A Sorcerer's Journey Chapter 318: Surficial Tundra VII

Chapter 318: Surficial Tundra VII

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Seven days later.

After his brief exploration of the strange canyon, Grimm continued his search for entrances into the World Burrow, finding five over the course of a week. He also found what he thought was the most magnificent mountain range he ever saw in the Burrow World.

This series of mountains had ridges that were at least seven thousand ters tall, so even reaching over ten thousand ters!

The degree of grandiosity and epicness was no less than the Human Will Mountain Range on the Sorcerer Continent.

Because the Burrow World was under the Frost Law throughout most of the year, its temperature was extrely low. This ant that the mountain ranges Grimm passed by in his journey had snowy white peaks.

Though, this grand mountain range was different from the others...

The mountains in this range were all extrely tall. There were no changing seasons in this world, as compared to the Sorcerer World so the winds here all blow in a constant direction because there were no seasonal winds generated from the changing temperatures. Consequently, the mountains were all covered in snow on one side and were bare naked on the other side.

In other words, the mountain range had ford two sides of Yin and Yang.

The Yin side of the mountain range was extrely cold throughout the year and was battered by the icy-cold winds continuously. The snowfall was unimaginably thick on this side too.

As for the Yang side, there was the bare naked granite surface. As it was the opposite direction towards which the wind blew, the temperature in this part was maintained above the freezing point.

Such a view incited Grimm’s curiosity, yet according to the knowledge system of a normal sorcerer, there was nothing particularly out of the blue about the situation.

But what ca next was truly sothing extraordinary.

These trees...

Nights in the Burrow World were roughly seventeen and a half hourglasses in the Sorcerer World, aning it was half tis longer.

The warst Yang parts of the mountain range very rarely had cold winds blowing past it. The noon sun of the Burrow World would co to heat up the place creating temperature fluctuations between the freezing point as the cycle of night and day continued.

It was here that Grimm discovered vegetation that defied the laws of the Burrow World.

The cuticles on the trees’ barks were from a solid mixture of crystal glass and tal. It was quite apparent that these structures were only useful as a form of psychological trick against animals. They provided limited protection against the fluctuations of heat and cold, which brought up the possibility that they were not even structures of these plants.

These trees had no leaves either.

At the tip of these trees were massive dark-red spherical structures. These spheres seed soft and squishy. They also showed signs of minor movent. Was it so kind of creatures’ eggs?

The reason why Grimm ca to the conclusion that they were defying the Burrow World’s laws was because of these dark red spheres!

Up until now, based on the knowledge from his own research on the Sorcerer World’s expeditions into foreign worlds, whenever there was any ntion of dark-red creatures, they would always be creatures that required replenishnt of heat energy in order to reproduce. Such creatures would definitely not appear by itself in this snow-capped, freezing cold Burrow World.

As for this Burrow World that sealed itself in ice, which caused its land to grow increasingly hard, there were limited sources of flowing water and underground erosion by lava. The sorcerers were surprised that despite all these setbacks, the Snowthreads managed to carve out a world of tunnels over the course of eons.

At least in the underground caverns of the Camphoragate in the Shadow Enigmatic World, there were thick fleshy walls that protected the creatures inside!

The eyes under the Mask of Truth were engaged in deep thought as Grimm slowly brought the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft down into the valley below.

Creak!

The upper-half tal sheet of the Reconnaissance Craft opened up. Myna stood on Grimm’s shoulder as he flew out of the craft while holding the Sabbatic Goat Staff in his hands, towards the nearest strange tree he found.

At the bottom of this strange tree, it had a diater of about three ters, including the cuticle layer and a height of five ters. Although it was extrely sturdy, it was relatively short for a tree.

As for the “dark-red tree sac” at the top part of the tree, it was a sphere that had a diater of about seven to eight ters. It looked sowhat like a giant version of an insect’s egg. It made a “splish, splosh” sound as it moved around slightly.

“You- young Master, say...do you think that sothing scary will burst out of this massive fellow?”

Myna questioned anxiously as he stood on Grimm’s shoulders. At the sa ti, Grimm was gently touching the outer layer of the dark-red sphere.

Shaking his head, Grimm replied plainly, “No.”

Under such normal circumstances, Grimm’s Mask of Truth which underwent a second round of upgrades finally provided so helpful use.

Through the Boundless Eye’s thermal vision, Grimm could see that the central area of his field of vision was a dab of pinkish-red and in its core was deep, dark red. The surrounding area in comparison, was a blurry green background.

It seems that sothing with highly-pure energy was gestating within the interiors of this tree sac.

“A fruit?”

As the suspicion drifted into his mind, Grimm made little hesitation before the gently caressing hand stabbed rcilessly into the sac’s outer layer, revealing it to be so kind of a water bag.

“Crap!”

“Ah! My god...”

Grimm and Myna yelled out in synchrony, yet it was too late as the red liquid from within the Tree Sac ca gushing out over them. Luckily there was a transparent layer of sorcerer’s barrier to stop them from getting washed away.

This pale-red liquid was just normal plant fluid so it did not pose any harm to Grimm. The only thing was that the abruptness of the situation caught Grimm and Myna off guard and gave them quite the shock.

Gradually.

The initial outburst of liquid had gradually reduced to just a small flow as the internal pressure dropped. The pale-red liquid from within the Tree Sac had brought with it a foul-slling stench.

“Huhh, huhh...”

Myna gasped, while thumping his chest with his wings. He mumbled, “Son of a gun, that scared the crap out of , scared the crap out of ...”

At the sa ti, from Grimm’s thermal vision, what was left of the liquid flowing out was just a blurry light green color.

The deep-red ball of energy in the core of the Tree Sac seems to have vanished, or at least dissipated into the environnt as soon as it was split open by Grimm’s hand.

Ignoring Myna’s protests, Grimm locked his gaze on the part where the Tree Sac was split open. It seed that it had already started to shrivel up.

‘Let’s see what the hell was actually inside this Tree Sac!’

Slowly, a faint glow of red energy started appearing in his thermal vision, to which Grimm exclaid in surprise, “A soul?”

The only soul-related material sorcerers other than the Soul Sorcerers would collect was the Natural Elental Soul. As such, although Grimm was initially surprised by a soul erging from within this burst Tree Sac, he did not pay too much attention to it afterward.

After all, unless this soul was the level of a World Lord, even a mountain-load of these regular souls were useless to Grimm.

Even for the amount of souls fed to the Savage Fla Giant to aid its evolution process, the souls collected from Grimm’s previous Demon-Hunting Expedition as well as from the test subjects he personally killed were more than enough.

While thinking about this, Grimm shook his head as he completely tore apart the shriveled up Tree Sac’s outer skin with a few tugs.

As the pale-red fluid ran dry, Grimm’s eyes found a fingernail-sized, jelly-like bouncy object within the remains of the Tree Sac.

“Huh? This little thing managed to hold the soul together in the core?”

Grimm placed this Soul Condenser onto his palms as he curiously analyzed it.

While the soul itself was exceptionally unremarkable, as well as a pain in the neck to collect, this soul condensing substance on the other hand, could be worth quite a handful of Sorcerer Coins if sold to those Soul Sorcerers. Hell, they could be worth magical stones, or even Sorcerer Essences.

‘And there are at least a hundred of these weird trees on this little valley alone...’

“This place reeks, young master, go on and continue your search by yourself. I’ll head off to soplace far away to escape this stinking hellhole.”

Myna unable to stand the foul stench any longer, flew quickly to a far away direction with a scrunched up face.

Ignoring Myna, Grimm amusingly stored this Soul Condenser thing into the Dinsional Gap, after which he flew towards another weird tree nearby. At the sa ti, so thoughts raced through his mind.

‘Perhaps these weird trees here are utilizing its special environnt of fluctuating between cold and warmth to continuously condense the Soul Energy? If I rember correctly, those on the side of the Holy Tower of Two Rings back in the Sorcerer World were able to cultivate the sweetest fruits because they had access to the longest photoperiod as well as fluctuations between cold and warmth.’

While engaged in his thoughts, Grimm split open the second Tree Sac of another tree. Suddenly, a wave of realization washed over him.

“Wait a minute, then how did this soul condensing material co about? Where was it ford from? The soul is one of the key driving forces of a living creature, and the Source of Life for Elental Sorcerers...Sothing’s wrong! Condense? Soul Condenser?!”

Grimm’s body jolted upright, as if he had caught hold of sothing essential. At this mont, he was excitedly shouting out his thoughts to himself!

The Code of Life and Death that explained the workings of Chiras was split into four parts–the Carcass Refinery, the Core of Life, the Elental Soul, and the Living Flesh.

These four parts ford the key in order for a Chira to level up and were complentary to each other.

In order for the upgrade of the Carcass Refinery part, it required long and laborious accumulation of knowledge by the sorcerer, which must never be rushed, and cannot be affected by outside factors. This ford the stable core of the Code of Life and Death knowledge system.

The Core of Life on the other hand, required the sorcerer to actively hunt down high-level fleshly lifeforms. The higher the lifeform’s level, the likelier that the sorcerer would obtain an eternally beating Core of Life.

Despite the fact that the Core of Life would drop one or two levels after the target was killed by the sorcerer, so powerful Black Sorcerers that researched extensively into the Code of Life and Death would always be able to raise its level back effortlessly.

As a result, so high-ranking sorcerers would inevitably creep into the black domain for lucrative trade deals.

Upgrading the Living Flesh part was always inconsistent. The direction it developed in was dependent on the opportunity that presented itself to the sorcerer as well as his inspiration.

As for Grimm’s own opportunity and inspiration back when he was in the Shadow Enigmatic World, his Chira’s Living Flesh was geared towards the Enigmatic Reversed Energy Supply Digestive System.

This was unveiled in Grimm’s experints on the subject. In his first laboratory test, he had created a Shadow Hedgehog Chira. In his second laboratory test, the experint’s aim leaned very obviously towards the Enigmatic Reversed Energy Supply Digestive System.

Lastly, the final phase of upgrade on the Chira—the Natural Elental Soul, was the part that Grimm found most troubling.

According to the Code of Life and Death, the thod prescribed for obtaining the Natural Elental Soul required the sorcerer to kill a high-level Natural Elental lifeform. An alternative to that was to rge the Natural Elental Souls of lower-level lifeforms.

The problem with this was that the rging thod was yet another field of study that required extensive research in order to grasp fully.

The price for rging two pieces of Natural Elental Souls required around seven to eight Sorcerer Essences based on the pricing Grimm inquired from the Holy Tower of the Seven Rings.

However, if he wanted to rge three, the price would hike up to a hundred Sorcerer Essences! As for rging four Natural Elental Souls, it would have needed upwards to a thousand Sorcerer Essences...

This was the price of knowledge in the Sorcerer World. Although Grimm was confident that he could reach the skill level that would allow him to rge two Natural Elental Souls given a few hundred years of learning, to rge three would take him an unthinkable amount of ti.

This ant that Grimm had to choose either to kill a high-level Natural Elental lifeform, or to earn enough Sorcerer Essences to make up for his shortcomings in this part of upgrading his Chira. However, at the mont, these weird trees had suddenly lit up a lightbulb in Grimm’s mind!

‘What would happen if...

‘I were to use the Natural Elental Soul in place of the regular soul found in the Tree Sac of these weird trees.’