Warlock Apprentice

As he watched, the energy chunk was changing its mass. From a piece of random, shapeless lump, it was slowly creating something out of itself.

Still in his mindless state, Angor silently waited for it to finish. By now, he had enough reasons to believe that the Alien Eye had its own consciousness or even intelligence. Whatever it was, he would patiently wait for it to unfold.

He quite enjoyed such an unmindful and incurious state as it helped him think clearer than ever. If he were to work right now, he would be capable of truly focusing while erasing all unnecessary thoughts from his head.

For example, when he sensed the strange energy giving birth to a small fraction of a larger shape, he immediately foretold that it was the frame of a door.

The energy wanted him to see it.

“Am I supposed to study this ‘door’? Should I open it?”

Even in his serene psyche, he still knew he should not carelessly do such a thing and run into whatever danger hidden behind the door.

“Should I leave then?”

As soon as he thought about this option, the energy chunk suddenly exploded, before the scattering shreds of it gathered into a small dot. It appeared to be the same “light spot” that was being absorbed by the Alien Eye earlier.

“Did that happen because I wanted to leave? Hmm…”

Though not everything was the same with the light spot. Angor just realized that he could feel its presence now.

The spot soon vanished from his senses. At the same time, he felt it reappearing inside his mind space.

Once again, the spot expanded and began to construct that “door” again. But this time, he could no longer choose to ignore it.

Usually, he would get frustrated when something uninvited slipped its way inside his head like that. But without his emotions, he simply waited for the “door” to finish up. It was not like he could chase the intruder out of his mind space anyway.

He could tell that the construction of the strange door was rather slow. Or rather, the speed depended on how fast he could understand the implications shown by the door. Each time a new strand of energy was added to it, he would sense a new tidal wave of intelligence forcefully fusing into his memory. However, none of the knowledge was helpful because he had no idea how to use it. It was like copying someone else’s homework. He could read, but not learn.

Like watching a child playing with building blocks, he had to tell the shape, the function of each block, and which part it would play in the coming building.

The energy was showing him a very difficult yet comprehensible art while making sure that it was within his capability.

“It reads my memory and knows my limit?”

This was fine. He would gladly accept the lesson.

This place felt similar to the Nightmare Realm. Here, he couldn’t tell time, nor could he feel hunger. If he stopped moving, the world around him would also stop with him.

Each time he successfully comprehended an “energy strand”, he would add one to his mental counter. Now, he had reached over one thousand.

Telling from the complexity of the knowledge, he knew he must have spent a few years already. Thankfully, he did not know what “boredom” was right now.

After reading countless indications, he noticed that all of them were related to “dimension” in one way or another. As an alchemist, he had read about items designed to stabilize dimensional tunnels or with other similar functions. He also knew that certain Occultists in the wizarding world could wield dimension-related spells, though he never encountered anyone like that.

He thought the lessons would be pointless because it was not his field of expertise. But then, everything was designed in a way that he could slowly assimilate it using what he had learned before.

When the “door” was halfway done, it stopped growing and quietly floated in his mind space.

He didn’t find this to be a bother at all. Whatever the strange energy was building, it was symmetrical. Building one half was enough as a lesson.

He knew he had to finish the rest of the work.

He couldn’t wield the strange energy to build the door. But he knew he could use other types of energy for the job, such as conventional mana in his mind space.

Getting to the job for real was unsurprisingly hard. He took a long time to simulate the first “energy strand” and held it suspended without weaving it onto the door.

He more or less knew that the strange door was in fact the model of a cantrip. But unlike ordinary spell models, this one did not need a constant supply of mana to exist.

However, something told him that a wrong construction step would ruin it and deny him a precious chance of studying a very powerful cantrip. This was why he wanted to make every move count.