Warlock Apprentice

A single boat straight out of fairytale sailed through the sea of clouds.

Even when there was no water in the sky, the boat still left a trail of water ripples and bubbles behind. Despite the relaxing sight, the boat was traveling at great speed, putting different sights behind in a blink of an eye.

Like a new moon that had decided to pick somewhere else on the sky to rest.

The starry decorations on the boat, as well as a soft curtain with stars drawn all over it, made the adorable vehicle look marvelous.

Four people sat on the boat; three men and one woman. A young man with a naive look was sound asleep in the small room at the back of the boat, while the other three passengers stayed under the sky.

The man with a handsome yet devilish look rested his head on a small desk while he moaned in sadness.

"Do you really have to ride with me when you have your own vehicle?" Angor was pretending to sleep in an armchair nearby. He couldn't take it anymore after Shadow moaned non-stop for half an hour.

Shadow gave Angor a sad look. "I've had enough misfortune today. And look at your flying boat…"

"It's 'Gondola'."

"Right, Gondola. It's so big and faster than my Rider Cape. I mean, come on, it doesn't hurt to bring someone else on it, right?" While speaking, Shadow checked around the delicate carvings and decorations of the ship and felt extremely envious. Such a beautiful vehicle as fast as mid-tier flying items would cost at least thousands of crystals at an auction. And Angor just created this stuff in a few days? Goddamn alchemists!

Angor rolled his eyes. Rider Cape? "Lady Cape" would be a better name.

But as Shadow said, Angor didn't really care about taking an extra man plus a puppet. The boat would still travel at the same speed at the same fuel cost.

"Yeah yeah, you can tag along alright. But can you be quiet? Are you so sad about returning the shadows?" Angor complained.

Shadow said "misfortune" because he had to return all the shadows he collected in Water Grasse over the past few years.

It happened yesterday. When Angor and Shadow returned to Water Grasse, Leonrick immediately heard about it.

With his daughter getting weaker by the day, and his wife would do nothing other than weeping day and night, Leonrick left a suicide note at home and decided to visit Angor's mansion on his own, fully aware that he might meet his death.

Since they were going to leave Water Grasse tomorrow, Angor had removed the illusion that was protecting the mansion. It was Granny Trusan who opened the door for Leonrick. After that, Angor simply allowed Leonrick to speak with Shadow.

Leonrick knelt down in front of Shadow and pleaded. He hoped Shadow could return the shadows to his people and his daughter.

Of course, Shadow paid him no mind. Neither did Angor offer any help.

However, Shadow still agreed to release the shadows in the end. Because… Naga requested so.

That made Shadow helpless. Satisfying Naga was way more important than having these shadows of some mortals. Defeated, Shadow had no choice but to listen to Naga's "advice".

Because of this, Shadow had been holding his sad look for an entire day.

"I spent years collecting them! Years!" Shadow screamed. Even the three Krakok brothers came out to comfort him.

Instead of quieting down, Shadow was crying louder and louder. Angor glanced at Naga, who also rolled her eyes impatiently. However, she couldn't really do anything to her master. Besides, SHE was the one who asked Shadow to give up his collection.

When Naga noticed that Angor was looking at her, the puppet lady made a gesture behind Shadow's back—Do something about it!

Angor was already planning to do so. He didn't because of Naga's presence. Now that Naga actually asked him to, Angor grinned wickedly and pointed a finger at Shadow's face.

A small trace of nightmare aura sank between Shadow's eyebrows.

The man didn't maintain any self-defense when traveling with Angor. He was immediately affected by the trick.

Surprised, Shadow pointed at Angor and "ahhhh" 'd for a while. He could no longer speak like normal.

Angor pretended like he didn't care.

Next, Shadow turned around and gave Naga a sad look, hoping the puppet lady could help him.

Naga "misinterpreted" his intention and put an arm tightly around Shadow, thus preventing the man from making any moves.

Finally, some peace.

Angor made a thumbs-up toward Naga and closed his eyes, pretending to be sleeping again.

In truth, he was trying to go over the notebook he received from Sunders. It contained almost all available cantrips for illusionists.

Since he almost finished studying all the basic cantrips, he planned to look at the more advanced ones.

He was only adept at deploying illusions, and he basically knew nothing about how to attack people with illusions. According to Sunders, he had to choose a branch to focus on soon, and he still had no idea how. He would have to keep learning more illusionist cantrips to figure it out.

After remembering some of the pointers mentioned by the notebook, Angor set his attention on a level-1 cantrip called "Fear".

The cantrip belonged to an illusionist subfield called "Mind Manipulator". It aroused someone's fear by controlling their desires.

He did something similar before, on one of the national doctors—Tyrael. However, what he used last time was nightmare aura, which created simple monster images to scare the old man.

"Fear" worked in a completely different way.

Different individuals feared different presences, such as ghosts, beasts, or a certain event or person in the past. He couldn't possibly use one method to scare everyone. "Fear" could help him in this case.

Angor carefully "read" the book in his mind to digest the essentials of the cantrip.

Meanwhile, he got an idea. If he combined nightmare illusions with Fear, would the illusionary presences that scared people become real?

Possible.

With this in mind, he determined this cantrip as his next subject.

This was a Mind Manipulator cantrip. Mind Manipulators were adept at reading people's minds and emotions; they would then combine them with different elements to create results.

Angor was going to study a little bit of every subfield so that he could find out which branch was the most suitable.

…

The night had arrived, covering the sky with a starry carpet. The shape of Gondola looked even more fantastic in such an ambiance.

Someone suddenly grumbled in the small room at the back of the boat, which broke the silence.

Angor and Shadow opened their eyes and looked at each other.

"What, your little pet boy is hungry?" Shadow snickered.

Angor glanced at him and quickly understood how the man escaped from the silence aura when he saw his nightmare aura sitting around Naga's finger.

Without minding Shadow's joke, Angor called Dodoro's name in a gentle voice and received an "ohh…" as a response.

He stood up and entered the room.

Dodoro was giving him innocent and happy looks again. Angor sat down and took out some food and drink from his bracelet.

Dodoro put a hand on his stomach and blushed.

"Eat up."

After hearing Angor's words, Dodoro slowly picked up the food and took a small bite.

Angor held his chin and observed Dodoro's now elegant table manner. He wasn't sure if this was all thanks to Trusan's lectures or because Dodoro already possessed such temperament deep inside.

Angor recalled Trusan's last words before they bid farewell to each other:

"Now, Dodoro can understand basic languages. It's just… It seems he's too timid. He can talk to people now, but he won't do it when there are strangers around. In this case, he'd shut himself somewhere and stay quiet."

Angor never felt that way since Dodoro was always friendly to him. However, ever since they started traveling on Gondola, Dodoro was all hush-hush just like Trusan described. Dodoro seemed constantly nervous too.

This was why Angor asked Dodoro to stay in the small room. He didn't know how to change someone's nature yet. He could only wait and see if there would be a change in the future.

When Dodoro finished his meal, Angor suddenly remembered something.

"Where's your—"

He halted. Shadow was still outside, and Angor thought that it wouldn't be a good choice to talk about Dodoro's "water bowl" since Shadow was obviously interested in Akeso and Pocratee.

He then tried to think about what had happened before they left Water Grasse. They only had a simple sack as their luggage, which contained some spare clothes. He tossed the sack inside his bracelet…

Using spirit feelers, he quickly found Dodoro's sack as well as the particular bowl inside.

Since the bowl was safe… he should leave the matter aside for now.

Before retracting his spirit feelers, however, he noticed that the Krakoks were busy with their agriculture works at the base of their new home. They had diligently replanted the tree saplings they received from the hummingbird knights.

Everyone was working hard to earn their own future, including kids. There was only Papaya's grandmother, who rested on the stairs of the building with a basket of Cranbul Cheese Bread. She would occasionally beckon at someone to invite themselves to her snack.

Due to her age, she couldn't join them in the field, but no one blamed her. Still, it seemed she wanted to offer something that she could manage.

When off work, she would summon a group of Krakok kids around her, and she would tell them stories.

"You can read?" Angor's voice reached her ears.

The old Krakok looked puzzled. Then she realized that the great wizard was talking to her in private since no one else heard the voice.

"Yes, mister, I've learned literature," she answered nervously.

Angor considered. He didn't know how long his journey would last, and he probably couldn't find time to teach Dodoro anything. It would be bad if Dodoro stayed idle for too long, which might let him develop a lazy character.

And since Papaya's grandmother was looking for things to do…

Angor hoped that the old Krakok could help Dodoro to open up his mind.

"Alright. I have a task for you."