Warlock Apprentice

“Let’s give our congratulations to Number 187 for winning the Abyss Nightmare Horn at six thousand magic crystals!” Twilight announced and glanced at the Silver VIP seats on the second floor.

Angor grinned widely.

Prome glanced at him in surprise. Like everyone else, Prome was beginning to wonder if Angor was really acquainted a master alchemist. But he did not really believe it, considering how Angor often asked him very basic questions.

Prome gazed at Dave and signaled his assistance to ask in his place.

Dave gladly complied while hoping to satisfy his own curiosity as well. “What is that horn used for? And why do you need that thing?”

“Oh, it’s very useful to me,” Angor gave them an irrelevant answer.

Then Angor grinned again without telling them what exactly the material could do.

Abyss Nightmare’s Horn? Angor chuckled in his mind. What he just bought was more than a horn. Similar to the core of Black Dense Stone he got earlier, this one possessed more value than people imagined.

Its real name was “Rosegold Nightmare’s Horn”.

In a broad sense, the name used by the auction house was correct because it did come from an Abyss Nightmare. Except that this one had more to it.

A “Nightmare” was essentially a fallen war steed resurrected by dark power and corroded by resentment; something extremely powerful by its own existence. Meanwhile, a Rosegold Nightmare was a rare case among all Nightmares.

In its previous life, a Rosegold Nightmare was an honorable war steed specifically bred by noble families. A Nightmare originated from such a breed became a “Rosegold Nightmare”.

When breeding this special war horse, people used the blood of a certain creature called Holy Horse of Cygnus a.k.a a Unicorn.

A Unicorn was a powerful monster who could manipulate life and death, and it was impossible to witness a Unicorn to turn into a Nightmare. A war steed with the blood of a Unicorn, however, could not escape from the ultimate death, making it vulnerable against the dark power. However, their bloodline could somewhat lower their chance of being fallen after death.

Every “fallen” monster possessed evil and power related to death. A Rosegold Nightmare was not an exception. Also, a Rosegold Nightmare possessed other traits thanks to the trace of Unicorn blood in it. As the power of darkness occupied its flesh, the power to “manipulate life and death”, albeit just a little, would ultimately be forced into the horn on its head.

For this reason, a Rosegold Nightmare’s horn contained both the power of death and power of life. This was how it was different from other Nightmare Horns.

The power of life in such a case was too weak to be considered visible energy. Instead, it only left inconspicuous traces of white strings inside the horn. Angor noticed the tiny traces appearing on its outside as well, so he quickly noticed that the item being sold was something special.

As for why he needed it… the horn was an entry material which could help him to start learning Mortality Alchemy!

It was intended for formal wizards, this much was true, and there was no way Angor could do anything to refine it right now. Yet he did not need to. There was something recorded in his Tooling book ” Basic Alchemy ” which provided another theory, that to Mortality alchemists, the horn’s potential was fully expressed when used as a mana conductor.

Angor found Basic Alchemy from the Nightmare Realm. There was a similar book in Sunders’ collection. However, the one Angor found contained extra information in it.

A spell called “Blacken”.

Blacken was a specific spell used by alchemists from the Mortality Sect, and it did not require the alchemist’s level. The outcome of the spell depended on the mana level of its user.

Angor already tried to learn Blacken during his alchemy studies. However, he never managed to make the last step of the spell, which was generating dark matter by “Blackening” substances.

After some careful research in his books, he realized that he failed because of the lack of a mana conductor.

Mana conductors came in many forms and most of which could only be made by master alchemists. There was only one naturally-occurred mana conductor which did not require any processing—Rosegold Nightmare’s Horn.

The horn contained the purest form of death power, as well as a small part of the power of life. This was exactly what fascinated Mortality alchemists the most since they always pursued “death and resurrection”.

Angor found the horn at Twilight Auction which could finally help him use Blacken. Of course, there was no way he would not let the chance slip.

An Abyss Nightmare’s Horn already worth more than six thousand crystals to alchemists who needed them. Getting a Rosegold Nightmare’s Horn at such a price was a huge bargain.

And Angor had to thank the appraisers of Twilight Auction for that. Those people made a huge mistake.

He was too excited to realize that he had become the center of attention by buying something only useful to master alchemists.

The auction continued. Participants were presented with a selection of items typical to the usual style of Twilight Auction, which meant there were all kinds of items.

The 159th item was “Starry Night”, a glass of pheromone potion.

The 160th was the cerebellum of a Domon Beast, used in human body modification.

The 161st, a baby cloud whale, vehicle pet.

The 162nd, Rainbow Beads, storage item.

Angor was quite interested in the baby cloud whale. He spent a lot of time on the back of one, so he could understand how valuable it was as a means of travel.

But it took centuries for a baby cloud whale to go full-fledged, and there was no way he could afford to feed the creature over such a long time. More importantly, the bid for the creature went all the way to 30 thousand magic crystals. Angor wondered if he could earn so much money by selling himself as someone’s slave.

The cloud whale was not the most expensive one yet. The next item, Rainbow Beads, created a bigger competition.

The necklace was obviously a lady’s accessory. Yet it was a male wizard who won it at 50 thousand crystals in the end. Angor knew this because Lydia and Flora worked together to badmouth someone this time.

“A gentleman buying a woman’s charm? What a joke.”

The wizard was furious at this. But he did not retort since those words sounded pretty legit.

The man had been saving up for a long time just to find a storage item at the grand auction, and he was always disappointed. Today, he finally saw what he needed so he did not hesitate when going for the item even though the design of it was meant for women. It was a necklace anyway. He thought he could wear it under his clothes so no one would notice.

Before the 163rd item was brought up, Twilight paused and gave them a speech.

“The remaining ten lots are the finales of Twilight Auction, and I believe you all know what to expect.” Twilight clapped and the stage went darker again, leaving only the spotlight to focus on the display stand.

Angor heard the sound of wheels running on the floor. He saw a series of iron cages being pushed onto the stage, covered in black curtains.

Their curiosity was not left hanging for long. Soon, an auction worker came and moved the rightmost cage and lifted its curtain.

Angor was startled a little when he saw what was inside the cage.

He expected to see some kind of dangerous monsters inside the cages. However, he realized he was looking at a mermaid. Her upper body was completely naked, while the remaining half was a fishtail covered in pink-colored scales.

The mermaid looked extremely charming. She was panicking inside a transparent water tank in the cage. The tank was sealed up aside from a small venthole, which meant there was no way for her to get out.

“Mermaid captured somewhere 200 sea miles off the shore of Shampoo Coast. She is a Figg Mermaid, average life expectancy is 300, and they usually decline at the age of 250. This one is now 16, a child, a virgin. According to our appraisers, she had a fully functional reproductive organism and no… reproductive isolation, from mankind. But the offspring developed in this way will always be a Humanoid,” Twilight explained in her neutral tone. “Also, she’s probably a royalty among Figg Mermaids. She possessed a natural talent ability.

“You can dissect her for experiments or use her as your tool. Either way, she can prove a valuable slave to you.”

Many male wizards chuckled ominously.

Angor frowned a little when he saw a slave being sold at the auction, but he did not say anything about it. There were always slave merchants in mortal nations. A number of servants in Padt Manor also used to be slaves.

However, most of the slaves Angor knew about in his home world all chose such a path willingly because of poverty. They became slaves to feed their empty stomachs.

The mermaid, however, was “captured” according to Twilight, a different case.

To Angor, forcing someone into slavery for personal gain was something he would not accept. Something like this was common in wizard world where true strength ruled over everything else, and Angor could do nothing about it. He would try his best to maintain his own moral ground despite being inside this brutal world.