Under the watch of sorcerer Norris, the students who had paid the 100 badges they had collected walked onto the huge scale laid on the square of the Black Isotta. Currently there were about 90 students perching on one end of the scale, including Sam who was now ranked 9th of the school's top ten, as well as Alastair, Belle and Kyrie. However, Lafite and Bionna was not in sight.
The reasons why Lafite and Bionna were not allowed to enter the Black Mirror was that they both were wounded during the war, and Lafite hadn't been informed of the inside information that badges were necessary for entry into the Black Mirror until the war had been underway for quite a long time.
The top ten students all didn't fail to show up on the mirror except for the three who had fallen during the war. They intended to gain something from the upcoming travel. After the purgatory of war, there was a rearrangement and two of the open positions had been taken by two students who had accumulated more combat achievements than the others, and one of them was Sam. There was one spot left unfilled because news of Gade being killed by Glenn wasn't released.
"Glenn."
Sam's voice sounded toward Glenn. His tone was calm, revealing no surprise at Glenn's new outfit.
"Eh?" Glenn turned back and stared at Sam with a confused look. His mind had been busy trying to figure out the Blast Flame sorcery calculations.
Sam appeared to be humane only when he was talking to a member of the Death Sail league, and at other times he was just impassive.
No one knew why.
However, Glenn could feel for Sam every time he saw him. The freezing cold and loneliness deep inside. He felt that inside this powerful man was a little boy crouching in a street corner in the cold winter.
Glenn shook his head, trying to shake the feelings off his mind.
Perhaps the little boy who was curled on the street and watched the passersby was...was himself. The only vague memory he had? Who were his parents? Why was he in Bi Seer city? Was he a mysterious freak who came to this world from nowhere?
He wouldn't fantasize and think that he was of high birth as was typical in novels though. He was, in all likelihood, an abandoned son by a poor family. Every one of us might have wished to be a descendant of a sorcerer in a fantasy as Glenn did when he was with Old Ham. However, did birth matter that much?
Sam walked up to Glenn and stood alongside him. "You look just ordinary every time I see you. But it seems I'm not able to ignore you at all. You look like a monster in sleep. I feel confused about you and also excited."
"A monster in sleep?" Glenn replied slowly. "I might seem to be a monster to friends. To talents like you, I believe I'm more like a growing beast."
Sam was about to say something more, but the scale on their feet shook and Glenn had arrived at a new, unknown place as the scale quivered to a blur and his body was stretched to strands of noodles.
"En? Am I in the Black Mirror already?" No sickness assaulted Glenn. This was how better constitution benefited him.
Glenn looked up around the gray sky and the power contained in the nearby elements rioting. It was as if the forces of nature had gone wild and become unbridled by natural laws. Change of seasons, of weather, and the alternation of day and night were gone.
"I had this feeling at the first-year trial mirror dropping site, but it's not exactly the same. Would it be like this if the world was broken? Loss of the regulating rules? The world just running wild?" Glenn guessed.
Sorcerer Norris once said that a neighboring world of the sorcerer world was completely shattered when a war broke out between the sorcerer civilization and a foreign civilization in ancient times. Since then the shattered fragments of the destroyed world continued to survive by drawing close to the sorcerer world.
When the second war broke out between the civilizations, the self-sacrificing Necromancer saved the sorcerer world by prying the world up to this vast, boundless place using his lever. Therefore, it was possible that the dependent world pieces were also moved here?
Wisdom glimmered in Glenn's eyes. He moved his foot with a start, and looked down at the, moist, wriggling soil under his foot.
"Eh? Isn't this creature the..."
It was a black, streamlined, earthworm-like creature, with a sucker that belonged to flies. It was digging out soils with its thickly-covered black antenna, reeking of a stench.
"Isn't this the iron wire worm? It's a worm that is extinct in the sorcerer world." Glenn was surprised. According to book records, it had a "misfortune string" within its body and could thus be used to pull off curse sorcery by some sorcerers. Besides, some of its behaviors were well-worth studying too.
Without any hesitation Glenn threw his hand at it and clutched its head. He then spent about half an hour in pulling it out of the ground.
Glenn became more shocked when the plucking process was complete.
"Why is it so long? Was there any self-evolution or mutation? "
It was reasonable Glenn became astonished. The Iron Wire worm was 20 meters long and its body was of a human baby arm's length in radius. It was supposed to be 3-5 meters long according to records.
Shocked as Glenn was, he would not be merciful to it. Soon he had killed it and tried to sample it. He stuffed the worm into the newly-bought one-off space pocket inch by inch headfirst. The pocket seemed to be bottomless, and the worm was soon pushed in altogether. One thing worth mentioning was that after stashing the worm, or stashing anything else in the pocket, the pocket would be destroyed when its contents were taken out.
Glenn was cheered up at this achievement when the journey had just started.
At the time, high-rising trees in the distance caught his attention. The trees appeared to have undergone some mysterious changes in this rule-free shattered fragment of a world. The whole forest gave off a dark and hideous image set against the gloomy sky.
After having put some thought, Glenn finally flew to this seemingly endless forest.
This must be a fragment of a world where the living beings, weak and strong, had been enslaved by the owner of the Black Tower for a long period of time. Thus, there was nothing to be worried about. If he was in danger, the tower master would just throw the threatening creature(s) out of the world fragment.
However, there was a possibility of being killed by the creatures here. Then it was his or her bad luck. Every exploration came with risks. The tower master was not a nanny trying to look after the "intruders".
A five-meter-tall shadow appeared just as Glenn left the place where he was at.
The shadow was a two-headed dog.
"Strange, there was definitely changes of force and space here. Why can't I sniff out any scents?" one of the heads mumbled.
"See the footsteps? The target is sly by having concealed body scent. Call out to the night owl for cooperation and we'll get some good rest after getting the job done."
Cuckoo, cuckoo...
A night owl flew towards the dog from the distance in no time, followed by two snakes whose flight was supported by a pair of white wings.
The tower master's slaves observed for some time and headed off to the forest as well.