Warlock Apprentice

A large patch of frost suddenly appeared on the ground.

Someone just cast a Frost spell on the arena!

The apprentice who tried to kick Angor's head lost his balance and stumbled to the floor.

This spell was nothing like the basic cantrip used by "Monarch of Eternal Freeze". It covered the entire stage.

The weaker apprentices were all caught by surprise and fell down in their own places.

As everyone was struggling to get up, a mighty gale came and brought up many ice shards into the air.

The stage was now covered by flying ice shards which prevented the apprentices from seeing anything.

"This is Surging Frost! The level-3 cantrip! A level-3 apprentice made his move!"

"Level-3 apprentice? Could it be-"

A man's voice came from behind the stage. "Dave, go get him. I'll stop these junks who only know how to fan the flames."

It was Prome. He did not intend to save Angor before as he wanted to avoid getting dragged into "possible trouble". He was not afraid of the level-1 apprentices in the least. Besides, unlike Toby who could not kill at will, he had nothing to worry about. As a renowned alchemist in Brute Cavern, killing several level-1 apprentices meant nothing to him.

"I'm on it!" Dave put on his goggles and rushed into the area of Surging Frost.

His equipment helped him locate Angor in the mess quickly.

"An-Ahem! Are you alright?"

Dave almost revealed Angor's name, but he swallowed it back quick enough. There were too many people here, he certainly could not give out Angor's identity like that.

Angor did not respond. His body was still shaking.

Dave moved closer and saw Angor's eyes were closed in pain. Beads of sweat kept coming from his forehead, and there were blood streams flowing from his mouth, ears, eyes, and nose.

"Oh shit. What's going on? What did that woman do to you?!"

Dave could not help cursing the woman, who was his "princess" just a moment ago.

Angor was in no condition to answer him now. While still angered at Parasite Queen's action, Dave placed Angor on his back and yelled at Toby, who was still trying to protect Angor from the air.

"Toby! We're leaving!"

Toby knew Dave well. The bird was glad to see someone familiar and quickly followed behind.

With Prome to keep the others away, they left the crowd successfully and headed to a cableway used in Level 13.

…

On one of the arena stands, Baroque revealed a disappointed look. "I didn't think a level-3 apprentice would actually go help him… looks like we're not going to force Sunders to show up."

"Should we stop them? The cableways are for fighters only. That goggled boy isn't one, so we have all the right to keep him here," Melantha asked.

Baroque shook his head. "No, let them go. We shouldn't step up and give troubles to youngsters in the open anyway. Pity, that level-3 ruined our plan to test Sunders' limits… We'll consider Angor as 'in observation' for now. We'll see whether we should raise his alert level later."

Since their director said so, the other workers did not prevent Dave from boarding a cable car.

When the car began leaving the tower, Dave finally sighed in relief. The cable network was extremely complicated. It should be safe now.

Dave tried to regain his breath after carrying Angor all the way here on his back. Usually, he really looked forward to riding a cable car like this. However, he did not feel any excitement from it now.

He slowly removed Angor's hood to reveal a blood-covered face beneath.

"What on Merlin's beard happened back there? Parasite Queen never touched him, how did he get wounded so badly? And… what made you decide to kill Parasite Queen? Is there a dirty plot behind all this?"

Angor already fainted so he could no longer answer Dave.

Dave tried using Purify spell to remove the bloody remains on Angor. However, more blood came rushing out.

Dave's heartbeat grew faster. Angor would be in great trouble if he kept bleeding like this!

Dave only knew basic healing spells that quickened the recovery of external wounds. He already tried them on Angor but they were useless.

After leaving the cable car, Dave carried Angor back to the alchemy shop. A while later, Prome also showed up.

"Master, please check him out. His condition is so strange. I didn't see any open wounds on him, but blood won't stop coming from his eyes and other places on his head!" Dave looked really anxious now. "'Heal' didn't do anything either!"

Prome stepped into the underground storage and quickly noticed Angor who was lying on Dave's bed with his clothes removed.

Angor's clothes, as well as the alchemy weapons he always carried around, were left on the bedstand.

Prome's attention immediately fell onto the Trigger Crossbow and another strange-shaped golden item. He knew about the Trigger Crossbow. He had been trying to recreate one by himself. However, he had no idea what the other item was. Something told him that it had to be another powerful long-range weapon, and he already sensed the runes drawn on it.

Prome's first reaction was to get his hands on the mysterious weapon. When Dave urged him, he suddenly remembered the important matter right now and cleared his throat.

Then, Prome moved toward Angor while pretending that he was not interested in the alchemy weapons at all.

As Prome examined Angor, his expression slowly turned into a big frown.

"What happened to Angor, Master?" Dave asked quickly when he saw Prome no longer releasing mana ripples.

Prome remained silent. "This is not right" was the only thing he said in the end.

"What's not right? You can't help him, Master?"

Prome did not mind Dave's straightforward attitude this time. "I used Expel Deceit on him. From what I saw, his body is full of taint."

"Taint? But human bodies all have taint."

"No… it's not the taint we usually talk about. It looks like some green powder substance, which has occupied his entire body. Blood vessels, organs, bones… His bleeding is also caused by the powders." Prome considered for a moment before saying, "I don't know what the powder is, but it won't be easy to get rid of them."

"Green powder?" Dave frowned and muttered, "Did Parasite Queen do it?"

"Should be. The powder doesn't belong to Angor's organs, so it must be left there not long ago. I want to know though, why did Parasite Queen do it to Angor? What was her reason?" Prome thought about all kinds of strange matters around today's match. Everything was still a mystery.

"Parasite Queen's dead, and we won't know anything before Angor wakes up. His rage back there seems so real. I almost felt it myself. Angor is not someone who would kill people without a reason, so he must know something," Dave commented. "The important thing is, how do we help him now?"

"The green powders stayed in his body in a very persistent way… they don't come out with his blood. Let me see. I'll perform a little surgery and extract some green powder to do an experiment on it. I need to know what it is before figuring out how to deal with it."

"It's only the way…" Dave was still worrying about Angor.

Prome quickly found some surgery tools. As he disinfected the tools and moved a scalpel to Angor, a strange figure suddenly appeared beside the bed.

"Who is it??" Dave jumped at the sudden appearance of the stranger.

Prome thought one of the mobs had come. When keeping the assailants away, he did not hide his face since he was confident that no one among the mobs would ever come and find trouble afterward.

Prome threw his scalpel at the figure out of instinct.

The blade stopped in midair before reaching the intruder.

Prome stared at the floating scalpel in shock.

The next second, the scalpel launched itself in the opposite direction, slicing past Prome's earlobe and stuck into the wall behind him.

"My spell barrier didn't work?!"

Drops of blood emerged from the cut on his earlobe.

Everything happened in a blink of an eye. Even though Prome was dumbfounded at his injury, they still took the time to check who it was.

"You-you're-Mister Sunders!" Dave looked at the handsome gentleman and stuttered.

Prome also realized who had come, and his anger at getting a bleeding ear quickly submerged. It was already a miracle by how Sunders only damaged his ear for his "rude welcome".

"Mister Sunders!" Prome bowed down while trembling. "I-I didn't know it was you, sir. Please, please forgive my carelessness."

Sunders humphed.

Prome's legs gave out and slumped on the floor.

And Dave was still too terrified to do anything.

"You saved Angor, so I'll let it pass this time," said Sunders. His expression was still cold.

Angor?

Prome and Dave both looked up upon hearing that name. Did Sunders know Angor?

Sunders waved a hand at Angor's figure and the latter then disappeared from the bed.

"I'm taking him away," Sunders' own body began to fade, obviously leaving as well.

"Wait, Mister!" Dave suddenly spoke.

Sunders stopped his teleportation.

Dave pointed to Angor's possessions on the bedstand. "They're Angor's stuff."

Prome rolled his eyes while trying not to show it. You ungrateful fool! Sunders wasn't going to take them away! Why did you—I could have kept them here and checked them out!

Sunders waved his hand again. His figure disappeared along with the items.

Dave and Prome stayed on the ground for another three minutes.

Once they were sure Sunders would not come back, they both sighed in relief and further collapsed on the floor.

"My legs… weren't working, when a formal wizard is around."

"That's a level-2 wizard, someone well-known in the entire south."

They looked at each other in embarrassment when Prome broke the silence first. "So what is their relationship to each other?"

Dave shook his head. "I don't know, sir. Angor never told me."

"I think I heard it from one of the wizards, that Mister Sunders found a new student last year… Do you know who is Angor's mentor?"

Dave was surprised by the question and grew even more embarrassed.

"I… never asked him."