The entire forest descended into the state of stillness, the wind and cloud faded out of existence as every life stopped their movement. The swaying plants froze in place, not daring to move. The blooming flowers and singing birds instantly stopped their activities and cowered in fear.
The overwhelming power of unrestrained sorcerers could potentially suffocate every mortal within the large area. If not for the presence of other sorcerers, the female teacher of little Florie would have released all of her power and disregard everything and tried to capture Forus.
"Miss, we won't intervene with your matter, but this is our territory, not a wasteland. Please give us some consideration." The floating figure spoke politely, but his hidden intention was as transparent as the sky.
The female didn't show any intention to comply, but she did not cross over to the other side either. If the opposing force only had one second-ranked sorcerer, she would have already destroyed him. Her sorcery mastery was extremely powerful, barely below a handful of ancient monsters in her garden.
"The Green Flying Garden will remember this event." The female sighed before pointing her slender finger at Forus, sending a spiritual seed flying toward him through the portal.
The power within the seed disrupted the distortion of the space, causing the portal to shake. At the same time, the soft vines had already brought little Florie who had fainted into the gate. She was lying on her mentor's lap.
The seed moved at an inconceivable speed, crashing into Forus' right eye and implanted itself in his eye. Not a single true sorcerers had made their move. It was utterly too much of a waste of their effort to help a nameless weakling and offended the mysterious lady.
"Thank you for your consideration, miss. We hope to see you again." With a wave of his hand, many spell formations appeared and released multi-colour flame, destroying the portal and sealed the distortion in space.
After the commotion ended, every consciousness of true sorcerers began to dissipate. None of them took any interest in Forus at all. In their eyes, this useless sorcerer apprentice was already dead. No matter how strong a sorcerer apprentice was, they could not compare to the might of the true sorcerer.
Once all of them retracted all of their wills, Forus began to use his dagger to get rid of the seed that impaled his right eye, causing him to lose his vision. He could feel that the root of the magical seed was crawling inside his body, polluting his sorcery energy with the wooden element and weakening his body.
When his dagger almost landed on his right eye, the seed immediately started acting up, causing him to lose his focus. The blade in his hand slipped and grazed his chest, creating a deep wound.
Without any way to destroy the seed by himself, he could only use the Death Aura inside his grey soul to suppress the chaotic wooden element and delayed the process of invasion of the spiritual seed. With almost all of his Death Aura containing the seed, Forus wouldn't need to worry about the same incident.
The roots of the spiritual seed immediately felt the incoming swamp of Death Aura, causing them to strangle each other, forming a sturdy wall that would protect the core of the bulbs while slowly advancing toward Forus' soul.
Presently with the ongoing battle inside his consciousness, Forus needed to find another way to protect his soul and took control of the mysterious grey light. Until then, he could only use his ice and light elemental spells.
Suddenly, the mysterious feeling of sadness and grief emerged in his heart, producing translucent tears on his face. The weary memory resurfaced from his heart as the soul-tearing scene replayed itself in his mind. Forus found that there was still happiness existed in him.
...
The female sorcerer looked toward the sky at the direction of the Mountain Union, at the Ferrum Country. She knew that the evil monster who massacred her family had a disciple around there.
She smiled lightly, thinking about the suffering that the man was undergoing made her feel relieved. The only way to get rid of the spiritual seed was to advance into a true sorcerer to achieve greater control over their flow of sorcery energy and manipulated it to inject the contaminated energy out.
With that thought in her mind, she relaxed and began to treat her disciple's body, improving it with her wooden element and strength her soul. Little Florie had experienced enough to try to advance her sorcery cultivation.
"Once you advance and become the true sorcerer, I would let you kill that man by yourself. When you kill him, you would be free from his shadow that would otherwise plague your soul." She said softly into Florie's ear before continued to caress her pinkish cheek. She was the only colourful thing in this colourless world.
Suddenly, her hand stiffened, and her face twitched, causing her to frown. She could sense that something was obstructing the pathway of the spiritual seed and hindering its progress to weaken that man. Thinking that the man had a benefactor that could prevent the magical roots' advancement, her emotion fared up as she recalled about that blue-robed man.
"Again and again, you would always destroy my happiness and separated my family from me. Father, mother, I have found the culprit who ruined our life." The female sorcerer clutched her fist tightly. Her sorrowful emotion caused her sorcery energy to go rampant and caused the atmosphere to turn solemn.
Many elders of the Flying Green Garden had turned their attention toward the source of the power, but once they saw that it was from the lonely abode, they immediately retracted their sense and continued to do their usual business as if nothing had happened.
The maiden gently lifted her disciple and placed her on top of a comfortable bed before kissing her cheek once, a flash of satisfaction appeared inside her greenish eyes.
"In the name of mine, Matia Ander, I would ceaselessly hunt down that man and his disciple. I would burn their soul under my burning flame of hatred. I would skin their body alive and break every piece of their bones." With each passing word, her voice got more distorted and terrifying. In a fit of her rage, Matia made an eternal oath with her name. As long as she lived, she would try her best to avenge her family and torture the source of her misery.
The faint laughter of an unknown entity softly echoed the whole world, seemingly amused at an unexpected turn of the event. How ironic, for a filial daughter to swore with her life to unknowingly hunt down her father and torture him for his non-existence sin.
Once Matia finished her oath, tear of blood rushed out of her eyes, causing her colourless vision to turn red. It filled her empty soul with grief and sorrow. She collapsed onto the floor and cried out blood while knowing nothing.
"Why am I crying? Father, I miss you." Her weak voice couldn't travel far before dissipating into the wind, thus, leaving her alone in her world.
...
"Father, I miss you." Forus watched as his lovely daughter stabbed him with a bloody knife, over and over again until his vision darkened and turned black.
The sound of stabbing turned quieter and quieter, but the mysterious sound of mocking laugh echoed within his mind, causing him to wake up from his nightmare.
His grey soul resonance with the sound of demonic laughter as if it was his soul that laughed at the world. He could feel an indeterminable feeling of loneliness assaulted his heart, filling him with negative emotions.
While he was checking the abnormality within his body, a delicate string of light connected itself with his soul. The line was pitch black in colour and contained endless grief and hatred. Forus immediately identified it as the string of fate as it was the same as the previous one that bound him with Ocelia Coruscare.
Without his Death Aura, his body would take much longer time to heal from fatal injuries. Fortunately, he had already stopped the blood loss and treat his wounds. He only needed to rest for a while before he could resume his normal movement.
With his injured body, he dragged himself across the wildness and found himself a small cave of a giant bear. He quickly calculated the strength of the beast before killing it as it was much weaker than him.
Forus was now a third-layer sorcerer apprentice. While his way of advancing sorcery cultivation was different from the ordinary way, the power he had was about the same with them.
While other would need to apprehend their feeling and desire to either cut them off or embraced them to shed their mortal-self and became something above insignificant mortal, Forus would have to refine and purified his soul to use it as a supporting pillar to build his Elemental Cores. He would achieve greater control over elemental power when he successfully condensed his cores.
Now, the problem was that his path as a sorcerer ended here. His sorcery cultivation method didn't have anything after the peak of the mortal realm. He needed to find more cultivation methods to continue developing his path. He still needed to go back to the city and tried to join the Steel Cauldron.
"Once I advanced into the true sorcerer, I would need to find that female sorcerer." Thinking about the strange vision that followed the incident, Forus had deduced that the female sorcerer had some connection with his remaining relative, presumedly his only daughter.
In the blink of an eye, Forus found himself completely healed and ready to head back towards the city. While he needed to treat his wounds, he also went out and collected many herbs and fruits to use them as ingredients for his potions and disguise purpose.
With his traditional clothing on, Forus made his way towards the city. There was barely one more day for the Steel Cauldron's recruitment event. He needed to attend this event to become a member of Steel Cauldron.
Once he got in, he would try his best to obtain merit points and used them to exchange for cultivation method and references. Even more, when he gained fame within the alchemy circle, the Steel Cauldron would become his supporter and deterred the sorcerer-bloodline families.
...
The thin lines of web intertwined with each other, producing a vague image that continually altered its shape. The ghostly aura they emitted dimmed the whole room with a faint glow, creating the creepy atmosphere and cold temperature.
The entire room was devoid of sound. Here, the stillness reigned supreme. However, one of the numerous lines abruptly twisted uncontrollably, causing it to clash with the different web, creating a ripple of sound that informed the owner of the place.
The gate that connected the sacred room with the outside world opened itself automatically, revealing the figure of a middle-aged man. His black cloak gave off the feeling of mysteriousness, invoking the curiosity of the onlookers.
His mouth twisted into a smile. He waved his hand and created numerous runes on the air and sent them towards various directions. The runes would travel to the residences of the influential people of the sect, informing them about the change that happened to the complex web.
"My brother, soon, I will personally annihilate the Flying Green Garden that destroyed your precious family." His bloodline fared up for an instant when he mentioned the oath, causing terrible memories to emerge from his soul.
Intor Ander could still taste the despair and grief of that day as if it was happening to him again. His brother's dying silhouette still haunted him whenever he lost his focus, reminding him about his decision that caused that bloodshed.
"Everyone, the dawn of the war is right in front of us. I have used my divination skill to deduce the fate of the Flying Green Garden. The catastrophic event would threaten to consume the higher-ups of the garden. The location is at the Mountain Union!" Intor's intimidating voice echoed the whole sect, shaking the earth and raising the moral of the disciples.
Very quickly, the whole sect decided to gather in a meeting, discussing the plan to destroy the Flying Green Garden and obtain complete domination over the entire territory.
