Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Along the snowy mountain ridge at northern hinterland, a giant figure suddenly swept past the sky and left a brief shade upon the ground. If anyone observed carefully, they would notice that the shadow was slowly shifting like a fluttering butterfly.
However, they wouldn’t actually see anything when looking up. There was only a clear sky with occasional clouds drifting by.
A while later, a strange bird appeared above the snow mountain.
The moderate-size bird was, in fact, made of metal. An experienced alchemist could easily notice countless springs and gears inside the mechanical bird.
The bird was painted in blue and white. While flying, it released a specific frequency used by a certain wizard.
As the frequency traveled around, the clear sky was suddenly occupied by a giant, colorful butterfly that slowly cruised its vicinity. There was a delicate-looking wooden house built on its back.
The mechanical bird circled around in the sky and approached a small postbox near the house. Then it dropped a letter with a red seal into the box and immediately left.
Slowly, the giant butterfly vanished again.
A short, plump boy showed up from the wooden pub house and bounced toward the postbox. He then joyfully yelled at the other waiters working inside. “The professor sent a letter!”
He was dressed in a clean, white chef uniform; his sleeves were covered in oil stains and different-colored powders. His round face was tainted by some black charcoal marks, and he smelled like roasted meat.
Following his call, another mature-looking woman, who barely wore anything on her body, came out of the pub. Her healthy, bronze-color skin reflected sunlight. Three pieces of scissored clothes were the only things that covered her private parts.
“What did the professor say, Alan? When will she come back?” the woman asked, which also aroused a series of discussions among the other waiters. They talked about different things, but all of them more or less showed interest in the return of their professor.
The fat boy, Alan, gulped at the woman before two streams of blood came rushing out of his nostrils.
The woman covered her mouth and chuckled, which caused her pair of giant buns to jiggle up and down. At such a sight, the fat boy bled faster and fell flat on the ground.
“Stop it, Tana, or you’re going to murder our little cutie Alan like that,” someone inside the pub said with a laughter.
Tana wiggled casually, which caused more people to stare at her and blush.
“But isn’t that why I’m here?”
Next, Tana moved to Alan and began to drag the unconscious boy back inside by his ankle.
A wind suddenly came and blew the letter away from Alan’s hand. The letter flipped in the air and landed in Tana’s unoccupied hand.
Tana checked the letter to see the beautiful, butterfly-like penmanship which was created by her teacher. The characters were arranged behind a certain password that only those from the pub could read.
[A private message to Alan and Tana]
To me and Alan? Tana revealed a joyful look. Without minding Alan, Tana opened the letter, while Alan’s body dropped on the floor again with a loud “thud”.
The letter also contained two cards inside.
Tana had finished the letter and remained agape, while Alan rubbed his throbbing head as he stood up. The boy joined Tana and read the letter as well.
“Huh? What’s a purification garden? Something to eat?” Alan’s vision was blurry, so he could only make out several important words between the lines—Month of Resuscitation, Floating Mech City, Garden of Purification.
…
The Sin World was an appendage plane to the northwest of the Fey Continent. It sat in the center of the Baikal Sea with its entrance left in the middle of a submarine volcano.
There was a tiny nation located along the edge of Sin World called the Gambillon Kingdom.
There was no wizard organization stationed in the Gambillon Kingdom, and almost none of its residents knew about supernatural beings. However, such a remote place had given birth to a certain group hated by most wizards in the entire wizarding world—the Supreme Cult.
Supreme Cult regarded the world’s consciousness as their ultimate belief. The members declared that they were all “believers”, but in fact, they were also wizards—wizards favored by the world’s consciousness. They hunted down every “illegal traveler” from foreign worlds, which was also what the world’s consciousness would usually do.
This was the “political correctness” in the wizarding world. By taking advantage of the unspoken rule, some of the higher-ups in the Supreme Cult could use special arts to acquire indescribable powers from the great consciousness.
Supreme Cult was not a wizard organization. Yet it was so powerful that no wizard would disregard their presence.
Today, a number of apprentices who had been accepting training on how to hunt for otherworldly beings stood in line on the training ground to welcome one of the authoritative figures in the cult, the Black Bishop.
The Supreme Cult had three training sections. Most apprentices were youths below the age of 20. Some had not even reached 6 yet. However, despite their age, every single apprentice showed violent and deadly emotions after being lectured by the cult’s creeds.
Black Bishop felt very satisfied when inspecting their new generation.
“The purification garden in Floating Mech City is about to open. Those who wish to participate, come to me.”
No one spoke.
Instead of feeling offended by the unresponsiveness, the bishop nodded in contentment.
“Of course, the quota is not free. You have to fight for a chance if you want one. Candidates will be immediately arranged into deathmatches, and the last survivor can acquire an invitation from me. By ‘deathmatches’, I’m expecting battles for your life and death. Do not show me your useless friendship and morals.”
Black Bishop then left the apprentices while laughing madly. He had to present his speech to the other training sections.
Half a day later, the winner of the first training section walked to the bishop on bloody steps.
“Good. Tell me your name,” the bishop addressed the merciless-looking young man in front of him with a smile.
“Saladin Buer.” The young man’s hair had clumped into several parts due to all the blood covering his head, which suggested the brutality of the previous battles.
“Very well. This is yours now.” The bishop handed him a card.
The young man nodded and turned away without saying anything.
As the bishop admired the brilliant young man, the vice bishop suddenly whispered to him, “Sir, I heard rumors that Floating Mech City has prepared some little tricks this time.”
“Oh, I know about it. When I joined their discussion, an informant told me that the garden might turn into a bloody battlefield… But isn’t that what brings the best destiny? Gah-haha!”
…
A vast nation called the “Lavish Division” was situated northwest of the Evernight Kingdom. Despite its name, three-fourth of its land was covered by deserts. This was why none of its adjacent nations ever attempted to attack Lavish Division.