celestial Sorcerer, which had created the Seven Rings World using the Seven Rings World Fragments.

“Great Celestial Cordillera, this is my Rank-1 Honor Badge. Please send me to the Black Sea Spiral in the heart of the Sorcerer World.”

Slowly, the giant turtle opened its eyes and fixated its gaze on the pipsqueak that had the nick to arouse it from sleep.