There could be more reasons that caused Toby’s condition. Maybe the giant snake did something bad to Toby, or maybe Toby did something bad to himself.
Angor had been wondering why the giant snake did not attack Toby directly while the other smaller ones did. Surely the “snake king” could easily penetrate Toby’s gravity barrier if it wanted to.
So what was it waiting for?
The snake couldn’t be neglecting Toby since it furiously came after Angor when he took Toby away. There was something off.
After trying and failing to come up with any idea, he had to ask for Sunders’ opinion.
Sunders dropped his act of unpleasantry and scanned Toby’s body by sending a warm energy beam that way.
“All physical conditions are fine. No abnormality in brain readings. I don’t see any problem. He’s only sleeping.”
Kanter heard their conversation and came. “He’s right. Maybe your bird really needs more sleep.”
Angor nodded but didn’t feel his concern solved.
This was not the first time for Toby to sleep more than he should. Previously, Toby spent several months in a coma to confront the “will of wrath”. According to Greya, the monster parts she used for making Toby contained five different emotions, wrath, love, hatred, grief, and sadness. Toby had to defeat these foreign emotions during his growth.
Last time, by defeating the will of wrath, Toby successfully unlocked the power of Fury Griffin. Toby could not get any direct help when fighting against the emotions. He either conquered them, or lost his soul and became a puppet of the emotions should he fail.
Angor wondered if Toby was battling with another emotion right now. But as he remembered, Greya did tell him that it would take Toby several more years to begin the second mental battle, after he fully mastered how to control the power of wrath. It was still too early now.
Angor looked down as he considered his options.
Sunders knew what was going on when he heard Angor’s mumbling. He happened to know how Toby was created. Then he quickly thought about the emotion-control ability used by the monster snake. It was quite possible for Toby to encounter an emotional conflict earlier than expected if the snake’s power did its trick on Toby in specific ways.
“If you must, you can try entering his dream and check what’s going on,” said Sunders. “But you can only look. Don’t interfere with it.”
Angor nodded—he just thought about the same thing.
As long as he remained as an observer, the dreamer wouldn’t be able to detect him. Intentionally displaying his arrival in someone’s dream could be risky because the dreamer might unexpectedly change or damage the integrity of the dream in harmful ways. Even a close friend might not know what they were doing to their visitor when dreaming.
This wouldn’t be a problem if Angor could learn the advanced levels of Dream Manipulation arts. If he ever learned how to forcefully command a dream, the original dreamer would be at his mercy instead.
With Sunders helping him looking after his body, he cast Dream Walk and reached an “antenna” toward Toby’s head.
Kanter raised an eyebrow when he saw Angor suddenly nodding off.
“The boy has learned a Dream Manipulator cantrip?”
“Dreams and illusions can greatly amplify each other when used properly. Perhaps he can come up with many interesting ideas in this way.”
“Wait, you mean Angor’s going to create new spells by combining dreams and illusions?” Kanter then lowered his voice into a whisper. “So you are planning ‘that’ after all? You would let him forge spells as an apprentice?”
This wasn’t Sunders’ intention. Going for Dream Manipulation arts was an extremely difficult choice. He could see that the few Dream Manipulation cantrips Angor learned were all hastily done since Angor needed a long time to cast them.
In Sunders’ view, Angor should use an existing spell on his first spell slot and become a wizard as soon as he could before the demon invasion and the nightmare monsters made their full assault in the wizarding world.
Though he wasn’t going to explain his thoughts to Kanter.
Kanter would like to know more about Angor’s study schedule as it might be helpful to Keely. But he was interrupted when he sensed hostile energy coming from the sky ahead.
“Here they come again...”
As soon as they reached the Lightless Mountain, a team of demons and gargoyles covered in bright flames emerged from the woods below and blocked their path.
...
Angor traveled across the “dream bridge” and successfully entered Toby’s dream.
He was expecting to see an unfolding calamity or something similar when Toby was fighting off an emotion. But he saw nothing like that. In fact, the dream looked completely normal.
The background of the dream was set on an island where a beautiful villa was built. The bright sunlight shone from the sky and went across several colorful bubbles hovering in the air, creating a formation of rainbows. In the distance, the peaceful sea was gently showering the edge of the island with lovely tides.
The dream appeared to be a perfect fantasyland for a young girl, even though Toby was not exactly a “girl”.
Angor didn’t notice anything wrong at first. Like always, his “Dream Walk” cantrip placed him on top of Toby, who was casually roaming around the villa.
The villa looked very similar to the layout of Padt Manor. Following Toby, Angor even saw several familiar faces, such as Head Housemaid Mana, who just sent Toby a food plate.
When Toby landed beside the plate and dug in, Angor noticed that he was looking at several slices of crab meat.
Bam!
Toby kicked to plate onto the floor and angrily chased Mana away.
Angor could tell from Toby’s voice that Toby really hated Mana for some reason.
But... How come? Toby always loved Mana and the snacks she prepared back at Padt Manor.
Toby flew into the sky to play with the bubbles when he saw Auri showing up from below.
“Caaaaw!” —You look awful! Get lost!
Startled, Auri ran out of Angor’s sight.
Something was definitely off with Toby.
Angor saw the Milkberry Tree among the farm fields, where Toby’s good friend—the Moonlily Fairy—was peacefully enjoying a glass of milk. He saw the fairy waving and inviting Toby for a drink and wondered how Toby would react this time.
Toby’s first action was to land on the branch and peck at a plate of food beside the fairy without making any sound, which was pretty much normal.
Then Angor noticed something wrong again. The plate had small cuts of sea anemone placed in it, which was not Toby’s usual diet.
“Crab and anemone meat... Does it have something to do with the monsters I ran into earlier?”
His thoughts were interrupted when Toby suddenly moved again.
After finishing the anemone, Toby lunged at the Moonlily Fairy and began aggressively tearing its clothes off.