Warlock Apprentice

“So, do I just fight people in the garden and see who comes out in the end?” Angor put down his fork and looked at Sunders.

“Lawson didn’t say anything about the rules yet but should be close to what you said,” Sunders held his chin while speaking. “Are you afraid? You can always quit if you wish to.”

Angor shook his head firmly. “No. I’ll join them and win.”

He didn’t really care whether he was afraid or not. Since he learned that the garden could provide him a great chance of becoming a wizard, he had to accept the challenge.

He had to grow stronger, both for himself and for those he loved.

“Good. I’ll give you some lessons these days so that you don’t die too fast in the garden,” Sunders announced the end of their meal.

Next, Sunders took Angor back to the wilderness in the Garden of Gravity again.

“Do you still remember the illusion I showed you during the meal? Lawson’s conference hall. Now create that illusion for me,” Sunders asked.

Angor was a little surprised but didn’t question why. He quickly tried to remember all the details he saw earlier and recreated his own illusion in another perspective.

When Sunders showed Angor the illusion, they witnessed the scene in the conference hall as an outsider who was free to view anything from any angle.

Sunders sensed the weak illusion and believed he could tear open Angor’s trick at any time. He didn’t really mind the obvious weakness since he only meant to examine how well Angor observed details.

When he opened his eyes, Sunders was surprised to see Lawson standing not far from him on top of the central podium, while Kanter sat right next to him.

In Angor’s illusion, he was no longer the free observer. He was “Sunders”. He didn’t expect Angor to use such an interesting way to tell the story.

Did the boy realize that it is a terrible choice to pull someone who actually went through the meeting before into the illusion like this?

Curious, Sunders kept looking around the meeting hall.

The logic seemed fine. So were the small details. There were some mistakes, but Angor managed to patch them up using imagination.

As the conference continued, Sunders realized something and became more serious.

When Angor canceled the illusion, Sunders looked at the sweating boy and smiled. “Good try.”

At first, Sunders was simply checking the logic and integrity of the illusion. But later, it became a competition of power between the teacher and the student. Sunders noticed that Angor chose such a perspective because the boy meant to force him into believing that the conference was real.

Angor had been using nightmare aura to trick Sunders’ mind.

Without a doubt, Angor had no hope of succeeding if Sunders meant to retaliate. But this time, Sunders chose to accept the nightmare aura.

Soon enough, he figured out Angor’s plan. It seemed Angor already knew that pure illusion completely wouldn’t work on his teacher, so Angor chose the hard way—using nightmare illusion to hypnotize Sunders.

Usually, hypnosis should not affect Sunders, but something changed because of Angor’s strange talent. The illusions he created were extremely immersive and touching. For a brief moment, Sunders found his emotion led astray.

And Angor was proud that he affected Sunders’ mind for a split second.

Even though he was a man of few words, Sunders didn’t hold back his praise after leaving the illusion.

“Your talent and nightmare property make a brilliant combination. Anyone other than me would have fallen into your trap by now. I’ll note down your current abilities and judge what to teach you once you’ve chosen a subfield to study.”

…

Angor spent several more days inside the gravity garden as he trained his illusion skills under Sunders.

Two days later, he finally mastered the new cantrip—Fear.

Sunders spoke highly of Angor’s choice. Again, due to Angor’s particular talent, his Fear displayed several times more potency compared to ordinary casters. This level-1 cantrip was as powerful as a weak level-2 cantrip in Angor’s hands.

Given enough time and practice, it wouldn’t take long for Angor to strengthen the power of the cantrip even further.

Again, Sunders realized that Angor had surprising skills when he saw Angor combining Fear with nightmare illusions. In the right situations, this “Nightmare Fear” could fabricate realistic horror as effective as level-3 cantrips.

He would admit that Angor just earned another trump card that could be used to devastate enemies.

“Fear is a Mind Manipulator cantrip, and what you just showed me is almost twice as deadly compared to most first learners. Maybe it’s best for you to go for Mind Manipulator instead of Acoustic Illusion?”

Angor’s Acoustic Illusions were balanced. He could still major in Acoustic Illusion, but it was obvious that Mind Manipulator was a better choice.

Of course, such choices were only temporary. As Angor studied more and gained more insights into different knowledge, he wouldn’t be needing a main focus. Studying variant subjects might even provide him new ideas to tackle bottlenecks.

Despite Sunders’ suggestion, Angor insisted that he should try out different branches before making the final decision.

Several days later, he left the gravity garden to study another cantrip:

Field of Fire.

This cantrip belonged to another Illusionist branch called “Sorcery Array Illusion”. Sorcery Array illusionists all needed knowledge related to alchemy and magic arrays, so Angor found it worth attempting.

The time for entering the purification garden was near. Angor knew a lot of defensive and crowd control skills, but he barely knew any cantrips that hurt people. Field of Fire was something that damaged foes in a large area, and a suitable choice to add to his skill list.

After spending another morning doing researches, Number One suddenly came to Angor’s door. “Mister Padt, a guest is here to see you.”

While speaking, Number One showed Angor an image in its eye, which also functioned as a screen.

A tall figure wearing felt hat and an eye-catching trench coat was leaning against the door of the mansion in a carefree manner.

“Let him in.”

Angor went to tidy up his looks before he went to the guest room.

“Now this is a surprise.” He smiled at the visitor and said, “It just happens that I have something to tell you as well.”

It was Shadow. Angor didn’t see him in a while ever since Mithra took him away from Bogula’s base. He somewhat missed this wicked friend of his.

Shadow sighed. “When you told me about Brute Cavern, I had a hunch that you’re Mister Phantom’s student. Looks like I was right.”

“Oh, forgive me. I really didn’t want to show off my teacher’s name to people.”

“I feel ya. But I’m afraid you’ll be really disappointed to know that your name is widely known by everyone today. The entire city has heard of how Mister Phantom kicked my teacher’s a*s just for you.”

Somehow, Shadow didn’t seem concerned about Bogula’s safety at all.

“People are talking about you, you know? And there are people from all over the world who came for the purification garden. Soon, they’ll bring the news to their homes. Feeling great now?”

Angor had been staying indoors since nobody ever paid Sunders’ mansion any unnecessary visits. He wasn’t surprised to hear his story traveling around so fast, considering how Floating Mech City had gossip magazines like Precision Sky.

“Not really. Are you here just to tell me this?” Angor raised an eyebrow. “And did Mister Bogula actually allow you to come?”

Shadow crossed his legs in a lazy manner. “My teacher’s away again. He can’t tell me what to do now.”

“Away? Can it be—”

“No, it has nothing to do with Mister Phantom. I tell ya, he’s shameless and doesn’t care what people say about him. Kinda like me.” Shadow stretched his arms and yawned. “And it’s not like he’d tell me where he went. So you see, I’m totally free.”

“By the way, I came because of the garden again,” Shadow said. He looked at Angor and noticed that Angor didn’t seem interested at all. “Okay. You already know, right?”

Angor nodded.

“Ah, who am I kidding… Mister Phantom will certainly tell you. Let me guess, you will enter the garden anyway, right?” Shadow put a hand on Angor’s shoulder. “Be safe. I trust you, buddy. I know it’s a waste of breath but I still need to warn you. Be very careful. There are many geniuses and whatnot you won’t usually find who just came for the same purpose.

“When I was walking in the main district with Toya, we saw more than one fights broke out between these people. Most of them are half-step to the wizard level, according to Mister Sabot. Some of them even have wizard-level items to help.”

Shadow looked worried. “This time, they don’t have a limit for how many winners are admitted, so you should run away from any threat you see. As long as you’re still breathing in the end, you will win this thing.”