Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 2164: Chapter 2165: Paper Door

The Treasure Vault of the Shannon Royal Family is an underground palace, divided into a front Secret Treasure Room and a primitive earth cavern deep within.

Angel saw the skin scroll in the Secret Treasure Room.

On the skin scroll was a very crudely drawn map, divided into many sections. Each section had a depiction of an elemental creature. For example, in the southeast corner, within a dashed-line separated area, there was a depiction of an elf with wings; in the northwest corner, within a dashed-line separated area, there was a lurking tortoise...

This is the map of the Tidal Realm, and the elemental creatures on it represent the iconic creatures corresponding to different regions of the Tidal Realm.

Angel memorized this map thoroughly and then returned the skin scroll to Rosé.

Shannon Princess: ”Sir, don’t you need it?”

Angel shook his head: ”No need, this was left to your Shannon royal family by Feng.”

The reason Angel said this is because Feng had actually left the information on this map open, therefore, Angel, using the Eye of Nalda, could see the information Feng left on the skin scroll—

Title: ”Tide World Map (Abridged)”.

Creator: Mirafell Feng

Information: A rough distribution map of the representative creatures of Tidal World.

Effect: Activated by the Shannon royal family’s bloodline, and supplemented by an energy source, can summon the corresponding creatures’ simulated structure.

Note: ”Oh dear, I’m not good at drawing maps, just make do with it.”

Although this is a map, it can also be considered a special summoning artifact.

From the effect description, it’s clear that the Shannon royal family can use their own bloodline to summon the elemental creatures depicted on the skin scroll to fight enemies.

However, summoning elemental creatures requires the consumption of blood and an energy source. Previously, the Shannon royal family didn’t know what the energy source was, and each time they summoned an elemental creature, it was completely fueled by their own blood. This kind of singular consumption required huge life energy as a backstop; hence, every summon would claim the life of a royal family member.

After returning the skin scroll, Angel said, ”Let’s go, take me to the place where the stalactites are.”

Rosé nodded.

Throughout the journey, Angel noticed that Rosé was much quieter than the last time he saw him.

Angel actually had quite an impression of this king of the Shannon royal family. In his memory, Rosé was quite talkative, and he had a trait of never getting to the point, often digressing from east to west. Sometimes, unwittingly, he would reveal many royal secrets.

But now, Rosé had become almost non-verbal, which puzzled Angel. However, he didn’t inquire but merely speculated that perhaps something had happened within the Shannon royal family recently, causing Rosé’s personality to change drastically?

While Angel was secretly speculating, he didn’t notice that from the shadow behind him, a crimson gaze was glaring at Rosé.

Rosé wasn’t silent voluntarily; he was completely intimidated by Earl Mi and dared not speak.

Soon, they arrived at the depths of the earth cavern.

There was a stone gate here, weighing several thousand pounds, requiring multiple Death Warriors guarding the Treasure Vault to exert force together to push it open.

Out of courtesy, Angel did not help, allowing Rosé to gather nearby Death Warriors to collectively push the gate.

Meanwhile, Angel himself raised his head to look at the top of the earth cavern.

His destination was indeed a stone hole deep within the stalactites beyond the gate, but he knew this stone hole wound and twisted, even extending out of the Treasure Vault.

If nothing unexpected happened, hidden within the stone layer above his head lay the paper gate drawn by the Magic Painter Wizard.

When he came initially, he was just an apprentice, a young calf with reckless courage, and without any consideration of danger, used spiritual power to probe the overhead stone layer, which resulted in backlash and mental injuries.

Now, when Angel looked again, he discovered the dense hidden patterns within the stone layer.

These patterns were neither magic patterns nor inscriptions but were drawn with a brush.

There was no energy fluctuation, but under the Eye of Nalda, these patterns formed a dense net, rejecting any probing spiritual power.

This should be Feng’s handiwork, using these patterns to conceal the existence of the paper gate.

These patterns also led later seekers to the only path into the paper gate within the stone layer, which was through the stalactite stone hole.

As Angel pondered, the stone gate was already pushed open.

Inside was almost empty, the only item being a knight’s sword hanging under the stalactite.

Sometimes, stalactites would drip ”Treasure Liquid,” which possessed elemental properties, allowing ordinary weapons to gain elemental power.

The Shannon royal family hung the knight’s sword beneath the stalactite, clearly to wait for the drips of ”Treasure Liquid.”

Angel didn’t give much thought to the knight’s sword but focused his gaze on the stone hole at the stalactite’s center, extending his spiritual power along the stone hole, successfully reaching near the paper gate.

After confirming the paper gate was intact, Angel withdrew his spiritual power, turned, and said to Rosé, ”I will stay here for a while to explore the secret behind the Treasure Liquid. I hope the King will permit it.”

Rosé agreed without hesitation. Angel had once saved his daughter, and previously, he intended to give the skin scroll to Angel, which Angel refused. From these details, Rosé could confirm that Angel was not the kind of evil, greedy wizard.

Even if Angel were indeed evil, they wouldn’t be able to resist. So, it wasn’t necessary to act pretentious and refuse.

Maintaining a good relationship with a powerful wizard, especially one who is also a noble within the Empire, was definitely not detrimental to the Shannon Royal Family.

”Honorable Wizard, do you need me to assign someone to guard here?” Rosé asked.

Angel shook his head: ”No need, the only request is, before I leave here, I hope no one enters the underground palace.”

Rosé nodded. He wanted to say something more, but seeing that Angel had already focused his attention on the stalactites, he thought for a moment, then simply led the Shannons and Death Warriors out of the Treasure Vault.

When Angel snapped out of his thoughts, he found he was the only one left in the vast earth cavern.

Angel had originally planned to find an excuse to have Rosé and the others leave, but before he could say anything, Rosé had already led them away, saving him the trouble.

Looking around the empty earth cavern, Angel rubbed his chin with his fingers and muttered to himself, ”Even though it’s unlikely anyone will discover it, let’s set up some protection measures.”

Over the next day, Angel set up a small illusionary realm within this relatively small earth cavern.

Though it was only a small illusionary realm, Angel applied everything he had learned, with nodes complex and elaborate, and used the Nightmare Illusion as the foundation. Even a True Knowledge Wizard would take quite some time to crack it, unless brute force was applied.

But using brute force would introduce another problem... it would definitely trigger the patterns left by the Magic Painter Wizard.

Although Angel didn’t know what consequences triggering those patterns might have, he believed it would certainly not lead to any good outcomes.

After completing all this, Angel placed Toby, who was sleeping in his chest pocket, into the bracelet.

He planned to crawl into the stone hole in the stalactite shortly, and Toby’s size would surely not fit, so Toby had to go into the bracelet. The bracelet had an adaptive size function, so there was no concern about it getting stuck in the hole.

After putting Toby into the bracelet, Angel glanced at Earl Mi in the shadows, contemplating whether or not to store Earl Mi as well?

Under the influence of the Seed of Distortion, Earl Mi’s thoughts had long become chaotic, and the only thing it could understand was Angel’s words. In fact, due to the Seed of Distortion, even when Angel didn’t speak, it could comprehend what Angel was thinking.

At this moment, Earl Mi understood Angel’s mind.

It emerged from Angel’s shadow and slowly sank back into the shadow, disappearing.

Though there were no words spoken from beginning to end, Angel still understood its meaning.

Earl Mi was indicating that once it merged into a shadow, it wouldn’t be affected by the Material Realm.

This meant that even if Angel transformed into an ant, it would enter the ant’s shadow, unaffected by the constraints of physical size.

”That does save some effort.” Angel muttered as he removed his clothing and stored it in the bracelet.

Once he was completely nude, Angel began to activate the Shapeshifting Technique, transforming into a slender thread.

The current limit of his Shapeshifting Technique could only shrink him to the size of a standard pearl. This size was already quite remarkable; most Wizards couldn’t shrink beyond the size of the Kulakuka Tribe people.

Angel’s transplanted Transforming Soft-bodied Insect skin was of the highest quality, which allowed his shrinking limit to surpass other Wizards.

However, even at pearl size, he still couldn’t enter the grain-of-sand-sized holes.

Therefore, Angel changed his approach. Since the limit on shrinking could only reach the size of a pearl, he decided to shrink his head to fit into the hole and let his body stretch out—as long as the head could enter, the tail could follow.

Thus, the current thread form was created.

Angel wriggled the thread, examining the exterior of the hole briefly, adjusted his shape a bit to ensure accuracy, and then transformed into a ray of white light, diving into the tiny stalactite hole.

...

After weaving through the winding passage for a while, the tunnel gradually expanded, and by the time it reached the paper door, it was large enough to accommodate the size of a member of the Kulakuka Tribe.

Angel did not immediately enter the paper door but stopped about half a meter away, assuming the form of a miniature human figure, quietly observing the paper door not far away.

It really was just a door drawn with thin paper, covered with numerous intricate Elemental Creatures, numbering over a hundred if counted carefully.

Judging by the brushwork, the style was almost identical to that on the Shannon Royal Family map.

Without a doubt, this paper door was definitely the handiwork of Feng.

The painting skills of the Magic Painter Wizard were naturally impeccable. Every Elemental Creature was lifelike, well... not only did they look real, but Angel knew that getting close to the paper door would cause these Elemental Creatures to leap out, greeting visitors with indiscriminate attacks rather than any goodwill.

But, were these Elemental Creatures real?

Angel thought for a moment and decided to test it.

He transformed his spiritual power into a thread, slowly reaching toward the paper door.

As the spirit tentacle approached the paper door, a small cyan rat, surrounded by electricity, emerged from the door and launched an attack on the spirit tentacle.

The electricity turned into a flickering spear, aiming straight for the spirit tentacle’s position.

However, before the attack could take effect, a shadow shot out from the ground, blocking the spirit tentacle. The electric spear was intercepted by the shadow, which swiftly spread to the vicinity of the small rat, transforming into a shadowy marsh that completely devoured the rat.

This shadow, of course, was Earl Mi, who had activated its defensive state.

After swallowing the electric rat, Earl Mi seemed unsatisfied and continued to extend toward the paper door.

In an instant, more than a dozen Elemental Creatures of varying sizes and natures leaped from the paper door, launching elemental assaults on Earl Mi.

These Elemental Creatures’ attacks looked formidable, but considering that they were actually no bigger than a forefinger, no matter how frightening the attacks seemed, they were already at their limit.

And Earl Mi and Angel, though currently small in size, their energy essence hadn’t changed.

The elemental shock might slightly affect fragile spiritual power, but to those with powerful physical bodies like them, it wasn’t even enough to scratch an itch.

Earl Mi simply engulfed all the attacks with a spread of shadows, incidentally swallowing them too.

Just as Earl Mi was about to launch another assault on the paper door, Angel said, ”That’s enough, come back.”

Earl Mi offered no rebuttal, returning to Angel’s side and sinking slowly into the shadow.

Angel, at this point, stepped forward.

When he crossed the paper door’s threshold, another electric rat leaped out at him.

With a gentle wave of his hand, Angel turned the electric rat into a wisp of static, which dissipated invisibly.

Angel sensed the residual electric tingle in the air.

”As expected, the Elemental Creatures on the paper door aren’t real; they’re just a magical trick. As long as you have enough energy, you can never get rid of them.” Angel looked at the vivid designs on the nearby paper door: perhaps this was a threshold set by the Magic Painter Wizard for those who arrived later in the Tidal World?

Or perhaps it was some kind of hint?

Angel shook his head, deciding not to ponder further. He moved forward to erase another wave of Elemental Creatures, directly reaching the paper door.

Angel extended his hand, intending to push the paper door open.

However, at the moment his hand touched the door, there was no physical sensation; instead, ripples spread through the space, penetrating to the other side of the door.

”Oh?” Angel raised an eyebrow and stepped directly through the paper door.

It felt like passing through a layer of water film.

When Angel emerged again, he was on the other side of the paper door.

Before him lay a long, narrow passage that only a mini-sized human form could pass through, while behind him remained the paper door.

Only now, this paper door no longer displayed Elemental Creatures but was instead engraved with another complex pattern. It resembled the design he had seen earlier in the rock strata, though its effect was difficult to ascertain.

Angel knew better than to attempt researching it in a short period, opting instead to set it aside for later. His priority now was to explore the path ahead.

With this in mind, Angel prepared to turn back and leave. However, just as he turned his head, Angel caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye on the lower right of the paper door—a pattern distinctly different from the others.

”Could it be words?” Angel muttered, turning around to take another look.

Upon closer inspection, it really was text.

Judging by the sharp strokes, it was undoubtedly left by the Magic Painter Wizard.

Written in a slightly playful tone, it read:

”Oh dear, fortunate latecomer, do you wish to find my treasure? I’ve already placed it there~”