Warlock Apprentice

While howling frantically, the soul was bumping his head against the glass wall, which did nothing more than draining his own strength.

The maniacal struggle lasted for about ten minutes before the soul quieted down. He then lay still on the floor face-down as if he died for a second time.

However, an undead soul was only considered eliminated once the negative energy inside it fully vanished, which was obviously not the case right now.

Outside the glass chamber, Angor kept observing the energy reading in the environment while taking notes.

He saw the negative energy inside the test subject destabilizing very fast. At the same time, a new type of energy was slowly showing up and was gradually taking over the soul’s form.

Angor was a bit confused to see two conflicting types of energy existing in harmony. This was also what he observed from the Goman King’s daughter, whose face was divided into two halves after being shot by a white bullet.

The strange sight reminded him of certain Buddhist statues he saw from documentary movies introducing religions on Earth, which also showed two different expressions on their faces as if a sage of kindness and a demon from the underworld possessed the same body.

Last time, Angor didn’t have a chance to examine what happened to the woman’s soul because she escaped too fast. But now, he could fully observe what was going on with the man’s soul.

Inside this soul, the fickle undead energy and another stable power each occupied one half of the soul, which seemed to be the same case shown by the Goman King’s daughter.

However, his “change” was a lot slower compared to the woman. As Angor recalled, the woman’s soul outside Dark Castle completed her “energy separation” in a matter of minutes, while the man’s soul was still lying on the floor unmoving.

They waited for half an hour, and the man’s soul was still motionless. It seemed the energy turbulence inside him already ended since it was no longer changing. However, the soul was probably too weak to move.

“Keep watching,” Angor said to Number 233 as he decided to get to another job. “Find me in the alchemy lab nearby if anything goes wrong.”

There was an alchemy laboratory at Phantom Island as well. Sunders once spent many years studying alchemy when he was young, but he then realized the futility of it and abandoned his ambition. However, the lab still remained. It was unused in the past century. There were only Phantom Servants who would come occasionally to clean up dust and dirt.

Most of the equipment in the lab was outdated or too decayed to be used, but Angor never planned to rely on these. He was trying to make more illusion items that did not require extra tools.

In order to finish Sunders’ task, which required him to make enough “illusion samples” before Sunders left on a mission, Angor simply crafted a number of plain-looking crystal balls but with different materials. According to his previous tests, the appearance of items did not affect the manifestations inside them. He only had to take the base materials into account, for these would affect how long the manifestations would persist in the end.

While Angor focused on making his crystal balls, Number 233 diligently did his job by watching the undead soul carefully.

It took Angor half a day to make three new crystal balls. To save time, he wasn’t going to check the illusions.

While working on the fourth item, he finally received a message from Number 233, that the undead was awake.

Angor immediately dropped his work and went to the lab again. He saw Number 233 still noting down the energy signatures in the area as well as what was going on inside the test subject.

The man’s soul was definitely awake, but he didn’t look so different from before as he still had his face against the floor. The only thing he did was that he was arching his back higher.

“How long was he like this?” asked Angor.

“About two minutes. But Mister Padt, please pay close attention to his energy.”

Angor looked at 233’s note and saw the soul’s negative energy recovering greatly. However, it was still weaker compared to his condition before the bullet hit him.

“Undead energy almost down to half…” Angor held his chin. “Is this caused by the second energy?”

So the bullet turned half of his negative energy into another form?

He left his theory on the research note.

Meanwhile, the man’s soul suddenly looked up.

“Mister Padt, there! Look at his face!” Number 233 urged.

Angor checked the soul’s divided face with a plain look as he already expected something like this to happen.

It was as if someone drew a boundary line at the center of the soul’s head. While one side showed the same ghastly, fanged face of an undead monster, the other side looked like a middle-aged man with a calm temperament with hollow cheeks and pale skin. But the “good side” of the man did not look so peaceful as that eye still showed unconcealed malevolence.

“Is he still an undead…?” Angor muttered and decided to talk to him. “Who are you?”

Usually, undead creatures would not respond to questions since they no longer possessed sanity, while ordinary souls could still make themselves understood by unleashing emotions, or in some cases, speak directly.

The soul in question looked toward Angor’s direction without responding. It could not see through the one-way glass.

“It tried to look for the speaker without showing hostility…” Angor considered while noting down more information. The man looked neither a fallen undead nor an ordinary soul. It was something in between.

“Hey, what are you looking for?” Angor asked again.

Still no response. But the man’s soul seemed more interested in the voice he heard.

“Mister Padt, I think he showed human emotion,” Number 233 commented.

Angor nodded to agree. Undead creatures would usually go after noises with their teeth and claws rather than looking at them curiously. Apparently, this one knew how to “think”.

The current question was whether this soul had regained his intelligence, or if he was just curious about everything like a newborn child.

“Subject displayed intelligence…” Angor kept working on his paper.

The soul suddenly spoke.

“Where is my… banyan flower…”

It was the common language used on this land without any particular accent.

Angor frowned and wrote “subject showed verbal abilities” on his note.

“An undead spoke? And what does that mean?” Number 233 seemed surprised.

“Doesn’t mean anything, perhaps. Maybe something left in his memory before he died.”

The energy they currently saw inside the soul suggested that the man was still an undead being, but there was something else.

“An undead with some intelligence, or… is he slowly ‘turning back’?” Angor pondered.

For now, he would refer to it as a “half-undead” and wait until they could discover more clues.

“Keep watching, and try to communicate with him to see whether he can understand or learn something from you,” Angor said to Number 233.

He glanced at the “half-undead” again and saw the “peaceful side” looking around in confusion as if trying to find an exit, while the other half was still writhing like a hungry monster.

Angor then turned around and headed to the alchemy room. He now had an assumption regarding the true effect of Prelude to Rebirth, but he still needed to prove it. Correct or not, the effect didn’t seem very useful to him, so he decided to continue working on his illusion items for now.