Warlock Apprentice

“That must be why he managed to dodge our attacks. He was born with an ability that works like Void Shift,” said Prome as he felt a little jealous. “Such a gift… If he can become a wizard, the ability means an extra formal spell. A Quickened Spell, at that, which didn’t cost him anything to learn.”

Angor quickly thought about someone else who possessed a “natural ability”, Dripping River.

The woman knew how to change the property of water by nature. The ability was as powerful as what the thief just showed them. Maybe even more useful. Besides, Dripping River was already a talent among wizards. What she could achieve in the future was unpredictable.

“Let’s go. Thank goodness we have our money back, or I’m so shredding him to pieces. I don’t care if he’s a kid or old man or pregnant,” Dave scoffed. He felt like giving the kid several hard slaps when thinking about how he almost lost all his precious possessions.

Prome considered for a while and picked the frozen body of the kid up.

“Are you taking him away, Master?” Dave wondered.

Prome nodded. “A Phantom Servant is a born slave for wizards. If he’s going to stay as a thief, he might as well come with me. I might gift him to another wizard or keep him with me. Either way, he’d have a better life.”

Angor already knew why Prome acted so friendly around him. He did not mind it though. He found an exchange of pure benefit to be better than emotional communication. Besides, Prome once saved his life, and he meant to remember it even if Prome had his personal reasons.

Prome’s compound was not big. It was a private area of a similar size to Angor’s villa. There was also a large basement which was used as a stockpile area by Prome. However, there were only less-important materials here. Prome already sent the valuable ones back to Brute Cavern.

“Sigh… I hope I have space storage so I can get these things back quickly instead of running back and forth,” said Prome. “If you find anything you need, just take it, so I have less stuff to worry about.”

“I’ll be glad to,” said Angor with a smile.

“Good. Take as much as you can carry. All of them, if you really can.” Prome waved an arm and acted all rich.

“I don’t really need expensive items. Some Echo Flowers will do.”

An Echo Flower was pretty cheap material, and Angor would not feel shameful if he took something like that for free.

“Echo Flower? I… am afraid I don’t have those here.” Prome was a bit embarrassed. “There aren’t many things you can do with them, and they can only record a certain frequency range. You can’t create sound weapons with those. The most common thing that requires the use of an Echo Flower is a transmitter.”

“I see. I think I’ll check at the other shops later,” Angor replied.

With their accommodation settled, Prome hurried away to search for his weapon. Angor planned to look around as well. But then, he realized that it was too late for the day, and he only slept briefly on the airship, so he decided to lay his head down for now.

Angor and Dave shared two rooms on the second floor. When going back to his room, Angor saw Dave caring for the Phantom Servant child.

“Ohh, I see you’re pretty soft on the inside,” Angor leaned on Dave’s door and joked.

Dave revealed a sad face. “I didn’t want this! Master asked me to, so the kid doesn’t die of cold.”

“Give him something to stay warm and leave him there. Do you really need to stay at his side at all times?”

“Because of that weird ability of his. I’m worried that he might escape the moment he finds a chance.” Dave was really frustrated. It would be a real joke if an apprentice wizard let a mortal kid slip under his nose.

“I see. Here, I’ll help you,” Angor walked inside the room and skillfully deployed a simple illusion.

The scenery in the room began to flip upside-down.

Dave was looking at Angor in the meantime, and he was still quite shocked when the illusion was made. It felt as if he was doing a handstand in the room.

“Is that even a basic illusion? I don’t feel pressure in my head, or I’d easily fall for that,” Dave exclaimed.

“It is. I simply did something to trick your sense of direction. If that kid wakes up now, he’d never leave this room when he can’t tell up from down.”

“Trick my sense of direction? A basic illusion?? That’s not what I read from the books.”

Angor knuckled at his head and chuckled. “I gained many new ideas recently so I know how to make interesting things work.”

Next, Angor moved to Dave to help him escape from the illusion. However, Dave refused.

“Wait, I’ll try to get out on my own. I mean, Melodious Illusion’s just a level-0 cantrip!” Dave seemed unconvinced.

“Suit yourself then,” Angor yawned. “I’ll hit the bed now. That was a lot of traveling today.”