Harvest

"Who said I'm just selling them at Black Isotta?" was Dickens' reply.

Grimm made no further comments. Facing the temptation of 5,000 magical stones, Grimm signed the Seven Ring Contract of Partnership without hesitation, although he still had some doubts about its content. Based on Grimm's knowledge, such a contract would be bonding on the parties and only a level four sorcerer would have the power to break it. As for a level four sorcerer, it was too hard a goal for Grimm to even get near.

Grimm accepted the 5,000 magical stones, and with that fortune, he picked valuable material piece after piece, which led to painful expressions on Dickens' face. After expressing his appreciation, Grimm rushed back to his dormitory, and watched the materials he had never expected to have.

A Gold Ring was put on Grimm's right ear. It glimmered after having reflected lights from his curly blond hair. Because of this, a tint of grace was added to his wild-looking appearance. The Ring, which was worth 600 stones, could effectively protect its wearer safe from curses or fantasies. Besides, the Ring would absorb the element energy present in the surrounding air to help maintain constant body temperature.

Grimm also put on a section of a Tweeting Twig. Whenever Grimm was affected by an unpreventable curse, it would make shrieking chirps and having the curse pegged temporarily to save the victim some time.

Among the little rarities, there was also a red mushroom. It was usually for medical purposes and when mixed up with some supplementary medicament and then cooked as soup, the person who consumed it would undergo an improvement in mental strength of at least one or two points, and in certain cases, three points. That would save several years meditation.

Grimm got a Lapidary Pearl, too. With it in your mouth, you could breathe underwater. Of course, the subaqueous duration was limited.

Grimm also got a notebook about a sorcerer made about elements— Thought Sharing on Re-permutation of the Flame Sorcery Matrix. But it was not the complete set of notes, otherwise its value would be priceless.

Deducting the cost of buying the above-mentioned stuff, Grimm still had two intermediate magical stones and 200 magical stones.

Three days later, Grimm went over to the library. His eyes were rimmed with black circles, and the gracious wildness he possessed three days ago was now gone. What was left of him about his appearance was kind of more cute-looking. If he was asked his biggest wish for now, he would say a good sleep. Elaine was sitting in a room of the VIP section of the academy's library, relishing herself in a cup of aromatic coffee. There were also a couple of trays of treats which were so delicate that they might be misjudged as decorations.

Grimm made a courtesy, that was observed by sorcerers, to Elaine and put a wooden box that contained 30 vials of Love Vial on the table before her in a respectful manner. .

"HaHa. Look at your black eyes. This must have been very difficult to cook. I wonder how these little things came to your mind. But they are amazing. Drinking it allowed us old-aged sorcerers to recall some sweet memories," said Elaine merrily.

"Memories..." For a second, Grimm felt that he had learned something from Elaine's words. The reason sorcerers loved these vials was probably that they were bored about living a life that was always the same, although that 'boring life' would be the best for those who hadn't gotten to experience it, like the current moment.

In Grimm's eyes, Sorcerer Elaine was enjoying her cakes and coffee. Yet, she had already had no memory of what they tasted like after hundreds of years consuming them. For them, the time when they couldn't have this and the days they were striving for this was the most treasured wealth.

And the Love Vial was meant to refresh the sweet memories that had not been entirely wiped out from someone.

Catching sight of Grimm's stiff expressions, Elaine could feel his tense nerves, and she shook her head and laughed.

"Here is your compensation. They are all little things that are of no use to me. You may take advantage of them in your coming test. It's not my intention that the creator of the Love Vials would die so." After saying that, Elaine held out three gadgets.

"This necklace is the 'Source of Happiness'. It gives you two points of mental strength. But it will not work once the mental strength has reached a threshold value. But clearly, you are far away from that."

Grimm of course knew the threshold value that Elaine was talking about. It was the minimum level of mental strength required before someone became a sorcerer, which was 40 points.

Afterwards, Sorcerer Elaine kept on introducing the other two gadgets for him.

In one crystal vial was a bug the size of a nail. It was called the Buzzing Bug. If there were sufficient dead bodies for it to to be cultured, it would grow into a beast that belonged to the Legend Knights and protect Grimm for a day.

In another vial was a seed of a flower named Cylix. When it was taken care of, it would grow into a huge flower, and when someone got into it, it would burrow deep underground, thus creating a relatively safe environment."

Grimm accepted the gifts gaily. Meanwhile, Elaine put the Love Vials right into a mirror!

"The Sealing Sorcery!" Grimm shouted.

"You little brat do know something, huh? You've mastered the Sealing Sorcery?" Elaine whisked off, leaving Grimm behind.

Grimm did know of the Sealing Sorcery. It was a sorcery by which actual things could be crammed into a slit between two spaces or a fantasized space for the convenience of carrying. And there were some tools that could achieve the same.

Grimm had pondered, at times during the two years in academy on whether he could see the weird and scary things at the residence of Bi Seer city's governor because he had a gift related to Sealing Sorcery. Only sorcerer mastering such sorceries were able to see weird things existing between illusion and reality, and these weird things might be actual creatures which might be from a four-or-more-dimensional world or be from a less than three dimensional world. They lived in a different world and thus had a very different understanding of time and space, so for these creatures and ordinary sorcerers, their life might run parallel and never meet.

Grimm was expecting something now. His mental strength was tested as 12 points before he even started meditating and Grimm knew that it was a gift. Although this gift was not like Brianna's and Kyrie's, which had proven useful even when they were still students, but Grimm was sure that he would start to see what his gift would represent when he became a sorcerer. But becoming a sorcerer was too tough a goal to realize, and some students ended up being a student forever.

Half a month later.

Taking advantage of his knack in element sorcery, Grimm had developed an insight about Re-permutation of the Element Flame Sorcery Matrix, and it was Grimm's belief that in six months, if not in two months, he could make an improvement in his Element Matrix, which had been cured in his soul. By then, when consuming the same amount of magical force, the force produced when "a sorcerer pried up the world rules" would give rise to a big change in Grimm's attack. He had seen how Elaine produced the flame in the form of a bird and thus enhanced its offensive power, and that had naturally determined Grimm's orientation of sorcery learning.

However, the more significant thing for Grimm was the Gadflies being nurtured in the Cranes' stomach, and he had figured out a full process for them. The one thing missing was for them to grow mature.

So Grimm wasted no time in dissecting the crane's belly and dislodged its stomach.

On this day, that crane gave a mournful cry because Grimm had ended its life as a specimen using his nice scalpel, and dislodged its gastric pouch.

Grimm caught a strong, pukey smell as he ripped the stomach with the scalpel. The stink became ten times stronger in Grimm's enhanced olfactory sense. Grimm had to halt his stronger sense and smell temporarily as a result, and put what was in the gastric bag into a prepared glass ware. Soon, the Symbiotic Insects, which were the size of a grain of white rice, were then quickly separated from the undigested food left in the stomach, with the help of the liquid in the glass ware.

"Oh, my babies, come in here," said Grimm as he put the insects into another glass ware.

Grimm's mania for and intimacy with the Gadflies must have been so nauseous to someone who had never bred a Symbiotic Insect, but it had to be admitted that after two years of being in the academy, he didn't feel sick about them any more..

Grimm put the glassware on the testing table and created a suitable environment for their living. Afterwards, he took one Gadfly and and put it on his crystal ball. Grimm murmured a spell, and he could feel something changing in his soul as the Gadfly was making low noises. Moments after, drops of sweat rolled down from Grimm's face, but he felt something which was familiar and close.

"I finally have a Symbiotic Insect!" Grimm took it from the crystal ball. He felt that as if it was now a part of his body. The next second, he opened his mouth and swallowed it; it then crawled into his belly, or precisely speaking, his gastric pouch.

From now on, this Gadfly would be Grimm's Symbiotic Insect, and would exist as a part of his organ, and that was what it meant to a sorcerer.

"Breaking their souls was really tiring, and I could at most get five Gadflies done within a day. To finish with these 300, I need at least two months even though I'd do it with all my strength."

For the remaining Gadflies whose souls hadn't been broken, Grimm did not intend to eat them, because if he were to be "hosted", things might not be good for him.

For now, Grimm had forgotten how he loathed about Elaine eating centipedes, yet now he was really enjoying these insects which were, in ordinary people's eyes, dirty, nauseous and scary, and he had even pledged to never raise one.

This was the path of the growth of sorcerers.