The message, which only contained three words, was sent by Sunders.
“Return at once.”
Even though Angor had no idea what the gentleman wanted, he couldn’t afford to keep his professor waiting for various reasons. After briefly explaining the situation to Mithra, he quickly left Elixir Hut.
Angor returned to the manor and saw the door to Sunders’ study was left open.
Sunders was alone in the room busily writing something at his desk when a ray of bright sunlight entered through a window and drew a golden outline around his handsome face.
When Angor entered, Sunders stowed his quill in the ink bottle and signaled Angor to take a seat.
Angor noticed that Sunders’ voice sounded rather fine compared to last time. Also, for some reason, there was an unnoticeable aura veil floating around Sunders, which made him look even more mysterious.
At the same time, Sunders carefully inspected his student. He didn’t have time for it previously because he was worried about his soul space in the last month. He only knew that the boy had returned from the purification garden alive, and that was about all.
Sunders wasn’t surprised about Angor’s survival, but he was VERY surprised when he saw that Angor had reached level-3 so fast. In fact, Sunders was already astounded when he saw Angor attained level-2 before the garden challenge, which was impressive enough.
And the surprises kept coming.
“How did you—” Sunders frowned upon his student’s unimaginable training speed. “Did you go to that plane passage again?”
He was referring to the plane passage located at Pocratee, which was guarded by rainbow dragonflies. As far as he knew, it was the only explanation for how Angor could train so fast.
But this was very unlikely, as Angor didn’t have near enough time to travel there. Besides, even the passage couldn’t help Angor to grow so quickly.
“Did you not get stuck at your limit?” Sunders questioned.
Angor shook his head. Limit? None. I just... slept through, and boom, level up.
“You reached level-3 like this without using the thirty-six-dimensional locator?!”
Looks like we have to keep the channeling method safe no matter what... more so than ever, Sunders thought. He still had not realized that Angor recreated the perfect axes of the universe system in his mind space, which allowed the boy to achieve the full potential of the channeling method.
“Now tell me how you did it,” Sunders said. He could no longer contain his curiosity.
Angor didn’t hide anything as he also wanted to find out more about the strange condition on his shoulder, so he explained what he went through in the garden as well as his coma in detail.
Sunders’ puzzled look suggested that the gentleman could not understand the situation any better than him.
“A scar absorbed all of the purification power? And it can replenish your soul energy faster?” Sunders did not recall anything that might explain these strange outcomes.
Energy couldn’t possibly be created out of thin air. They knew that the scar on Angor’s soul was left by something from Nightmare Realm, yet this couldn’t tell them how all the purification aroma became the source of pure soul energy.
“... Again, Nightmare Realm holds too many secrets that we will never understand. To answer your doubts, you must go to where the scar means to take you, inside Nightmare Realm.”
Angor believed that going into Nightmare Realm equaled to suicide at his current level, yet he had no choice but to put all his questions aside.
Sunders did another thorough examination on Angor and made sure there were no flaws before he shook his head. “As far as I know, there wasn’t another human being who gained strength as quickly as you in the last ten centuries, apart from several humanoid individuals with really special talents.”
The most important part of Angor’s achievement was that he did not use any external help or “trickery” that facilitated his growth. Angor’s energy system and mana pool were both stable and well-developed. The only thing that might need more polishing was Angor’s knowledge base.
Again, Sunders was glad that he went out of his way and accepted this brilliant student, who proved to be quite an auspicious little genius.
He wondered how White Coral Floating Island Academy would react when they learned that they accidentally lost such a history-changing young man.
“What you should do next is to study. I don’t think I need to remind you of that. Also, you may develop spell slots in your mind space now, but that will be something for a very long time later... You haven’t learned many level-2 cantrips yet, am I right?”
Angor nodded, a little embarrassed.
“Fine. Once we return to Brute Cavern, you may settle down at Phantom Island while I attend to something elsewhere. I’ll tell Goode to ready my study so that you can amend your weakness in knowledge as best as you can.”
Angor knew what getting inside Sunders’ study, where he kept his personal book collection, meant. He quickly nodded while his eyes twinkled with delight.
“Heh. More free stuff for you, happy now?”
“Not going to disappoint you, sir! Er, are you going to leave because of that ‘old friend’ who visited you?”
“Old friend?” Sunders frowned. He had to depart and join Monkey’s quest, which had nothing to do with any friend of his.
Angor told his teacher the strange voice he heard that day; the one that called him “my disciple”.
Sunders looked down a little. “It does not concern him. You don’t have to worry about him right now.”
Angor was always adept at reading someone’s expression. He noticed that Sunders did not wish to talk about this matter.
“I called you here because I need your help to do an experiment,” Sunders revealed his intention. “But it could be very dangerous and is very likely to place you in extreme situations. What say you?”
Dangerous experiment?! The first things that came to Angor’s mind were bizarre research subjects that removed or replaced someone’s brain or heart while the victim stayed awake.
“Can I um, know more first?” Angor couldn’t see Sunders’ face really well since the gentleman was staring at his desk, and Angor didn’t know what would happen if he were to refuse.
“I need you to go to Nightmare Realm again. Together with me, of course. Don’t take me wrong. You’re free to say no, I will not force you.”
That did not sound any safer than the human body dissection Angor imagined.
“Nether City?” Angor would admit he was curious about the plan.
“No, we’re going to another region, which is still one of the outer ones. It’s a lot safer than Nether City since I and Flora once cleaned out some monsters. Suppose there are no new monsters who decided to settle down there afterward, we’ll only encounter creatures as strong as level-1 wizards. And it’s not big. Several thousand kilometers, and you will make a full trip around.”
Angor considered. The size suggested that Sunders could locate him soon enough. As for the monsters... he should have no problem running away using his sequence of gravity.
Yeah, I can try it out.
Angor always wanted to have a chance to explore Nightmare Realm again, although he didn’t dare to do so since even the outermost areas might have legendary monsters living in them.
But since Sunders mentioned that their destination was relatively safe...
“The monsters shouldn’t be an issue,” Sunders said. He saw through Angor’s mind and added, “I’m worrying about... that woman.”
Angor was confused until he saw Sunders pointing at his shoulder. He finally realized what Sunders was referring to.
The strange woman with a stitched face.
While exploring Nether City, the woman showed up in the end and almost caught him when he was in Nightmare Realm. There was no doubt that she was the biggest threat if they ever went there again.
“You can consider this a secondary experiment. I wish to find out what that woman wants from you. You’ll have to confront her sooner or later, or you’ll never find enough courage to travel to Nightmare Realm ever again.”
Angor fully understood those words—as long as he wanted to figure out the mysteries in Nightmare Realm and the nature of the strange scar on his soul, the suture-faced woman was a non-bypassable obstacle.
“Can you tell me more about the ‘experiment’, sir?” Angor was determined to accept the quest.
“I want to do a test on your Nightmare Form. Precisely speaking, I want to see to what extent your Nightmare Form can ‘create truth’,” Sunders said as his eyes twinkled with intelligence.
Last time, Angor physically took everything back from Nether City apart from the particular channeling method book. Thankfully, he was able to memorize the content of the book. Meanwhile, Sunders couldn’t take any items or memory from Nightmare Realm.
Sunders wished to find out which types of items Angor could bring back or take into Nightmare Realm.
Being able to take extra items such as scrolls, alchemy items, space storages, or even Mystery weapons into Nightmare Realm meant that it would be safer when exploring the dangerous world. In addition, they would be able to bring back more loot. Sunders never succeeded before and he planned to see whether Angor could do it.
Angor believed that his professor should have another reason to do the “experiment” at such a time, but he decided not to ask.
“I’ll do it. When will we depart?”
“The day after tomorrow.”