Angor already knew the trick. However, currently in his early stage after learning the cantrip, he had to stay fully focused at all times. Any distraction would cause the illusion to fail.
If he could use simple sound to trick someone and inject terrible terror into their mind, the effect of Melodious Illusion would grow tenfold and become deadlier. However, to achieve that, he had to learn how to manipulate the minds of people, which he still had no clue yet.
“Man… the more I get into illusions, the lesser I feel about myself in this world,” Angor sighed. “Alright, let’s get to the quests. What did you find?”
Dave passed his bone card to Angor. “Every subject is like this. Alchemy isn’t an exception.”
“Alchemy? I don’t have much problem yet,” Angor was looking at Dave’s card and only replied absent-mindedly.
Dave was terrified at Angor’s comment. However, he soon remembered that he was looking at someone with insane alchemy talent, which… explained everything.
Dave brought ten quests in total which were all about a similar difficulty as the previous ones. These new quests had about 4,500 magic crystals as their total reward.
“Good. We should have enough crystals to attend the grand auction once we get them done, right?” Angor commented.
“Only if you’re not planning to compete with wizards over valuable stuff. In that case, you should have enough without doing these ones. You already earned enough money to buy some of the common materials, even if it means bidding against others.”
… But you still need to worry about taking them away in one piece if you try that . Dave thought but did not tell Angor.
“Well, I don’t need valuable things. I’m not at that level yet.”
“Then we’re good. We can probably keep some crystals in the end.” Dave knew about the prices of materials since he often helped Prome purchase them in Twilight Well.
They worked hard in the coming days and successfully completed all ten quests in the morning of the fourth day. This was already longer than expected since Angor failed several times when drawing runes, which caused them more time.
Angor was a bit sorry for his mistakes while Dave did not mind at all. Rather, a 100% success rate when drawing runes should be the wrong case. Dave already found Angor’s success rate these days to be frighteningly high. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, he would not believe that someone could apply runes so smoothly at all.
However, it did not bother Dave too much. He had seen too many surprises from Angor.
“I’ll get you in the afternoon, and we’ll go report the quests together,” said Angor after he made his decision.
The quests were registered in Dave’s bone card so Dave had to be present when reporting in.
“Sure.”
Angor could at least find time to rest during the day while Dave had to keep the shop running. He had developed terrible panda eyes after all the hard work the past few days. However, fatigue on the body did not prevent him from being extra happy. Every billet he made could get him two or three hundred magic crystals. He was always happy with more money.
The quests had earned him thousands of crystals as well as sufficient practice. Dave would not mind experiencing such tiring yet rewarding days. Compared to them, he felt his previous life was almost useless.
“We got enough quests so we’ll stop here. Good job. Have some good rest from now on,” Angor spoke.
Dave really hoped he could do more, but he was content enough. With Angor’s help, he gained huge experience for the first time in many years during which he almost made no progress in alchemy.
“Thank you, Angor. I mean… really,” Dave could not find better words to express his gratitude.
“No need. We helped each other. I’d definitely need more days if not for your help.”
Their teamwork convinced Angor of the convenience of streamlining. He would have asked Dave to keep working with him if he was not trying to hide many secrets from people.
Angor rested for a while and walked into the underground lab again.
He still had another “private” quest to do: to make a chain for Bobota.
The chain was not complex to build, but this was the first “customized” item he was going to make, so Angor intended to give it his best.
Since it was easy to make, Angor planned to give the chain some extra decoration, so as to go with Bobota’s great reward. Angor picked up his tablet and searched for runes suitable in limited space. Bobota required weight on the chain as well as the ability to be used on a Blood Altar, which meant Angor had to choose something not corrodible by blood.
In the end, he chose the Vacuum Iron, which was of a pale blue color the same as clear sky, as the main material,
As for decorating the color… Angor decided to engrave white clouds on the chain which would look perfect along with the color of the sky.
It took him about half a day to make a six-meter-long chain. Before applying Rune of Silence to it, he began to paint cloud patterns on the item carefully.
The work bestowed a significantly better appearance to the otherwise ordinary iron chain. The item now looked like an ancient yet elegant tool from a foreign civilization.
Angor could already imagine what kind of beautiful sight could be created when someone wielded it.
The next step was giving the chain Rune of Silence. This was still an uncommon rune to him, so Angor had to rely on a projection to draw it.
It went smoothly. After going through Condense, an exquisitely-crafted chain shining with the power of magic rune came into being.
Angor was quite satisfied with his work. Now he only needed to find out whether Bobota could say the same.
…
It was around four in the afternoon. Angor placed the chain into a space capsule while storing all the other weapons into another separate one.
The capsule for the chain was provided by Bobota. The remaining ones came from the questing hall, and that would cost a small fee.
With the capsules, Angor left his villa.
His first stop was the Cave Field. Unfortunately, Nausica and Sailum were still nowhere to be found. Angor began to worry that those two might have already moved away. However, if that was the case, their rooms should have changed owners.
He went to the underground market next and checked out the Sky Tower. The place was still overcrowded.
Now Angor was feeling a little anxious about the safety of his friends. When arriving at Prome’s Alchemy Shop, Angor pondered whether he should hire someone to look into Nausica’s information.
Dave also noticed Angor’s unusual mood. After hearing Angor out, he suggested with a smile, “If you want to hear from your friends, you can always pay some money to Bartterfly Pub. They usually provide any information as long as it’s not something extremely uncommon.”
Angor recalled that Tesla found out the information about purification garden in the same way. However, the pub only provided the info several hours before the questing hall announced the info to everyone, so he did not really trust the place. Besides, “Bartterfly Pub” sounded like a very cheap copycat to him.
Still, he would check out the place anyway.
Dave closed up the shop and accompanied Angor to the pub.
The middle-aged bartender working in the pub was their informant, who instantly recognized Angor when he approached.
“Mister Padt, how can I help you?”
“You know me?”
“You’ve earned yourself quite a name when you entered Brute Cavern, have you not?”
Angor remembered the day how he drew everyone’s attention in the resource distribution hall. Many random people around the bus stop already learned his name in the same day.
Besides, someone who sold information to people had to have his own sources, so Angor decided not to ask too much.
“I want the information about someone.”
“Who is it?”
“Nausica Asbel.”
The bartender pondered and took out a gold-colored booklet whose cover was decorated with a pair of eyes.
“You mean a lady who goes by the title ‘King of Blackberry’, sir?”
Angor nodded. “Can you tell me something about her?”
“Two magic crystals.” The bartender extended a hand, and Angor paid without much of a thought.
“If my intelligence’s not mistaken, this lady accepted a quest and went to the Moonfrost Passage.”
“Moonfrost Passage? She didn’t keep up her tower challenge?”
“She spent a week on the 11th floor. Judging from the result of her matches, her challenge did not go very well. It was already a miracle for her to make such an achievement by using a mere tiered alchemy weapon and several scrolls. She would need more than that to keep going. I assume she went to the passage looking for destiny.”
Angor understood Nausica’s decision. The Moonfrost Passage was connected to the Abyss Plane, where tons of monsters lurked. Many Bloodline Wizards would find bloodlines from those monsters to power up themselves. The vial of succubus blood that Saka found also came from that place.
“Is she accompanied by a boy called Sailum?”
The bartender reached out his hand again. “Two magic crystals.”
Angor complied.
“Yes.”
Dave spoke up before Angor could ask something again, “That’s it? A ‘yes’ for two crystals? Man, easy money!”
The bartender did not look up from his glass. “You’re asking for personal information, and I charge money by how many people you’re interested in. Simple as that.”
Dave wanted to protest but Angor quickly stopped him. “How are they doing now? Are they safe?”
The bartender shrugged. “I do not know about that. They went to the passage in a team one week ago. I don’t think they have run into any serious danger yet.”
So they are safe…
Angor stopped here. That was exactly what he wanted to know.