Warlock Apprentice

Two days later, Angor had arrived at Freighting Town and was now explaining the boundless wildland to Freud, who grew more and more awestruck as he listened.

Each time Angor needed to mention his nightmare power, he would simply make up another word such as special illusions so that he didn’t reveal his secret.

“Mister Padt. So you used your ‘special illusion’ to trigger the Dream Whelk. By this, you can enter the same area consistently? Then this place is very likely to be the result of combining a dream and your illusion.” Freud’s eyes glimmered. “This means my ambition is not an empty fantasy. But… I still know nothing about this illusion of yours, so I can’t provide anything on my end. How did such power work together with the Dream Realm?”

Angor shrugged. “As I said before, it’s a unique art I received from my professor, so I can’t share it with anyone. Unless you swear to me using Follower’s Oath.”

“I see…” Freud didn’t wish to make such a decisive decision yet because he hadn’t known the true value of Angor’s “special power”. It would be sad if he agreed to take the oath only to gain nothing.

“Give me more time to consider it, Mister Padt.”

“Sure. Since the empty wilderness proved that your research is valid, what should I do next?”

“Check that place thoroughly and get as much information as you can. More importantly, you must figure out what makes it different from common dreams.”

“How do you know it’s different from common dreams?”

“Because you’re the only one who can see it, by using your unique power. You must look, study it, and control it!”

…

Instead of heading back home right away, Angor found an empty house in Freighting Town and settled down so that he could talk to Freud anytime. He already told his family that he’d be staying away for a while.

In the next few days, he explored the “deserted dream” as much as he could. Freud would help him control the Gondola in reality, while he would use the “Dream Gondola” to travel around the wilderness.

After spending over 30 hours and crashing his Gondola for more than 20 times, he finally found a different sight in the wasteland.

Or rather, the environment around him was still the same, just with an extra object—a lovely-looking table.

Angor left the dream and used an illusion to show Freud what the strange table looked like.

“That seems to be… the table we saw in Neya’s room?” Freud stroked his chin.

When Angor tried to use the Dream Whelk for the first time after he received it from Neya, he did so in Neya’s private chamber. In fact, Neya’s table was the very first object he used the Dream Whelk on.

According to Freud, an object that was pulled into a dream would stay there forever, unless somebody intentionally broke it. This meant the table should definitely be there.

Angor felt a bit disappointed because the hard-earned discovery was something quite useless. Freud, however, was glad to say for certain that everything Angor “hypnotized” would end up in the same place, which meant they were one step closer to achieve their final goal, which was to create a designated place in the Dream Realm that they could freely manipulate.

Even though the empty wasteland was huge, it was still better finding things from there than searching the entire Dream Realm.

“Do you think it’s the whelk or your special power that made this place into existence, Mister Padt?” asked Freud. “Personally, I’d believe the latter because the whelk never showed such properties in my hand. Let’s try something. Can you send people into the wasteland by using your illusion power, but without relying on the whelk?”

“I don’t think I can.” Angor frowned. “I’ve been using Dream Walk on people, and I never caused anything to show up there, or enter there myself.”

“You were seeing their dreams as an observer then. Did you ever try to forcefully pull someone into a dream? There are four basic cantrips an apprentice Dream Manipulator should learn, and ‘Dream Enkindle’ was for this very purpose.”

“Dream Enkindle. Is that like, hypnotizing people?”

“They have something in common, but Dream Enkindle is mainly used for carrying your target into a dream, and putting them to sleep is only a side-effect. Also, dreams created by this cantrip are always lucid dreams. If you need your special power to cast Dream Manipulator cantrips, you can see whether your Dream Enkindle will always drag people into that wilderness. If so, it will prove our earlier point, that your special ability is the root of everything.”

Angor would like to accept that advice and study the new cantrip, but he felt bad because it would take him another few weeks.

Freud scowled upon hearing Angor’s complaint. “It was a disaster when I stepped onto this path when even the simplest task might cost me years on end. You think several weeks is too long?!”

Of course, Angor wasn’t going to explain that he had certain cheating tools. But even if he could work way faster than common apprentices, it was never fast enough when Jon’s life was on the line.

Since learning Dream Enkindle was necessary for their subject, Angor entrusted the computation task to his tablet, while he kept examining the dream wasteland.

…

One day, Freud said that he sensed visitors heading into the orphanage and excused himself.

Without Freud to help him drive Gondola, Angor tried to pull something else into the dream wasteland—the apartment building he was living in. It was the biggest object he attempted to “hypnotize” since he obtained the Dream Whelk.

It turned out to be an easy job since he simply had to keep unleashing the whelk’s power until the house was fully covered in it.

When this was done, he immediately cast Dream Walk to check the building from inside its dream.

He expected nothing other than finding the same building showing up at the wasteland, which wasn’t anything worth celebrating.

But to his surprise, he noticed something quite different this time. It wasn’t something in his view. It was a certain feeling carried by the wind.

While standing on top of the building and looking around, he sensed the ambiance of the Nightmare Realm.

Or rather, the ambiance felt a lot weaker compared to the real Nightmare Realm. It appeared similar to the atmosphere in his Nightmare Domain.

This shouldn’t happen. According to Sunders, a Nightmare Domain was the transition between the Nightmare Realm and reality. How could there be a Nightmare Domain inside the Dream Realm?

The idea of discovering an unknown Nightmare Domain terrified him, because the last time he did, he almost invited that “stitch-faced woman” into the wizarding world, who displayed strength beyond legendary wizards just by sitting there.

If this “dream wasteland” was another Nightmare Domain or was very close to a Nightmare Domain, it meant the Nightmare Realm was not far away. Angor was no longer sure whether he should keep exploring it.

“To hell with it. I’m not going to give up the only thing within reach that I can use to help Jon. If it’s really a Nightmare Domain, I’ll just sever it and make it my own.”

After forcing himself to forget about the distress, he left the building behind and stepped out of the dream wasteland.

He certainly couldn’t tell his new discovery to Freud. He might need to talk to Sunders, but then, he couldn’t just go back to the Fey Continent and check whether Sunders had returned.

“Wait… I think White Clam Association has those long-range transmitters that they can use to contact Floating Mech City. Can I find one at the Land of Revelation?”

He decided to ask Freud about this matter later.