Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 336: Pocratee

A skeleton was one of the most common familiar creatures used by wizards. However, wizards preferred to use necromancy spells to stuff certain soul inside an existing skeleton to make a Dead Man’s Skeleton, in which case the soul could interact with the physical world using the skeleton as a host. Flora’s “Little Red” was essentially a Dead Man’s Skeleton. But that one was special, considering how it came from the Nightmare Realm.

For a Dead Man’s Skeleton, the soul was its true body, while the skeleton was its outer shell. They could always change that shell as they needed.

A Dead Man’s Skeleton was man-made, while a Wanderer Skeleton was created naturally.

As a start, a Wanderer Skeleton usually possessed a stronger soul. However, its final strength still depended on chances and luck.

“Is this a Wanderer Skeleton?”

Angor looked up at the serpent. He was quite certain that the serpent was also confused by what had happened.

It didn’t know what was inside this coffin?

“Pocratee… Is that the village’s name?”

The serpent remained silent for a second before nodding.

Angor more or less understood what just happened. The serpent had to have been guarding Pocratee, so it knew that the village was void of people. Angor’s arrival meant hope and threat.

There was hope for the man in the coffin, but Angor’s unknown origin was the threat.

“I’m an apprentice. I accidentally fell into a plane passageway, and luck brought me to an exit which then led to Pocratee,” Angor said. He then took out his bone card from his bracelet. “I don’t know if you recognize this, but this card is proof of my identity. I came from Brute Cavern, a wizard organization in the southern wizarding world.”

The serpent glanced at the bone card without any response. It seemed like it didn’t know what that was.

Angor simply put the card back and pointed to the man in the coffin. “As for his condition… From where I came from, I saw something similar before, so I know what’s happening to him. Possibly.”

The serpent still displayed disbelief in its eyes. The air grew colder, causing Angor to tremble again.

Angor sighed and explained everything about Twilight Well, the plane passageway, and how he got here. He didn’t hide his connection to the rainbow dragonflies either. However, he amended his words by telling the serpent that his professor, Sunders, left a powerful “sigil” in his body. The powerful sigil of a level-2 wizard who had found the path of truth could allow him to control the dragonflies and escape the passageway.

The serpent was still unconvinced, and Angor couldn’t really do anything else. He couldn’t tell the creature everything about the Nightmare Realm, which was both his secret and Sunders’ strict order. Speaking more about it would easily give Sunders’ family secrets out to outsiders.

“Great snake, I believe you can see that I’m not your foe. Do you think someone my age can destroy Pocratee?”

The giant creature nodded this time. It brought Angor here because it witnessed this young human burying the victims carefully.

“I don’t have anything else to convince you. I can tell you that my professor can treat his condition. If you let me leave, I’ll take him to my professor and ask him for help,” Angor said.

He told the snake that most wizards in Twilight Well suffered from the same situation. Only a more powerful wizard on the path of truth like Sunders could help the man in the coffin.

To prove this, he showed the power of his “sigil”. He moved to the coffin and looked at the struggling man.

“Stop moving!”

The man looked back at him in fear and slowly quieted down.

This worked because of Shava’s name. It had nothing to do with his non-existent “sigil”. Angor knew how to pretend because he learned about it when he was dealing with Duke Tepikkhu.

While still confused, the serpent felt like showing respect to Angor’s teacher. It met other wizards before, so it clearly knew what a “truth-finding” wizard meant.

It slowly lay back down, tired out.

“I’ll take him to my professor and remove his condition.”

“Thankssss…” the serpent said, using the last bit of strength it could muster.

Angor sighed in relief and tried to ask how to leave this place.

The serpent lifted the tip of its tail and pointed at the path outside this chamber, which extended further into the distance.

Angor quickly felt joy. It seemed that he finally discovered his chance.

He remained to talk to the giant serpent for a while, in a gentler way this time. He learned a lot of useful information. Also, he realized that the snake wasn’t really as fearsome as it appeared to be. It was like chatting with a wise old man. He could read a lot from the creature’s gazes even without it speaking.

According to the serpent, the abandoned village was named “Pocratee”, and it was once a research ground for a group of doctors who decided to conduct their studies away from civilization. It was also called the “Sanctum of Healers”.

One day, a disaster fell upon the village and brought a mist passage inside the place, as well as a bunch of evil visitors.

The rainbow dragonflies.