Warlock Apprentice

The life of a wizard or anyone for that matter had its rises and falls. Greya believed that she was at one of the "falls" when everything seemed to be opposing her. She might be a carefree soul, but this wouldn't help her neglect her true problems forever.

She let out a deep breath and sat back at her table.

Without her body, she could not train, suppress the foreign soul, or venture out and look for her workers.

The only thing she could do right now was to work on new spells with pens and paper.

The spell called Artificial Life had granted her an extremely elevated starting point on the path of truth, which made it harder for her to proceed.

A certain mighty figure from Candy House once warned her that Artificial Life was a beautiful accident in her life when she barely knew anything about what "life" was.

He warned that such a path, which defied nature, was not something she could easily walk on and that she'd better find another direction to go after. Or, she could enrich her foundations and keep walking on this path once she reached the level of legendary.

Otherwise, the world's consciousness might decide to get rid of her one day.

At first, Greya did not trust those words. She stayed blindly determined and idled a lot of her time away, fruitlessly doing research based on Artificial Life. This was until 30 years ago when she realized that she had not learned enough about life and creation.

She began to understand the warning, that stepping onto the path of truth was basically pointless in her case. She had to reach legendary as a fresh start.

She was still a level-1 wizard, which meant three more levels to go to reach legendary. She must make a choice. She could either give up on the art of creation and find another path to follow or perfect her foundations so that she could keep walking on her old path. If she failed, she'd waste her life as an ordinary wizard while watching her strength fall.

The first choice was easier since a legendary wizard who tempered with "creation" would sooner or later violate the very laws of this world and provoke the world's consciousness.

Not to mention that it was beyond difficult to comprehend the concept of creation.

After careful consideration, Greya still decided to keep walking on her old path. Unlike other wizards who might have all sorts of great ambitions, she as a Gourmet Wizard solely wished to search for new cooking materials, and the way of creation sounded tempting enough.

She wouldn't give it up.

However, no matter which path she chose, she had to be recognized by the world's consciousness by certain means such as creating new spells and causing omens. To others, doing so meant "being recognized by the world's consciousness". However, truth-finder wizards usually had another way of addressing this, which was "being monitored".

As for whether this was good or bad, nobody could tell.

The southern wizarding region had not welcomed a single legendary wizard in quite some time. There was no point for people to discuss something beyond their reach anyway.

…

Greya was still working on a new spell.

Since she was determined to keep pursuing "creation", she also based her calculations on Artificial Life.

She named her new spell "Birth".

It sounded rather similar to Artificial Life. She even used the same symbols, which she originally used to work out Artificial Life.

While Artificial Life meant creating something out of thin air, Birth would allow her to make something happen based on existing materials. In other words, Birth was a derivative of Artificial Life.

The warning she heard from Candy House was correct, that her Artificial Life was an accident. In fact, she knew she got to learn such a wonderful art all thanks to extreme luck from the start. It was like building a house on a single wooden beam. By miracles, the house remained stable.

What she needed now was to add more foundation to the house and make it safer, and in this case, backing up the way of creation.

The spell "Birth" was something to strengthen the foundation.

Yet she had not succeeded after working for 30 years, even when she had a lot of references that she gained from Artificial Life.

This had proved to her again that being able to learn Artificial Life was a coincidence. The way of creation was extremely arduous and unforgiving.

…

Since she had nothing else to do, Greya had to force herself to work.

Thirty years of effort had granted her no result. It was made impossible when so many concerns were haunting her mind.

She had entered a dead end.

She feared that no matter what she did in her current condition, everything would turn out badly.

She needed an opportunity, something new that stimulated her success.

But she didn't find such a thing over the past thirty years. She didn't believe that an opportunity would visit her when she sat still and waited.

Pieces of crumpled paper balls were the only things that carried her frustration away, albeit just a little.

"Ughhh. How I hope I can discard my stress away like tossing papers. That would be convenient…"

She quickly realized that she just "dreamed" about something unrealistic, about which all truth-finder wizards would find ridiculous. This had told her again that her weakened state was getting to her. She was being affected by the young body.

She knew it all along. She had to find her old body, but she could not do it on her own.

When she was alone, she let her guard down and began displaying her uncontrolled grievance.

This was why Angor heard unusual noises when going toward Greya's hut.

When he did, he silently backed away so that he would not bother a wizard who might be in a bad mood.

"Butler Goode, what's going on with Lady Greya?"

Goode was giving Hobbiton "servant training" again. Hobbiton didn't like this, but he had to study in order not to get chased out of Phantom Island.

The butler asked Hobbiton to keep working and whispered to Angor, "Mister Padt, Lady Greya demanded that we do not approach her house, so I don't know her condition. Number 19, who has exceptional senses, just told me that he sensed chaotic emotions from there. Perhaps Lady Greya feels bothered by something."

Bothered? Angor held his chin. Something to do with Sunders, I wonder?

Angor still had no idea what "agreement" Greya and Sunders agreed upon. He took a guess that all his questions would be solved if he learned about it.

Oh… please don't tell me Dave's rumors were true…

Back at Bartterfly Pub, Dave also mentioned rumors about how Sunders accepted a strange woman at Phantom Island. Dave even asked Angor whether the woman was Sunders' lover.

Of course Angor said no.

But right now, Angor was beginning to have strange ideas about this matter. He could never fully understand his professor's weird tastes.

"I see, thank you, Butler Goode," Angor said and returned to his bedroom.

He took out Toby, who had been napping in his pocket.

Toby had been sleeping ever since they left The Tributary, which meant the bird was really tired out.

Angor tapped Toby's head with a finger.

Toby slowly opened his eyes, looked around in confusion, and jumped up with a start.

I just escaped from this place! Why did you bring me back? Toby complained using "wing language".

Angor saw how his little partner was terrified of Greya's "lessons" and revealed a malicious grin. "Hey, Toby, I have a favor to ask."

Toby carefully checked the room again. Once he made sure that Greya was not here, he waited for Angor to continue.

"Can you help me deliver a message to Lady Greya?"