Warlock Apprentice

Since then, Angor would find some time and visit Jon every day.

After each visit, Jon also needed some time to digest what he heard from Angor, especially all the amazing powers wielded by wizards.

After spending another two weeks in Padt Manor, which was probably the happiest time Angor ever had since he came home, his mental peace was suddenly tested again when he noticed that the Vitalizer’s effect was slowly decreasing. A few months at most, and Jon’s body would continue to decline at an alarming rate.

Today, Angor was going to tell his adventure in the Fairy World.

“The Fairy World comes in three ‘layers’—the surface world, the midworld, and the otherworld. They exist parallel to each other…”

This was the first time for Jon to hear about appendage planes. As someone who always believed that his homeworld was the one and only, Jon needed quite some time to comprehend Angor’s explanation.

While waiting for Jon to recover from his thoughts, Angor decided to talk about their treatment. They both tried to avoid this subject these days. Yet they also knew that this couldn’t be postponed forever.

Again, Jon listened to Angor’s words with an unruffled smile.

“You know, when I left that letter to you, I thought it would be my last chance to speak to you. Now we’re here, sharing yet more moments together. There’s not much I can ask for, really.”

Jon waved a hand and summoned the shadows of several individuals in the dream. Angor’s father, Angor, Leon… and at last, Harvey and Muey.

“Everyone I encountered was helpful and kind. While helping me with my hardships, they also left me with precious memories.” Jon then looked at his family. “Not everything has a perfect ending, but… such is life, no? Look, I’m not worried about dying in one bit. There’s no reason for you to get so stressed about it.”

Angor looked down at the desk. “As I said, your case is not completely lost. But apart from great challenges, finding a cure also involves a big secret that will unsettle the entire wizarding world.”

As Jon listened in confusion, Angor slowly explained the origin of humans.

“As wizards have determined since ancient times, pure-blooded humans should only exist in the wizarding world. They can travel to other planes and worlds, but they will NOT find other humans native to those foreign worlds. But you, Jon, your existence is a giant exception that busted the protocol.”

Exposing Jon’s condition to the public meant many of the existing books and knowledge systems had to be revised. This would change a big part of human history, and perhaps cause a giant impact on many principles in the future.

Next, Angor told Jon about the two unwanted visitors at Padt Manor, Eureka and Red-Haired Thewis.

“Having Eureka here isn’t a big issue. She’s too busy hiding from her enemies to mind anything else. But Thewis… that man’s greatly interested in you.”

“I think I know where this is going.”

“Yes. Since you’re already exposed, I might take you to Brute Cavern and ask someone in the organization to help you. If I can’t find a solution earlier, that is. But in this case, I’m afraid you will…”

“I’ll be locked up as someone’s guinea pig?” Jon frowned.

“Yes. As I said, a human born in another world is a priceless research material.”

Jon sighed. “Of course I want to keep breathing. But losing my freedom… I just don’t know.”

A moment of silence.

“There’s another way.”

…

Angor took out his Gondola and headed to Moonwater City again.

The second way he mentioned to Jon was to become a permanent resident of the Dream Realm, which he had been trying to figure out how.

They had a better chance of healing Jon with the help of Brute Cavern. But in this case, it’d be difficult for them to talk to each other ever again. In the worst case, a wizard might even use Jon to locate Earth, which was definitely bad news.

Handing Jon to Sunders was still acceptable since Sunders probably wasn’t going to treat Jon too badly. Yet it was still unclear when Sunders would return from the Abyss Plane.

As for giving Jon to other wizards… No. Just no.

This was why Angor would like to achieve the second approach, if he had to choose between these two.

In order to safely keep Jon in the Dream Realm, he had to gain control of his own territory. One way to do it was by using the Dream Whelk to create a “reality dream” as mentioned by Freud.

But no matter which method he relied on, Angor would need time either to train or finish his experiments. And time wasn’t exactly sufficient right now.

Though unwilling, he had to bid farewell to Jon and focus on his research.

…

The glowing Moonwater City appeared like an appealing painting in the drizzling night, but Angor wasn’t in the mood to enjoy the view right now. As soon as he arrived, he immediately dived into the dreams of the remaining prisoners.

There were four men who successfully entered lucid dreams tonight. As they relished whatever fantasies they imagined, Angor silently but surely slit their necks.

Later, one of the six surviving criminals showed signs of a “true lucid dream”, as in, he was fully able to control everything in that dream while keeping all of his awareness and memories, just like Jon.

Delighted, Angor executed this one and announced the end of the first stage of his experiment. He now collected enough clues and proofs that backed up his initial theories.

Firstly, those who died while having a lucid dream were very likely to linger in the Dream Realm.

Secondly, death would cause the lucid dream to enter a “stationary” state, and the dreamer could no longer modify it in any way, as shown by the last test subject, who was forced to stop painting his desired world mid-way when Angor killed him.

These two points had taken Angor to a possible conclusion—a dream was created by someone’s brain. Subconsciously, in most cases. And these dreams were like smaller worlds that randomly floated in a place called the “Dream Realm”.

When the dreamer was alive, their dream would remain independent. As soon as their brain stopped functioning, this dream would also shake free of their control and adhere to some other rules and principles in the Dream Realm.

As for whether this assumption was correct… Angor might need to find a Dream Manipulator wizard to ask about it later.

The experiment wasn’t a complete success yet since he was unable to trace the dreams of dead dreamers and tell whether they truly “lived on”. But for now, he had no idea how to address this issue.

“Hold on a minute…”

The Dream Whelk could pull “non-lifeform objects” into dreams. Could it pull the dead prisoners into dreams, since corpses weren’t alive?