Chapter 30: A Practitioner of the Olden Times

    After Jǫrmungandr had fallen asleep, Merlin could not do anything else but wait; this time, he had no clue when Jǫrmungandr would wake up again.

    “To not waste any time in vain, I should not just let it go by for nothing because the intensity of the magical power here is such a great resource for my cultivation.”

    The thirty-fifth floor was packed with dense magical pressure; although not as much as where he found Lemegeton Eye, it was enough to accelerate his cultivation.

    Merlin sat down and started cultivating right away.

    The wild-ocean-like magical pressure was slowly absorbed by Merlin. He had to do it gradually or else the magical pressure would burst his body into dust.

    The turbulent magical power was distilled into Xian vital essence.

    When the distillation began, the nine Qi pillars were shaking. A vision of Qi essence that looked like a seat cushion was being formed; it was placed on the nine pillars of Qi. The first seat began to be apparent then the second one started building up.

    Merlin’s Xian vital essence was increasing quickly. The magical pressure in this tower was tremendously useful for him. The overflowing energy brought him to a non-existent state where he was unaware of the situation around him.

    But that did not worry Merlin because there were only him and Jǫrmungandr on this floor.

    And Jǫrmungandr would never hurt him.

    Merlin kept cultivating; the river of time was endlessly running through.

    Until…

    BANG! Krrr Krrr Krrr

    Suddenly, there emerged countless extraordinarily strong waves that quaked and wobbled the tower. All the magical-pressure flows were fluctuating because of this event.

    Merlin woke up from the non-existent state; his face showed that he was a little alarmed.

    “What is going on?” When Merlin opened his eyes, he found Jǫrmungandr staring at him with furious gleams in his eyes.

    “You…you surprised me. Your practice seems so similar to that of someone I knew.” Jǫrmungandr closed his eyes and said it as though he was reminiscing about his past.

    When he reopened his eyes, he looked at Merlin then said,

    “Tell me…you are his student, aren’t you?” asked Jǫrmungandr in a hoarse voice, which was slightly tainted with fear.

    He even looked down upon and disdained the great emperor Solomon and called him a bastard.

    Who was the old-timer talking about? How could this person scare the old man?

    “Huuh… I do not understand. Who is the person you are talking about?”

    Merlin asked with a face full of questions; he seemed more serious.

    Merlin's cultivating method was the Xian-essence cultivation; it meant that Jǫrmungandr had met another practitioner before. But he had been locked up in here for more than ten thousand years so that person could not be the bloomer he had sensed.

    Even though a bloomer’s power was stupendous, it was still not sufficient for opposing an immortal like this old man.

    With how Merlin was acting right now, Jǫrmungandr knew that the kid was not lying to him; so, he continued,

    “His name was Rar; I met him once in the past. His strength was like the Sun. Neither I nor that bastard Solomon nor any powerful people could defeat him. He was the true mighty man. If your practice was the same as his, it might be that you are his descendant. I believe that I could trust you to do the quest I have given you.”

    The voice that Jǫrmungandr used when mentioning Rar really had a sense of respect.

    So, it meant that this man named Rar had to be so impressively strong that he could make this proud one, Jǫrmungandr, scared.

    In Merlin’s mind, he prayed that that person had already obtained his way to heaven so he would not have to encounter any other practitioners in this realm, no matter what stages they were in.

    Getting to be in this realm was such good luck. The magical power that could be turned into Xian vital essence was really beneficial for him. This world had brought him back to exaltation; he believed that he would definitely succeed in a short period of time.

    Merlin froze for a while.

    “I hate to disappoint you, Lord Jǫrmungandr, but I do not have a teacher. My practice is what I have invented by accident.”

    As soon as Merlin said that, Jǫrmungandr’s face seemed disappointed; in the blink of an eye, his mood changed.

    Hmm…

    Jǫrmungandr made a low-pitched noise from his throat and said furiously,

    “Our business was done but why are you still here? Or did my order not scare you?!!”

    His mood swung terrifyingly. Jǫrmungandr yelled while sending the powerful energy waves out again. These energy waves could break the air apart.

    Merlin completely took the waves; his body flew out to the barrier that Jǫrmungandr had set up.

    Was he mad?

    Merlin clenched his tenth; there appeared at a corner of his mouth blood dripping.

    Jǫrmungandr‘s power was extremely robust. Even when Merlin was attacked by the giants, he was not as injured as this time.

    Only his utterance could hurt Merlin; his power was awfully formidable.

    This still did not mention that Jǫrmungandr was under a spell and was already this strong. If he got out, how much would the liberation heighten his power?

    Merlin started to be unsure if helping Jǫrmungandr would be good on his side. Seeing his wild mood swing emphasized his uncertainty even more. There was no guarantee that Jǫrmungandr would not harm him after he had given him that key.

    Therefore, he had to be thorough about this quest, or he would probably die before achieving the Xian state.

    The boy collapsed due to the injury; after a while, he turned to talk to Jǫrmungandr.

    “I haven’t gotten out of here because I cannot. If the barrier you have built is still not destroyed, I won’t be able to step a foot out of this place.”

    Merlin said calmly, he did not dare provoke the elder right now.

    Jǫrmungandr seemed embarrassed. It was his fault, but he blamed it on the child. So, to not feel disgraced, he pretended to stay cold and used his ferocity to dodge it.

    “You fool...!”

    After that word, the barrier was suddenly taken down. For a moment, there was a gigantic violet magical hoop; it was filled with sacred auras. The magical power circulating in that hoop was giving off such intense energy.

    Lemegeton Eye made Merlin notice that this magical hoop looked like what the Church of Light’s priest had made. The only difference was that, during that time, the priest took a long while to cast the spell. But Jǫrmungandr could create it in a flash like he was just flipping his hand.

    This was the specialty of a violet-alphabet user.

    Merlin could come up with this hypothesis because he was also an alphabet user. Although he was still unable to do the things Jǫrmungandr did, probably he would be able to do so in the future.

    “Wait, Lord Jǫrmungandr, there is another thing I need to ask you.”

    Merlin said before he was about to step into the teleportation magical hoop.

    “What now?!” Of course, that upset Jǫrmungandr because, normally, the old man had a trait of hating disturbance and unbearable numbers of questions.

    “After I have found you the key, due to the provisions, the Great Magic Tower does not welcome the wizards who have already acquired the magical cloaks. So, how will I get back here?”

    “Little bastard, you are dumber than I ever reckoned. When the magical-seal stone that I have filled the power in is distilled and turned into your cloak, you just have to use the green-alphabet power and use the alphabet named Jor, it will bring you back here.”

    Although this was another one of Jǫrmungandr’s faults for not giving the boy a thorough guide, he, again, chose to conceal his mistake with his temper.

    “Get out of my face now!”

    Merlin did not wait for Jǫrmungandr to drive him away; he stepped into that violet-colored magical hoop, shining out puissant rays immediately. Shortly, he came to experience the previous feeling he felt when leaping through the golden teleportation hoop.

    It did not take long to travel in the dark.

    When Merlin opened his eyes, he found a place full of trees.

    This was not the same place as before; it was not Waldecian Academy’s large yard but a familiar forest. This forest used to be where he came to practice his power; it was the forest behind Waldecian Academy.

    Merlin leaped up in the sky. After getting back from the Great Magic Tower, his Xian vital essence had increased immensely. Now he was already at the mid-point of the stem-building stage while his magical power was still at the top-end of the magic-practitioner level.

    This was not surprising because he did not intend to cultivate his magical power anyhow.

    Every kind of cultivation, whether magical power or Xian vital essence, had something called the bottleneck area. It was a brutal area for each practitioner to go through. But for his Xian-essence cultivation, the cultivated magical power would be distilled into Xian vital essence.

    The magical power had the property of being a natural power. It was a very pure and flawless source of energy free from any defects in one’s mind. Because the magical power was distilled and used in the cultivation, Merlin’s body had received such immaculate Xian vital essence.

    With this purity, there was no waste that could block the way; his cultivation nearly had no bottleneck.

    Merlin could drill the cultivation’s levels more easily. If he had enough power in his cultivation, this would help him cultivate more smoothly and be very useful for him.

    As for the magical-power cultivation, drilling this kind of power had restrictions and conditions different from the Xian-vital-essence cultivation, because to drill each magical level, one needed to both accumulate enough magical power and pass the conditions of each level.

    And because of these conditions, Merlin was still unable to drill through the magic-practitioner level.

    He had asked Matin about it; unfortunately, he was not a high-ranking wizard, so he could not give Merlin a lot of advice.

    But it did not mean that there was no way out. Merlin received a piece of advice that the easiest way to become a wizard was to get into a magic academy. That place was willing to teach wizards about magic. They even had a lot of experienced teachers who could teach one to use magic effectively.

    In this realm, there were other magic schools than Waldecian Academy. Every kingdom had magic academies.

    His next move was that after returning from the tower, he would search for Solomon’s other possessions. And he was certain that one of them had to have something to do with Arthur’s sword.

    Now, Arthur had returned to the Aragon Kingdom, which meant that getting into Waldecian Academy was not Merlin’s goal. Therefore, Aragon School of Wizardry was now his best option.

    It did not take Merlin long before he arrived at the Blue Cloak Shop.

    Seeing Merlin, everyone including Matin was surprised.

    Merlin had not noticed that he had changed. He had no idea that being on the thirty-fifth floor of the Great Magic Tower, with its immensely dense magical pressure, had turned every single hair on his skin from black to white.

    Whether his eyebrows or hair, they were mostly in white now. The fact that a child had white hair had to be strange for the people in his former world. But it was not the same here, where there were a lot of people from different races and tribes.

    People in this realm had more than one hair color. When a boy had white hair, it did not mean he was old, but it was a part of ethnic diversity.

    However, the employees and Matin were dumbfounded because they used to see Merlin’s black hair. But after a short period of time, he came back with his hair all white. That was why they were surprised.

    Now Merlin was sitting at ease in Matin’s office.

    Matin handed a file to Merlin; it was the information that he had ordered Matin to handle.

    From the conversation with Matin, he found that he had gone for one month.

    Technically, the attendees could stay on the island only for a week; but he was there for a month. Probably, it was because of Jǫrmungandr’s power that had locked him up in the barrier.

    This might be why the tower’s rules did not affect him.

    “So that is why. I could achieve the mid-point of stem-building quickly because I had absorbed the magical power for a long time. That place full of magical power was very beneficial to my cultivation.” Merlin thought.

    He looked at the file in his hand and opened it to read. As soon as he read the content of that document, anger grew in his mind.

    It said that, two years ago, Maye, his mother, was driven out of Szirtes Castle because she was accused of stealing. But fortunately, she was saved by Arthur. So, she was now living in the city ruled by Duke Cowe. And most importantly, she got remarried to a villager of that town.

    Even though Maye was not his real mother, she was the mother of this body he was living in. In the short time he spent with Maye, he felt the bond between them.

    Knowing the news of her being in a difficult situation quite agitated him. But reading until the last line about Maye’s new marriage calmed his mind down.

    The fact that Maye had begun a new life in a safe place made him feel relieved.

    When everything turned out perfectly, there was no reason for him to stay here any longer. Of course, his next destination was the Aragon Kingdom.