A Sorcerer's Journey, 2

by Flying White Egrets

  Norris sipped at the Ilex tea with his dry lips and savored its bitterness.

  When Glenn was done with his notes, he asked bitterly, "When this Geocentric stone is transplanted into my body, will my skin be split? And the damage to the skin will be irreparably fixed?"

  Glenn had inquired about the exactly similar question three times.

  When the stone was lodged into someone’s body, the host’s skin would bear semblance to Norris’. They split and fell off! Therefore, the skin had to be sutured back , thus resembling a shabbily seamed-up bag or ball.

  "Humph! No pains, no gains!" Sorcerers were intent on seeking the truth! Their appearance came quite the secondary.

  Norris seemed a little miffed at Glenn’s reactions, and he snorted.

  "There! There…"

  At this time, Garfield had jumped around Norris, licked its claws and afterward kept laughing.

  "Young sorcerers do care for their appearances since they haven’t undergone years of baptism yet. I think you should get Glenn to start off with the Endless Eyes. His looks won’t change much."

  Norris grunted, and then threw the Geocentric stone to Glenn, saying unhappily, "It’s your decision to make."

  That being said, Norris left the laboratory.

  Glenn himself was fine with a revolting exterior if it would mean further knowledge and power, but he had to take into account Lafite’s feelings about this.

  "Shall I go with the Repulsive and Gravitational Forces Sorcery, and the Geocentric stone?"

  It was really a tough choice for Glenn to make. Since his mentor, a level three sorcerer, was still suffering from his damaged skin permanently, then the side effect would certainly be real. Even with the Glenn Dissimilation Sorcery, the ruined skin could merely be concealed on a temporary basis.

  "Oh! He’s getting angry. Glenn, you take care!"

  The black cat cocked his butt and tail, stretched itself and jumped away.

  In Glenn’s hand was a black stone covered with prickles. He studied it while running his fingers through his hair, with a terrible look.

  What troubled Glenn was that he knew he would become upset if it was Lafite who would be disfigured.

  "Take it off your mind for a moment. Why not delve into this sorcery further before making the final decision? Maybe it can be solved in some way. Besides, to figure out the calculations in order to wield the forces of repulsion and attraction would take me at least six months. It’s really a brain-boggling sorcery."

  Therefore, Glenn set aside this "nuisance" and focused his research on Fire Element Density Fire Shield Sorcery, alchemy, and also the passive evolution using his ten magic wands. Besides, he was also using the toxic radioactive stone more frequently, from a monthly basis to 1.5 months to two months. As his constitution and the anti-toxic property was enhancing rapidly, he had to inject some more potent potions.

  Half a year later.

  In Norris’ library, Glenn was sitting around, looking over books. Suddenly, an idea sparked into existence to him when he dwelled his eyes on a particular book!

  It was called, Discussion on Classification of Blood in Mechanicals, a rudimentary book on mechanical engineering. It contained some creative insights, so Norris had collected it in the shelves.

  In fact, Glenn was not that much fond of digging into mechanics. It was not that mechanics was not sufficiently powerful, but that he was just not sensitive to knowledge related to gears, energy conversion and applications, so he mostly ignored such type of books.

  However, Glenn had been pestered by Norris with his request to ask Glenn to go for the possibly appearance-disfiguring sorcery, so he had started seriously considering on working on it. And this book he was reading gave him an inspiration.

  Sorcerers on mechanics had a mechanical body, and another distinction that separated them from element sorcerers was the purification of artificial blood. The basic gist of which was to convert the practitioner’s blood into man-made blood to fit into the mechanically-powered transmission, creating kinetic energy.

  The reason why the Geocentric stone was required to be implanted in the practitioner’s body was for the balance between attractive force and repulsive force. The role that the stone would have in the process was to serve as a "point of origin" with fixed coordinates—the central part of the body—to achieve that balance. The sorcery would then be generated after a series of calculations had been conducted.

  Based on the book, Glenn had discovered that skin would drop only because they carried uneven weight and the reason was that a human body was not a sphere, and thus didn’t have an actual center. Therefore, the alternately functioning attractive force and repulsive force would result in the cracking of the skin. So they had to be seamed up like what Norris had done.

  But now, Glenn had a probable solution.

  If the Geocentric stone was ground into powder and mixed with the blood evenly, then the powder would be distributed throughout the body and wouldn’t change the original coordinates.

  As a result, the skin would be stressed evenly, and those side effects would not come with the practice.

  Glenn became excited about the idea and told it to Norris after he had trotted to him.

  "Well, this sounds feasible, but to add ground Geocentric stone powder to artificial blood... Uh... I’m not quite sure about it since I’m not really into mechanics. I’ll visit an old friend of mine to ask whether we can create a neutral liquid or something."

  After having said that, Norris left the lab.

  Two months later.

  Glenn had obtained that liquid as he had wished, and excitement was all over his face.

  Norris gave Glenn the liquid and sighed. "If I’ve done more thinking like you did when I was young, then I wouldn’t have to look like this now."

  "You can use this liquid to remove the attractive and repulsive forces, and you might restore your original face by using some advanced repair surgery or something."

  Glenn proposed this idea, yet he was not sure how.

  Norris shook his head, and said, "After all these years, it has become a part of me."

  Glenn was taken aback at Norris’ response.

  Time passed on.

  Every day, Glenn immersed himself in the endless world of knowledge, and the more knowledge he obtained, the more he felt that his acquisition of it never was enough. His desire for more of it became stronger.

  One year later.

  Glenn had finally completed the learning of his fire shield sorcery. After tons of tests, he had developed some vision into it.

  First of all, this sorcery was excellent at defending attacks that involved energy.

  Due to his Body of Fire and Inextinguishable Flame properties, Glenn currently could absolutely keep off elemental attacks below 100 points, and could effectively weaken attacks with over 100 degrees. Glenn did not test out the exact maximum defensive power, but with the help of his Ashen mask, his defense was now perfect.

  However, the fire shield’s defense against wind and soil elements was slightly weaker, only at 70 to 80 degrees.

  But amazingly, the shield could protect Glenn from 150-degree water element attacks. However, once a water element attack ripped its defense, it would cause much more significant damage to him than other elements attacks in the same situation.

  The second discovery about the fire shield concerned its defense against physical attacks. The fire shield could break under a 30-degree physical assault. But as the sorcery was based on the outburst of energy compressed in high concentration within a short period of time, its counterattack power was at least three times as much as his normal fire attack power, and the fire could not be put out.

  Finally, it was about the inextinguishable attribute.

  As mentioned above, the fire shield could work because it was condensed in a split second. Therefore, for most sorcerers, the fire element would dissipate under that pressure in a while. That didn’t apply to Glenn’s fire shield though because of
its inextinguishable attribute, which meant that the magical force consumed in the process was very low. Thus, the fire shield could be sustained.

  This advantage made fire shield a more powerful sorcery than Glenn’s Ashen mask.

  Glenn was excited about this achievement. Furthermore, he could now concentrate more of his energy on Destructive Force of Fire Blast Sorcery, and study on water and radium elements should be put on higher agenda.

  "I’ll crack on them after this mandatory task is over." Glenn set his arrangement in his mind.

  Suddenly, Glenn's crystal ball received some soul information.

  "Robinson, what’s up? You’re not gonna gossip with me through this, right?"

  Glenn put down the semi-finished product (made through the magic of alchemy) in his hand, and joked to Robinson.

  Glenn great mood was noticeable, because the sorcery of Repulsive and Gravitational forces had made initial progress, and other experimental studies had been progressing steadily, especially alchemy.

  Soon, Glenn realized that something was wrong. Robinson seemed quite serious.

  "What’s going on? Say something!" Glenn became irritated by Robinson’s hesitation.

  Finally, Robinson replied, "Lafite just came back from the area and she was hurt!"

  Glenn's face became dark. Injury was not a big deal for sorcerers. But he could tell from Robinson’s anxious face that she had been injured seriously.

  "Who did that to her?" Glenn sounded cold. All of his gaiety resulting from his research progress had been erased.

  "It was Bionna!" Slowly, Robinson said it.

  -------

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  Chapter71 The Guardian

  In Lafite’s room.

  Chris, Nina, Robinson, and Robin were present outside of Lafite’s room, along with a few members of the Death Sail League. Glenn was not acquainted with them, yet they had a close relationship with Lafite.

  Glenn flew there hurriedly and landed at Lafite’s room. He then asked worriedly, "How is she doing?"

  "Glenn, just go in there and check. She's never been so aggrieved, but she tried to maintain calm and just drove us out," Chris answered Glenn reluctantly.

  "Hm," Glenn responded lightly, then he entered the room and left behind the crowd outside.

  Chris then heaved a sigh, and said slowly, "Since Glenn is here, we can leave."

  In a while, the crowd had thinned, and who remained there were only Chris, Nina, Robinson and Robin. Suddenly, Robin hesitantly ventured a question.

  "Glenn flew here. It seems that he didn’t use a Magic Tool at all, right?"

  The few words reminded the remaining group of Robin’s observation.

  Robinson became astounded at his speculation. He then said, with his mouth yawning, "Is Glenn now an official sorcerer? Only a sorcerer could harness the natural power Robinson became astounded at his speculation. He then said, with his mouth yawning,."

  "That’s not possible!" Chris doubted it loudly, "I’m not gonna agree with you on this if reason is still with me."

  Nina cut in and said like a timid lamb, "Maybe it’s Glenn’s special sorcery. He has gotten himself a mentor after all."

  It was a fact known to Chris and the others that Glenn had been admitted by a sorcerer, but they didn’t know it was one of the school’s presidents—sorcerer Norris—except for, of course, Lafite.

  However, the group did feel that Glenn had become mysterious by the day, and he had gotten far ahead of them in terms of sorcery acquisition. Failing to figure out the reason, they left gradually.

  And the reason for Glenn’s ability to fly was a primitive application of the repulsive-gravitational force.

  ...

  The door creaked open gently.

  "As I said, I’m fine. Please just leave me alone." Believing that it was Chris and Nina again, Lafite said impatiently.

  She was attentively studying an orange-colored leaf at her testing table. It was giving off a strong fragrance. Glenn judged that the leaf had psychedelic and narcotic effects. When hearing the noise of the door being opened, she spoke these words without moving her eyes off the leaf.

  Lafite’s "laboratory" was spacious and bright. Gleams of sunlight penetrated the room windows and landed on the table. The bookshelf behind her was antique and exquisite. A few rare plants were separately placed on the corners of the room, and one of them was so luxuriant that its vines reached the roof and encircled it several times, presenting the room a beautiful botanical garden.

  Of course, as the closest and dearest person to Lafite, Glenn was well-aware of the fact that these plants didn’t only serve as ornaments.

  At this time, as Lafite was doing her research, her brown-dark hair caught a strand of sunlight, which made the ice on her face more noticeable. She was using ice to reduce the pain!

  At this time, as Lafite was doing her research, her brown-dark hair caught a strand of sunlight, which made the ice on her face more noticeable. She was using ice to reduce the pain!

  As Lafite inadvertently brushed off the strand of hair that had covered her face, Glenn noticed her face. Half of it had been dehydrated and withered to the extent of a dead woman’s, and the necrotic skin had spread to her neck and below. Glenn guessed that maybe half of her body might have been damaged. Upon seeing this, he couldn’t help but clench his fist.

  The silver lining out of it was that the area where the normal skin and the impaired skin was located seemed to be healing, and it was a few tender shoots belonging to some vines that were doing the job. However, the process seemed to be tough and slow and it might take several years to be fully cured.

  Upon seeing this, Glenn could judge that it must be Bionna who had caused this—the woman who always pretended to be innocent!

  When thinking of the crabby temperament of both Lafite and Bionna, Glenn found that it was easier to understand why there had been a conflict going on between them.

  Lafite was sitting at the table quietly. Despite the ugly appearance, she still wore that arrogant look. While watching Lafite, he felt his heart breaking. What he could do was not to step further, abiding by the underlying rule shared by sorcerers—respecting one’s independence!

  The silence lasted for quite a while. Lafite had forgotten that someone had come in, while Glenn chose not to break the silence of this moment.

  After some time, Lafite seemed to have made some progress on her research. She then took a sip at the coffee on her side, which had cooled down, and stretched herself casually. Suddenly, she met Glenn’s eyes. Something subtle between them had begun fermenting in the air.

  Lafite hadn’t cared for her appearance in front of Chris and others. Now, when she found Glenn, she lifted her hand and slightly covered the ugly half of her face. It wouldn’t make a difference though, she just did it on instinct.

  The previous confident eyes of Lafite’s turned distraught and nervous. After a long silence, she managed to say a few words.

  "You are here!"

  The voice sounded aloof and inflexible. Lafite tried to be as haughty as she once was, but right now, that pride didn’t work out well. Seeing her beloved Glenn, she seemed rather upset by her revolting exterior. She then lay down her hand, and exposed that part of her face, trying to resume her usual arrogance but almost immediately, she lowered her head, wanting to hide something.

  Glenn said nothing. He just walked up to her. He was close to her and he could feel her body’s temperature and smell her scent. He was doing his best to comprehend her complex feelings.

  "Any progress on your experiment?" Glenn asked gently as if he had neither noticed Lafite’s appearance nor did he know anything about Bionna. He said it as if it was just the usual, even dull yet caring words. He wanted Lafite to know that, no matter what happened, he would always be there.

  "Haha..."

  Lafite broke out a laughter suddenly. She then stood up and gazed at Glenn silently with her bright, clear eyes
.

  After that pause, she said delightedly, "Glenn, your mentor was right! Knowledge is the strongest tool we can possess. Gift is subsidiary. We’re no longer the weak ones waiting to be slaughtered back on the ship. The Desperaters are not undefeatable anymore!"

  Glenn was greatly puzzled by Lafite’s drastic change of topic. But the content had truly rung in his heart.

  "Knowledge is the strongest tool one can possess. Gift is only subsidiary."

  It occurred to Glenn that the Glenn Secret Tri-Sorcery was the type that utilized knowledge to replicate others’ sorceries.

  Till now, Glenn had possessed one gift—Body of Fire. Based on Life Code, this gift was kind of forcibly taken! There were still two spots for the other two sorceries, which Glenn had saved for much more powerful gifts to get in the future.

  However, Glenn had never truly understood that gifts were only secondary.

  For sorcerers, a good gift meant that it could be used favorably to boost his/her current research. For those who had over 10 points of mental strength yet weren’t able to put good use of them were still not given enough attention from sorcerers.

  At this moment, Glenn was suddenly enlightened.

  Knowledge was progressing all the time, but gifts could only stay at the original point. It would be rendered useless someday and would then only exist in memory. That meant, only those who could get stronger and survive in a certain period could gain the chance for more learning and then become one of the most powerful sorcerers.

  ...

  Glenn accompanied Lafite silently as if he was her shadow. He shared her joy, watched her lose temper and soothed her loneliness and sorrow, which would be displayed only to him.