Warlock Apprentice

The scale held by Yethew looked gray and dull as if the Duon who owned it had died a long time ago.

“This one’s different from ours…” Keely checked. “So apart from numbers, different Duons have different colored scales on them too?”

Freud heard their conversation and offered to explain this one.

“I read the dream of a Duon, so I know how this thing works.” His voice was still trembling a little after witnessing how Keely burned Yethew’s soul to nothingness just now.

“Well?” Keely looked at him.

Freud did not hold back anything he learned since he already planned to display his value as much as possible to Angor. “Their scales represent their social standing. From the most important individuals to the lowest ones, they have gold, silver, white, and gray scales. But I don’t think it has anything to do with us. Wait… there’s something! We need two scales of the same color to get a Meraid’s sword.”

Angor took out his golden sword and chuckled. “So this thing came from someone important?” He put the sword away and asked, “So how did Yethew found me out? Is there a cantrip for that?”

“So, um, you already combined two scales, Mister Padt?”

“Yup.”

“Pick up Yethew’s scale and you’ll see why.”

Angor frowned and complied. When he put his hand on the gray scale, he sensed strange ripples coming from both his own body and Keely, which showed them who owned a sword.

Then he handed the scale to Keely, who also realized the secret trick.

“We can use this to locate the other swords…”

“Exactly,” Freud nodded and said, “but the passive detection has a range limit. I think you can sense any scale or sword holders who are within a distance of a hundred meters.”

“Passive… you mean we can actively choose to sense others too?”

“You can. If you place your spirit feeler on it, you’ll get the general direction of other swords and scales, up to several dozen kilometers.”

Keely followed the instruction and closed her eyes.

“Yeah… I think I saw several scales that way, where the Octobor roamed. This thing…” She gave Angor a serious look. “They designed this thing so that the participants can hunt each other down.”

Angor also realized the grim situation they were in. Most apprentices weren’t lucky enough to find scales in pairs. They would all need to fight among each other like what happened to Yethew and Freud.

The scale was a tool that helped build up more violence and bloodshed in the garden challenge.

More importantly, people could tell the difference between scales and swords. This meant that instead of going out to find the scale and get disappointed if they were to get mismatched colors, they would try to take the swords off each other’s hands.

Angor and Keely had two Meraid’s Swords. They would certainly become the target of anyone who discovered them.

“Nice plan. This is pretty efficient if you want to thin out apprentices faster…” Keely looked really pumped up about something.

“But they can’t tell if their prey is weak or strong, meaning, the ambushers won’t know whether they will get killed instead,” Freud added. “I guess you can call it a fair match in a really twisted way.”

“Well, the whole world is twisted,” said Keely. “So… we can’t sense anyone if we already got a sword?”

They tried and realized that the sword couldn’t provide anything like that.

“Yes,” Freud said and nodded. “But the sword can tell you the location of the Altar of Demise, and that’s where you get out.”

“To achieve freedom, we must hunt for scales. And after that, we need to reach the altar AND fight off those who have not found freedom,” Keely scoffed. “They made it so complicated. Why not just throw us all into a battlefield and see who’s the winner?”

Angor shrugged. “Maybe Freud was right. The city is trying to be ‘fair’.”

Despite those words, Angor fully knew that the moment the expandable apprentices stepped into the garden, there was no longer fairness and justice.

The city held such a challenge to “pretend” to be fair. They meant to tell others that people all had chances to remain in the end.

And in a sense, it was fair since weaker apprentices who were smart enough might still win in the end. Although they were not likely to keep it for very long.

“Guess we have to prepare against enemies now,” said Angor. “I tried, but putting the sword inside my space storage can’t prevent detection.”

“So be it. Elite or not, I’ll kill them all.” Keely didn’t seem to be worried.

Angor chuckled helplessly. Keely had all the right to be reckless since she was strong enough to defend herself from something like the Octobor.

Angor was pretty confident in the coming crisis too. He just one-shot an elite apprentice. And if he couldn’t defeat someone, he would simply run and nobody would be able to catch him. Still, he would have been happier if his Infinite Reticence still worked, which wasn’t the case right now.

He held Yethew’s scale in one hand. “With this, I can also sense who are coming to us so that no one will take us by surprise. The question is, how to use the Meraid’s Sword to tell the location of our goal?”

“You drop it,” Freud answered, “and it will guide you there.”

And they did just that.

Just like what Freud said, the sword hovered and spun for a while before it pointed to a certain direction like a compass needle.

Angor nodded to Keely and prepared to head out.

“Mister Padt,” Freud suddenly asked, “can I… look at my body one last time?”

“Sure.” Angor had no problem since the request didn’t take much time.

“I’ll wait outside,” Keely said as she moved ahead.

Angor tossed the gray scale to Keely and asked her to watch out for the signals. He then followed Freud into the watchtower.

The inside of the building reeked of blood. Freud’s corpse was lying on the coral bed Angor used before.

His skin was all pale since half of his blood already left his body. There was a giant hole in the middle of his forehead, through which his brain was exposed.

Angor sighed at the terrible sight and released Freud from the Soul Floret. “I’ll get you inside if that light beam shows up again.”

Freud thanked him and floated to his former body.

He watched in silence while his expression changed from that of sadness, joy, and yearning.

Angor tried to imagine what he would feel if he were to look at his own dead corpse. It had to be hard, bidding farewell to the vessel that always proved your existence in this world.

“We came here because we sensed scales. More than one. But then we saw they weren’t separate ones, but several of them combined together. I told Yethew to hide and watch, but he didn’t listen. He wanted me to use my ability to read something from a Duon, and he killed me when I’m defenseless…” Freud described what happened to him just now.

“My soul didn’t get hurt, but I thought I’d never get my revenge. Then you came, Mister Padt.” The pale face of Freud’s soul smiled brightly at Angor as he continued, “I saw Yethew checking his scale and then looking at you in a strange way. That’s when I was sure you had the sword we were looking for.

“I knew my chance was here,” Freud bowed deeply and said, “and I’m glad you helped.”

Angor nodded without saying anything.

“I had several potions and scrolls left on me,” Freud said. He looked extremely tired after mourning his own death. “You can take them.”

With that, Freud dived back into the Soul Floret.

Angor considered and said something else, “I still have space left in my storage, and I happen to have a coffin in there. Maybe we can take your body along.”

Angor was referring to the coffin used by Dodoro. Back then, the coffin was filled with Akeso’s blood. Angor had retrieved the blood into a better container and the coffin was left empty.

“No…” Freud shook his head. “We can’t do anything with it anyway. Why bring along a burden?”

Angor didn’t insist since Freud said no. He moved to take several one-use space capsules from Freud’s corpse before he stepped out of the watchtower.