What had sent the boy away before Grimm entered the house was indeed a metal transmission gear. In front of the gear was a table, and nine identical canes were standing on it. Each of the canes was latched in a tube, and one had been taken because it had been emptied.
'The boy before me must have taken it. But is the mirror reward merely a stick?' Grimm thought.
Still wondering whether that ordinary-looking thing might be useful, Grimm touched it. The moment he put his hand on it, his body immediately twisted and he then disappeared, producing a swoosh sound.
Unlike last time when he was delivered to the Bramble Forest from the large scale at academy, Grimm didn't feel sick. As he estimated, it was a only transmission around several kilometers away.
The cane was transferred along with Grimm. He then held it in his hands and studied it.
"This is rubbish. A stick with 40 points of offense power? I can buy one at the market place of the Black Tower," Grimm complained. But as he examined it further, he detected a rarity about it: it could benumb the one being attacked by it, and it worked really fast.
At the time, Grimm felt the existence of another mirror, and it was not far.
It occurred to Grimm that his little group might be there for the mirror, and hopefully, Lefay might be there too. So, he started to take a run toward the new mirror house, reckless of the strong signals released from his chain mark that would undoubtedly scare off his "preys".
In a few minutes, Grimm got to the house. Dozens of students had been present there. Almost all of them stepped backwards when they saw him, and they were all looking him in awe, pondering why a student could master such a high level chain mark. Among them, a student looked furious and he provoked, "Grimm! Why are you here? Where is Lefay?"
It was Armida, one of the Twelve Superiors and a pursuer of Lefay. He was wearing a bushy beard and glared at Grimm with hostility.
"Armida." Grimm responded politely, seemingly not bothered by Armida's rudeness.
As Grimm approached Armida, the heart of Vine ring hung down from his ear glowed. Ironically, the ring shined and Armida's heart paled. He recognized the ring. It belonged to Lefay.
"Why is it you? Why did Lefay choose you?" Armida could no longer keep his anger in. Before Grimm tried to offer an explanation, Armida snarled. At the same time, long and thick black hair grew from his chest, back and limbs and finally his face. And his body swelled 1.5 times of his original size. He had turned.
"Hematology sorcery? Chimpanzee Transformation?" Grimm knew the power of that sorcery, and he collected his magical force within his body, ready to fight. But he was not interested in getting involved in a fight since Armida had two students as his company on this site, and the students present were likely to conspire to destroy a strong enemy like him.
"Awoo!" Armida grunted. He was on the verge of launching an attack.
"Armida, don't." One of the students accompanying him warned. "He is too strong."
Those nice words seemed to have backfired. Armida leapt towards Grimm.
However, Grimm was determined to quell this battle. As stated earlier, he didn't have the intention to antagonize such a large crowd. Besides, if he engaged and killed him, he wasn't sure how Lefay would react to it.
Therefore, after Grimm threw himself onto the ground to dodge Armida's pounce, he placated Armida.
"Armida. It's enough. Stop this foolishness," Grimm berated. "You wanna know why Lefay choose me instead of you? It's because I saved her life. She was in danger when we were on the ship to the Black Isotta, and I saved her. That's all. You are better than me. It's just you met her later than me."
Grimm could see that there were tears in Armida's dilated eyes. For all three years, Armida had been doing everything he could to woo her, while she even refused to give him an opportunity. The pain resulting from it was excruciating. It was understandable that he hated Grimm. As the saying goes, "the deeper the love is, the more badly one could get hurt."
Armida seemed to have lost his heart. His brutality was gone. The deck was stacked against him, at least in term of Lefay. Consequently, his body shrunk and the unnecessary hair disappeared. He then turned back to his two fellow students.
The interlude had ended. Grimm strode to the tree, which was the reason why none of the crowd had been able to or had the courage to enter the house where the mirror lied. It was also a Colorado Nightmare Tree, only smaller than the one which guarded the "mirror" Grimm had acquired last time.
"Hello, big tree. I'd like to ask for permission to enter the house." Grimm asked graciously.
The rest of the students were taken aback while most of them were hoping that the tree would entangle him and choke him to death.
"Of course. You have a more than 30-points of chain mark and thus, the right to enter the house," the tree replied.
"There is one thing, though. You have already acquired one mirror. The attainment of another one has the possibility of going against you," the tree added.
Permission granted, Grimm approached the house. However, something strange happened. Grimm felt a weird wave of energy coming from within the house, and it was very different from those given by the students. The energy was actually suppressing his own energy and made it unable to function properly. What was more creepy was that the waves of energy seemed to only target Grimm himself. Grimm had a hunch that if he had applied his magical force now, a considerable part of it would have been neutralized.
"Was this energy related to real sorcerers?" Grimm wondered.
As Grimm held out his hand and was hesitating if he should let go of this opportunity, he trembled. A gush of strong wave pushed out against him. Grimm realized that it might be a warning, and he would be punished, perhaps seriously, if he opened the door.
Grimm paused there for around ten seconds.
He finally made up his mind and left.
"What is this weird energy. Was it coming from a sorcerer? Does the power from the students' chain marks originate from it?" A volley of questions bothered Grimm.
Seeing such a formidable enemy leave, the students were relieved. A few students were curious to have a talk with the tree, but ended up as food for it. The reason was simple: they didn't have the 30-points of chain mark.
