Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 1299: Section 1300 New Type of Insect Eggs

Since the incident that night, Parsha had been in a daze for the past few days.

Although his daily routine was still to sit at his doorstep, smoking his pipe and arguing over trivial matters with Dim from the house next door, in his spare moments, he found himself unconsciously gazing in the direction of Pat Manor, pondering the situation within.

That afternoon, since Dim had gone to the forge to work on a new batch of farm tools, Parsha had no one to banter with. After lunch, he didn’t sit at the doorway but instead slightly opened a window slit and stared blankly towards the manor.

“You’re of an age now, knowing full well your health isn’t good, yet you still open the window to let in a streak of cold air in the dead of winter.” A faint sound came from behind him; turning around, he saw Goldie sitting on the glass lampshade of the oil lamp.

“It’s just that I’m worried about Angel,” Parsha sighed, idly dumping some ash from his pipe into a pot of primroses on the windowsill. “By the way, a few days ago, Viscount had you enter the manor. What did he ask you to do? How are things inside now?”

Goldie replied offhandedly, “I didn’t go, but I heard it was just to cook a feast to welcome Young Master Pat home. I asked the clan members who went, and they said that the situation in the manor is still okay for now.”

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“Come to think of it, if the situation at the manor were too bad, the Viscount wouldn’t let us go back. I guess, with the way things are progressing, it shouldn’t be long before we can return to the village.”

Goldie finished with a happy note and, seeing Parsha’s distant look, quickly added, “I don’t mean to disparage your attic, old man. It’s just that the village was hard to establish. Even if we return, I’ll still come out to visit you from time to time.”

Parsha chuckled, “I don’t care whether you return to the village or not.”

“Then why do you have that look on your face…”

Parsha shook his head and pointed to the distance, “I noticed there seems to be some movement at Pat Manor. It looks like someone has come out.”

Upon hearing this, Goldie quickly stood up, tapped his foot and, with a rustling noise, before Parsha could even react, Goldie had leaped onto the windowsill.

Goldie stood on the leaves of the primroses, peering outside.

“It does look like people are coming out of the manor. And there seems to be more than one?” While Goldie was still puzzled as to why there would be so many people in the manor, he suddenly saw that group of ‘people’ take flight, moving rapidly amongst the clouds and the void.

One of the ‘people’ flew over the roof of Parsha’s house. As they looked up, they realized something was amiss.

The so-called ‘person’ was only about the height of a five or six-year-old child, its form resembled a human, but its face was rigid, flickering with a metallic luster.

“They don’t seem alive. They look like the Alchemy Golem that Rococo mentioned before,” Goldie mused.

“Rococo, is that one of your clan members? I’ve never heard this name before. And what is an Alchemy Golem?” Parsha asked, curious.

Goldie explained briefly, “Rococo is talented in the ways of magic and has embarked on the path of Wizardry. An Alchemy Golem, you can think of it as a wizard’s magical creation.”

Parsha, after all, was known in Gru Town as an old scholar, “A wizard’s creation, so it’s like a mechanical device? Then they don’t have life?”

Goldie furrowed his brows slightly, “I don’t know, but rather than these profound questions, I’m more curious to know why so many wizardry creations are flying out of the manor. What are they going to do?”

Meanwhile, in a hall inside Pat Manor.

Angel approached the window, drew back the curtain, and also saw batches of Alchemy Golems flying away into the sky.

“Suise has already started moving.” Angel spoke softly, “But the control range of the Alchemy Golems is limited, can they really find Rolando through this method?”

“Given the control range of the Alchemy Golems, it shouldn’t take long for results to appear. Then we will know the answer,” Sanders said casually from a sofa in the back. However, his perfunctory tone of voice suggested that he didn’t hold much hope for Suise’s actions this time.

Angel dropped the curtain, “Well, let’s leave it at that for now.”

Angel had returned to the hall and sat opposite Sanders, intending to discuss Jon’s condition with him. But before he could speak, he sensed a small head poking in through the hall entrance.

When Angel glanced towards it, the figure was startled, flapping its wings and fleeing.

Angel walked to the entrance of the hall, and from the lingering sweet fragrance in the air, he could almost guess the identity of the person.

There was a bottle of nectar wine on the floor, with a note pressed underneath it.

Picking up the nectar wine and bringing it to the table he said, “It was a Moonbell Sprite. He left a note asking when Toby would wake up.”

As he spoke, Angel took Toby out of his pocket. Toby was motionless, but beneath the soft feathers, a slight warmth and steady breathing signified that Toby still held on to life.

“Toby’s vital signs are fairly stable, but I’m still concerned about whether it can wake from this ordeal.”

Sanders said, “The toughest phase of the Calamity Curse has passed, things will get better from here. If things are settled here and Toby hasn’t awakened yet, we could go look for Greya at Black Castle.”

Sanders said this, but he felt that Greya probably couldn’t come up with any solution either.

Toby had met with disaster, and it could only rely on its own tenacity and destiny. Sometimes, the help of others can backfire and might even lead them into misfortune too.

Angel sighed, as there truly were no other options at the moment.

To the inquiry of the Moonbell Sprite, the only answer he could write was a denial.

Setting aside Toby’s situation for the time being, Angel and Sanders discussed Jon’s condition and then talked about some matters regarding progress in their practices.

Among these, Sanders specifically asked about the Witchcraft Slot that Angel had chosen.

Angel’s response was still the same as before, shrouded in mystery, which made Sanders even more curious about Angel’s choice.

When they had talked about almost everything, Angel prepared to return to his room. He planned to seclude himself for a while during his search for Rolando in Suise. So, before leaving, he asked Sanders, “Mentor, are you planning to go to the Wilderness of Dreams?”

Sanders shook his head, “No need for the moment. I plan to get a more detailed understanding of Jon’s situation. Also, it won’t be long before my Dream Entering Technique is complete, and then I will try it out myself.”

In the following days, the manor was bustling with comings and goings of Alchemy Golems, causing quite a ruckus.

Not just Parsha, but most of the residents of Gru Town noticed this.

Not every town resident knew of the existence of wizards, and they were worried that some accident had befallen the manor. Lyon even appeared in Gru Town for an entire day, making up a story about an “inventor.”

Despite the commotion being so great, there seemed to be no concrete results to speak of.

However, Angel was not paying attention to the activities in Suise. He practiced his routine diligently every day, studied tricks, constructed the Gate Model, and during his free time, he would read to increase his knowledge based on a booklist provided by Sanders.

Of these activities, the construction of the Gate Model was steady, but the biggest impact was from learning tricks, especially when studying fire-related tricks. Even without using the Primeval Flame to assist him, whenever he worked on fire-related tricks, the Primeval Flame within the mark on his earlobe would actively join in to stimulate him, allowing him to gain a deeper understanding of fire-related tricks in a short time.

If he were not on the Old Earth Continent where elemental energy was almost nonexistent, he probably would have made even greater progress.

He received such a boost without activating the Primeval Flame. Just imagine how much he would improve if he formally studied the Primeval Flame!

Angel now understood why the Primeval Flame drove nearly all wizards to madness.

Beyond that, he had another important task: cultivating the Transforming Soft-bodied Insect.

From the manuscript left by Insercott, “Heart of the Swarm,” Angel learned dozens of variables in the cultivation of Pliant Worms.

Therefore, when dealing with the Pliant Worms, he began trying new variables to stimulate the mother worm to lay eggs. The new variables acted as an “internal worry,” and the Dreamweaver Ants as an “external threat.” The combined effect was remarkable.

After a long absence, new types of insect eggs finally began to emerge.

But even knowing the different variables, the process from the birth of the eggs to the hatching required a lot of time. From the time he started stimulating the mother worm in the Barbarian Cave until now, it had only undergone two cycles of egg-laying, one of which was ordinary insect eggs, while the other was a new type of egg.

After a period of cultivation, the new type of egg finally reached the day of hatching.

After waiting for most of the day, a glossy, pitch-black insect crawled out of its egg.

Judging by the color and sheen, it was completely different from previous Pliant Worms… However, it also had noticeable differences from the Transforming Soft-bodied Insect described in the books.

It seemed that, once again, a Transforming Soft-bodied Insect had not been born.

However, if the mutation effect of this Pliant Worm was good, it would probably be valuable.

Unfortunately, after a period of evaluation and observation, Angel lamented that it was a worm that enhanced in defense, or rather, it would be more appropriate to call it a “Rigid Worm” instead of a Pliant Worm.

But this so-called “Rigid Worm” had lost the advantages of the Pliant Worm, and in Angel’s view, it was a negative mutation.

After all, no matter how hard the shell of the “Rigid Worm” was, it was just a matter of squeezing it with more force.

Therefore, under Angel’s deliberate manipulation, during the daily boundary wars, the Dreamweaver Ants “easily” defeated the Rigid Worm. To make the mother worm remember this lesson, Angel controlled an ordinary Pliant Worm to place the body of the Rigid Worm outside the mother worm’s chamber, to show how frail the Rigid Worm truly was!

When most of the Rigid Worm’s body had been consumed, Angel once again introduced new variables into the nest.

By this time, a week had already passed since Suise began looking for Rolando with Alchemy Golems.