Warlock Apprentice

Angor had finished testing the last distant relative of Neet’s clan.

And… nothing.

Neet had witnessed how difficult it was to find qualified talents yesterday. Even so, it was still painful to see none of their members or servants stood out.

After asking the servants to take the crying kids away, Neet looked at his father, Count Ross, and shook his head.

Ross sighed helplessly before he spoke to Angor, “We’ll be on our way so that we don’t trouble you anymore, Sir Wizard. As for your request, feel free to use our underground archive. We have all the historical files stored there.”

Neet nodded and offered to guide Angor again. During childhood, he often sneaked into the archive for adventure. Of course, he only found thick books piled up instead of treasures. That was when Neet took a liking to reading. The story of Nayah the Cruel also came from one of the books in the basement.

“Satisfy all of Sir Wizard’s requests as long as it’s not something too difficult for you. You don’t have to ask for my approval.” Count Ross put a hand on his son’s shoulder and left the room with everyone else.

Angor had put away all the tools used in the test and was now relaxing against a pillar.

“Shall we check the archive right now?” asked Neet.

“Alright. Lead the way.”

…

The archive was brightly lit by many high-quality Luminous Stones.

“The gilded bookshelf near the desk have our family records, while the other parts are files we collected throughout history, including unofficial documents.”

After explaining everything he should, Neet asked a servant to prepare a dish of snacks and hot tea, before he left Angor alone.

Angor gladly removed his image of a stern wizard and slumped down on a soft chair. While enjoying the unknown sweets, he used Hand of Spell to check through the books and files.

When he put the books away, a standing clock suggested that he had spent half a day reading.

The collection was pretty good—it included most intelligence from the Age of Gold till today, the Age of Bronze. And the conditions of the books meant that the Ross Family treasured them.

But as message traveled around a lot slower in ancient years, histories about the Age of Gold only took a small part of the archive.

Angor managed to find something about Lucas, and he believed that the book might be one of a kind.

It wasn’t a history book, but a hand-written journal left behind by one of the ancestors of the Ross Family.

Neet wasn’t lying when he said how his clan had existed for more than 3,000 years. However, they only earned their hereditary rank during the Age of Bronze, while at the Age of Gold, their clan was only a local trader family who owned big money.

It seemed Ross Family and Lucas were once involved in a matter together, and this was when the mentioned book was composed.

In the year 1331, Age of Gold, when the Ross Family had been striving for over 100 years, they attempted and failed to acquire a noble title despite all the gold they had.

At that time, one’s pedigree was considered to be most important to be recognized as nobility, and the Ross Family did not inherit a decent pedigree.

There, the family decided to slowly address this problem through a marriage alliance. And since major noble clans would not accept a bunch of rich traders into their ranks, they had to start from befriending poorer entities or even sending their female members closer to noblemen with bigger desires, in hope that they could hopefully “collect” children with a good bloodline.

Of course, the second choice was not optimal because this would only leave the family with several b*stards who would taint their names.

However, the Ross Family was so obsessed at the time, and they actually did both.

And it seemed Professor Gurman was right about how Lucas became a swinger later.

By some coincidence, the Ross Family asked one of their daughters called Moyah to “get in touch” with Lucas. The handwritten record Angor found was left by Moyah herself.

Apart from some pointless forewords and bonding processes that weren’t fun to read, Moyah also mentioned her opinion of Lucas, which was… not very good.

Unfaithful, wasteful, liar. She mostly described Lucas in the same way as everybody else did. Even when Lucas and Moyah were engaged, this man still had several extra lovers in the city.

Lucas had three children in the end, two of whom died young, while the third child—Moyah’s—survived.

Angor then checked the family tree of Ross Family and saw Moyah had two children near the top of the tree. While one of them had Lucas as the father, the other one was a result of intermarrying between Moyah and another clan member.

“So… Lucas left his blood in the bloodline of the Ross Family?” Angor shook his head. What an unlikely accident.

Moyah also mentioned her daily life with Lucas, which included the address of Lucas’ house at Widow Street.

In his years, Lucas’ family owned several real estates at Widow Street, and Lucas also kept his lovers there.

Since this was exactly what Lucas said in his logbook, then Moyah’s record was probably true.

At the end of the book, Moyah accused Lucas again for using all sorts of lies to win her trust, and that was about everything.

Angor put the book away and asked a servant to summon Neet.

“Rough night?” Angor saw Neet’s panda eyes and asked.

Neet rubbed his temples. “Kids forced me to tell them sailor stories. I put them to sleep later, but I was too hyped to sleep myself.”

This had reminded Angor of his own childhood. Each time Leon returned home after spending a full term at the academy, Angor would bug him for stories all night as well, before Viscount Padt would intervene.

“Nice family you got there.” Angor smiled.

“Oh, heh heh… I can run around the world all day just because my family is good by themselves, and that they’re always waiting for me here.”

“Good for you.” Angor nodded. “I’m going to take a tour around Lost Paradise City at night. Do you have a map of the city?”

“Yeah, the city map is not a secret. Just a moment, I’ll get one now.” Neet left the archive while mumbling, “Sightseeing at night? The place sure looks shiny, but the shops will all be closed…”

Later, Neet brought Angor a revised and detailed map, which showed information of almost every common building in the city, and due to the city’s size, the cramped street names and footnotes were pretty hard to read.

This was not a problem for Angor. He located Widow Street soon after.

“The street’s still here after three thousand years?” He wondered if this one was still the same place mentioned by Lucas and Moyah. “Hey, Neet, can you show me an older map? Like, a map used in the Age of Gold.”

“A city map during the Age of Gold? We… might find one at the academy’s library. I can borrow it from them if necessary.”

“If you please.”

…

While waiting for Neet to return, Angor took the chance to do his routine meditation.

Neet returned to the mansion at night.

“I apologize, sir, but I was told that the map went missing several days ago.”

“Missing?”

Well, it might be someone from Song of the Deep or other people looking for Lucas who beat me to it… Nobody else is interested in an old map, Angor thought.

“The guards said that they saw a flying guy escaping through the window that night,” Neet explained. “But they aren’t going to go after a flying man, obviously. Besides, the map isn’t that important.”

Welp. My guess is probably true then. Angor sighed in his mind. “Can we find another ancient map somewhere else?”

…

Again, Angor traveled across the sky stealthily in the night while looking at the shining city beneath.

He was heading straight to the biggest and most luxurious-looking building complex in the middle of the city, where the royal authorities of Anrum stayed.

Infinite Reticence, on.

As his figure faded from plain view, he followed the route mentioned by Neet and dived down.

A moment later, he stepped out of the document chamber and entered the street outside.

Using Neet’s help, he successfully discovered another old map in the royal residence. While at it, he took some time to search around and didn’t find anything about Lucas.

Since Lucas was known as a criminal who blatantly scammed the king, there was no way that a noble family had his clues but the royalties did not. This probably meant someone else came earlier and took everything, again.

Thankfully, whoever stole the records didn’t know about Moyah’s journal.