Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 2678: Chapter 2679: Awakening of Intelligence

Dox originally thought that when Angel said "take away," he meant putting the Round Wood in a Spatial Artifact and taking it as a trophy. But in reality, what Angel meant by taking away was completely different from what he had imagined.

Dox watched as Angel first chopped and cut the Round Wood, then burned it with fire. In less than half a minute, what was once a not too small Round Wood turned into a thin, short rod.

Then he used hot melting and wax sealing techniques for the final shaping and sealing.

Eventually, the short rod became delicate and smooth.

When Dox saw this step, he already understood Angel’s plan. He guessed it was meant to be inserted into the staff head they discovered earlier.

Sure enough, Angel’s next step was to insert the short rod into the handle of the original quad-ornament, making the staff complete.

Moreover, in a certain sense, the staff was the original. Or rather, it was an upgraded and more refined version of the original.

After all, the staff’s body was made of Extraordinary Material. Even though Angel just casually shaped it, the staff underwent essential sublimation.

Angel played with the staff for a moment, confirmed it felt good in hand, and then said with satisfaction, "Alright, let’s go."

The others had all seen the original appearance of the staff, so they weren’t surprised. Only The Sage stared at the staff with a slightly different look in his eyes.

When the staff’s body was still an illusion, he vaguely felt that the staff looked familiar.

Now, looking at it again, he still had a sense of déjà vu... Where had he seen it before?

"The Sage is interested in my staff?" The Sage’s gaze was not concealed, and with a slight lift of his head, Angel noticed that The Sage had been staring at the staff.

The Sage: "I’m just curious, you know Alchemy?"

Setting aside the puzzlement about the staff, The Sage was indeed a bit surprised that Angel knew Alchemy. Although Angel just simply handled the Round Wood, the techniques involved were very intricate.

Particularly, the technically challenging part, Angel managed with considerable skill. For instance, in the extraction of essences from materials, how does one retain the Extraordinary traits? How much of the Extraordinary traits are retained? This requires a lot of experience, and the more experienced an Alchemist is, the broader the range of materials they can handle, and the more Extraordinary traits they can retain.

After Angel turned the Round Wood into a short staff, no Extraordinary fluctuations arose, seeming as if no Extraordinary traits were retained. However, this was not the case. The faint dark golden patterns on the staff’s body indicated that Angel had locked the Extraordinary nature inside the staff’s body, and these patterns were Magic Patterns drawn out of thin air.

The dark golden patterns were so dense that it could be inferred that Angel suffered almost no loss of Extraordinary traits during the essence extraction step.

Preserving the most essential parts of the material, Angel also conducted a simple Magic Pattern process, making the staff’s body into a "semi Alchemy product" state.

For an Alchemist, this kind of processing is not too difficult. However, Angel managed to complete it in less than two minutes, something an ordinary Alchemist couldn’t achieve.

Even if it were left to The Sage to handle this Round Wood himself, under the same technique, his speed might be about the same as Angel’s. Perhaps even a bit faster, but not by much.

This left The Sage somewhat astonished.

Knowing Magic Patterns, knowing Alchemy... he’s not only a Magic Rune Mage but an Alchemist from the Enchantment System? And his Illusion Techniques are quite strange.

This Supernova’s depth utterly surprised The Sage.

"Just a little bit," Angel said modestly, then continued, "I heard from Miss Cicia that The Sage also excels in Alchemy. If there’s a chance, I’d love to learn from The Sage about Alchemy."

Angel’s words weren’t false. Although Cicia had warned Angel to be wary of The Sage, the caution only applied to not letting The Sage know about the Wilderness of Dreams. This was because The Sage was loyal to Naraku City and would use all means for its Resurrection. If he discovered the Wilderness of Dreams, he might exploit it.

However, putting aside The Sage’s stance, purely based on The Sage’s abilities, Cicia was very impressed.

To ascend to the position of Dominator of Naraku City with the identity of a Low-level Demon, relying on wisdom and skill, speaks volumes.

Every Alchemist has their own set of interpretations of Alchemy and corresponding self-consistent logic. Angel knew about many human Alchemists’ understanding of Alchemy but hadn’t learned about it from non-human perspectives. What does Alchemy look like in the eyes of non-human entities? Is it entirely different, or is it the same goal by different paths?

Therefore, his words of advice came from the heart.

"As long as you can leave this place safely in the end, there will always be a chance," The Sage said, looking deeply at Angel. If Angel really could leave this place smoothly, not only would he be open to advice, but he might even initiate exchanges with Angel at that time.

Angel: "Is The Sage indirectly reminding me that Noah’s elder’s legacy is a dragon’s pool and tiger’s den?"

"You’ll know when the time comes."

The Sage still kept a secretive attitude, with a look that said, "I’ll talk about it once you fulfill the bonus conditions."

Angel could do nothing but sigh, refrained from saying more, and turned to walk into the Void Road.

Watching Angel’s distant back, The Sage subconsciously glanced again at the staff that felt familiar to him.

And upon this look, The Sage’s eyes suddenly froze... He seemed to understand where that sense of familiarity came from.

The sense of familiarity didn’t come from the staff itself, but rather from the silver staff handle.

Specifically, it was the hollow carved emblem on the handle: a Knight’s Rapier with wings, inserted among thorns and roses.

This emblem, he had seen on the 6163 experiment subject that he had been paying close attention to lately.

The 6163 experiment subject was a very special Ghosteye Witch. It possessed a clear concept of aesthetics, fundamentally different in thought from other Ghosteye Witches.

This Ghosteye Witch could be said to be the one The Sage paid most attention to in nearly a thousand years, even more than the two Ghosteye Witches who reached Wizard Level. Because its situation reminded The Sage of himself in the past.

This Ghosteye Witch was not born an anomaly. It only started to distinguish itself from other Ghosteye Witches after one day when it suddenly conceptualized "beauty." It pursued "beauty" and was willing to undergo self-transformation for "becoming beautiful."

This was very similar to his situation back then.

In the past, The Sage was quite ordinary amongst the Triclops Blue Demon clan. Until one night, when he was picking spider eggs and got bitten by a Poison Spider, he fell from the trees, landing flat on his back. As he was paralyzed and couldn’t get up, he simply lay on the ground waiting for the toxin to wear off.

While he was lying there, he saw a brilliant Starry Sky.

He had looked at the Starry Sky before but never took it seriously. He didn’t care as much about it compared to food.

But this time, due to the poisoning, he couldn’t move and was forced to watch the Starry Sky for an extended period. At first, he just found it densely packed, slightly annoying; but after a while, he suddenly noticed the Stars seemed to twinkle, winking and greeting him.

Then he became fascinated. Since then, every night he would look up at the Starry Sky. From initially being obsessively watching them, he progressed to counting them one by one, then to imagining what it might be like beyond the Starry Sky...

Once he began to imagine the Starry Sky, he was no longer like the other Triclops Blue Demons; he had learned to think. It was also because of this thinking that he gradually grew to where he was now.

This sudden enlightenment due to a strange and wonderful encounter is rare and elusive. It might be considered a talent, but it’s not talent in the conceptual sense.

It’s more like a form of "Cognitive Awakening."

The Sage saw this potential in Experiment No. 6163, so it paid a lot of attention to it. It even intentionally or unintentionally continued to expand the concept of "beauty" in it. Now, No. 6163 not only knows how to dress up but also understands color coordination, and even "fragrance" has become part of its understanding of "beauty".

And when the Sage last went to see No. 6163, it saw a self-made silver ornament on it.

The pattern on that ornament was identical to this insignia.

Or should I say, the head of this cane actually came from that ornament?

So, did Experiment No. 6163 encounter this group of people?

With the Sage’s understanding of No. 6163, it cares a lot about the trinkets it makes. Because, for it, that is beauty, the dream it pursues.

So, it would never give away that silver ornament.

That means this group met No. 6163, fought with it, or even killed it... otherwise, they couldn’t have gotten the ornament from it.

This possibility is very high because their route would inevitably pass through the Ghosteye Witch’s gathering place.

But the strange thing is, for recording the process of ’awakening knowledge’, the Sage left a mark on No. 6163, which would automatically trigger if No. 6163 showed intense fluctuations. Yet, up to now, the Sage hasn’t sensed any abnormality in the mark on No. 6163.

Was the mark faulty?

The Sage thought for a while, then separated a wisp of spiritual power from its body and slowly infiltrated the Magical Energy Array in the underground aqueduct.

After a while, the Sage retracted the spiritual power, frowning slightly.

It saw No. 6163, which was currently cultivating with other Ghosteye Witches, showing no signs of injury. Moreover, from a distance, the ornaments on No. 6163 were still there.

This means that the cane in Angel’s hand actually has nothing to do with No. 6163’s ornament?

As the Sage pondered, its gaze swept over the cane again. Originally, it intended to take a closer look, but unexpectedly, it saw another insignia.

The insignia was the same as the one on the cane handle, but this insignia was not on the cane but on Angel’s glove.

Gloves with insignias, No. 6163 certainly did not have. This also seems to imply that the insignia on the cane has nothing to do with No. 6163?

However, the Sage still felt something odd.

If it were anyone else, it wouldn’t care. But with Angel, it feels as if there might be something unusual in this.

Angel always appears to have contradictory coincidences on its body, forcing it to question.

Although the insignia on No. 6163’s ornament currently seems to hold no profound meaning, is there really such a coincidence in the world? No. 6163 has this insignia, and Angel also has such a insignia?

At this moment, the Sage couldn’t help but recall what Dox said earlier.

One coincidence is a coincidence; two or three are hard to say, but what if it’s ten or eight? Could it really be fate’s arrangement?

When everything is arranged clearly by fate, no matter how many coincidences there are, it seems they can be explained.

When hearing Dox say this before, the Sage just thought it was complete nonsense. Now, it still thinks it’s nonsense, but there’s no absolute in the world; even if it’s nonsense, perhaps there’s one or two exceptions?

"... If he really knows the Wood Spirit, then I’ll consider this all a coincidence." The Wise Sovereign thought to itself.

Since it couldn’t explain those contradictory, absurd coincidences, it just let them be.

However, the Wise Sovereign still doesn’t believe that Angel would know the Wood Spirit. Since its birth, the Wood Spirit has been in the underground aqueduct, so how could it know outsiders?

Although the Wise Sovereign’s thoughts kept arising and vanishing in its mind, it didn’t question Angel about the insignia.

Asking about other things might be fine, but questioning about an insignia that currently shows no significance, without reason, is something the Wise Sovereign couldn’t do.

Nonetheless, the Wise Sovereign was growing more and more interested in Angel’s identity.

...

Angel’s thoughts at this time were also flying continuously.

However, what he was thinking about wasn’t the insignia, but guessing who was behind the Sage, if it was someone from the relic?

While Angel was lost in thought, he heard Dox’s voice in his ear.

"Are you okay?" Dox waved his hand in front of Angel’s eyes.

Angel snapped back to reality: "I’m fine, what’s up?"

Dox shook his head, his expression a bit strange: "Nothing really, just wanted to make sure you... are you really okay?"

Angel looked at Dox in confusion, wondering if this guy was having an episode.

"No, I touched a lot of things along the way, and you didn’t feel anything? Didn’t you say it would be a huge drain on your computing power earlier? Were you lying?"

Hearing this, Angel understood why Dox looked so strange.

"I’m telling you, I’m barely holding on while talking to you right now, do you believe me?" When Angel said this, his face gradually turned sickly pale.

Dox shook his head directly: "I don’t believe you."

"Fine if you don’t believe me." Angel’s complexion immediately returned to normal, and he turned to continue walking forward.

Exhaustion is entirely subjective; even if Dox doesn’t believe it, there’s no way to prove it. So Angel didn’t mind revealing it.

The only thing was, his quick change of expression, not even bothering to act, wasn’t because of Dox’s words but because he vaguely sensed that the cane in his hand was suddenly slightly warm.

As if something deep in the void was resonating with it.

This cane can currently only be considered an alchemical semi-finished product. Although it has transcendent properties, they are all sealed within the cane, with almost no external effects.

This sudden resonance is definitely not the effect of the cane but rather that something somewhere is calling to it.

The only thing Angel could think of was that it might be the Wood Spirit.