You have a special talent.
Angor showed a bitter smile. His talent, again. He still did not know what that was. Every time he tried to ask, Sunders would not say a word about it. The man only told Angor that he would know on the day he became an apprentice.
However, he needed a channeling method to be an apprentice! Now he was not sure which way to choose.
Sigh… Angor felt his future wavering. Was his talent good or bad? What could it bring him? And to Sunders? He did not know.
Angor laid on the bed and muttered to himself. After a while, he turned around to face the empty tent, then let out another deep, frustrated breath.
On careful consideration, it was not difficult for Angor to choose when Sunders already told him so much.
There were three options. Still, could he really choose the first two? Or rather, did he dare to choose the first two at all?
Sunders emphasized “you have a special talent”, “my spells are connected to the Nightmare Realm”, “think carefully”… He was definitely trying to indicate something.
To think positively, Sunders really did give him three choices. Nothing fishy here.
However, Angor was almost certain that Sunders wanted him to choose the last option. Angor was not sure how Sunders would react if he did not follow the hint.
Disappointed? Giving him up? Or ignored his presence forever? Those might be the better consequences.
It was also likely that Sunders would throw him into the wilderness or force him to obey.
So if Angor wanted to avoid offending Sunders, he had to choose the third one.
“Nightmare Realm… Nightmare Realm…” Angor exclaimed that name and decided not to think too much about it. He would go to Sunders’ book room and look for information about the place.
A good sleep was what he needed for now.
…
Another uneventful night.
In Sunders’ book room, Angor was sitting on a ladder. The bookshelf beside him had several books about general planes.
Pioneer in a Foreign World and Pros and Cons of Expeditions Against Planes , composed by Barzel the Great Twisted Wizard a thousand years ago. Wonder Worlds and Residing in Dimensions written by the newly risen Occult Archwizard Fein Werder in the recent century. There were also about a dozen volumes of Expedition into Endless Planes periodicals, published by Moonfrost Union.
Barzel the Great Twisted Wizard mainly wrote about the experience of his expeditions into other planes. Angor read on and found out many amazing planes, such as the Blaze Plane where everything was covered in lava. The plane was as big as the wizarding world, and a sapient creature coated in violet crystals which were connected via something like glass fibers lived in this plane.
“This heat-resistant crystalline creature looks like silicon-based lives,” Angor thought to himself.
In addition to the Blaze Plane, Barzel also recorded the Oblivion Plane populated by gaseous life forms, the Abyss Plane filled with various monsters, the Vortex Plane which shaped like a maze, and the Silent Plane where sound could not travel… the variety of strange planes really amazed Angor.
Angor’s brother Leon used to say that his biggest wish was to see the vast world by himself. He wanted to enjoy different sceneries, different civilizations. If Leon was here, he certainly would decide to travel through these planes right away.
Angor was not his brother though. Still, he hoped that one day, he could bring Leon as well as his teacher Jon, to see the different places.
One day, he hoped.
After completing the book by the legendary wizard Barzel, Angor realized the Nightmare Realm was never mentioned in there. Maybe this place had not been discovered a thousand years ago?
It should not be. Judging from the historical records of the wizarding world, expeditions into other planes began thousands of decades ago. During this time, all general planes near the wizarding world all had traces left by the wizards.
So why was the Nightmare Realm not discovered? Was it far from the wizarding world?
With many doubts, Angor picked up the Expedition into Endless Planes published by Moonfrost Union to read.
This was a centenary periodical. A volume would be published every hundred years, and there had been a total of 16. This was also the existence period of Moonfrost Union. Sixteen centuries ago, Moonfrost Union was established at the Everfrost Iceland in the Northern Kingdom. It contained 13 wizard organizations and was a major force for plane expeditions in the south. In every century, they would publish various information about their new expeditions.
Angor began from the first volume.
He followed the index and kept going until he reached the 14th volume which was published 200 years ago. Here, Expedition into Endless Planes officially recorded the Nightmare Realm.
Next, Angor found out that the book described the Nightmare Realm in only two pages! Two pages, in a book volume that was several thousands of pages thick! This absolutely contradicted against Moonfrost’s core business which was “plane expeditions”. For the other planes, whether the expedition was successful or not, there were always overstated details. Even a small encounter between several people would be described like two nations were fighting an all-out war.
Angor went straight to the two pages that talked about the Nightmare Realm.
He finished them soon.
His expression became even more puzzled.
According to the book, the Nightmare Realm was a “roving” plane. There was no stable tunnel that led to it. The only method to enter the Nightmare Realm was to wait for the plane to move closer to the wizarding world on its periodical path, then open a space wormhole randomly and stumble into the place by chance.
The unstable plane, random tunnel, and enter by chance… These three uncertain definitions flagged the Nightmare Realm itself as something unsure.
Apart from the unstable plane tunnel, the Nightmare Realm was also an extremely dangerous plane. The book said that because of the uncertainty of the tunnels, less than ten wizards had ever gone into the place and came back in one piece.
Even more confusing, those who came back from the Nightmare Realm all refused to say anything about it. Even if someone occasionally slipped out a word or two, they were only something vague. Those people’s fear of the Nightmare Realm was plain on their looks. However, at the same time, they all showed great greed towards the Nightmare Realm. Every time there was a rumor about the appearance of the plane, they always rushed to the spot quickly as if they wanted something really bad.
Such strange behaviors only deepened people’s doubt towards the place. What in the world was inside the Nightmare Realm, that could make people both terrified and greedy?
Of course, the records were from 200 years ago. Angor did not know if things had changed.
Next, Angor opened up the book written by the Archwizard Fein Werder. Compared to the “academism” books he just read, Fein Werder appeared more like an educated traveling bard.
Instead of scientific articles, his book was more about traveling diaries, or rather, folklore tales.
For example, Wonder Worlds was completely describing Werder’s sightseeing records. From the elf world which was full of giant and green vegetations to the heaven of oceans where the waves had rainbow colors… If not for Fein Werder’s authoritative identity, Angor would have believed that the book was a collection of fairy tales.
Also, Fein Werder used really literary languages. There was nothing about blood or violence in the book. While he enjoyed his noble verbal techniques, Angor also admired his great wording arts.
Soon enough, Angor finished Werder’s book.
Even though the book did not record the Nightmare Realm, Werder expressed his intention to travel the Nightmare Realm many times. He only had one single comment about this plane:
“The reality is projected into imaginary and gives birth to the truth.”