Warlock Apprentice

Starting from the entrance of Twilight Well, Angor only needed to walk straight to the tri-fork road to reach “Lady’s Juice”, which was located in the middle of the fork.

Apart from the broken debris and blood trails, he couldn’t see the place clearly earlier because of all the mist. Upon moving closer, he noticed that the building was more damaged than he imagined. More so, compared to the other buildings nearby.

He took a guess that Sunders did this when he was fighting the dragonfly guards.

Lady’s Juice was an oval-shaped structure that looked like an egg cut in half. Angor thought this was a theater or dancing stage because these kinds of places usually needed to be big.

When going in, though, he found out that it was just a high-class, comprehensive entertainment spot for wizards. There was a slave market here, which mainly sold mortal slaves to be used as sex toys. Sometimes there were low-level apprentices who willingly came in order to gain resources by “serving” wizards.

As long as there were people, there was filth. Angor didn’t particularly hate this place. He just felt uncomfortable since it was the first time he entered such an environment.

Pity, there were no beautiful slaves left—only tattered, gold, gem-embedded walls and furniture.

The grand hall was empty. There was a wine fountain that was still releasing sweet red wine from the mouth of a dolphin statue. He didn’t need to approach it to sense the smell of grapes.

He saw golden sparkles shining inside the liquid stream. The strange smell of energy suggested that it contained some kind of pheromone which soothed nerves, disturbed people’s judgment of right and wrong, and made them obsessed.

Simply put, the wine was also an addictive drug.

Angor walked around the wine fountain and saw some vegetation planted below a wall painting.

There were only cheap, non-tiered magic plants inside the florist shop, and he never needed them. Here, however, he was surprised to see that Lady’s Juice used low-tier magic plants as decorations.

“Snake Rot, used for brewing Blood Coagulate. Pill Castor, which tranquilizes people by a small whiff. Midnight Branch that creates Glaze Blooms…” He looked through the planter boxes and sighed. Of course… Such a shop always earned huge money from human desires.

He picked the sapling of a Pill Castor and a small portion of the Midnight Branch. He then put them into his bracelet. He would have taken more if the “habitat” in his bracelet was bigger.

He grinned a little upon receiving some extra materials for free. These would usually cost a hundred magic crystals.

Following Sunders’ direction, Angor walked toward the inner hall where the monster nest was supposed to be.

When he stood in front of a closed door, Sunders’ hoarse voice came again, “Are you alright? We can always make another plan if you don’t feel like it.”

“I’m fine!” Angor was still happy about his gain. He wasn’t nervous in the slightest.

And Sunders noticed the particular emotion that came from Angor’s voice.

“You’re… excited? Because there’s an unknown challenge ahead?” As a pragmatist, Sunders was glad to see that his young student was willing to face challenges rather than hiding behind books.

“I am,” Angor said as he rubbed his palms and prepared for more adventure ahead. “This place is so rich. They put magic crystals inside walls as… decors! I picked 50 or so along my way!”

You’ve been proceeding slowly because you were prying crystals off walls and not because you’re being careful?!

Sunders yelled out in his mind.

“… It’s been almost an hour since you entered Lady’s Juice. How much do you think you can earn if you’ve spent the time doing more alchemy?” Sunders lectured in a gentler way instead of scolding Angor in the face.

Angor frowned a little. Sunders was right. Earning 50 crystals was so easy if he could use his time wisely. He was wasting time now.

Still… Free stuff felt so good!

“Fine. The Pleasure House won’t really mind it if you help them get rid of the dragonfly nest. They’d even reward you several thousand in return.”

Angor quickly shook his head. “Please don’t tell them about me, sir.”

Twilight alone was enough as a threat. Angor really didn’t wish to provoke another entire organization.

Wimp.

Sunders complained in his mind.

“Now get in there. If those insects attack you, release your Nightmare Domain immediately and send the teacups to stop them. I’m hiding in the mist under the ceiling. Buy me a second or two, and I’ll get you out.”

“Understood.”

Angor was still calm, but he still put up a careful attitude since Sunders meant for him to get serious.

He pushed the door ajar and peeked inside.

Nothing other than mist.

He left the door open for several seconds but nothing else happened, so he moved to open it fully.

As his view of the room grew wider, he noticed a giant silhouette hidden behind the mist.

He stayed outside the door and explained what he saw to Sunders.

“Right, that’s the dragonfly nest. It occasionally releases a bunch of parasites. You can take a good look then.”

Sunders’ words came out fast because the gentleman was getting ready for a fight as well.

Soon enough, Angor saw the light streams coming out.

When it happened, the mist inside the hall was blown away for a moment as if strong gale traveled over the hall. In the next second, countless light beams swarmed toward the outside like fireflies.

Angor found it to be quite beautiful—he sensed no fear at all.

Using the brief light, he got a good look at the monster nest. The ceiling of the inner hall of Lady’s Juice was about a dozen meters above the floor, while the nest itself stood seven or eight meters tall. It was a strange object made from several hundred spheres glued together by some yellowish sludge. Each sphere had something dark inside, which was releasing those light beams. The whole thing appeared like a giant beehive.

Angor wondered if these creatures worked like ants or bees, which meant countless “drones” served a single “queen” who dominated the hive.

He asked Sunders.

“No. When I broke a part of their nest, I only saw a hundred dragonfly guards defending it. They produce the parasites using some sort of ritual ability, while only the dragonflies are results of breeding. So they didn’t attack you?”

“Well, some of them followed me from behind and kept singing Shava’s name. I didn’t see any guards yet.”

“Keep moving to the nest. Slowly.”

Angor complied, and soon, he saw the guards showing up around the nest. They floated to him in the same waggling manner.

Sunders saw this from the ceiling. Last time when he encountered them, the gentleman killed several and left the rest, since he only aimed to shut the passage. He would keep the remaining insects for experiments.

Unlike his own experience though, the guards only stayed near Angor without doing anything else.

“Can you feel their emotion?”

“Yes, but not much. They can’t express themselves very well. But I’m sure they mean no harm to me.”

There was more—these dragonfly guards were also praising Shava using simple and basic words.

Sunders sighed in relief. “Good. You should now test out their tolerance. Approach the nest and climb to the top of it. The final tunnel is right there. Remember, your mission is done when you see them stop you. Back away immediately, and I’ll watch you from outside.”

Following the instruction, Angor slowly walked near the nest to test their limits.

However… he found no such limit. He already reached the top of the nest and saw the tunnel mentioned by Sunders. The guards never did anything.

When he left Lady’s Juice safe and sound, Sunders showed up beside him.

Sunders put a hand on his shoulder. “It went pretty well. It seems this ‘Shava’ is really important in the Nightmare Realm. I had several emergency plans which… all went to waste. As long as you can shut the tunnel, this whole incident won’t do much damage. And those who’re possessed will benefit greatly.”

Sunders led Angor into a manor where a giant statue of a roaring lion guarded the gate.

“This is the private mansion of ‘Azure Lion’ Devildare.”