Warlock Apprentice

It seemed the whole omen world was targeting Angor. Wherever he went, something would happen.

For example, a careless mother who was tending flowers on her balcony accidentally broke the floor beneath her when her child was playing right downstairs…

Anything that would attract people’s attention came happening around him.

At one time, Angor saw a patch of moonlight shined inside a small yard. When he approached the light to check his environment, he immediately backed away when his instinct warned him again. After more careful observation, he noticed a kid peeking from behind a curtain in a small house. The kid was looking at the same moonlight spot with a captivated expression,.

Going into the light would ruin everything.

He slowly got ahold of the difficulty of the trial. According to a book he read before, a mid-tier alchemy item wouldn’t give him anything harmful, while only stronger or mystery items sometimes presented deadly omens to their creators.

Still, it wasn’t easy to pass this test. He would have already failed if not for his instinct.

He began to realize that drawing Prelude to Elimination was already a bold move. Without his soul wound, the terrible howling of souls would have broken his sanity.

Angor remained extremely careful in this peaceful yet stressful world. The street wasn’t long, yet he walked for two hours before he reached the end.

As he left the small town and saw the extending, desolate wilderness again, he sighed in relief.

Before he could fully calm down, a giant explosion suddenly burst out from the town behind him, shaking the ground. Angor stumbled a little and barely kept his balance.

Following the glowing smoke, he heard the screaming of children and adults alike.

Out of his own instinct, he wanted to turn around to check what happened.

But the other “unknown instinct” stopped him.

“So I can’t look back?”

He regained calmness and kept walking away, ignoring the painful cries that tingled his conscience.

He hesitated for many times, and each time, that foreign instinct would immediately persuade him to give up.

He felt better when he could no longer hear anything.

He walked down the only path for a long time and reached a forest that showed a pale white color under the lone moon. It didn’t look so safe, but he still walked inside.

Despite the worrying shadows and ghostly ambiance, the forest was peaceful enough. It didn’t take long for Angor to pass through.

The first thing that welcomed him outside the forest was a dark gate which stood on a plot of empty ground. A shining magic array—Infinite Reticence—was drawn on the closed gate.

At the edge of the woods, near the bank of a dark river…

Angor looked up and checked the moon, as well as the footprints on the path in front of him. It seemed he just walked back to where he started.

The only thing different was the black gate.

Did it mean he could get out now?

He went over his previous experience; the lonely path he had to walk, the lively town in which he had to avoid attention, and the second path where he had to ignore the suffering of the people behind him.

He believed those were his trials… yet he also felt as if he was warned of something else.

Entering the wizarding world meant stepping onto a path of solitude, where halting his progression meant getting left out by everyone. As an apprentice, he had to keep away from the pleasure of civilization and focus on his own study, or he would never stand out. And to achieve his goals, he had to keep going forward, while forcing his mind to bear with the cruelty of this place.

He stared into the dark path again and no longer felt fear. The path was both his trial and the path of wizardry that led him toward truth.

Eternal night, lonesome stillness… A wizard had to endure them for a lifetime.

…

Angor felt dazed when he walked through the gate. He opened his eyes to see himself inside the lab again. The space bracelet was still glowing with a faint light in his hand.

When he put his attention on the simple-looking accessory, a strange aura suddenly showed up from nowhere and sank into it.

It ended along with the remaining glimmer on the object. Now he was holding a simple, insignificant bronze bracelet.

He knew that this finally suggested his success.

Angor got rid of his initial excitement and began to check his new creation.

The bracelet looked… plain. Poor, even. The Infinite Reticence magic array was engraved on the inner circle, so it couldn’t be seen from the outside. There was only a single line that reached toward the covenant rune which was drawn on a gem that was embedded on the surface of the item.

This single rune line determined that the two special effects had joined as one. Otherwise, it would only be a bracelet with Infinite Reticence and a space gem with a covenant rune.

He reached his spirit power inside and concluded that there were 9 cubic meters inside, which was the best he could do. A space storage larger than 10 cubic meters was a mid-tier item on itself, without the need for any extra effects.

Since the bracelet was for his own use, he quickly injected his signature mana into the covenant rune. Soon enough, the red gem began to release a series of shining ripples which covered the entire bracelet, thus determining the final contract.

From now on, Angor was the only one who could use the space bracelet, and unless the item was forcefully destroyed, no one else could use their spirit feelers to look inside.

He put the bracelet on and slightly injected his mana to activate Infinite Reticence. The bronze-colored object slowly faded out on his wrist until it became completely transparent.

Now, neither eyes nor spirit feelers would be able to sense anything on his wrist. However, direct contact might still give out the secret.

This was the first time he actually used a space storage, and yet, Angor couldn’t help fidgeting around the item like it was a newly-obtained toy. He then felt faint again, and he finally remembered that he hadn’t caught any sleep for several days. He stopped playing with the bracelet and walked to a small bed placed against a corner of the lab wall, yawning.

Before falling asleep, Angor remembered to put his Hollow Weed inside the space bracelet. The magical plant was extremely easy to use—it would live on its own after it was put inside the space, and it would begin to cultivate its “tiny habitat”. Angor only needed to wait and enjoy the final outcome.

He slept to his heart’s content. He couldn’t sense day and night inside the basement section. When he woke up, night had passed and it was already noontime.

He yawned again before he sensed the Hollow Weed inside his bracelet. Overnight, the 13 orbs had opened up a small patch of green at a corner inside the space storage. It was about half a meter in length and width.

It was almost the best he could get with so much Hollow Weed. However, he was pretty satisfied. The only thing that needed to live inside the “tiny habitat” was the Section Ephemera that Angor received from Greya.

He tidied up the messy lab a little, and before he headed to his bathroom, he went to the material stockpile to transfer every precious thing into his bracelet.

Yesterday, he fell on his bed as he was, and now, he could smell rotten bread[a][b] on his skin.

While waiting for the bathtub to get filled, Angor removed the Alien Eye from his neck.

This valuable artifact was the “culprit” that brought Jon to this world, and he had always kept it close. But now, he was going to keep it inside the bracelet.

To his surprise though, he couldn’t put the Alien Eye into the space storage. Or rather, something told him that forcefully stuffing it in would destroy the space storage.

He hesitated for a while before hanging it around his neck again. Anyway, nothing would go wrong since even Sunders didn’t notice anything from the artifact.

Angor enjoyed a nice, hot bath. He then put on some clean clothes. Then, he walked upstairs in a joyful mood.

“Toby?” Angor heard the gentle melody of City of Sky when he entered the main hall, along with sharp bird chirps. He then saw Toby singing along with the music box again.

He didn’t really want to interrupt Toby’s pleasure. However, he still called out, just to save his eardrums.

“Tweet!” Toby fluttered to Angor. The animal landed on his master’s shoulder and began to complain to Angor about various things.

Basically, Toby felt too constrained.

Ever since the incident at the auction, Angor didn’t allow Toby to go outside on his own. And now Toby was trapped in the lab again. As a bird, Toby’s nature was to fly freely in the sky.

Realizing this, Angor also felt a bit sorry for his action. He stroked Toby’s feathers and comforted him in a small voice, “We’re going home soon. I just happen to have some free time today, so how about we go meet your little partner tonight?”

Toby immediately slumped down upon hearing “little partner”; he did so by lowering his head and wings.

Angor wasn’t sure how to deal with this matter yet. He only put a finger on the bird’s tiny head.

“Profit moves everything around. Just keep that in mind when you make friends again.”

Toby nodded and rubbed against Angor’s palm.

“Get your things ready, and we’ll leave.”

Again, they needed to ride on the Iron Fortress to leave The Tributary.

Iron Granny greeted Angor with the same gentle smile. She asked about random things like what an elder would do. When Angor exited through the portal, the woman put up a frown.

“Good job, kid. I can’t find where you put your new item. Did he hide it inside a space storage?”

Angor didn’t hear the old woman’s grumble; otherwise, he would find it quite funny.

Walking away from the lake portal, Angor put on his wizard robe and injected some mana into Infinite Reticence to trigger the “isolation” effect.

On Angor’s shoulder, even Toby felt something strange when their presence was actively weakened by the magic array.

“Did you see the alchemy omen yesterday?” Angor asked the bird in a small voice.

Toby escaped from his confusion upon hearing Angor’s voice. He then shook his head and waved his wings around.

“There was nothing apart from strong winds blowing over?”

[a]rotten bread? just to confirm

[b]Maybe “his skin smelled like rotten bread” would be better?