Warlock Apprentice

The Parmigi Highlands lied to the southwest of Evernight Kingdom and was connected with the Goman Kingdom. Due to its extreme average altitude of 3,500 meters and above, very few people visited this place often. It was a commonly agreed forbidden ground for all except for several native tribes.

This day, a giant figure which shined with great brilliance swept past the clear blue sky above the highlands.

The figure had a strange shape. On the first look, it appeared neither as a life form, nor a solid object. Overall, it was a vast and flat, transparent crystal with lines and strings contained within. The object looked like ice… or rather, it was ice.

Because when a highland eagle happened to fly by, the animal turned into a stiff ice statue and fell to the ground.

The reason why the ice could be confused with a creature was that this giant shape about 20 meters wide possessed a pair of wings on its sides, also transparent. The wings looked like swan wings. With each flip, some glimmering ice shards would fall off.

Strong sunlight on the highlands pierced through the winged ice, giving it an even brighter look.

On top of the ice, several mysterious-looking wizards covered in white robes rested with their eyes closed. The freezing aura released by the ice did not seem to affect them at all, apart from coating the figures in faint mist.

When he considered finding help from elsewhere to control the flow speed of something, the first thing that came to Angor’s mind was to use a pipe or straw. Something like those could always control water flow.

But… he could not possibly plug a straw into his mindspace. Besides, could mana even flow through a straw?

Pipe… flow speed…

Angor muttered his idea and thought about many choices in his mind. Suddenly, a pattern drawn by broken lines caught his attention.

“That’s it! I can’t plug something from outside, but I can make one inside!” Angor was excited about his discovery. “I can do it with the Axes of the Universe!”

Axes of the Universe was the ultimate result after Angor had mastered thirty-six-dimensional locator.

It divided his mind space into a collection of countless broken lines. Every spot of the mindspace could be represented using a coordinate on the axes. Angor could construct a tunnel precisely by using the axes as measuring standards to control his mana flow!

He eagerly tried out his new idea.

After several hours, a tunnel measured by the axes came into being. It connected Angor’s mana pool with the outside world.

Angor took a deep breath and began to draw out the mana while carefully preventing the mana from flowing out of the tunnel.

Two seconds, three… nineteen, twenty.

The process was disturbed after twenty seconds.

Angor did not show any frustration upon the failure this time. He knew he just solved the mana flow problem. The increased duration of his attempt just proved it.

Unlike before, the amount in his mana flow was fine this time. It failed because of a change in flowing speed.

If he managed to keep the amount of mana flow and speed steady, there would be no more problems.

He spent some time to learn how to maintain the speed of mana flow.

When he could keep both amount and speed at a fixed pace, Angor initiated another preheat attempt.

Two seconds, three seconds… nineteen, twenty… seventy… ninety…

He botched it again after two minutes.

This time, it did not have anything to do with his controlling skills. It was just that… he burned his fingers.

While focusing on how to control his mana flow, Angor forgot that he had to keep the effect range of the spell within the cantrip model or he would get burnt sooner or later.

…

The third day into the second half of Month of Blossom.

Angor carried the cooking stove from his kitchen down to his basement.

He lit a fire.

Heat waves warmed up the air in the basement.

Angor sat beside the stove and began to meditate. Half an hour later, he tried reaching out his spirit like feelers to sense the fire element around him.

The area centered around the stove now contained several times more fire element than before.

Once he was prepared, Angor stood up and moved to a pile of wooden boxes in the basement. They contained all the cheap materials he bought from Prome’s Alchemy Shop.

Angor picked out a black metal block with faint red patches on it.

Earth Fiend Bronze, one of the materials he stocked up most—a block of Blood Bronze fused with the blood of Earth Fiends, a most common type of Blood Bronze.

Items crafted using Earth Fiend Bronze greatly improved hardness and wear-resistance. The items also had a small probability of gaining additional effects.

Angor carried the Earth Fiend Bronze block to the stove.

He constructed the model for Thaw spell and released mana to fuse it with the fire element in the air slowly.

Angor could sense extreme heat contained in the model at the tips of his fingers. With the model to restrict it, the heat did not leak out this time.

Next, he placed the Earth Fiend Bronze inside the area of Thaw.

Slowly, the metal melted…