Warlock Apprentice

After careful consideration, Angor decided to make a covenant with Shadow.

Compared to swearing to the world's consciousness, a written magic covenant was better and more convenient for restricting apprentices.

To apprentices, who didn't know how to check the "integrity" of a contract by communicating with the world's consciousness, it was easy to leave "bugs" by using tricky words. This was why Angor chose to use a weaker but safer approach with Shadow.

Of course, Shadow could also attempt to leave defects when writing down a covenant. To prevent this, Angor was going to copy something he saw from a wizard magazine before, which had been proved to be almost perfect.

[Kurna's Agreement, Signed at the Crypt of the Tyrant of Despair]

With the hope of regulating each others' actions, an apprentice named Kurna created this contract with his companion before they explored the catacomb of an ancient wizard "Tyrant of Despair".

It was already relatively complete when it was created thousands of years ago. After that, more and more people did all kinds of revisions to it, making it better and better.

Drafting a covenant powerful enough to restrict people required equally powerful paper that could hold magic.

Angor failed to find anything suitable from his bracelet. In the end, he reluctantly took out a piece of Chaos Beater hide that he bought from Twilight Auction, which was a parchment capable of sustaining magic arrays. His stack of 50 parchments cost him 700 magic crystals back at the auction.

He never actually used this thing before because it was so costly, and he didn't expect to spend one for making a covenant instead.

It was definitely a drastic move, but he didn't have another choice right now.

While his heart felt like it was bleeding, he swiftly wrote down the covenant and tossed the parchment into the mist.

When Shadow saw it landing at his feet, he jumped a little.

"Kurna's? Heh, of course, you're no wandering amateur."

This proved to Shadow that the boy had to have come from a "legit" wizard organization.

Shadow carefully read the covenant and felt glad that he didn't need to use his ace card, which would probably postpone his breakthrough.

Basically, the covenant forbade them from harming or tricking each other in any way. They had to communicate on neutral terms for the next 365 days, and it would take effect immediately.

Shadow confirmed everything written on it while bearing the pain of his wounds.

In the end, he glanced at the shining insect and the seabird in a tailcoat, who had been watching his moves.

He sighed and said, "Fine, you got me."

Using his own mana, Shadow dropped his blood on the parchment, which slowly turned into a round-shaped mark at the bottom-right of the paper.

"Wait, that mark looks perfect, and there's no magic leakage… This is quite an expensive paper, I think," Shadow murmured as he checked around the parchment and flipped it over to look at its backside.

And he was astonished to see the cloud patterns on it.

"Are you kidding—this is a Chaos Beater hide?!"

Angor didn't answer since he could somewhat understand what Shadow was implying. He simply retrieved the parchment, and once he checked Shadow's signature, he left his own signature on it.

A powerful aura came upon their bodies which governed their pact.

As the paper slowly floated in the air on its own, Angor lifted his illusion around Shadow. They had to witness the final step of the pact together.

Shadow limped to Angor while holding his biggest wound, and he looked at the paper in midair with a frown.

"Come on, tell me I was right! There's no mistake, I know those markings!"

As Shadow questioned him, Angor felt sadder and sadder about wasting a piece of valuable material. He could have saved a lot of money if he'd brought something more proper.

The Chaos Beater hide slowly burned out, which gave birth to a pair of light beams that sank into Shadow and Angor, thus determining the effect of their agreement.

"That WAS a Chaos Beater hide, eh?" Shadow was still asking.

"Oh for the—do you really have to ask?"

"I can't believe it! Where the hell are you from? If I'd known earlier, you can just give me that paper, and I'll tell you everything I know!"

Angor shook his head and canceled the Nightmare Domain. Since the pact was already made, there was no way Shadow would do something stupid again. Otherwise, the man would face eternal doom that was worse than death.

They stood inside the narrow and dark room again.

Shadow manipulated his strings and made all the victims return to their seats.

Nine of the ten seats were occupied.

Shadow glimpsed at the remaining one, which should have been his, and turned away to treat his injuries.

"You're not taking that?" Angor said.

"I'll heal up first, I guess."

Angor chose to sit down. He then began to ask questions while he looked at all the emotionless smiles of the other apprentices. "So, why did you control them?"

Shadow secretly grinned and ordered one of the puppets to stand up. He then took the seat which was on the opposite end of Angor.

"That covenant won't force me to tell you my private matters, right?"

"Fine by me." Angor didn't really care about that question.

"So… we should at least introduce each other properly, no?"

"Call me 'Mask'."

Shadow cast a Cleanse to remove all the dirt and blood from his body, revealing a handsome look. "Mask, eh? Fair enough. Guess we'll both use fake names."

Angor nodded and remained silent. It wasn't easy for people who were enemies just a second ago to sit down and chat, and they both knew what was more important right now.

Shadow managed to recover some mana and stopped all heavy bleeding. He adjusted his mood and finally chose to talk. "Tough luck, me. I've been at my plan freely in these parts for all these years, and something happened at the most critical point. Well, I can't say no to our agreement so… tell me what you want to know."

"I have two reasons for following Magician here. First, I need to get out of Fairy World, so I need a map," Angor said. He then paused and considered for a moment before he said, "A map of the other areas of Fey Continent would be better."

"I can give you the map of Fairy World, but I don't have the other one. It's not like I can just give you the map of Fey Continent for free anyway. Where do you want to go by the way? I might be able to just tell you the direction."

Angor thought about his options. He didn't know many places on Fey Continent. He had been staying inside Brute Cavern for a year without traveling around much.

Should he say Brute Cavern? Or Floating Mech City?

Angor wasn't sure if he could make it to the purification garden on time since he had no idea how far he was from Floating Mech City.

"I'll tell you later. My second goal today is to exchange for some materials."

"Materials, huh? I can trade with you if you need something from me." Shadow nodded.

Angor handed Shadow a list.

"Mystic Fog Strings, 37 standard units. Hairy Orchid Gravel, 20 cups. Mystic Fog Gel, 1 unit…" Shadow slowly read through the list as his expression turned from neutral to surprise. "High Bronze, 9 kilograms. Standard density Meteorite, 1 cubic. Glum Wood…

"These are nontiered, but you need too much. I don't have enough right now. Why do you need them anyway? You trying to become an alchemist too?"

"'Too'?"

"Well, I know many people who want to do that stuff."

"You included?"

Shadow shook his head. "Nah, I'm not talented. And I don't feel like shutting myself in a lab room to imagine things all day."