Warlock Apprentice

Angor carried a bucket of pale yellow milk back to his bedroom with a straight face, but on the inside, he was terribly eager to try out the new drink.

This stuff was valuable, tiered material as well. He wondered what it would taste like.

After making sure his door was fully locked, he canceled his poker face as teeming jubilation took control.

While humming joyously, he downed a glass of Milkberry Tree sap in one go. The rich aftertaste quickly brought a bigger smile to his face.

Now that’s top-class! Too bad it isn’t sweet.

While enjoying more of his milk, he took out a notebook from his bracelet, which contained his personal plans since he started studying wizardry.

Using his unique language—Hanzi—he quickly left a brand new plan.

He didn’t say anything when Sunders told him to make his own transmitter. But in fact, he did have an idea about this after seeing many interesting communication tools shown in the movies about Earth civilization. However, he needed time to arrange what he learned before getting to work for real.

He still had many more urgent plans, such as traveling back home. For now, he would leave his new ideas in his notebook and get to them later.

Next, he checked what was already written in his notes, which was all recorded using Hanzi.

At first, he thought he could keep his secrets in this way. But during the purification garden challenge, he learned that there were cantrips such as Discern Letter and Discern Language in this world that could decrypt unknown characters.

Similar to Narda’s Vision, these cantrips all called for extensive knowledge and expertise, which most apprentices didn’t have. But as long as someone successfully learned them, they would be able to work out the true meaning hidden by various characters.

It was basically impossible to keep things private by using Hanzi.

He still insisted on keeping notes in this way. For one, he loved the clean and orderly looks of this language. And besides, he didn’t want to disappoint Jon by saying that he completely dropped it.

He soon reached for what he was looking for.

[Testing the white bullets gathered inside Prelude to Rebirth]

He left today’s date below this line and put the notebook back in his bracelet.

He might not be a scholar like Sunders who knew how to compose standardized research reports, but he was slowly getting there. Taking these notes was one thing he had to do.

He finished another glass of milk, licked his lips clean, and went to speak to Goode, who would send a Phantom Servant to help him watch over the coming test.

A moment later, he saw a servant with a familiar mask coming to him.

“Number 233 at your service, Mister Padt,” the servant spoke in a clear voice as he went down on one knee.

“You again!” Angor smiled. Apart from Goode and Hobbiton, he was most accustomed to seeing this Phantom Servant who once helped him win several matches in Sky Tower. “Let’s go to the lab area.”

He meant to use the underground lab under Sunders’ mansion instead of the one in The Tributary. Undead souls were unpredictable test subjects. Should anything go wrong, he might need to ask Sunders or Greya for help.

He would have asked for Sunders’ consent to use the underground lab, but since Sunders allowed him to take care of Phantom Island for the time being, he no longer needed to inform Sunders of these trivial matters.

Soon, they arrived at the enclosed area that was secured by top-level protections. Angor then briefly explained what he was going to do.

“Number 233, your job is to help me note down any changes on the undead, from the start to the end.”

He wondered what happened to the undead soul outside Dark Castle, which was supposed to be the 13th daughter of a Goman King. His white bullet incited some “changes” on her, but he didn’t get to see to the end.

“Leave it to me, Mister Padt.” Number 233 nodded. “This sounds a lot easier than my previous task.”

“Does it? You should know that if the undead becomes hostile, you will be its first target.”

“Rest assured, I know how to handle them.” Number 233 shrugged.

Angor suddenly grew curious after seeing the great confidence shown by the Phantom Servant. “May I ask what your ‘previous task’ is?”

“My talent is shape-shifting. I can change my appearance and size at my will, so Butler Goode usually entrusted delivery or scouting missions to me.”

“I see…” Angor realized that he never bothered to learn how the Phantom Servants managed different works.

He already determined the general workflow of the test, so they only had to start the job.

The only thing Angor needed to do beforehand was to add an extra rune on the lab walls so that the undead would not escape through them.

The rune wasn’t hard to draw. In fact, Angor could now draw most of the known runes without relying on extra help. His tablet was only necessary when he needed to draw complex magic arrays.

Since he needed a little extra time to draw the rune, he asked Number 233 to take on his appearance and fetch a new transmitter from the resource center. He had to use this thing to record his test since he could not show his tablet to anyone.

By the time Number 233 brought the “crystal ball” back to the lab, Angor had already finished drawing the rune, and an undead soul was already released into the testing area.

It was a man’s soul, and he was wearing broken garbs. His eyes were completely white without irises, and there were pulsing blood veins around the corners of his eyes. This soul had everything to scare a helpless mortal for good.

However, as someone who confronted countless undead souls in various shapes at Dark Castle, Angor only found this man to be a little frail, as if he were someone who didn’t eat properly and was constantly in a bad health condition.

Maybe this man was always like this even when he was alive?

The soul was currently screaming madly, just like any other undead would. Angor only felt annoyed rather than scared by it.

“Hey, louder, pump some vigor in it! And you’re so slow! You used to be a nerd or something? Don’t bring your bad habits to your afterlife!”

Number 233 saw Angor lecturing the undead man and wondered what his young master was thinking about.

“Oh good, you’re back. Use that transmitter to record everything.”

While talking, Angor took out his Prelude to Rebirth, which contained six glowing bullets in its cylinder.

It wasn’t easy to prepare these bullets. From what he observed before, he had to kill at least 2,000 undead souls to gather a bullet. He managed to fill up all six chambers because of the abundant “soul reserve” around Dark Castle.

Getting more bullets would prove to be rather difficult from now on. For this reason, he wished to make every bullet count.

He hoped that his “semi Mystery weapon” could surprise him by showing some kind of amazing effect. He pulled the trigger at the yelling soul without activating the magic array on the gun.

Bam!

Several white, glowing tentacle-like rays of light emerged from the gun’s barrel, which soon converged into a single light beam and went for the soul like a comet.

As soon as the “bullet” hit its mark, Angor stepped out of the enclosed testing area and sealed the door. Together with Number 233, they stepped onto the observation platform above the area and watched across the warded glass.

The soul had collapsed on the floor, but it did not vanish—it kept tumbling and screaming.

Meanwhile, Angor kept an eye on the energy signatures inside the testing area and mostly saw chaotic negative energy typically shown by undead creatures. It seemed that the white bullet caused the negative energy to grow. But soon, it began decreasing again.

While observing the fluctuant energy readings, Angor cast Hand of Spell. He combined it with his own hands to take two different notes at the same time.

The undead man was writhing harder and harder now. His loud scream grew so intense that it could be heard across the enchanted glass walls.