Warlock Apprentice

Lochet told Angor that the chain hammer was forged by a master blacksmith and would be used during the next “element enhancement”.

Angor glanced at the useless weapon and focused on the stalactite above. It didn’t look much different than the rest of the stalactites in the cave.

Without sensing anything special, Angor floated toward the ceiling until he could see and touch the pointy structure up close, but he did not find anything either.

“Are you sure the special liquid is produced from here?” He gave Lochet a doubtful look.

“Sir Wizard, I was here when Tavier’s ‘Mulahill’s Fury’ was born. I saw it with my eyes.”

Lochet offered to describe what happened on that day in detail. Before it was enchanted, Tavier’s sword was an ordinary knightly sword with a good design. By following the instructions left by the previous emperor, Lochet placed the sword on the platform and waited for half a month until the “change” came.

That day in the evening, Lochet suddenly felt hot air in the chamber and saw a single drop of glowing red liquid moving down the stalactite. As soon as he came up with a new name for the sword, the liquid left the stalactite and landed on the sword below, causing the weapon to radiate in red as well, until everything died down.

Lochet’s explanation wasn’t very helpful since he mainly focused on unnecessary stuff such as how he created lots of amazing names like “Dragon’s Heart” or “Firestorm”. But Angor could still see that Lochet wasn’t lying. The stalactite did hold some kind of secret.

The problem was that he had not seen such a secret yet. Even Narda’s Vision couldn’t provide an answer.

Since the “element liquid” suddenly appeared on the stalactite without any forewarning, Angor believed there must be an opening or a tunnel that allowed the liquid to come out.

After careful observation, he did find such a thing at the tip of it, which was a tiny hole smaller than the tip of a needle. He didn’t see it earlier because all the stalactites were far from smooth and had many hollows and dents on them.

He reached a spirit feeler inside the hole and noticed that the inside of the tunnel was way longer than he thought. The spirit feeler was now long enough to leave the chamber and reach somewhere afar.

He kept going in excitement. Reaching the end of this hidden tunnel meant he could find the final secret.

Is there an elemental concentration? Or a Mystery item? He kept taking guesses and could no longer hold back his curiosity.

Finally, his spirit feeler came to a stop.

There were no treasure nor element chunks like he surmised. Instead, he saw a door.

Precisely speaking, it was the picture of a door drawn on a piece of paper.

Along with it, there were many strange creatures painted on the paper as well, such as fairies with butterfly wings, rats with electric arcs flashing on their bodies, turtles with fish tails… Also, they all appeared as elemental forms.

Whoever drew the picture perfectly recreated their liveliness and made them look as good as real.

Angor then tried extending his spirit feeler further so that he could check the painted door. As soon as he did so, the creatures suddenly became alive.

Lightning, fireballs, and ice arrows… All of the pictures instantly unleashed various attacks at Angor’s spirit feeler, and Angor suddenly felt his vision going dark.

Toby saw Angor stumbling in the air and quickly used gravity power to steady his momentum. Falling from there wouldn’t hurt much, but it wouldn’t look pretty in front of Lochet.

Angor shook his head to clear his mind before he looked around with a painful expression. The attacks he received weren’t very powerful, but they still hurt badly as his spirit was defenseless at that moment.

“What’s the matter, sir?” Lochet and Tavier noticed Angor’s strange condition.

“It’s nothing. I haven’t slept in many days and the fatigue just got me.”

After resting for a while, Angor reached his spirit feeler into the hole again, more carefully this time. It seemed the drawings on the paper wouldn’t bother him as long as he kept a certain distance from them.

Without any other means to check the strange paper, he stepped to another spot of the cave and looked at the ceiling, where the mysterious paper should be located behind the ceiling wall.

He wondered if he should forcefully break the ceiling to reveal it.

He then tried to reach his spirit feeler directly from here without using that hidden tunnel. But as soon as the feeler touched the stone above, it was erased by a powerful force, which caused Angor to crouch down in pain. He felt as if he took a direct hit on his soul from a sharp dagger.

He spent an entire hour recovering this time, and he felt his spirit weaker than ever.

Perhaps someone placed a deadly restriction around the paper, which could only be approached via that small passage. As for using force to break the wall… it definitely wasn’t a good idea.

He might need to endure the attacks delivered by the sketched monsters to get past the door. However, he highly doubted that his spirit was strong enough for it.

Unless… he could somehow shrink in size and dive into the tunnel himself.

The only way he could think of for this purpose was by using the Transform cantrip. And since that cantrip was usually regarded as something more complex than spells…

No. It seemed he wasn’t going to learn the secret any time soon.

He felt itchy to know who left such a strange thing in the Goldspink Empire. Did it drain all the active elements from the Old Earth? No one would believe that elemental forms could be born here. Yet Angor knew that those elemental attacks were deadly real.

He didn’t want to give up yet and began asking for more information from Lochet. Since the Shannon Clan existed in Goldspink for many generations, they were bound to know something.

In order not to annoy Angor, Lochet told what he learned from his ancestors. However, he would often stray off the main subject by mentioning irrelevant things such as the beautiful ladies he liked and how his clan kept lots of remarkable weapons thanks to their great effort.

Lochet seemed to be the type who loved gossip and rumors a lot. While talking, he revealed many secrets related to his ancestors that were probably private.

Angor still listened to all the useless nonsense because he didn’t want to miss any key information Lochet might mention.

And… he gradually began to regard Lochet in a completely different way.

While talking about the love affairs between his clan members, Lochet never stopped grinning in a despicable way that he didn’t look like an emperor at all. Rather, he appeared more like a filthy stalker who loved peeping at bathing women.

Even Princess Tavier was getting embarrassed. Without moving too much or showing any particular expressions, she would occasionally guide her father back on track by stepping on his foot.

When Angor wondered whether the emperor’s toes were snapped by Tavier’s iron boots, he finally heard a piece of interesting clue.

“There was another strange figure who came to us before. I think he was a supernatural like you, sir.”