A Sorcerer's Journey 318 Surficial Tundra VII

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 meters tall, some even reaching over ten thousand meters!
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 extremely low. This meant 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 extremely 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 formed two sides of Yin and Yang.
The Yin side of the mountain range was extremely 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 came next was truly something extraordinary.
These trees…
Nights in the Burrow World were roughly seventeen and a half hourglasses in the Sorcerer World, meaning it was half times longer.
The warmest Yang parts of the mountain range very rarely had cold winds blowing past it. The noon sun of the Burrow World would come 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 metal. 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 seemed soft and squishy. They also showed signs of minor movement. Was it some kind of creatures' eggs?
The reason why Grimm came 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 mention of dark-red creatures, they would always be creatures that required replenishment 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 metal 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 diameter of about three meters, including the cuticle layer and a height of five meters. Although it was extremely 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 diameter of about seven to eight meters. It looked somewhat 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 something scary will burst out of this massive fellow?"
Myna questioned anxiously as he stood on Grimm's shoulders. At the same time, 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 some 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 something 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 mercilessly into the sac's outer layer, revealing it to be some 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 came 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-smelling stench.
"Huhh, huhh…"
Myna gasped, while thumping his chest with his wings. He mumbled, "Son of a gun, that scared the crap out of me, scared the crap out of me…"
At the same time, 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 environment 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 seemed 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 exclaimed in surprise, "A soul?"
The only soul-related material sorcerers other than the Soul Sorcerers would collect was the Natural Elemental Soul. As such, although Grimm was initially surprised by a soul emerging 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 Flame 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 someplace 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 Dimensional Gap, after which he flew towards another weird tree nearby. At the same time, some thoughts raced through his mind.
'Perhaps these weird trees here are utilizing its special environment of fluctuating between cold and warmth to continuously condense the Soul Energy? If I remember 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 come about? Where was it formed from? The soul is one of the key driving forces of a living creature, and the Source of Life for Elemental Sorcerers...Something's wrong! Condense? Soul Condenser?!"
Grimm's body jolted upright, as if he had caught hold of something essential. At this moment, he was excitedly shouting out his thoughts to himself!
The Code of Life and Death that explained the workings of Chimeras was split into four parts–the Carcass Refinery, the Core of Life, the Elemental Soul, and the Living Flesh.
These four parts formed the key in order for a Chimera to level up and were complementary 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 formed 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, some 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, some 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 Chimera's Living Flesh was geared towards the Enigmatic Reversed Energy Supply Digestive System.
This was unveiled in Grimm's experiments on the subject. In his first laboratory test, he had created a Shadow Hedgehog Chimera. In his second laboratory test, the experiment's aim leaned very obviously towards the Enigmatic Reversed Energy Supply Digestive System.
Lastly, the final phase of upgrade on the Chimera—the Natural Elemental Soul, was the part that Grimm found most troubling.
According to the Code of Life and Death, the method prescribed for obtaining the Natural Elemental Soul required the sorcerer to kill a high-level Natural Elemental lifeform. An alternative to that was to merge the Natural Elemental Souls of lower-level lifeforms.
The problem with this was that the merging method was yet another field of study that required extensive research in order to grasp fully.
The price for merging two pieces of Natural Elemental 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 merge three, the price would hike up to a hundred Sorcerer Essences! As for merging four Natural Elemental 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 merge two Natural Elemental Souls given a few hundred years of learning, to merge three would take him an unthinkable amount of time.
This meant that Grimm had to choose either to kill a high-level Natural Elemental lifeform, or to earn enough Sorcerer Essences to make up for his shortcomings in this part of upgrading his Chimera. However, at the moment, these weird trees had suddenly lit up a lightbulb in Grimm's mind!
'What would happen if…
'I were to use the Natural Elemental Soul in place of the regular soul found in the Tree Sac of these weird trees.'

Chapter end