Forus Ander stood there, watching the henchmen of Coruscare Family destroyed his store. There was no emotion in his eyes. He felt nothing. He was indifferent.
His lack of emotion surprised even himself. He only pondered for a moment before stopped thinking about it. He could feel that it had something to do with his return from the dead.
He gazed at the henchmen who had very low sorcery mastery, but, he did nothing. He felt that it wasn't worth his time and the drawbacks outweighed the benefits. He also couldn't reveal his identity at the moment.
"I must use this period of peace as efficient as possible." He muttered to himself. In this peaceful time, he had to establish his identity and solidified his status in the city. He concluded that joining an organization would benefit him greatly.
Almost no one would want to offend the person with a great background. Even the sorcerer family would also have to rethink their decision. They wouldn't charge in and demanded the detail of their members' personal information, or worse, demanded to capture said member.
He would no longer need to worry about material for alchemy practice after he joined the alchemy organization. He could even obtain the sorcery techniques and used them to improve his method. He also needed more variety of sorcery spells to help cope with his long-range weakness.
After paying some gold for the bartender, Forus could easily get the general information about the independent organization within the city as well as their influence within the Mountain Union. With this piece of information, Forus began to construct his long-term plan.
Time flew, in a blink of an eye, the sun had already set, the moon had already risen and floated majestically on the night sky. Forus left the cafeteria and went back to the inn. He had decided to join the organization named Steel Cauldron. The organization was created for the rogue alchemists to unite and defend against the suppression of the sorcerer family.
With that thought in mind, Forus began to prepare himself and went to sleep early. Although his body didn't require eating or sleeping, it was a great way to relax his mind after days of scheming and dancing with life and death.
...
"Greeting, mister. How could I help you?" The receptionist spoke her usual script as natural as possible. She had said this particular lines for countless times, so much that it became a kind of habit for her.
"Hello, I would like to join the Steel Cauldron as an alchemist apprentice." Forus spoke and tossed a Mystical Orb toward the young receptionist. She caught it nicely and smiled before handing out a paper for him to fill his information.
Falsus Nomen, a second layer sorcerer apprentice, joined the organization as an alchemist apprentice. He filled everything that needed to be filled but left most of the sensitive detail remained vague.
"Mister Falsus, the recruitment and examination day would be a month from now on. We will send a letter to your place when the day is approaching." The receptionist had noticeably become more respectful toward Forus after he gave her a Mystical Orb.
To everyone else, the orb was very precious, it could be used to buy potions or to fasten the cultivation speed, but to him, it could only be used to buy materials and some low-grade treasures.
Falsus smiled back at her and walked away into the distance.
Once he had gone out of the sight of the receptionist, a group of sorcerer apprentice gazed toward his direction, subtly revealing their greed. They nodded at each other and quietly walked out of the building.
...
Forus continued to stoke into a remote location of the city. This was where all the pubs and motels were located. Everyone would get in and out without causing any disturbance, or else the attention would be on them.
"Young man, instead of spending your gold and time on these useless women, you should give it to use. Consider it as a form of investment." The same group of people that followed him slowly surrounded him, threatening him to hand them the Mystical Orbs he had.
"Why do you think that I personally walk into this remote place?" This weird and unexpected question caught them off guard. Why would Forus trap himself here instead of staying in the public area?
Forus silently tossed a bottle of strange liquid toward the group. As they were just ordinary sorcerers, they instinctively catch it, causing the container to break off and the liquid inside to leak out.
Followed by the scream, a series of punches were thrown out. Not long after the scream, the group was lying on the ground, trying their best to hold their cry of pain in. Getting beaten by an unknown person was bad, getting noticed by their friends was worse!
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Forus walked off as he was contemplating about the news that he got from those men. A small auction for the sorcerer apprentices was to be held in the next week, any sorcerers could join by paying a deposit of some Mystical Orbs. The deposit would be kept by the host if it wasn't used to purchase the items in the auction pavilion.
It was a very good opportunity for him to acquire some treasures to analyse and used as another layer of protection. As for the Mystical Orbs, he had more than some of the first rank sorcerer, after all, his business had the foundation as the greed of the human which was, by nature, boundless and senseless.
When he came back to his room in the inn, he sat down and meditated, reconsidering the actions and choices that he took earlier in the battle. He was trying to improve his fighting style and reviewed his overall performance in every aspect. Aside from cultivating his Death Aura, he didn't find any meaning in doing all the pointless actions such as going out or playing with girls.
The loneliness in his heart was unable to be filled by an ordinary feeling of happiness. His empty heart was unmoved by the tragedy or grief of others. His heart was strangely yet fascinatedly indifferent toward the world.
That day, Forus spent his night cultivated his Death Aura until the sun raised up to the sky. He looked up only to find the boundless sky with one bright star on it. Although the sun was big, in comparison with the sky, it was as insignificant as other things.
"If I stopped changing, would the world also stop?" A question that needed no answer echoed in his mind. Shaking his head lightly, he stood up and prepared himself for the auction that would soon take place.
...
"Old man, prepare me a carriage in the next week. I agreed to join that small auction." The beautiful yet cold female commanded her butler, in which he responded with a respectful bow.
"Your will is my order." Although he didn't know why his mistress would want to go to such a poor and insignificant auction, he still had to carry out her request.
The mistress lightly shook her hand, the sorcery energy that leaked out immediately formed an image of a leaning tower. The tower had six corporeal floors and one last incorporeal floor at the top. Many small balls of fire were floating inside the six floors, they were the fire spirits that she had created for many years of her cultivation.
Although the seventh floor of the leaning tower was not formed yet, it still gave off the feeling of mightiness. None of the fire spirits dared to approach the stairway toward the incorporeal floor. They could sense the unknown entity that slumbered within the unreal floor.
"I shall get you soon, I could sense it within my soul. Your everything will be mine." Her voice was like the decree of the empress, causing every fire spirits in the magical tower to bow their head when they received her decree.
...
Walking on a lively road, little Florie tried to buy every little tasty thing and stuff them into her mouth. When she was still in the school, she could only eat the old and boring salad. She, as a little girl, had always wanted to eat the delicious food from all around the city.
"Young miss, from you graceful aura, you must be one of the esteemed sorcerers! Please receive this invitation to an auction. Your presence would surely brighten up the whole event!" A young boy said to her while handing out an invitation, he had said these words for countless times to countless sorcerer apprentices.
The little miss was sent into dazed for a while because of the sudden bombardment of praise before excitedly took the invitation letter. From what her teacher had told her, she needed to experience the life of ordinary sorcerer apprentices to refine her mental state. The safest place to do so was to join an auction as an observer.
"Next week? Very well, this lady will go and brighten the mood for everyone!" She had decided to join the fun. Although she couldn't defend herself from the true sorcerers by herself, her teacher had gifted her many protective treasures. She could at least survive an attack of a second-ranked sorcerer.
While thinking about the exciting event that she would soon be able to attend, her eyes wandered into another form of candy. They had the shape of a bloomed flower and looked extremely tasty, causing her mouth to crave for them. She wasted no time to abandon her train of thought before rushing in to buy some of them to eat.
She was having the time of her life, extremely carefree and relaxing, without any sadness or grief.
...
In a private room of an inn somewhere in the city, two men were having a conversation about the auction that was about to come. The first man had the air of arrogant and wore some kind of smooth yellow coat, judging from the material of the clothing, the coat was very expensive and wasteful.
Another man was the exact opposite temper and air of the first man, he wore an ordinary grey coat and was very calm and passive air around him.
"I heard that the auction this time would be a bit different, what could it be?" The arrogant man spoke while sipping his tea, obviously every relaxing. He had total confidence in himself at fighting any second layer sorcerer apprentice one in one.
"From what this one heard, a rare middle-grade treasure would be sold at this time auction, but, the price would not be just ordinary mystical orbs." The man reported his information to the young master respectfully. He knew his limit and also knew when to back off and lay down to avoid the calamity.
"A middle-grade treasure? Interesting. I wonder who was the owner of this treasure. Get his identity for me." He coldly ordered the poor man without any care of his feeling. They were only commoners, not enough for his attention.
"Yes, young master." The grey-robed man responded with a bow before leaving the room. Once he closed the door, an uncontrollable smile broke out of his face, he chuckled to himself before forcing himself to remain expressionless as natural.
"You think you could play me all you want? I will give you the same feeling of suppression like when you snatched my sister away from me." The words he uttered were filled with madness and hatred. This man had a deep and dark past. His family was torn apart by the big sorcerer family due to the beauty of his sister.
Since then, he had been trying to avenge his parents. He had joined the big family as a servant and slowly advanced to become a henchman of this yellow-robed young master, he was the one who wanted his sister.
Now, his life-long plan was about to hatch, just by thinking about the expression of despair when that man finally crumbled and died could make him trembled in excitement.
"Sister, I'm going to save you. Just wait for me." He was reminiscing about his past happiness that couldn't be achieved again. A drop of tear was all he could do for those memories.