Warlock Apprentice

“That’s a space-storage item, is it not?” asked Greya.

“It’s called Snowy Feather,” Angor said as he nodded. “It’s for keeping Toby’s clothes and snacks.”

Both Greya and Felicia remained silent for a while once they realized Angor’s generosity. As his owner, Greya did love Toby but not to such an extent as to give the bird a valuable space storage.

Now, not only did Angor do so, but he also went over the trouble by shaping the item into a feather which blended with Toby’s own feathers perfectly.

“Such… luxurious gift.” Felicia failed to hold back her comment. Even wizards would find such items to be costly. How could a bird have its own, customized space storage?

Actually, Angor didn’t find Toby’s gift to be much of an issue. In fact, Toby’s snacks helped him a lot when they wandered in the plane passageway.

Using the chance, Greya asked Angor about Toby’s life in the past year.

She was the one that asked questions at first, but eventually, Angor gladly began to voluntarily tell the wonderful journey that he had encountered with Toby.

Greya simply listened quietly and created all kinds of images in her mind according to Angor’s words.

Angor would omit everything that heavily involved other individuals, but it was fine; Greya was quite happy to hear about Toby’s stories only.

The most important matter about Toby was his destiny, during which he gained a brand new power—the sequence of gravity.

Angor found it difficult to explain this part. There were many secrets around Phantom Island and Sunders’ Sorcerer’s Garden, about which he definitely couldn’t reveal. Therefore, he decided to tell Greya the result—that Toby acquired the power of gravity when a new Sorcerer’s Garden came into existence.

Greya didn’t press Angor for details. She already knew that Toby had grown stronger and that was enough.

After the story about Toby’s growth, it was mostly casual stories about their daily lives in Brute Cavern, which took Angor around an hour to tell.

Also, Angor focused on relaxing and happy stories while avoiding anything that involved violence and trouble.

He stopped talking when he arrived at the story about Twilight Auction.

Naturally, he would not tell Greya about his Nightmare Domain. He was wondering whether he should describe the incident about Eyeless Man.

After more careful consideration, he decided to make it plain anyway.

However, he didn’t use words this time. By waving a hand, Angor created the illusion of the auction hall when Eyeless Man was being sold.

The sudden change of scenery attracted both Greya and Felicia, who stopped brewing her wine and inspected the illusion curiously.

“What’s this? An auction site?” Greya looked at the lively crowds.

“The one inside Twilight Well, I guess?” Felicia joined them with two glasses of wine and handed them to Angor and Greya. “Oh, don’t worry. Just ordinary rice wine this time.”

Angor thanked her and sipped the wine. He quite enjoyed the mild fragrance of liquid, which gently soothed his throat and body instead of stimulating his tongue like common strong alcohol.

He felt refreshed too. Even his illusion became more colorful.

Felicia sat beside Greya and pointed at the woman on the auction stage. “I saw her before. Twilight from Twilight Well, a narrow-minded and intolerant woman.”

“Yes, this is Twilight Auction.” Angor nodded.

Greya glanced at Angor, not knowing what the illusion meant.

Angor simply told her to keep looking. An iron cage, which was covered by a black cloth, was brought onto the stage.

“They are selling something alive next?” Greya pondered over the situation shown by the illusion.

The auction guards removed the cover and revealed a slim man in servitor suit and green bow-tie inside the cage. He had no eyes.

Crack!

Greya squeezed her glass to shards while she gazed at the illusion with bloodshot eyes.

Felicia also checked the illusion and hesitated. “Is that… Houston the Big-Eyed?”

Big-Eyed?

Angor silently repeated the strange name. That title didn’t fit very well with the Eyeless Man.

“Yes… him.” Greya wasn’t showing any particular expressions, but her voice sounded very violent.

“Twilight” in the illusion was describing her merchandise now.

“Those who have read the newest edition of Expedition into Endless Planes should know that Greya got herself into a fight with Granny Shikazaru in Haunt World… and she was sucked into Nightmare Realm. It is commonly believed that Greya has fallen, which meant her restaurant is no more. All the other workers in the restaurant are Gourmet Wizards. Apart from those who escaped back to Candy House, the rest scattered away into different parts of the world. This one is one of the workers, captured by a wizard during an incident…”

Apart from the scene, Angor entirely recreated Twilight’s voice as well.

“… Now, let’s get some bidding done. We start at 10,000 magic crystals, and I expect raises of no less than 5,000!” “Twilight” declared to the audiences.

The illusion halted here.

Beyond this point was Toby’s reckless attack which led to a series of disasters. Angor couldn’t show them to Greya without exposing his Nightmare Domain.

“… Who bought Houston?” Greya asked between breaths.

“‘Flaming Lotus’ Lydia.” Angor didn’t tell Greya the final bid price or his agreement with Lydia.

“Lydia… I’ll keep that in mind.”

Greya then thanked Angor without showing much of her mind in front of the boy. She already felt grateful enough when Angor both took good care of Toby and told her about Houston’s situation.

Probably because of uncontrollable rage, Greya suddenly grew weak. “I need to rest my soul now. Tell Felicia to wake me up if you need me for something.”

She paused and thought about something. She then added, “Toby is now with Lady Isabelle inside Spirit Realm. You don’t have to worry about him.”

Greya’s eyes slowly lost focus until she became “little girl Greya” again.

The change of personality seemed pretty smooth too. Angor knew this body now possessed two souls. However, he wasn’t sure if this was caused by a split in the soul, or that Greya robbed someone else’s body.

Angor didn’t wish to stay with Felicia and bear with the awkwardness, so he decided to leave.

Before he could walk away though, Felicia suddenly said, “The other day…”

Angor’s body became stiff. He was really worried that Felicia might mention the unpleasant dinner.

Felicia grinned at Angor’s reaction. “How did you escape your alchemy omen the other day?”

Angor relaxed at the unexpected question. However, he quickly grew tense again since this one was also about his soul.

He REALLY wanted to keep his secret, but he couldn’t keep secrets in the face of a powerful wizard.

“Well, my soul has something speci—”

Felicia waved a hand and stopped his words. “Okay, fine! I’ll not look into your small mysteries anymore. Now go.”

Angor tilted his head and wondered what just made Felicia change her mind.

Still, he felt greatly relieved.

Felicia silently sighed when Angor left for his bedroom on the second floor.

In order for her to get away from “that thing”, Isabelle warned her not to question or meddle with Angor’s soul.

This was why Felicia silenced Angor the moment she heard him mentioning the word “soul”. She was scared. That suture woman who almost broke her sanity would haunt her mind like a nightmare every time she recalled the terrible experience.

…

Time flew by.

The next morning, when Angor was meditating on his bed, he suddenly heard someone speaking gently beside his ear:

“Now, come to Spirit Realm. It is time to fulfill my promise.”

The voice came and went away quickly. Angor was dazed for a while before he realized that Isabelle just spoke to him.

And he dared not tarry when a legendary wizard who dominated an entire era summoned him. He quickly got washed and changed. He then asked a mute servant to take him to B2.

The servant remained outside the gate of Spirit Realm and told Angor to go inside.

Walking past the gate, he immediately felt an ominous wind blowing against his face. Everything was too dark in here for him to see clearly.

He felt even stranger when he realized that he could no longer use his spirit feelers.

He walked for some more and began to doubt Isabelle’s intention. What happened to the “promise”? Why did he have to enter this darkness?

Next, he noticed that he was now walking in a strange space. There were no longer walls or ceilings around him.

Also, he felt extremely tired, as if a powerful being nearby was trying to put him to sleep.

Every time he did feel like sleeping, his body would fall toward an unknown direction.

It made him scared. Something told him that letting his body fall freely would only bring him to doom.

With this in mind, he forced his spirit to stay awake and kept on walking. This way, he could slowly drag his body away from the unseen abyss.

He gradually lost track of time until he heard a familiar voice.