Warlock Apprentice

Angor and Dave left the pub and took a sky bus toward the questing hall.

Before they could go for a counter, they saw Bobota waving at them.

“Who’s that man?” Dave said.

“Someone who gave me a quest. You go and report the other quests, I’ll get you later.”

Angor sent Dave away and approached Bobota.

“Wanna check it?” Angor took out a space capsule.

Bobota seemed surprised. “Finished? Already?”

Angor did not tell the man that Toby would easily do a better job as a bodyguard.

Hercules slumped down.

Before they could keep moving, Dave suddenly spoke to Hercules. “Can you defeat a Steel Hedgehog?”

Hercules hesitated. “I think I can if I have a proper weapon.”

Dave perked up all of a sudden and turned to Angor. “Hey Angor, can I pay for his weapon?”

Angor already realized Dave’s plan when “Steel Hedgehog” was mentioned. “You want to go to the Moonfrost Passage too?”

A Steel Hedgehog was a weak monster living inside the Abyss Plane. It provided a bloodline which gave someone decent defense, and nothing else, so almost no Bloodline Wizards would choose to use the blood of this monster. However, the defense helped people withstood most explosion attacks, so there were many alchemists who found the trait useful.

Using the bloodline of a Steel Hedgehog meant permanently gaining a high-leveled magic barrier, which was extremely helpful during alchemy experiments.

Dave nodded and confirmed Angor’s idea. “The monster’s blood can help me study alchemy better.”

Angor frowned. “So you’ve decided you’ll keep going down this path?”

Bloodline could be removed, but not completely. The bloodline of Steel Hedgehog basically had no merit except for alchemy.

Dave was firm. “Yes! I don’t think I’ll ever find anything other than alchemy to prove myself.”

Angor thought about it. The favor was easy to grant, and it would help his friend realize his ambition, so why not?

Angor turned to Hercules again. “I’ll help you then, on condition that you must sign a contract with Dave, that you’ll protect him for one year while helping him get the blood of Steel Hedgehog when at it. If you agree, I’ll start making your weapon today.”

Angor’s condition was a little more than what Hercules offered. A Steel Hedgehog was weak, but its blood would still sell for a thousand crystals in auctions, while Hercules’ ax probably only cost several hundred.

But without the ax, Hercules would never be able to defeat the monster. The whole matter was kind of a paradox.

Hercules was sulking in despair when Angor refused him. When he saw another chance, he answered without giving it much thought. “I agree!!”

The two of them created a one-year contract in the name of the world’s consciousness.

Back at Angor’s villa, Angor and Dave worked together and finished Hercules’ request in one night.

Dave was the one forging the original weapon, so Angor only asked for 100 crystals, which was considered a payment for his effort in enchantment.

Angor’s bone card now had a balance of nearly 800 thousand points, which meant 8,000 magic crystals. Very few level-1 apprentices could possess such a fortune. In fact, many wizards would find it difficult to gather so much available fund in a short time.

…

The grand auction in Twilight Well was three days away.

With no other quests to do, plus that he had mostly comprehended Melodious Illusion, Angor decided to use the remaining time to craft the music box which he had been neglecting. Maybe he could also pay Lady Mirror a visit in the meantime.

He already made up a detailed plan for creating the trinket. His music box was going to have two special effects.

One was to trigger a Melodious Illusion using the music that it played. There were many problems to consider here, such as choosing the best illusion to go with the music, whether the illusion should be “animated”, and how much space it should cover.

The second one was applying Tranquility Rune to the music box which would help people calm down with the help of gentle music. Dave mentioned that music should be something that disturbed meditation. Angor did several experiments on himself, during which gentle music did not hinder his meditation. However, he was not sure whether other people would not be bothered by the same music.

He still needed to find out the result.

Before everything else, he had to first determine the appearance of the music box.