“Unlike others, you use your soul to enter the Nightmare Realm. I give you two days to prepare so that you can maintain your soul at its top condition,” said Sunders.
Angor nodded. He had yet to fully recover the sequence of gravity inside him, and he did need some more rest.
Next, Sunders asked for more details about Angor’s journey when he was inside the purification garden.
“I see... I’m afraid even Lawson did not foresee that someone would receive Erdus’ legacy. Otherwise, he would have made other arrangements. Apart from the sequence of purification, Erdus’ talent would be the biggest destiny one could find during the challenge.”
Sunders would admit that his own illusion achievement was inferior when compared to the mirage abilities of a great monster who lived for several thousand years. This time, Angor gained the prize by risking his life, and the boy deserved it.
“You may not fully inherit its legacy, but you can still comprehend much of the knowledge it contains, which is also priceless.”
Sunders did not investigate what Angor gained from Erdus. It wasn’t written in books or scrolls since it was the guidance unknowingly sent by the consciousness of a mysterious artifact. Angor had to attain a higher level first before he could efficiently understand what was contained in the legacy, and only after that, he could pass it down to others.
“Do not start learning the legacy before choosing a main subject to focus on,” Sunders warned, “or the powerful mirages can easily lead you astray. When choosing a goal, exclude such external help and resources and follow your true heart.”
“I understand.” Angor nodded.
Apart from providing him knowledge and insight into Mirage illusions, the natural talent of Erdus might also convince him to give up on other illusion skills, and this was not Angor’s intention.
Instead of “following” Erdus’ knowledge, Angor knew he should become the host and turn the knowledge into his own.
That was about everything Sunders wanted to know regarding Angor’s garden challenge. Following this, Sunders would like to know more about Toby’s new body.
Since Angor did not know much about Toby’s strange abilities either, he could only explain to Sunders that a special bloodline inside Toby caused it.
And Sunders had no problem accepting the brief answer.
“One other thing. What Dodoro foretold is probably correct,” Sunders said in the end.
Before Angor entered the garden, Dodoro described a scene in which Angor and Keely were exploring the depth of the sea. Even so, Angor never had much time to examine his surroundings, so he couldn’t say whether what Dodoro hinted was precise.
It seemed that Sunders no longer had any other questions to ask. Angor waited for a while, and when Sunders didn’t chase him away, he revealed several matters that had been bugging him.
The first thing was the “drawback” of having a fully-grown Green Velvet inside his body. Angor believed Felicia told him the truth back at Dark Castle. So, when he saw the Green Velvet growing so rapidly after getting nourished by the purification aroma, he anxiously wanted to know Sunders’ opinion.
Instead of answering, Sunders sent an energy stream to observe Angor’s soul space carefully.
“There are... many necessary conditions for a Green Velvet to fully grow. It seems the aroma of purification somehow pushed it to its pre-adulthood,” Sunders said. He considered more before he continued, “And once it reaches its last stage, the spores I helped you suppress last time will come back.”
Angor quickly thought about Parasite Queen and her spores, which almost took control of his body.
“Moreover, the spores released by a grown Green Velvet can do more than you can imagine. Similar to before, they will create a natural barrier that both protects your soul space and heals all wounds inflicted on your soul. However... the spores still heed the command of Green Velvet. You must both have a powerful soul as well as the knowledge for controlling countless spores without letting even a single one of them slip and escape into the other parts of your body. Otherwise, the spores might create another colony somewhere and slowly turn your body into their own home.
“It is very laborious to control an adult Green Velvet. You either discard all spores it created, or spend lots of time and effort to fully manage the spores, in which case you still have to cleanse them timely as the Green Velvet will not stop generating them. Such is the ‘drawback’ that you wanted to know. Apart from soul manipulators, few wizards would use Green Velvet inside their bodies.”
“Is there an easier way to solve this problem?”
“There is. You can transfer the Green Velvet to your familiar pet while still maintaining the protection effect. And when the spores go out of control, they will be damaging your familiar instead,” Sunders said as his eyesight shifted to Angor’s chest pocket.
Toby was sound asleep. The bird somehow got a nightmare and huddled tighter.
Angor put a hand at his chest pocket and shook his head.
“I guessed as much.” Sunders chuckled. “You can also use slaves controlled by a magic contract, or magic puppets, or any entity that you fully trust. You can also sell the Green Velvet for profit. Just a note, the body of a fully-grown Green Velvet cost over a million magic crystals if you can find the right dealer.
“That’s about all your choices. I believe Toby has a very powerful soul, so giving him the Green Velvet might not be a bad choice. If you don’t want to, just find some other familiar pets. According to what I saw earlier, you have eight years or so before your Green Velvet truly matures. Think carefully before then. I suggest that you keep it because the benefit it brings is far beyond what you already know, as long as you know how to mitigate the flaws.”
Since he now knew that he had enough time, Angor gladly put the biggest concern aside.
Following some more discussions, Angor was reminded of his extremely weak physique again.
During the garden challenge, his lack of physical strength dragged him down too much, which Keely also pointed out openly.
He could move around at the depth of the sea due to Purification Field, but it probably would not help him forever.
Training his body or getting a bloodline was another of his urgent tasks.
No wizards would deny a chance for getting a superior bloodline. They fully knew that human bodies were generally at a disadvantage when compared to monsters, so they would gladly solve this problem even if it meant discarding several old body parts.
Finding a new bloodline was always the easiest way to strengthen one’s body. Besides, during the long history of wizards, people had found a good number of general-purpose bloodlines that had little to no side-effect on their users.
“That’s what you get for leveling up too fast.” Sunders sighed when he heard about Angor’s problem. “I didn’t think it necessary for you to find a bloodline any time soon, but I guess we need to change the plan. Let me see... You can find them without a problem from some of the markets in Floating Mech City. I’ll help to look too. Also, we can always look for a potent monster in Nightmare Realm later. Mind you, both extracting the bloodline from a monster or buying it from others are extremely costly, so get your money ready.
“Ness’ Succubus Bloodline was a pretty good one. Too bad you rejected the free gift.”
Angor shivered a little when he sensed that Sunders seriously meant it.
“So much for today. Like I said, use the next two days to prepare and come here again.”
“Um... sir, what should I do about that... you know, my debt to you?”
Angor delayed this matter for various reasons he had no control of, yet he dared not repudiate it for real. Now that he had time, he meant to find out Sunders’ attitude toward the debt.
In fact, Sunders was waiting to use this chance to restrict Angor’s actions later. He didn’t expect the boy to bring this up so soon.
“What, can you pay it right now?”
“Um, no. But professor, do you still have the microbes that are used for crafting storage items?”
...
Angor left Sunders’ study with a small bottle in his hand while feeling contented. The bottle contained a portion of greyspace microbes collected by Sunders during the construction of the gravity garden, which was about 20 times the amount of what Angor gathered on that day.
Angor was planning to use the microbes to make some space storages, sell them, and divide the profit with Sunders.
As per their agreement, most of the expected income would belong to Sunders. Angor gladly accepted it because Sunders’ materials played the biggest part in his plan.
Angor could slowly earn money by using his alchemy skills, which was good as it also provided him with practice and experience while it cost nothing. Other than this, he couldn’t think of a better solution to his debt problem.
Of course, since Sunders also wanted Angor to grow into an experienced alchemist, he had no problem accepting his student’s offer.