Similarly, many wizards would agree that Angor had created quite a marvel by escaping from Erdus’ illusions AND making it to the Altar of Demise.
Besides, they all knew that Angor received no external help—there was no wizard who entered the garden to assist him. The boy did all this all by himself.
But how?
They assumed that Angor possessed something given by Sunders that helped him break the illusions fast enough.
Yes, that explains why Sunders didn’t come to watch his student. He doesn’t need to!
None of them was correct. Angor’s group traveled from Erdus’ position to the Altar of Demise under five minutes, and Sunders didn’t have anything for Angor to move so swiftly.
Inside the garden, Angor’s group was now casually floating above the golden zone after “chasing” Jebra away. Not far from them was the embodiment of the purification law, which was still growing larger.
While sitting on the griffin’s neck, Angor smoothened its mane with a hand. “Thanks, Toby.”
This griffin, who confused everyone inside and outside the garden with its magnificent entrance, was originally the palm-sized seabird, Toby.
Toby finally woke up from its slumber five minutes ago, which was when Angor was feeling desperate due to the lack of time.
Angor freed Toby from his bracelet and told the bird to head to the altar so that he could stay alive. To their surprise, Toby’s tiny body grew larger in front of their eyes and turned into this “eagle-lion”. He then asked everyone to hop on.
Next, Toby dashed toward the Altar of Demise at lightning speed using his sequence of gravity.
Angor was quite astonished by Toby’s drastic change in shape as well as the bird’s unhindered speed. In fact, Toby now flew even faster despite his bigger body. It seemed Toby just gained several more levels at gravity manipulation.
With Toby as their ride, Angor’s group managed to reach their goal at the very last second. The raiders waiting outside the barrier never had a chance to catch up with Toby.
Since they were safe, the group carefully observed the glowing presence in front of them, which was the law of purification. They all hoped to gain such great power.
Angor, however, didn’t pay any attention to the garden’s law, nor did he care about why the apprentices were divided into groups. He was thinking about Toby’s condition.
What happened to Toby? Was he sleeping like that just to save strength for this “change”?
Toby didn’t answer his questions. He simply carried the group toward the ground and landed inside the golden waiting zone.
Toby’s action shocked the other apprentices again. Why would they drop down instead of waiting in the sky?
But on second thought, they believed that it would make no difference to this strange group of people. They already displayed their strength by scaring Jebra away.
And we can have a better look at them now! Who are they anyway?
After dropping Angor’s group off at the ground, Toby grew smaller until his body reverted back to the gray, palm-sized seabird. He then returned to Angor’s shoulder and gave his master a gentle kiss on the cheek.
Angor felt his eyes watering at the affectionate gesture of his partner.
“All that sleeping and you still look the same...” Angor chuckled. He thought Toby would take on a brand new look with all those bright brown feathers. Still... Even though these dim gray feathers might not look as beautiful, this was the good-old Toby that he liked better.
“Tweet!” Toby reached for its Snowy Feather and took out a black gentleman suit plus a black top-hat, which looked similar to Angor’s getup.
After getting dressed, Toby removed its bashful manner in front of all the onlookers and puffed up his chest as if he really needed these clothes to back up his character.
“Many thanks, Toby, or we’d be dead for sure,” Nausica said as she joined them and tapped Toby’s head with a finger.
Toby already knew Nausica, so he had no problem enjoying the petting.
Meanwhile, the other apprentices all wondered who “Toby” was.
That griffin was awesome! It slapped Dira away like hitting a fly. And people can ride it. We can’t find many better familiar pets like this one!
“Hey Angor, who is—” Shan also came and tried to copy Nausica’s move by poking Toby.
Toby moved his head away and gave Shan a side-glance.
Angor snickered at the funny sight and explained, “He’s Toby, my best friend.”
Keely and Shiliew also said their thanks but didn’t do anything else other than that. They did want to learn how Toby changed his form, but they thought that it was probably a private matter, so they decided not to ask.
Now that the introduction was done, Angor asked Toby about his previous questions again.
Using bird chirps and wing gestures, Toby tried his best to tell Angor what happened during his “coma”.
At the same time, some of the observing apprentices recognized Angor’s identity.
“That’s Mister Phantom’s student. That’s how he intimidated Jebra? I thought someone like him won’t come to the garden at all.”
“People said he’s all talks but is actually a p*ssy. Nonsense!”
Angor’s name was a hot topic in the city ever since Precision Sky published the stories about him and after people learned about how Sunders openly attacked Bogula in the city just to get Angor back.
But there were only a few wizards, such as Mithra, who truly knew about Angor’s alchemy skills. The other gossipers had completely considered what the magazine said as jokes, and no one believed that Angor actually reached out to a Mystery item.
There were also some people, such as those with malicious intentions as well as those who were envious of him, that purposely maligned Angor’s name, which ultimately caused Angor to earn a bad fame among his peers. Today, most people would describe Angor as either a “liar” or a “lucky liar”.
They couldn’t deny the fact that Sunders took Angor as a student, and they assumed that it was all because of luck.
As common sense, only fools would believe such rumors. Sunders was always a great and feared wizard, who undeniably knew how to tell if someone was talented or was a lucky but useless slacker.
Yet most apprentices chose to act as “fools”. They did not want to admit that a fresh apprentice was better than them, and they felt better when they chose to believe in those false accusations.
“Humph! What’s so special about him? I don’t see it!” Someone protested even when the truth was already upon his face. “Yeah, he’s THE student of Sunders. But is he really the reason why Jebra backed away? Didn’t you see Mister Eventide’s student was also with them?”
In fact, he was half-correct. It was neither Angor nor Keely who scared Jebra. It was Shiliew, who had successfully avoided all attention until now. The others only had their focus on Angor and Keely while being completely oblivious of the three other people in Angor’s group—a blue-haired female apprentice that no one recognized, a level-1 apprentice, and a seemingly powerless little girl.
“Are you blind?! That monster bird belongs to Angor! Can you defeat Dira like that?”
“But his pet doesn’t mean his own strength! Maybe he borrowed the bird from Mister Phantom?”
There were always stubborn people who would find countless excuses to disprove Angor’s capabilities. Even then, most people still chose to admit Angor’s strength. Angor did more than staying alive and everyone could see it.
“Nice! Angor is here!” Alan could no longer hold back his excitement and laughed alongside Loki, while Loki felt the same because he was among the group who got saved from the clutches of the Lord of Tentacles.
Compared to them, Falca was looking rather displeased.
“Damn it. He’s really alive?” Falca’s joyful mood disappeared instantly. “And he actually forced Jebra to go away?”
Falca’s mood was made worse when he thought about how Jebra’s whale just humiliated him in front of everyone.
Don’t f*cking tell me that Angor’s stronger than Jebra?
Falca was planning to use Angor’s death to protest against Taurus’ lecture, but he got his face slapped by the hard truth again.
...
Toby described his sleeping experience to Angor in detail.
First, Toby had to fight with “wrath”, a certain monstrous emotion mentioned by Greya. The exact battle was hard to explain to outsiders. Toby only said that he successfully devoured the emotion and became the last winner.
Next, Toby said that his form change was related to the emotion of wrath.
After devouring the emotion, Toby could sense what was going on around him, which meant it was time for him to wake up. However, something stopped him from doing so.
Toby discovered the legacy of a bloodline, and by accepting that bloodline, it helped Toby to learn how to turn into a “griffin”.
Also, Toby was not the “Flame Griffin” mentioned by Muse. The true identity of this griffin was “Fury Griffin”.