Warlock Apprentice

“Speaking of Brute Cavern, their best channeling method aimed for apprentices is the ‘Montaus’ Octahedrite Channeling’, which guarantees a base compatibility of 13. Is that what Angor’s using? No… He’s just too fast. Did he grow super affiliated with Montaus that the compatibility went beyond 20? Hmm…”

Thewis mumbled his guesses but without figuring out any usable conclusions.

“How he trains do not concern us.” Eureka pulled Thewis’ attention back. “I’m the one who needs help here. Will your potion work or not?”

Thewis lifted the bottle in his hand. “Partially, I’m afraid. Considering how you got your wound, we can only pray that this thing cures you as much as possible.”

The potion made by Thewis was called the “Rhythmless Cadence”, a product combining the techniques of both the Reformer School and other schools that preferred ancient skills. It was a low-tier potion, but it was still relatively difficult to brew.

It was not for drinking. To apply its effect, they had to perform a certain “cadence” to channel its power out.

Without further ado, Thewis began tapping his fingers on the bottle using a special pattern. As he moved, ethereal symbols left the bottle like migrating birds and dived into Eureka’s forehead.

Each time she absorbed a symbol, Eureka felt her fatigued spirit soothed. However, the pleasure only lasted for a very short moment.

From this point and on, the magical symbols would reach the depth of her mind and mend her injury slowly. In Eureka’s case, there was a large rip in the center of her mindspace, which was the spirit wound she had been suffering.

The floating symbols all reached the tear and dived straight into it, causing it to shrink just a little bit.

That was all Eureka felt. She wasn’t sure if the effect was noticeable at all.

“How was it?” Thewis finished his channeling and quickly asked.

“Almost negligible.” Eureka shook her head. “Perhaps more of it will completely seal the wound up. Just… We need lots of it.”

“Sigh… The potion involves several scarce components. With what I have and my skills, I can only make five more bottles, at best. Rhythmless Cadence is the best potion I can make for treating a wounded spirit. If it doesn’t work, then I don’t have anything else to help.”

Eureka showed a sad smile. “I’ll just bear with it for a little longer then. It’s fine. Thanks to Angor’s Demeter, it doesn’t hurt as badly as before.”

Thewis glanced at the tree-creature beside them.

“I guess I’ll talk to Angor again.”

…

Angor began continuing his next project with no idea of what Eureka and Thewis were up to.

He only had to study one more rune to successfully draw the Silent Detainment magic array. He decided to finish the job right now.

It took him two days to fully grasp the necessary procedure. According to his pre-assessment, an item enchanted with Silent Detainment would be a mid-tier item, which meant he would cause an alchemy omen. Even though alchemy omens did not usually drag innocent observers other than the alchemist into the “omen challenge”, he still decided to finish the work away from Padt Manor.

Again, he took Toby with him and found an empty spot in the wilderness.

The crafting was fast and successful, but the omen took him more time than he expected.

The challenge presented by his new tool, the “Geometric Lock”, sent him in front of a giant magic cube. Each “sticker” on the cube had a simple puzzle on it that he needed to solve, and each time he solved one, the cube would rotate once depending on the position of the sticker, and his goal was to solve the entire cube.

It wasn’t a hard thing to do when he could use “mind overdrive”, but the 4×4 cube still took him an entire night.

When the last position was in place, he was teleported back into reality. Above him, an energy cloud that contained immeasurable data and intelligence slowly dissipated.

Before he could get a better look at his Geometric Lock, however, a low-pitched and serious voice warned him.

“Get away from there immediately. Your alchemy omen could be seen far and wide. The recruiters from several organizations are heading your way, including a man from Song of the Deep.”

It was Thewis’ voice.

“There are recruiters at the Old Earth?” Angor frowned. It was possible for nearby organizations to send their men here fast in this season, but why would anyone recruit apprentices here? And what was the deal with Song of the Deep?

Angor didn’t think Thewis was tricking him. There was no point.

And he certainly didn’t want to bump into Song of the Deep or any strange wizard for that matter, so he quickly stuffed Geometric Lock in his bracelet, told Toby to go into Griffin Mode, and disappeared in the next second.

After he was gone, Thewis showed up at his original position.

“A mid-tier product within 24 hours. That’s almost as fast as some of the best alchemists.”

Thewis knew what Angor was doing because the alchemy omen was pretty obvious, and he wasn’t surprised at all.

Still, he was impressed by Angor’s skills.

He looked to his west and then south, from where he sensed someone rapidly approaching. He could tell their identities as well—recruiters who sailed on the same ship with him a while ago.

With a simple spell, Thewis removed all traces and hormones Angor possibly left behind. It was unlikely that the recruiters could find Angor by using these things, but Thewis would like to make sure Angor stayed hidden, as it meant protecting Eureka as well.

With everything done, he blended into the shadows and vanished.

…

A moment later, three individuals arrived at the scene at the same time and gave each other several uninterested glances.

“You all saw that alchemy omen, I guess?” This one was a woman in a dark-blue wizard robe and riding on a broomstick. She had a pair of red-scaled vipers resting around her neck.

“Can’t miss it,” a man fully covered in a black robe replied in a gruff voice. The only thing that could be seen on the outside was his skinny hands that almost looked like tree branches. In fact, there were green leaves hidden under his sleeves.

“He’s gone! What a disappointment. I thought I finally got to meet a professional alchemist.” The viper-woman’s eyes glimmered with craftiness.

The third recruiter was a fat young man wearing a felt hat, who was together with Thewis when leaving their ship.

Instead of joining the conversation, he took out a golden scroll and unleashed its power into the area.

“Absolutely nothing. Whoever was doing alchemy here was a rather cautious man.” He scratched the “fish scale” on the back on his hand. An alchemist at the Marginalized Island… That should be the target.

“Ahem. ‘Twin Adder’ Feyling of Tower of Hurricane, ‘Stiff Scion’ Henry of Gravity Forest. How fare you, my friends?” The fat man bowed. “Would you mind if I ask a small question?”

Henry and Feyling kept their guard up without speaking. As fellow passengers, they knew each other’s business.

This man from Song of the Deep called himself “King”. The organization alone was enough reason for both Henry and Feyling to stay away from him. Not to mention that King was a very powerful man.

“A simple question, really.” King’s big smile caused his eyes to almost disappear. “I thought you two only remained at Vichy Harbor for a day and were going to leave with the ship. But no, you remained behind. Are you perhaps recruiting? But as I remembered, Gravity Forest and Tower of Hurricane do not find new apprentices at the Marginalized Island.”

“Heh. Our recruitment routes always involve this place. It’s just that we usually exclude it from our plans. Compared to us, Song of the Deep should have no business here whatsoever. What are you doing here?” Feyling questioned back.

“I have nothing to say to you.” Henry simply turned away and was going to leave.

“Not so fast.” King reappeared in front of Henry and blocked his path.

Out of instinct, Henry lifted both hands and unleashed a cluster of sharp vines at King.

“Don’t blame me then.” King snickered when he saw the plants going to trap him. “You attacked me first…”