A Sorcerer's Journey Chapter 27
It seemed to Glenn that a partners.h.i.+p in which the bulk of profits would flow to him, and with 50 intermediate magical stones pre-paid to him, and, which was secured by a Seven Ring Contract of Partners.h.i.+p, was a sort of lure that he was not able to resist under any circ.u.mstances. What further a.s.sured him was that there was no way a signer of a Seven Ring Contract could breach it, unless he/she was a Level four-or-above sorcerer. So, he accepted the offer.
Glenn rushed to his dormitory that day with several valuable magical tools and some other stuff peddled by d.i.c.kens. He tried them with wild eagerness.
The Gold Ring on Glenn's right ear glowed and accentuated the radiating vigor of his eyes. The Ring was well worth the 600 stones. It effectively kept its wearer safe from curses or any other neural system manipulations. Besides, the Ring would absorb the element energy which was present in the surrounding air to help maintain constant body temperature.
For the treasure Tweeting Twig, whenever Glenn was affected by an unpreventable curse, it would make shrieking chirps and having the curse pegged temporarily to save the victim some time.
Among the little rarities, there was also a red mushroom. It was usually for medical uses and when it was mixed up with some supplementary medicament and then cooked as soup, then the person who consumed it would undergo an improvement in mental strength of, in most cases, one or two points.
Glenn got a Lapidary Pearl, too. With it in your mouth, you could breathe underwater. Of course, the subaqueous duration was limited.
Glenn was obsessed with the above-mentioned things, but his favorite was the Notes on Re-permutation of the Element Matrix, which proved to be quite useful.
Three days later, Glenn went over to the library where he and Sorcerer Elaine had arranged to meet. His eyes were rimmed with black circles due to a severe lack of sleep. Fortunately, he had churned out the thirty Love Vials, as asked by Elaine.
Walking through the main entrance of the library, Glenn saw Elaine. She was sitting before a wooden round table, relis.h.i.+ng herself in a cup of coffee. There were also a couple of trays of treats which were so delicate that Glenn thought that they might be misjudged as decorations.
Glenn was not in the interest of keeping a sorcerer waiting, since she might lose her temper and did something terrible to him. He approached Elaine and bowed as he handed her the Love Vials.
"HaHa. Look at your black eyes. This must have caused you a lot of trouble to cook." Elaine rested the coffee on the table, and then raised her white-as-snow face slowly at Glenn. "These little creations of yours were indeed amazing. The sweet memories of yore just rush back to me when I take one."
'Of yore? How long have you actually lived, for G.o.d's sake?' Glenn was shocked at the words and also turned bashful on hearing a gorgeous lady talking about "sweet memories".
Catching sight of Glenn's stiff expressions, Elaine burst into laughter and diverted from the memory topic and said, "You did your job and here's your compensation."
Elaine held out three fancy gadgets.
"This necklace gives you two points of mental strength. But it will not work once the mental strength has reached the threshold value. I call it the 'Source of Happiness'." Elaine held the necklace on her palm as she explained.
Glenn knew the threshold value that Elaine was talking about. It was the minimum level of mental strength required before someone became a sorcerer. It had to be at 40 points, of which Glenn was still 22 points short.
"This is the Buzzing Bug. Small as it is now, it grows very quickly and its size can be as big as that of an adult lion. It will protect you from dangerous enemies for a day. But do remember that it has to be raised in a dead body."
Elaine harangued on in excitement.
"This is a seed of a flower named Cylix. The biggest use of it is for a makes.h.i.+ft shelter for hiding. How does a flower do that? It either rises into high air or burrows deep underground for accommodation or hiding. And it's easy to breed."
After Glenn accepted the gifts, Elaine put the Love Vials right into a mirror!
"The Sealing Sorcery! How brilliant it is!" Glenn shouted.
"You little brat do know something, huh?" Elaine quipped with a slight surprise as she patted Glenn on the shoulder and then whisked off.
The Sealing Sorcery was a sorcery by which the handler could cram things into a one-dimensioned object, a mirror for instance, for the convenience of carrying. At the time, all the memories of Glenn seeing the weird things at the residence of the Bi Seer city's governor while he was taking the sorcerer qualification test, such as the paper man, the scarlet tongue and the huge rift on the ground, flew back. He was thinking that he might be endowed with the Sealing Sorcery, because only the sorcerers who had mastered it were able to see things that only existed in illusion, the Love Vials in a mirror to name one.
Glenn had learned from some random reading that these illusionary things could be less or more intelligent life forms that lived between reality and fantasy. For usual sorcerers, students or people, these half-existing things had different time and s.p.a.ce. Their worlds would never cross.
Glenn was getting his confidence back and was expecting something. These little purchases from d.i.c.kens and the rewards from Elaine surely had played a role. What also helped were the ongoing experiments with the Symbiotic Insects and the Life Code. It was a fact that the majority of students, for their whole life, did not have the luxury of becoming a sorcerer. But it was Glenn's belief that he would achieve something; despite being towered by the two genius students Kyrie and Bionna, he had been tested at 12 points of mental strength, and that was something.
Half a month later, the Symbiotic Insects had matured into adults. So Glenn wasted no time in dissecting the crane's belly and dislodged its stomach.
Glenn caught a strong and pukey smell as he ripped the stomach with a scalpel. The stinky smell was enormously magnified because Glenn had enhanced his olfactory senses, and he was now tenfold more sensitive to odors.
Glenn then took out hundreds of Symbiotic Insects from the stomach and nestled them in a prepared gla.s.s ware with white liquid in it. The insects were then quickly separated from the undigested food particles with the help of the liquid and then put into another dry ware.
"Oh, my dears." Glenn pressed his face over to the insects and watched them closely.
The Gadflies must have been so nauseous to someone who had never bred a Symbiotic Insect, but Glenn had grown accustomed to them and regarded them as a part of his life.
Glenn grabbed a Gadfly with a forceps and held it on his crystal ball. He then mumbled some spells towards the Gadfly, which was making low and jittering sounds during the process. He could feel there was a subtle change in his soul and minutes later, as drops of sweats appeared on his forehead, he exhaled.
"It's done. My first Symbiotic Insect." Glenn swallowed it. "You will live in my belly from now on."
These Gadflies would cause malformation as they had done to many of the mollusks and the experimental frog but not when their souls were broken. And breaking their souls was what Glenn was doing when he casting spells at the Gadfly fixated on the crystal ball. But breaking a soul demanded huge amount of energy, so Glenn could only complete five soul-breakings a day.
For the rest of the Gadflies, Glenn did not intend to eat them, because he would then be "hosted" and might, as a result, grow an additional arm or leg.