The Soul-Devouring Demon

"I have no use for this meditation method anymore. I expect you'll be my last student, so giving it to you means it won't go to waste." Sanderson was pleased to see how Dean could hardly put the book down.

"Thank you for the reward, Mentor!" Dean said happily.

No profession was easy to get into. With a mentor to guide and "support" him, everything would go twice as smoothly. Dean was glad he had become Sanderson's student when he did.

Sanderson probably didn't use this meditation method himself. Judging by the magic remaining in the book, which had originally allowed three people to learn from it, Dean guessed it had only one use left.

Perhaps Mentor Sanderson had picked up the spellbook cheaply somewhere. Even with only one use left, though, the Basic Troll Vortex Meditation would probably cost at least fifteen or twenty gold coins.

To a Level-One Magic Apprentice, that was an astronomical sum. Even an accomplished Level-Two Mage might not have that much money.

Dean had only seventy-eight points of magic power. At eighty, he would enter the late stage of Level-One Magic Apprentice and begin preparing to form his Magic Vortex. Advancing from a Level-One apprentice to a Level-Two Mage was both the easiest and the most troublesome step on a mage's path.

Dean estimated that without Mentor Sanderson's help, he would succeed in forming his Magic Vortex after about five failed attempts.

In other words, within five years, before he turned twenty, Dean could become a Level-Two Mage.

Twenty was a fairly normal age. He couldn't compare himself to those extraordinary talents. Some of them might already be Level-Four or Level-Five Mages at twenty!

They also had vast resources at their fingertips, so naturally their levels shot up.

Still, reaching Level-Two Mage by twenty would put him somewhere above average at Bru Magic Academy!

Things were different now, though. If he could study the meditation method early, it would naturally influence the way he meditated on his own, even if he didn't formally use it. That would lay the groundwork for forming his Magic Vortex later.

It would also let him get used to the Troll Vortex Meditation Method in advance, greatly reducing the chance that he would fail to form his Magic Vortex.

"Little Dean, I acknowledge you as my student. Now it's time for you to choose. Tell me again: are you willing to be my one and only student?" Sanderson asked.

"This time, I'll be different from an ordinary mentor. I'll teach you everything I've learned in my life. More than that, within this year, I'll pass on all the knowledge of my mentor, too." Sanderson's eyes shone.

"But I'm already your student," Dean said, still puzzled. From what Sanderson had revealed, though, his mentor clearly wasn't ordinary.

It was more than that. Sanderson had some enormous secret. Thinking back to the Memory Crystal he had viewed earlier, Dean realized that no ordinary Level-Two Mage could have obtained it, no matter how long he had been around.

No, not just a Level-Two Mage. Even Level-Six or Level-Seven archmages would have had trouble getting their hands on it.

"Don't answer yet. I'll take you to see something. You can decide for yourself whether it's good or bad. And Little Dean, if you don't agree to what I just asked, that's all right. You'll still be my student."

Sanderson said no more. If Dean refused, Sanderson would remain just Sanderson: an ordinary mentor who could continue to guide Dean, but could do no more than that.

Sanderson left the cottage and headed toward the back. Dean hurried after him. Since his mentor wasn't saying anything else, all he could do was follow.

Dean knew there was a small bamboo grove in the courtyard where Sanderson lived. But he only knew the grove was there. What it contained had never seemed important.

He would never have believed that a little bamboo grove could hide some earth-shattering secret. Not until today.

Dean watched Sanderson bow to a stone in the grove that looked remarkably like a gravestone. The stone seemed to come alive.

"Little Dean, I'll tell you a little secret. This is a small spatial node," Sanderson said, pointing at the stone.

Dean vaguely remembered spatial nodes. A teacher had mentioned them in passing during a magic lesson: they were weak points in the world.

Every world had countless spatial nodes connecting it to other worlds. Most were tiny, of course, and could transmit little more than information. A node that could carry magic power was already exceedingly rare.

So this stone was a small spatial node. Dean examined it curiously from several angles, but without an affinity for space and with so little magic power, he couldn't make anything out.

"Stop trying to figure it out. Even I have to concentrate completely just to make out this spatial node," Sanderson said when Dean had stared at it for ages without getting anywhere.

There was no way Dean could discover such a thing at his current level, so Sanderson didn't ask him to try locating the node himself.

"Little Dean, guess which world this spatial node connects to."

"Which world? Doesn't it connect to ours?" Dean froze. A node this small would normally connect two places within the same world, but this one led somewhere beyond it.

Everything that had happened with Mentor Sanderson over the past two days flashed through Dean's mind. The knowledge about the Abyss stood out, as did that powerful Memory Crystal.

And Sanderson had looked terrible that morning, as though... Yes, as though he had exhausted a great deal of mental energy. Even now, his mental energy didn't seem to have recovered.

The answer was obvious.

"M-Mentor, this node doesn't... connect to the legendary Demon Great World, does it?" Dean's voice fell to a whisper. By the end, he was speaking right beside Sanderson's ear, as if afraid someone else might hear.

"If the Bright Church finds out about this node, they'll destroy your courtyard for certain. They'll take you away, too!" Dean said urgently.

"Don't worry. This is just a rural town. Blue Town has only a tiny Bright Church chapel with no fighting strength, and I've sealed off Zhu Ling Bamboo Grove," Sanderson said, unconcerned.

Perhaps, as an old man with little time left, he felt he had nothing to lose even if he were arrested and executed.

Dean certainly wouldn't report him. He was Sanderson's student, after all. Even if he did, he would inevitably be implicated. There was an eighty percent chance he wouldn't leave the Bright Church at all, and a twenty percent chance he would be sentenced to death on his way out.

"All right, Little Dean. Now I'll tell you where this spatial node leads. To a demon—a demon who always keeps his word, but is also utterly cruel and bloodthirsty."