Warlock Apprentice

The entire illusion was of a grim color while almost every part of it was covered behind a thick, gray mist. Even the sunlight that managed to shine inside was helpless against the darkness.

However, the area was not completely unlit. In Jebra’s view, there were a number of light sources such as Luminous Stone lamps, flying fireflies, or… floating wraiths who were holding candles.

In fact, there was one ghastly-looking soul of a woman hovering not far from Jebra’s position, who had a crimson lamp in one hand and a giant scythe in the other that seemed sharp enough to cut through solid stone.

Jebra observed more carefully and noticed energy signatures that suggested another illusion coming from the soul.

“What is this place used for? Are these things just meant to stop people from coming?”

As he wondered what was going on, he saw a man wearing a headscarf rushing away from the door of a broken building, and the door was shining with an ominous red light.

“Five minutes! Just five more minutes and I’ll be fine!” the man yelled loudly.

“Gee hee hee…” A little girl wearing a crimson overall dress slowly floated out of the building. She had a putty knife in her hand that smelled like blood.

The man running away jumped in horror and began dashing even faster. Although the outside wasn’t any more peaceful as several bulky figures with large butchery knives were all heading his way.

Panicked, the man ran into a bush, only to find another small, crawling girl with too many limbs to be considered a proper human.

“Are-are-aren’t you supposed to be a body in the basement?!”

Instead of answering him, the “spider girl” bared several razor-sharp fangs at him.

It seemed he just “activated” another stalker after the girl in red.

“AHHHH–help me Mister Padt! Alda!!!”

Jebra narrowed his eyes while watching. He recognized the escaping man as a new talent found by Angor. Tulu was his name. This man had been traveling with Angor since they left Ferran.

“But why would Angor go away and leave his new recruit in this illusion? Is this like some sort of test? Wait… that red girl. She’s not an illusion!”

Jebra noticed that the girl in red was an actual soul who held almost the same level of energy as level-1 apprentices, which meant Tulu didn’t have much hope of survival.

However, Tulu had been staying alive until now by running through many secret tunnels and hiding spots conveniently scattered about the orphanage.

After some more hide-and-seek, Tulu successfully evaded the “spider girl” by using her blind spots.

But it appeared that the simple tactic did not work against the girl in red, who simply flew in midair and easily discovered where Tulu was hiding.

“No need to run. Gee hee hee… Don’t worry, dear. I won’t kill you too fast. I’ll just scrape your skin bit by bit, and use all the blood to water my favorite tree…”

Tulu saw the girl coming and bolted toward the playground area.

“YOU CAN’T KILL ME! Mister Padt won’t allow it! I’ll-I’ll make it out alive, I will!”

“Are you sure about that?” The girl spoke in her sweet yet creepy voice, “Mister Padt told me not to kill you ‘too easily’. Let me see… you’ll not die too easily if I remove your legs and let you bleed for a little while, right?”

Tulu kept running madly while leaving a trail of tears behind him.

Jebra shook his head. “That girl’s not seriously trying to kill him or she’ll not talk like that. That man’s stupid anyway. He’s not going to find anywhere to hide at that playground.”

But he was soon proved wrong as when Tulu collapsed at the said playground, the girl stopped going after him.

Another soul of a small boy jumped out of the rocky horse he was using and stepped in front of Tulu. “Time’s up, Sunny! Let’s take a rest. You can’t come in here.”

“*Sob* Thank you, thank you, Alda…” Tulu mumbled with a running nose.

Sunny showed a maddened smile as she rushed forward again. “I’m not going to follow some stupid rules!”

The mist around the playground suddenly grew thicker and bounced her away.

“Damn it!” Sunny stomped her feet in frustration. “I suggest you come to me like a good kid! The other monsters won’t be so kind to you…”

She spat and headed back to the building.

Jebra had watched enough to ascertain what was happening in the illusion. He was planning to capture that girl and ask about Angor’s intention, but it seemed there was no need.

The entire illusion was a training ground for Tulu. Angor even left a “safe zone” for him.

“And since the girl in red was an ‘actual’ killer, Angor must have reached some agreement with her. Man… building such a place just to test a recruit. Angor’s probably the only man in this world who would do such a thing.”

Jebra would admit that the “exam” looked pretty well-organized. The monsters and escape routes were very effective to train someone’s wit and courage, as well as the will to stay alive, which was rather important in the wizarding world. Even if someone with poor talent passed the test, they would have enough wisdom and guts to accept proper education later. This was a perfect method for selecting capable talents among mortals.

And besides, as long as the illusion didn’t mean to kill the candidates for real, it could also protect new recruits compared to the more brutal entrance exams such as “death chambers”.

“Maybe I should tell my teacher later and use this as a new means of recruiting for Song of the Deep…” Jebra thought to himself.

Putting the illusion aside, Jebra was still wondering what this orphanage had to do with Angor.

He decided to wait and see. If Tulu was here, then Angor would return soon or later.

As for why Angor left for Saint Sem, Jebra had assumed that he went to recruit talents again. And since that didn’t sound like anything fun to watch, Jebra would stay here and see Tulu struggle for his life.

But before he could go into the orphanage building and see what secret it could offer, his “fish scale tattoo” suddenly began to glow.

He pressed a finger on his forehead and summoned a creature from the scale. He thought it was his whale partner asking to come out to get rid of boredom, but he was VERY surprised to see that it was another blue fish showing up instead.

He received this small fish from Flunza earlier. The only purpose of it was to detect Mystery energy.

“There’s a Mystery item around here?”

Jebra instantly forgot about the orphanage and followed the source of the signal, which took him out of the illusion range.

After telling him the general direction of the energy signature, the blue fish shrank in size until it disappeared completely. According to Flunza, this fish was used for detecting Mystery energy when the item was actively used. And when this happened, the one-use fish would vanish.

Jebra looked that way with a big frown.

Saint Sem? There is Mystery energy coming from Saint Sem City?

He knew that the Tower of Hurricane deployed a group of apprentices over there, which meant the presence of a Mystery item would have already been noticed by the Tower of Hurricane.

“So the item wasn’t here before? Someone took it there or created one recently? Wait up…

“Isn’t Angor heading there right now?”