Warlock Apprentice

To be more precise, Greya’s soul was changing.

Puffs of mist were showing up from her soul, which slowly joined the clouds nearby. The area around her slowly became blurry… until different sceneries were seen.

Green saplings thriving for life, colorful fowls chasing each other, ferocious beasts napping in peace, and giant whales falling and providing nutrients to new lives…

Everything was short-lived and brief. Different sights showed up and vanished rapidly.

“This is it?” Flora muttered, “Doesn’t look like a big deal.”

The strange sight appeared similar to elementary illusions. Flora knew she could easily create such illusions in the blink of an eye.

Sunders had been watching the “illusions” with a frown.

His pupils suddenly constricted as he called out, “Wait… those are not illusions.”

Flora and Angor quickly checked again. Just as Sunders said, as long as something shown inside the “illusions” did not fade away yet, they looked realistic enough. The plants were beaming with life, and the animals had such bright eyes that they didn’t appear to be someone’s imagination at all.

As an apprentice illusionist, Angor quickly noticed the difference between what he saw and actual illusions.

The professor is right. There’s no illusion. They’re as good as real! But why would they disappear then? Something solid can’t just vanish without leaving any traces behind!

“Is-is this the ‘reward’ given by the world’s consciousness?” Angor was not sure what he was looking at. “It feels so strange.”

While different sceneries surrounded her, Greya also put on different expressions as if she was trying to read something difficult.

“So Greya IS receiving wisdom in her mind, while the weird sights in the outside world mean nothing to us,” said Flora.

The wizards outside Phantom Island reached a similar conclusion. There was no point in recording something they couldn’t use.

“Nothing?” Rein scoffed after hearing Flora’s words. “It’s far from that. Greya is such a resolute wizard… am I right, Sunders?”

Sunders nodded without looking away from the omen. “This tells us that Greya did not change her way. She kept going down the challenging path of ‘creation’ and persisted. She even succeeded in the end… Such unyielding determination.”

Sunders silently congratulated Greya. In fact, he wasn’t confident that he would make such a difficult choice if he were in Greya’s shoes.

Wizards who attempted the way of creation all knew how demanding it was. Nine out of ten wizards who pursued creation would buckle under the final challenge, while those who made it would probably find a new destination afterward. It was beyond impressive that a gourmet wizard resolved to such a path that was likely to waste most of her life.

“There’s a reason why Greya is believed to be the most promising leader of all gourmet wizards.” Rein also gave Greya the look of approval. “After this, it won’t be long for her restaurant to regain its former glory, and we’ll be seeing her enemies as well as the fools who took advantage of her absence coming and begging for mercy.”

Once Greya’s newly-gained strength was acknowledged, she no longer needed to look for her lost employees herself—people would send them back.

Strength meant everything in this world.

“But she still needs my professor’s help to get her body back,” Flora mumbled.

Rein didn’t say anything about Flora’s problematic speech, while Sunders only shook his head silently. Also, Sunders was wondering why Flora was acting so strangely. Was Sumesh’s success enough to bother her so much?

Greya slowly opened her eyes in the sky. At the same time, the wondrous sight around her all came to an end.

She looked down at Sunders’ mansion, and after ignoring Rein, Sunders, and Flora, she rested her gaze upon Angor.

Then she showed a gentle smile, or at least it was supposed to look friendly. However, Greya’s soul was showing her true, original look of a giant and meaty woman with scary flame-red lipstick. Her smile only caused Angor to flinch.

Next, she looked around the tattered shape of Phantom Island. She felt terrible since she asked for Sunders’ help, and yet she destroyed the gentleman’s home.

After making another decision, she unleashed what remained of the “reward” from her finger, which slowly sunk into the island below.

She was planning to use the gift bestowed by the world’s consciousness all to herself. But she changed her mind.

The energy removed scorched earth and burnt corpses and gave birth to new seedlings and more life.

Wherever she pointed to, the ground turned green and the whelps of beasts hopped around. Broken stones were once again covered in moss. Trees that survived the crisis grew new branches…

The wonderful sight astounded all observers. While it was true that Wood Elementalists knew how to make trees grow, what Greya did was different—she resuscitated trees and beasts alike while creating new lifeforms out of nothing.

Galloping deer, shiny, silver-scale fish bouncing in the water, fantastic birds that filled the empty sky… These creatures weren’t there just a second ago!

Even if these were only common animals, they suggested that Greya had gained a brand new level at the way of creation.

Rein watched Greya’s amazing art and kept nodding in admiration.

Sunders looked as amazed as Rein. “It must be the world’s consciousness that gave her such power.”

“No doubt,” said Rein, “even legendaries cannot create a life with such ease. Greya must have gained unbelievable wisdom about ‘creation’ to wield such power.”

Soon enough, Greya restored the broken island to its former splendor, if not better, all by moving an arm around.

Several wizards outside the island sighed in relief, for they did not stop their transmitters from recording the brilliant sight. There were bound to be people who would pay dearly to buy their “evidence”.

Apart from profit hunters, there were also wizards who noticed another interesting detail—why did Greya give Angor that smile? It looked as if she was grateful for something.

Many people knew that Greya and Angor were friends in a sense, but that didn’t explain why Greya was interested in Angor only while completely ignoring Rein Mute and Sunders.

While most people did not think too much about this, there were some who kept this clue in mind, such as Maya, who was glad to notice that Greya’s achievement was related to Angor after all.

There was also “Magus” Shildeen, who cast a curious glance at Angor as his eyes showed a signifying gleam.

…

Greya felt rather tired after “repairing” Phantom Island. However, she had to fully spend the remaining energy given by the world’s consciousness, or it would go to waste.

About 40% of the energy remained after tending to the island. After looking around to find a target to use the energy on, Greya fixed her attention on the flower house that housed the Krakoks.

She then sent a voice transmission to Angor, “Guess I’ll give you a small gift, boy.”

The other wizards could not notice her message from afar, but Rein did.

Once again, Rein looked at Angor in great interest. He knew Greya told the Angor something, but he could not read it.

However, Greya addressing Angor twice was enough to suggest that the boy held some kind of secret. Rein wasn’t going to ask, as it would make him appear as an eavesdropper.

To his surprise, Flora helped him by asking a question, “Hey, Angor, what are you two talking about in that voice transmission?”

“As far as I know, the purpose of voice transmission is NOT for sharing. Be careful with what you ask, Flora,” Sunders scolded.

Flora was taken aback as she didn’t expect her professor to give her a serious warning. While It was true that peeking into someone’s voice transmission was impolite, it was not a severe offense unless the transmission involved critical secrets or people of authority. She didn’t believe Angor was such a case.

But she had to give up since Sunders meant to stop her.

Meanwhile, Rein Mute found it more and more worthwhile to keep an eye on Angor.

No… Rein thought to himself while pretending that he was still watching Greya. Sunders was never the type to guard his students so intently. Did Angor really play a part in Greya’s achievement? She must have received some help. It is nearly impossible to create spells without her true body.

But what could Angor possibly help her with?

He gave up thinking after a while—he still knew too little about Angor.

But he would keep Angor’s name in his mind from now on.