Angor felt refreshed when he woke up.
He was able to sense his spirit power during meditation now. Furthermore, without having to go through the second step, he could manipulate the power to practice it!
“A satisfying result… despite feeling a crack on my head,” Angor told himself. He felt content.
There were three steps before becoming an apprentice wizard. One, sensing spirit power. And two, controlling the power. Angor no longer had to go through the second step, and this saved him a lot of time and effort. However, this was not really an outstanding feat since the second step usually did not take long for most people.
So only the third challenge remained: to build a spiritual model.
Once his spiritual model was complete enough to channel mana flow, Angor could finally be considered a supernatural.
Instead of building the model right away, Angor stood up and turned off his tablet. He left it running when he fainted yesterday, and he checked the time on it before putting it away.
October 5th.
The fifth day into the Month of Looming Frost.
“Good, I only slept one night instead of several days like what I did in Nightmare Realm.”
Angor wondered if his spiritual power increased again this time? He needed to find a chance to test himself.
Yes or not, at least he made sure that there was really something strange about the wall. The mysterious pattern did a perfect job drawing his spirit power out. He only mimicked the pattern in his mind randomly, and it already attracted his spirit power so efficiently. What would happen if he actually drew the complete pattern in his mind?
Angor did not dare to try it out though. He did not go so far as to put himself on the brink of death yesterday, but he would rather not bear such pain again. Since he had successfully found his spirit power, there was no point in taking further risk.
When Angor stepped out from his soundproof room, he saw a grayish-brown figure lying beside his door.
“Toby?” Angor called in a small voice.
The sleeping creature on the floor slowly shifted and woke up. It tweeted and chirped happily when it saw Angor.
Angor placed Toby onto his shoulder with a gentle smile.
“Wizards always meditate for several weeks on end. Don’t worry about me. I think Lady Greya often keeps to herself like this too.”
Worry?
Toby looked away and was obviously not worried about him in the least.
Toby led Angor to its attic on the top floor and found its snack box. Under Angor’s puzzled gaze, it pointed at the empty box with its sharp beak and looked at Angor again.
“Oh… so you’re out of munchies, you big glutton? I thought you would at least worry about your master,” Angor complained while wearing a smile. He then added, “Let’s go then. I just made some great achievement. I’ll buy something for you.”
Angor changed into a casual, checkered jacket and a pair of loose pants. Seeing him, Toby also took out a checker upper wear and asked Angor to help it get dressed.
“Good thing you’re just a bird or you’ll be the embarrassed one, wearing the same clothes as me. You know, because you’re uglier,” Angor muttered while dressing Toby.
Toby pecked at Angor in protest.
There were lots of food stands in the marketplace of the apprentice town. When Angor arrived at the market at noon, the stands were full of customers. Aside from the townsfolk who did business here, Angor also saw a number of apprentice wizards.
This was the first time Angor saw so many apprentices gathered in one place.
Just like the buildings in varied styles, all the apprentices also had different appearances.
Angor saw such a particular apprentice who wore an adorable, pink bunny costume which also had a pair of fluffy rabbit ears on it. The apprentice would have been a cute one if she was a little girl about the age of five or six but… she was a “she” alright. Problem was, this woman had more muscles than any male bodybuilders. Besides, she was not even the most embarrassing dresser here. A young man standing in front of a food stand to Angor’s right was wearing nothing on the upper half, while his thighs were covered by short suspenders. The guy had some really thick chest hair, and he even placed two pink, heart-shaped objects to cover his two nipples.
Ah, my eyes…
Angor took a deep breath and covered Toby’s eyes.
Toby did not protest this time.
Angor could basically distinguish mortals from apprentices by their looks. He looked around in curiosity and saw many bizarrely-dressed people.
While satisfying his curiosity, Angor also noticed a small shop selling fast food.
Angor bought a bunch of food and dried fish slices, which were Toby’s favorite. He left his address to the merchant to receive the delivery before he wandered around the market.
After enjoying some popular snacks, Angor entered a cake shop called “Sweet Milk”. As he entered, he kept a low profile so as to not draw attention to himself.
A moment later, he left the shop while carrying two delicate food bags in his hands and a satisfied stomach. A drop of milk was left around the corner of his smiling lips.
Angor walked back to his house with his newly purchased milk product while humming a melody. The fast food he bought earlier had already arrived. Angor carefully stored them away and put Toby’s dried fish into its attic.
Next, Angor asked Toby to stay by itself before he left his house with one of the food bags.
He was carrying a portion of cakes and drinks he bought from the Sweet Milk shop and intended to take them to Sailum and Nausica in the caves. His friends were also training at the same time. Without the magic arrays to help them, they had to work harder.
It had been some time since Angor’s last visit. Since Angor already made a breakthrough, he decided to go check them out as well as to maintain their friendship.
The paths underground were scattered in disorderly manners. Angor had been here many times, but he would still get lost when going over forks which looked exactly the same. Thank goodness there were directional signs along the way. Otherwise, Angor was afraid he would have to spend a whole day trying to find his way.
When going up a small slope, Angor looked up and saw a dead end.
He must have entered another wrong fork.
Angor sighed and turned around. On his way back, he saw another individual walking to him in the opposite direction.
“Balba.” Angor realized the man’s name in his mind.
Balba was still in his wild-looking warrior attire. Angor did not really have any business, either good or bad, with him, so he only nodded to Balba as a courtesy when walking past him.
But just as they walked past each other, Balba let out a “Wait” in a low voice.
Angor stopped in his track and watched Balba with a puzzled look.
Balba was carrying a calm expression. However, the man was actually hiding his hands behind his back, which were trembling a little, meaning that he was actually pretty stressed.
“Need something?” Angor asked.
Balba stayed silent. When Angor was becoming a little impatient, he finally spoke in his raucous voice.
“Your professor is Mister Sunders, right? ‘Phantom Master’ Sunders.”
“Yes.”
It was already publicly known. Due to this, Angor was quite the topic among apprentices for a time.
“My professor is Miss Flora, who’s also Mister Sunders’ student.”
“That’s right.”
Balba looked really tensed up, “Do you know about Miss Flora?”
Angor thought about that question before answering him, “I do. On the cloud whale, Miss Flora helped me a lot.”
Balba looked a little happy at hearing the answer.
“Wonderful. Can I ask something? If you help me, I promise I’ll pay for anything in return.”
…
After bidding goodbye to Balba, Angor walked away with a big frown on his face.
Balba was assigned to Flora randomly because he did not receive any posters. Angor knew about this. But he did not know what happened to Balba after that.
Over a month, Flora never paid Balba a single visit, let alone teaching him. Balba had not even begun to learn his channeling method yet.
The other talents in the same term all took their first step on their path to wizardry while Balba remained in one place. This was why Balba was getting really anxious. When he saw Angor, he desperately tried to ask for assistance, hoping that Angor could help him ask Flora why she desolated him.
This favor was easy to do. Still, Angor did not agree right away. The boy only said that he did not see Flora often, but he would help to ask the question if he managed to meet her.
Angor did not know whether this was Flora’s way of testing Balba, and asking such a question now could be bad manners. This could also mean breaking the boundary as a student. Even if Flora was also Sunders’ student, Angor could create an unpleasant record with Flora because of this.
This was why Angor decided to ask for Sunders’ opinion first the next time he went to Phantom Island.