Greya did not know how to respond. She cast several doubtful looks towards Sunders, who still had an I-care-not expression. Was she wrong? Angor’s talent had nothing to do with the nightmare realm?
But Angor’s story sounded really similar to the Nightmare Realm.
If his talent was related to the Nightmare Realm, had he stumbled into the real Nightmare Realm during his talent test? So was his talent about connecting the Nightmare Realm and reality?
Nah. Greya shook her head and laughed it off. Impossible. A tunnel between planes was not something manageable using human bodies.
Greya’s guess was that Angor’s talent could have a similar effect with Twisting Protozoa, thus her question. It seemed she was wrong though.
She shook her head again. She would not get an answer anyway, might as well give it up.
A man famous in the entire southern region was sitting there. She certainly could not force him to speak.
With that in mind, Greya suppressed her curiosity and prepared to cook Sunders’ order.
As she went through her materials, the sound of flapping wings came into the room.
Everyone looked towards the source. A seabird about the size of two hands dashed past the curtain. It had gray feathers, green eyes… an ordinary bird if one only considered these.
But what if the bird was wearing clothes?
White hat, blue bib, a tiny messenger pouch. A bird wearing these things would surely look strange. Yet somehow, its appearance seemed quite harmonious.
Maybe it was because the bird’s eyes looked as intelligent as human eyes?
“Ah! Tweet!” Angor called out in instinct.
The bird heard Angor, made a circle in the air, and landed on Angor’s blond hair.
“Oohohoho! Toby, my sweetie!”
Greya somehow was already standing beside Angor. She was rubbing Toby the seabird with her large face.
As the bird was perched on top of Angor, Greya just grabbed Angor into a hug as well.
Angor’s mind blanked out due to the great shock. He only saw something blurring through his eyes, and felt his face squeezed into a strange shape by all the fat chunks.
This was his first time getting so close to a female ever since his mother passed away. However, he was not getting any improper ideas—he only wished to get away as fast as possible.
After a bit of struggling, Greya finally let him go.
Toby the seabird was still standing on Angor’s head, with its feathers messed up a little.
Angor was in worse shape. He had his slicked hair combed nice and shiny in the morning. Toby’s talons kind of disturbed it a bit. After Greya’s trampling, his hair was now a complete lump of disaster.
“Hey! What’s with the bird?” Flora looked at the miserable look on her new junior and chuckled in secret. She dragged Angor behind her.
“Bird? How rude of you. This is Toby, my loving friend!” Greya gave Flora an angered stare.
“But it’s just a bird.”
“Whatever.” Greya carefully held Toby up and placed it onto her shoulder. Then she wiggled away to continue her cooking.
“The bird is a living food,” Sunders suddenly spoke.
“Living food? Greya’s artificial life?” Flora seemed surprised.
“Should be.”
Flora’s expression turned. “No, I checked it. That’s absolutely a bird monster, although a very weak one. It couldn’t be a created living food.”
“Use Expel Deceit to look at its original form.” Sunders seemed to be admiring something.
Flora hesitated for a while and used Expel Deceit on the seabird. She saw a cut-off lifestream. That was a typical residue indicating that something was an artificial life!
“Greya’s artificial life spells could already create non-sapient creatures. It was just a few decades and she already created a sapient monster bird… It seems her strength is near the limit,” Sunders exclaimed. He added, “Another 20 years and she’ll become the first level-2 gourmet wizard in the south… if she never strays from her path.”
Section Ephemera and Twisting Protozoa were both non-sapient creatures even though they possessed amazing powers. They were merely materials for wizards. The monsters. however, were different. Some of them might be weak that even mortals could kill them, but a sapient monster could achieve great things if it met its destiny.
“So this is what a real wizard is? She walked on a really distant path,” Flora exclaimed as well.
“What is artificial life?” Angor could not hold that back.
Sunders pointed to Greya. “You will see when Greya uses her unique spells.”
Greya’s living food was usually taken away by her customers so she did not have special containers for them. Her movement was fast. Several unknown cooking materials were hurled into a gourmet wizard tool in a blink of an eye.
Gas vortexes, monsters with many eyes, mist, worms, ores, indescribable liquid… Everything looked weird, and they all gave out unusual auras.
Next, Greya threw everything into the air and began mumbling something in her mouth. Light rays spread from her fingers.
As Angor watched, live and dead materials changed their shapes and colors under the “massaging” of light, like soft dirt being reshaped and gave birth to saplings.
In the end, a black, segmented worm appeared in front of Greya.
Angor only found it amazing while Sunders and Flora noticed the application of various knowledge and techniques, added with the special ripple of a gourmet wizard. There was also an unknown will working in the dark, to create life out of death and make a living creature using many models.
“Wonderful. Beautiful!” Angor spoke.
“Knowledge as vast as the sea, used with varied logics. Such an astonishing view.” This was what Flora and Sunders would say every time they saw Greya’s artificial life spells.
Looking at the wiggling worm, Angor asked in a small voice, “Did she create life?”
As he remembered from the eastern and western myths from Earth, only extremely powerful beings could create lives. Maybe a wizard in this world could also do that?
Sunders considered for a while.
“Yes and no. Only the Creator in the mythologies can create a real life. But wizards don’t believe in gods, they trust in truth and knowledge. Greya’s unique spell is called artificial life and seems to be creating lives. However, it involves too many theories, including monster bionomy, microbial restructuring, mana energy exchange and so on. These deep theories are nothing like creating something out of thin air in the stories.”
“Oh…” Angor nodded in enlightenment. It was like cloning, to use various methods to create a new life while bypassing the rule of reproductive isolation. “I think I can understand now.”
“Kids,” Sunders shook his head. Of course, he did not believe that Angor actually understood anything. He thought the young man was pretending to be calm.
What he did not know was that when it came to certain knowledge, Angor was already a qualified scholar.
However, Sunders did not say anything, just to protect his new student’s little ego.
