A Sorcerer's Journey 317 Surficial Tundra VI

'This crystallized energy stone...'
Grimm anxiously removed the energy stone from within the rib cage and placed it in his palms. It had a refreshing feeling as he held the stone. The flower that emitted the fragrant aura of death was hiding in this energy stone.
It was apparent to Grimm that this energy stone was not a naturally occurring item. Most likely, it was the Energy Core of some kind of creature.
Similar to the Lava Giants, there were lots of creatures in the Endless World that used this type of Energy Core as a source of energy for their body's functions. Though, fundamentally speaking, it still belonged under the category of passive evolution. It's just that the creatures' evolution came from its' Energy Core, not from its' cells.
In fact, the concept of Millie and Grimm's Ice Marrow Crystallization ability was closely tied to the Energy Core from these creatures' bodies.
From what Grimm observed, perhaps this flower was born from the internal energy source of the Energy Core after the creature met its demise?
Nothing would ever be too weird for this Endless World.
However, as Grimm further observed this Energy Stone for a moment, his brows furrowed and he muttered under his breath, "Something's wrong, this isn't the true Death Energy. Perhaps the creature that this Energy Stone belonged to had managed to merge Death Energy with some other kind of energy, undergoing a higher level energy evolution right before it died."
Using his sorcerer's senses towards the Force of Nature, Grimm found something off about the matter.
However, what Grimm could deduce was that the owner of this Energy Stone was just a Level-1 lifeform. Apart from that, there were no other clues for Grimm.
"Young Master, let's dig this skeleton out first to see what kind of a fella he is."
Myna said, after failing to come up with anything after looking at the Energy Stone on Grimm's hand. The only thing he could do was shake his head in frustration.
"Right."
Grimm nodded his head in agreement. After a few blasts from the Fire Bat Spell, the hole was widened quite a bit, enough for Grimm and company to squeeze the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft into it.
Because the impact from the Goat Horn Hammer's high-density shockwave was continuously spreading, its gradual drop in strength would also mean that the damage-affected area would be greater, resulting in the interior space of the cavity becoming much wider.
After a full half hourglass, the humanoid skeleton was finally completely dug out by Grimm!
"This…"
Grimm widened his eyes and held his breath in surprise. The eyes underneath the Mask of Truth closely scanned each and every detail on this humanoid set of skeletons.
There were many different types of humanoid creatures in the Endless World.
Of course, when talking about these humanoid creatures, it was just a label from the perspective of human sorcerers. These humanoid creatures had specialized names for their own tribes as well.

From their point of view, sorcerers were also another group of creatures that were "them-like".
With a heritage of countless expeditions into different foreign worlds, the sorcerers had gradually come to develop a basic framework of ideas about the groups of creatures in the Endless World. It was this that distinguished their world from some other backward world, that still held on to the indescribable fear of the Endless World, or their ignorant hubris.
The most common feature among these upright walking humanoid creatures was their traits of group discipline, a hierarchical social structure and… the pursuit of art and ideals.
As such, the intellectual traits of these humanoid creatures allowed them to thrive and their evolution process was somewhat comparable to the Amonros from the Shadow Enigmatic World.
As these humanoid creatures grew stronger, they became a highly valued source of slaves for the Sorcerer World.
In general, when the Sorcerer World launches an expedition in a world ruled by humanoid creatures, they wouldn't just use a single Void Fortress to do the job. In fact, it was likely that the war of conquest won't be fought by a single Holy Tower organization!
There could be the possible involvement of two, or even three organizations, sending in multiple Void Fortresses at the same time to form an invading coalition.
Just thinking about such a grandiose scenery of war was enough to remind Grimm how insignificant he was in comparison. At the same time, he was confounded by the sheer might of the Sorcerer World.
'Was it that the deepest secrets of the Burrow World were about these humanoid creatures?'
Shaking his head, Grimm quickly discarded that notion.
The deeper one got into the World Burrow, the higher up the food chain the creatures that lurk in the area. However, given that humanoid creatures lived in groups, it was impossible for a complete group of them to thrive there as deeper parts of the Burrow World had limited resources to support life.
'If so, then these humanoid creatures…'
"Caw! Young Master, it seems that these humanoid creatures were herbivores when they were still alive."
Myna stated as he looked at the oral cavity of this humanoid skeleton.
Humans are omnivorous, this could be seen from their teeth structure–they had incisors, canines, and molar teeth. It was a clear clue of their natural diet and was part of the sorcerer's basic knowledge.
The oral cavity of this humanoid creature was a structural mixture between that of a herbivore and an Acraepoid.
And apart from the teeth, Grimm had also observed the humanoid skeleton's skull, its torso, limbs, and its height. This humanoid skeleton had a length of a hundred and forty-seven centimeters and would be considered as a dwarf in the human world. The ratio between the head and its height was one to thirteen.
A mature human would typically have a ratio between one to seven and one to nine. This was a clear indication that the brain volume of this humanoid creature was significantly smaller than that of humans.
Although the brain volume was not the be all end all measurement of intellect for fleshly creatures in the Endless World, it still was one of the key factors that contribute to a species' intelligence.
In addition, on the back part of this humanoid skeleton, there were distinct wing structures. Its forelimb bones were relatively thicker and heavier than its hind limb bones. This indicated that they spent most of their time in flight in their habitual routine.
Like this, Grimm used his sorcerer's intellect to deduce a series of clues and a rough sketch of this humanoid creature had started forming in Grimm's mind.
Inhaling a breath.
Grimm stored away this Energy Stone as well as the humanoid creature's skeleton before saying to Myna, "You wait onboard the Reconnaissance Craft, I'll go down and scout the area. If things get sticky, we'll leg it right away."
"Caw?"
Myna showed a slight disagreement but Grimm ignored it nonetheless.
With the command of his will, the Bloodlust Doll maneuvered the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft and started flying up the canyon slowly. As for Grimm, he held onto the Sabbatic Goat Staff and after inhaling a deep breath, both his eyes lit up under the Mask of Truth. As the cold canyon wind battered his wide sorcerer's robe, he made his slow descent down into the canyon depths below.
As Grimm got closer to the canyon floor, the aura of death grew more and more intense. At the same time, the fog was getting thicker and thicker by the moment.
Finally, Grimm made contact with the canyon floor. What he saw was bone-chillingly eerie.
Grimm's body instinctively tensed up as he looked around anxiously for any signs of movement, paranoid of any possible dangers around each corner.
Littering the ground were the skeletons of these Acraepoids as well as the gray-colored strange flower!
They were densely spread on the floor, their numbers uncountable. His entire field of vision was filled with at least tens of thousands of them.
These gray-white skeletons were gathered around a pile, and the deathly aura emanating from it actually created a barrier from the cold air in the surrounding. At the same time, it seemed that these densely packed skeletons were emitting heat, which caused water vapor to rise up from the canyon floor, explaining the thick fog that Grimm saw on his way down.
His gaze was extremely deep as Grimm realized that these Acraepoids' skulls were all pointed towards a single direction.
He collected some Energy Stones even though they weren't of much value. They were definitely incomparable to the value of high purity Combustars from the Pyrodust World.
Grimm slowly flew towards the direction to which these skeletons' skulls pointed. As he flew by, the weird gray flowers would hide away into the Crystal Energy Stones, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
It was like a sea of flowers that split open for Grimm as he passed through.
Finally, a natural crack that was at least a thousand meters long appeared. The Acraepoids' skeletons here, although still densely packed, were starting to appear crushed. Perhaps they were in the middle of their bloody war before they got torn to shreds by the attacking enemy.
This kind of attack could only be done by some form of a spell.
Not daring to exhale too loudly, Grimm cautiously flew into this massive natural crack…
Half an hourglass later.
After weaving the net from the Isotta imprint to seal and mark this gigantic cavern, Grimm slowly flew upwards while getting lost in his own thoughts. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened. This was just another historical relic of this world.
Not long after, the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft warped into a streak and continued its cruise towards the horizon.
"Caw caw! Young Master, what was on the canyon floor?" Myna asked curiously inside the cabin of the craft.
Shaking his head, Grimm replied bleakly, "There was a massive natural crack, which was another one of the entrances to the World Burrow. However due to the fact that we still have our mission to complete, I didn't do further investigations."
"Then when shall we…"
Myna quickly followed up with a question, to which Grimm's answer left him dissatisfied.
Grimm was giving something vague in reply just for the sake of it.
Gradually, Grimm had come to notice that the reason why Black Isotta had chosen to invade this Burrow World, wasn't so simple as to just plunder the diverse biological resources it had.
No doubt, there was definitely some deeper level secret that this world was hiding from them.

Chapter end