Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The smell of jasmine reached the tip of his nose; it was likely the girl’s perfume.
In the corridor, the orange flames from the candles radiated warm light, and they shone on the girl’s face at the same time as the light from the half-opened window.
As she placed her hands on her robes, her gentle movements evoked the sensation of a soft touch.
It was real, extremely real.
That was not something any virtual game could achieve.
Reed looked at the girl in front of him, who was waiting for his response, and he took a deep breath. The feeling of talking to a real person was just not something a so-called game could capture.
A soul…
Yes, he could sense the soul of a normal person in the girl.
She was not one of those rigid game NPCs but a living person.
The girl’s appearance destroyed some of the conjectures he had made in his heart, but even so, his passions grew even hotter.
Glory was truly not that simple. It was not just a virtual game.
What kind of secrets were hidden within?
Why was the game promoted and sold in such a manner?
Amid his thoughts, Reed’s expression returned to normal without much fluctuations in his eyes.
He then shook his head coldly.
“Viena, send my lunch to my magic laboratory. I’ll eat it there.”
Viena could not help but feel a little disappointed when she heard his somewhat indifferent tone.
She had seen the light in Reed’s eyes earlier and felt some joy in her heart.
However, in the blink of an eye, Vermillion Tower’s master, the object of her utmost admiration, had returned to his usual calmness.
She proceeded to bow respectfully.
“Understood, Master Reed.”
She then left to make the arrangements with a sense of sadness.
Did Master Reed really dislike women?
Thinking of the weird rumors swirling in the tower, Viena unwittingly felt a little down.
Many people dreamed of being the woman of a high mage. Not to mention, Master Reed was so handsome.
As Reed’s pale and handsome face crossed her mind, Viena could not help but bite her lip.
Reed was slightly relieved as he watched Viena’s graceful figure leave.
After his encounter with Viena, he would never take the living people there for NPCs anymore.
Since his original body belonged to a vampire, a race that had always been hated by humans, he kept a certain distance from the apprentices in the mage tower.
Should his true identity as a vampire be discovered in Grimm with its millions of inhabitants and Transcendent Mages, even a Progenitor Vampire like him would not be able to escape.
If Viena had been placed in another mage tower, she would have been long eaten up by the tower master there.
Yet, over where the original body was, Viena was just an ordinary mage apprentice, whom he used for cover.
Naturally, he would not rashly change the original vampires’ living habits, and he would be very cautious.
Vermillion Tower was named after the red alchemic material used on the tower’s facade. It had seven floors and was 25 rhents high.
Rhent was the unit of measurement in Glory. One rhent equaled one meter.
The first and second floors were where the apprentices lived, while the third and fourth floors housed a library and the place where Reed taught his apprentices.
The fifth floor was his living quarters.
The six and seventh floors consisted of a warehouse for magical materials and a magic laboratory respectively.
Despite being a vampire, the original progenitor was extremely obsessed with magic.
However, this vampiric bloodline was formed after Reed. The progenitor had mistakenly swallowed a vampiric treasure two hundred years ago and became a Progenitor Vampire as a result.
His background was extremely shallow.
Hence, he did all he could to go undercover in Grimm and joined their Lodge of Mages to learn magic.
The mage tower was funded by the Lodge of Mages to assist Reed in its construction after he came to Grimm three years ago.
Reed could not help but shake his head after he understood the Progenitor Vampire’s history.
The Progenitor Vampire’s name was great enough, but the fact was, his background did not even come close to the second-rate nobles in Grimm.
At the very least, the nobles would not sneak into an enemy’s camp to learn magic just because they lacked resources.
In any case, the Progenitor Vampire’s efforts were now his.
When he walked out of the study, he saw gray walls made out of alchemical materials, and the faint aura of magical traps radiated from both the floor as well as the walls.
The mage tower was the lair of a mage and the most dangerous place for an outsider.
Based on Reed’s memories, there were no fewer than five hundred magical arrays inscribed all across the tower.
If an ignorant thief were to break in, the moment that poor soul triggered a single trap, he would be blasted into smithereens.
He followed the ash wood stairs to the seventh floor, which was the highest point of the mage tower.
It was also the place where Reed often conducted his magic experiments.
There was only a single room on the seventh floor, and it was very large with its entire floor made out of magic-proof oak.
Light shone through the huge stained glass windows on the left.
The surrounding walls were all made out of alchemical materials and inscribed with over a dozen defensive magic circles. Even a magical explosion from a failed experiment would not be able to destroy the tower.
Various magical materials were scattered across the room.
The head of a cyclops, the branches of a snow maple, the magic crystal ore of Olreia, poison vines that had yet to be ground into powder, and almost a hundred other materials were strewn around the place.
After he walked toward a glass window, which was carved with colorful patterns and said to be made by artistically gifted elves, he looked down.
Without admiring the work of the elves too much, he pushed open the colorful translucent glass window. For the first time, Reed saw the face of Grimm, the largest southern city in the Norland Empire, and its million-strong population.
It was too big to take in at a glance.
The 25-rhent-tall mage tower was an absolute high-rise in Grimm. The magical world had relatively low productivity, so even nobles could not afford such a tall building.
The entire panoramic scene filled his sight.
Many Medieval European-style buildings were erected all over the city, and all of the houses had domed or spired roofs. Their windows were painted with colorful patterns, mostly religious and divine in nature.
Atop the city’s wall was a stone statue of a human figure. He was a hero who had sacrificed his life for Grimm.
The spires above a tavern at a crossroad was towering, and drunkards were staggering out through the semicircular arches there.
The shops on both sides of the streets sold all kinds of goods, and nobles in gorgeous getups traveled on the streets, which were paved with bluestone, on unicorn horses. When the surrounding civilians saw them, they immediately backed away in fear.
Some coolies in short, shabby robes were carrying huge linen sacks and unloading cargo from a wagon at the command of a luxuriously dressed merchant.
A few beggars in ragged clothing were looking at the people on the street imploringly, the broken bowls in their hands already stained with muck.
A group of slave merchants was using chains to lead a group of tall, powerful orcs with sharp fangs. They walked proudly along the street, not balking even in the face of nobility on horseback.
A bunch of mercenaries who had just completed their mission walked past the group of beggars, their armor stained with dried blood. One of the beggars accidentally fell on the ground and hindered the mercenaries’ path.
The mercenary’s eyes were cold, and the giant blade in his sword was at least two-palms wide. He cut the beggar’s hand off, and the cacophonous street was instantly bloodied.
The beggar screamed and whined frantically because of the pain.
The nobility turned a blind eye to the scene, while the slave merchants laughed. None of the civilians dared to stand up to stop the departing mercenaries.
The wailing beggar was totally ignored by the crowd.
At last, a shop owner by the road could no longer bear to see the beggar suffer, and the owner came out with medication, as well as, food for the beggar.
Reed witnessed the scene in silence.
The cultural background there was similar to that of Medieval Europe, yet it was far more mysterious. It was a place where ignorance and knowledge coexisted, a place where the arcane and the divine went hand in hand.
There were nobles, slaves, orcs, elves, vampires…
It was a colorful but cruel world.
At the same time, it was also a world of magic.
Reed looked up.
Three soaring mage towers stood before him.
Those were mage towers built by the three most powerful mages in Grimm’s Lodge of Mages.
Each tower master was a Level 15 archmage.