Warlock Apprentice

When they reached Orlando’s room, the man was sprawling on the floor. There was a carpet so he did not get himself too dusty.

“Or—Orlando? What are you doing?” asked Sailum. He was puzzled.

Orlando lifted his head and revealed thick, dark circles around his eyes which severely ruined his handsome look. His hat that was made from cotton was tossed aside, and his medium-length brown hair was completely messed up and looked like a bird’s nest.

Orlando stared at Sailum for a while with unfocused eyes before replying, “Oh… Sailum.”

“You’re meditating?” Angor saw an opened book left on the carpet. A page in the middle of the book was showing a spirit model in the shape of an octahedral prism. Angor saw the book before. It was one of the most basic channeling methods taught in Brute Cavern, Rhombic Crystal Channeling.

Orlando looked around at Angor slowly. “Ah… Angor, you came too.”

“Hey, Angor… Is there something wrong with his brain?” Sailum dragged Angor aside and whispered.

“Maybe he didn’t sleep well? His face is all yellow, just like those people who stayed up for several days,” said Angor. His nature would not allow him to badmouth someone right in front of him.

“Really?” Sailum glanced at Orlando with a doubtful expression.

Orlando did not mind his visitors. He turned the page of the channeling method book in slow motion, read it briefly, and closed his eyes to meditate.

“He’s meditating like that? But he looks so tired,” Sailum mumbled.

Angor, on the other hand, became serious about something and showed a surprised look.

“Angor? Hey, Angor?” Seeing how Angor did not respond, Sailum nudged him.

“Oh Sailum, what?” Angor was thinking about something and failed to pay attention to Sailum’s actions.

“Orlando is meditating, maybe we should go back?” Sailum said.

Instead of replying, Angor asked Sailum a question, “Are you studying Rhombic Crystal Channeling?”

“Yeah.”

Angor pointed to the book in front of Orlando and asked, “Look, he’s already onto the part of building the model. Is he doing that now?”

As they were learning the same thing, Sailum did not hide anything. He checked the book and quickly showed a surprised expression as well.

“Yes, he is. And he’s about to complete it already!” Sailum exclaimed.

Angor recalled seeing Orlando’s condition when he just came.

Fatigue on the body but not on the mind… It sure looked like the fundamental of meditation.

“It can’t be real. Orlando only started his training recently. He spent half a month crying after leaving Roffig. And he’s building his spirit model already? I think he even opened up his mana pool,” said Sailum. He was unconvinced by it and asked, “Does that mean Orlando is an apprentice wizard now?”

“I don’t know…” Angor shook head.

Since Orlando was meditating, they should not discuss it here. They carefully left Orlando’s room.

Sailum stayed silent on their way back. The boy thought Angor was the only one among the talents who was ahead of him. Now Orlando proved to be someone way ahead of everyone while being the latest starter aside from Balba.

“Maybe that’s his talent,” Sailum muttered in frustration.

Angor had been calm and he said, “Of course someone with good talent trains faster. But do you remember Mister Tree Spirit mentioning something else to you when he didn’t do that for Orlando? It means our talent levels are pretty close to each other. It depends on our own effort.”

Angor stretched himself to relax. “It seems that we both have to work harder from now on. I don’t want to be left behind.”

Sailum was also encouraged. He clenched his teeth and replaced the frustration in his eyes with enthusiasm.

“I think I can’t find Balba for now,” said Angor. He continued, “He’ll have to wait a bit longer.”

Sailum thumped his chest. “Don’t worry, I’ll help. When I’m not meditating, I’ll go and ask Orlando. If I learn an answer, I’ll go tell Balba you’re looking for him.”

Angor frowned and asked, “It won’t bother with your training?”

Sailum shrugged as he replied, “Not at all. It’s so boring when I’m taking a rest from my training. Miss Nausica has been keeping herself shut, again, and she didn’t talk to me much. It’s good to have something to do. I’ll just take some walks around.”

“Thank you kindly,” Angor thanked the boy politely. Then he recalled something and spoke again, “I found an underground market for apprentices. When you and Nausica are free, I’ll take you there.”

“Market for apprentices?” Sailum’s eyes brightened up. He then asked, “Nice. I want to see it! What’s it like, full of fantastic stuff?”

“You’ll see it soon.”

…

Upon returning to his villa, Angor began training on the third step for becoming an apprentice.

He acted all calm in front of Sailum, but when realizing how fast Orlando was doing, Angor actually felt a sense of urgency. He made up his mind that this time, he would give it his all to break through until he succeeded.

Once he was able to control his spirit power, building spiritual model was not a difficult task.

However, Singularity Dispersive Meditation was something else. It used the thirty-six-dimensional space coordinate system localization method which was lost in history because of its extreme difficulty, and Angor was going to challenge such a complicated localization method.

The first step of spirit model construction was usually finding a starting point.

For the other channeling methods, this starting point did not need to be totally accurate. The model would work fine as long as the model constructed later was complete. But Singularity required that every point to be flawlessly placed, this was why the channeling method used thirty-six-dimensional space coordinate system localization method.

Locating the starting point was the hardest step for Singularity. This starting point was also called a “Singular Point”, a point which was also referred to as “the terminal of the universe” by wizards. The method used such a point as its starting point and dispersed everything else from it.

The singular point was the fundamental of this book.

To perfectly locate the starting point, Angor first needed to create the 36 coordinate systems in his mind to help him create accurate coordinates for the singular point.

Inside the darkness of the mind, Angor silently imagined the dispersive image originated from the singular point and inspected around the image to determine where to land his first slice.

He had to then divide the 36 sections in a perfect manner, or everything would be in vain. It tested Angor’s personal ability in dealing with big data, about which Angor was completely confident.

Even if he could not do it in his mind, he could use his hologram tablet.

However, it was not the time for that yet. Angor carefully prepared to create the very first section.

Angor triggered his dimensional thinking to its best extent. Any mistake would bring him countless problems in his subsequent work.

Dimensional thinking and big data processing… Angor felt his brain working at extreme speed. His mind shifted between heaven and earth rapidly. From a single memory point, he slowly worked his way around using different data, formulas, equations, and related knowledge points… then placed them in the most correct places.

Angor’s mind worked faster than ever when working out all the logical calculations.

When observed in reality, Angor’s forehead was now covered by sweat. The wooden floor underneath him was now in a darker color.

Aside from sweating, veins were pulsing on the boy’s forehead as well. It was as if the blood that was flowing in him was going haywire and would bust his head open in the next second.

Angor kept on while bearing a high level of mental exhaustion that no ordinary people could endure. His ears were red, his head was releasing hot air, and blood veins had emerged on his eyeballs behind his closed eyelids.

It had only been two minutes.

His brain worked faster than any.

“There!” Three coordinates were born from countless calculations. They shone like three bright stars who illuminated his dark mind space.

Once he sensed the intense light released by the three coordinates, without any hesitation, Angor controlled his spirit power like wielding a blade. When he found a position, he sliced down, making sure the blade connected with all three coordinates.

The slice created the first surface!

After memorizing the three initial coordinates, Angor lost his balance and fainted.

Two hours later, Angor climbed back up. Without waiting any longer, he quickly recorded the coordinates into his tablet.

Looking at the data that was safely kept in the tablet, Angor could not hold back a smile.

The foremost requirement for studying thirty-six-dimensional space coordinate system localization method was having a high sensitivity about dimensional thinking as well as the ability to process big data. Without them, nobody could wield such localization method by any means.

Throughout history, there were very few who could use such a method. This was why the method was never passed down.

Being able to work out three coordinates in one go meant Angor had a great chance of learning it. Considering how the thirty-six-dimensional space coordinate system localization method worked for Singularity, Angor needed to make seven slices and create seven surfaces, using a total of twenty-one coordinates. The calculations would grow even more complicated in later attempts. If he wanted to create the following surfaces perfectly, he would need to do an insane amount of calculations.

The first slice only took him two minutes, but the second one would probably take two days. As for the seventh… maybe several years and beyond.

This was impossible for most people who did not have the ability to work out big data like Angor. Even if they had it, they could not spend such a long time trying to create all 36 sections. Ten years were not all. They probably needed a longer time to build the spiritual model. By the time these tasks were all finished, they already went past their best ages for training.

This was why even Sunders did not intend to let Angor use the thirty-six-dimensional space coordinate system localization method for real. The man gave Angor another special localization method to use, which would cause a slight error in the coordinate of the “Singular Point”.

This error would greatly hinder the efficiency of the spirit model. With some luck, Angor could achieve half of the original baseline fitness.

Sunders was certain that Angor would not use the thirty-six-dimensional space coordinate system localization method. However, Angor went against the man’s expectation and went straight for this method.

Angor could build models with the help of his hologram tablet. He could also simulate his mind space. But he still had to acquire at least nine coordinates, three surfaces, and six intersections before he could project the abstract mind space into the modeling system on the tablet and simulate it in reality.

Once this was done, the hologram tablet would utilize its superior computing capacity which could process 51.66 quadrillion floating point calculations in a single second. It could then work out the remaining eighteen coordinates plus six surfaces quickly.

Using these 36 sections would help Angor locate the true position of a singular point.