Warlock Apprentice

“Why am I getting the feeling that I always ran into this Fox Master…” Angor thought.

He had one night of good sleep, then prepared to head toward the tower with Toby in the morn.

When he opened the garden door, he saw Dave leaning against a small stone lump nearby. Dave was thinking about something with his arms crossed. Also, Dave was blushing as if he was having some kind of happy dream.

Angor removed his hood and approached Dave.

“Hey, Dave?” Angor said, wondering what was going on.

Dave heard his name being called with a start. When he saw who it was, he greeted Angor in an uneasy manner.

“What are you up to, your face’s all red,” Angor spoke.

“Oh, it’s… nothing.” Dave let out a silly chuckle. “I came looking for you.”

Angor knew Dave was hiding something, but he did not try to ask. Everyone got secrets. Angor did not really care about the problems of other people unless they had something to do with the truth of wizardry.

“So what do you need from me?” His first match was only half an hour away, so Angor did not stop moving when talking to Dave.

“I saw your match yesterday. You were so good! You’re as good as the strongest genius in my year.”

Angor gave Dave a surprised look, then he pretended he did not understand with an innocent expression, which he learned from Toby.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dave looked proud for some reason. “Stop it. I know everything. You started challenging the Sky Tower a month ago, and you’re at Level 13 now. You won against Mundo and Selena yesterday. Oh and… your title is ‘Baron Milk’—”

Angor covered Dave’s mouth with a hand.

“Ahem! Okay okay, keep it to yourself. A sh*tload of people have been looking for me, it’ll be a disaster if they heard you.”

Dave looked around doubtfully. There was not a soul around. They were walking somewhere far from the residential area, so no one would come here.

Dave silently laughed, believing that Angor was only preventing people from hearing his title.

Angor did not question how Dave learned about his identity. His hood was the only thing he used to hide his name. Anyone who knew him could easily recognize him on the stage by looking at Toby. Even though Toby only joined a match for the first time yesterday, Angor had started to bring Toby to the tower for a while now. He wanted to get the bird familiarized with battles among apprentices.

Anyone who knew Toby could absolutely notice Angor.

“Okay, so, you know my identity. My match is starting soon, why are you here?” Angor asked.

“To give you info on Fox Master, duh! Oh and, maybe there’s another small matter.”

What Dave already handed Angor only contained information about seeded participants and ranked fighters in the Three Levels of Death. Fox Master was not among them.

“Fox Master’s no better than Selena.” Dave cut directly to the point. “So you should have no problem defeating him.”

That’s it? Angor thought in his mind.

“Of course, there’s something more important I want to tell you,” said Dave. He suddenly revealed a serious expression. “If you can, try to… get rid of him on the stage, nice and clean.”

“You want him dead? Why? He’s your enemy?” Angor wondered. He did not like Fox Master’s showy style, but that was no reason for him to get personal. His impression of Fox Master was still neutral.

“I’ll tell you this. There are Three Genius Summoners and Three Useless Summoners in Brute Cavern. Yes, literally,” said Dave. He paused to arrange his words. “Fox Master is one of the geniuses. You don’t know who he is, but you probably know his junior who’s been studying from the same mentor.”

“Fox Master’s junior?” A name flashed through Angor’s mind. A bad name.

Dave noticed Angor’s change in expression. “You’re right. ‘Canine Master’ Potongue. Potongue is one of the useless summoners, but rumor has it that he’s a close friend with Fox Master. He even copied Fox’s title. The deaths of Potongue and Red Butterfly aren’t known by many people yet, but those who care about this information already learned about it. I don’t know if they’ve found out you’re the one behind this, but there are many spells that can help them reveal you. For example, Remove Delirium, which many level-3 apprentices can use.

“My point is, it’s very likely that Fox Master already knows you.”

“This is why you want me to kill him on the stage?”

“That’s right.”

Angor remained silent. Killing people was not really difficult for him. When he maimed Canine Master and Red Butterfly, he did not feel bad at all. Since someone came for his life, they should be well prepared for the possible consequence.

However… killing someone just because of a small possibility was against his moral standard. When Angor noticed that Dave was really serious about this, he did not refuse right away. In the end, Angor let out an “I see” without giving any explicit answer.

Since they finished talking about Fox Master, Angor changed the topic, “You said there’s another matter, right?”

“Master Prome wants to see you,” Dave briefly explained Prome’s words to Angor. “He still doesn’t know that you’re the mysterious alchemist. He asked me to talk to you and help him get into connection with this ‘alchemist’. Whether you want to go through it is your own decision.”

“I see no problem with meeting him, but it has to wait until I reach the top level,” said Angor. He had never intended to hide his alchemy skills. Being able to communicate with other alchemists meant getting more experience or even profit, so why not?

“Okay.” Dave suddenly blushed again for some reason. He stuttered, “A-actually, I have another favor to ask…”

…

The first match in Sky Tower today was between Angor and Fox Master.

As Angor climbed onto the stage, he was still pondering how to deal with Fox Master.

Kill him? No. He had not made up his mind.

Not kill him? But… Dave’s words got a good point.

The countdown began while he was still hesitating.

Like always, “Baron Milk” posed an arrogant indifference look and stood there without saying anything as he acted cool.

Fox Master quickly felt irritated. You beat me to it! No! I won’t lose!

Fox Master’s long, silver hair flowed in the air while his moonlight-white wizard robe flipped in the wind. He had his eyes closed on his similar indifferent expression. He looked like a wise hermit who just showed up in front of people, who supported his aged body on a fox-head walking cane.

A poseur with closed eyes and a hooded, wordless weirdo stood motionless on the arena face to face.

The waiting phase was about to end. Angor began to admire Fox Master a little, for remaining silent while waiting. This was a rare sight in Sky Tower.

When the match began, Fox Master still had his eyes closed, but he already began to trigger his mana and prepared to attack first. Fox knew how Baron Milk fought before. He watched Baron’s match against Selena yesterday.

Fox Master knew he was weaker than Selena. Still, he was confident he could win this time.

Selena’s defeat was still a mystery. People guessed that when Selena reached Baron Milk, she was blasted away by some kind of secret skill or alchemy item.

As a Summoner, Fox Master did not have to get close to his opponents. For this, he believed that he could avoid whatever happened to Selena by keeping his distance, which meant he could seize the victory in the end.

To make sure, he also summoned the true body of Blood Vixen this time instead of the shadow he used before. A tiny white fox smaller than a meter rushed toward Baron Milk under Fox’s command.

His plan was obvious. Fox Master was going to keep Baron Milk busy with his Blood Vixen and cast spells to take Baron Milk down from somewhere safe.

This was a common tactic for Summoners. This way, they could quickly learn about the strengths of their opponents. If their enemies proved to be too strong, they could simply surrender without going into a head-on fight. Otherwise, they could slowly wear their opponent down while staying at a safe distance.

Such a tactic appeared similar to Angor’s. Or, it was more effective.

When the Blood Vixen came at him, instead of casting an Ice Wall like how he always did at first, Angor applied Frost to the ground to slow the creature down. Next, he used his “simplified version” of Dust Removal, a cantrip he created called Dust.

Dirt and frost shards on the ground were blown into the air. Wind, water and earth elements somewhat co-existed in harmony and created a strange, misty effect.

“A composite cantrip that creates a mist. Interesting.” Baroque was also watching Angor’s battle. He gave Angor a look of approval when he saw the kid creating mist on the stage by combining two low-level cantrips.

There were many cantrips with such an effect. However, few of them were level-0, and many of them required their users to be skilled at a certain attribute. For example, apprentices adept at Darkness could easily learn a level-0 cantrip called Dark Mist, while other apprentices needed a long time to study the cantrip and would waste a lot of effort.

Now, Angor created a weaker mist effect by using two level-0 cantrips at the same time. It might not do much good, but his idea was brilliant.

“It was Frost and… something that creates dust clouds. A new element combination for an existing cantrip maybe?” Baroque pondered and began to admire Angor more and more. Composite cantrips and rearranging element combinations were both essential traits for entering “the path”. If Angor figured everything out on his own…

Baroque realized why Sunders took him in as a pupil.

Baroque thought he figured out the true reason for Sunders to pick a student. What he did not know was that even Sunders himself was quite surprised by Angor’s growth.

Now, on the arena, Angor was planning to do something special in the mist.