The runes shown in the picture weren’t very clear. In fact, the runes weren’t complete at all, as the central mess of them was obscured behind either incompetent drawing or random ink.
How did someone recreate runes without knowing what they were first?
One viable approach was to look at a collection of runes and use the limited portions shown on the scroll to find out which runes were possibly used, then refer to the whole magic array to confirm the final choices.
That sounded like a LOT of effort.
Angor quickly regretted accepting the request because it looked more and more like a bad deal now. He could have tried to find the magic threads himself while spending way less time.
The woman told him not to check the scroll during the meeting, probably because she knew the difficulty of the quest.
A*shole... and she said there was some kind of big secret in the scroll. So this was her plan.
He already accepted the Abyss Wyvern Vein and agreed to the trade, which meant he could not back out now, especially if he wanted to maintain his fame as an alchemist. Thankfully, the task wasn’t impossible. He simply needed enough time.
Defeated, he took out his hologram tablet and opened Enchantment Cyclopaedia: For Starters so that he could look over the runes one by one.
Little did he know that he completely misunderstood the woman’s plan.
She had no idea about Angor’s comprehensive book collection about runes that could help him find the correct ones using very little information. Truth was, there was an easier way to do it.
However, Angor failed to notice her true intention and was going to proceed with the task in a hard way.
...
Angor rubbed his fatigued eyes and turned off the tablet.
He spent two days to go over half of the book, only to find a single rune that was fit to be used as a connector for the other runes.
Enchantment Cyclopaedia: For Starters contained LOTS of information, which would probably take over ten large-size books to physically record, and Angor had to read each page to find the remaining runes shown inside the scroll.
Most of the runes were so complicated that he had to check every detail in order not to miss the correct choices, which further slowed him down.
Even if he had his spirit strengthened as a level-3 apprentice, staying alert and constantly focused still tired him out.
Luckily, the quest wasn’t urgent. The woman gave him one month. The time was more than enough if nothing went wrong. However, he might need to find another wizard to escort him back to Brute Cavern if Sunders left too early. After all, he couldn’t survive long-range teleportation with his current strength.
There was another condition to this, that he did not die inside Nightmare Realm in the coming journey. He wasn’t really worried about dying because it wasn’t necessary. There was no point in being all afraid of death day and night as it would only add unnecessary mental stress.
After putting his tablet to safety, Angor left the room without waking Toby up.
He had to join Sunders and explore Nightmare Realm today, and regardless of the danger, he knew he had to accept the challenge.
...
Sunders was busy operating something in his study, so Angor waited for a brief moment. After Sunders put away his materials, he went straight to the point as he said, “Our destination is the projection of a certain place that exists in reality, which is around Lavish Division at Westland. It is a rumored town that only appears during a full moon. The locals call it the ‘Witch’s Town’.”
Previously, Sunders showed the terrain of their goal using a crystal ball. This time, however, the gentleman displayed several signature buildings with illusions instead.
“The Witch’s Town inside Nightmare Realm is always covered by mist, and you will not see the correct path normally. Wandering aimlessly and the mist will misguide you to danger and traps,” Sunders explained while pointing to the buildings one by one. “A butchery hunted by wizard-level wraiths and Deaths. The town center, also with wizard-level monsters hiding inside. This is the Redmoon Church, deadly as it appears to be...”
Sunders described a dozen dangerous spots.
“Do not enter these places if the mist takes you to them. Head back into the mist and keep moving until you see these...”
Sunders replaced the illusions with several ordinary-looking houses.
“Flora and I once killed all the monsters in these cabins. There shouldn’t be anything too strong left in them, if any. I’ll look through them one by one. Hide in one of them until I reach you.”
After Angor carefully memorized the houses, Sunders took out several magic scrolls.
“Take these. Once you arrive at Nightmare Realm, immediately check if you still have them on you.”
Sunders moved to prepare for departure, only to see Angor spacing out for some reason.
“Something on your mind?”
Angor shook his head without speaking.
Sunders thought Angor was still afraid of monsters and sighed in his mind. Can’t be helped... he’s still a boy.
“If I remember right, there aren’t many monsters left in Witch’s Town as long as you don’t wander into the nests I told you, so don’t worry about safety.”
Truth was, Sunders wasn’t really confident in those words because Nightmare Realm always offered dangerous surprises, such as a “younger him”. No one could foretell the situations in that place, and of course, telling Angor that the town was relatively save didn’t sound very convincing.
Sunders considered and added something else, “Since your sequence of gravity is bound to your soul, you should have no problem using it to run away.”
In fact, Angor wasn’t thinking about safety at all. He was wondering whether he could take Sunders’ scrolls into Nightmare Realm together with his hologram tablet. The tablet worked fine last time, yet he wasn’t so sure about the other items.
Angor saw Sunders taking out a small bottle with something familiar inside— a Twisting Protozoa.
Wait... did the professor find a second one after using the last one? So, he met with Greya again?
“Those scrolls can help you in a pinch if you can bring them with you,” Sunders warned him again.
Angor checked them and saw “Aster Barrier” among them. This wizard-level defensive spell had helped him survive from deadly situations for more than once now.
Once everything was prepared, Sunders placed a drop of blood into the bottle he was holding. Angor guessed that the blood was the “seed” that would lead them to Witch’s Town.
As soon as the Twisting Protozoa devoured the blood, the space in front of them shattered and became a “spider web”.
Sunders cut the worm in half with a blade and tossed one half to Angor.
“Good luck.”
The gentleman ruffled Angor’s short hair before he dashed into the spider web first.
Copying the man’s example, Angor threw himself into the space rupture without looking back.
...
Angor opened his eyes and found himself standing in a thick mist.
It was still better compared to the last time when he landed right between two monsters.
He could barely see his own feet and the black dirt path he was walking on. There seemed to be wooden fences on both sides of the path. Beyond the path were the silhouettes of buildings, which were drifting and blinking out of sight. Angor wasn’t sure whether they were real.
Instead of walking down the path, he tried floating upward first, about which he succeeded without a problem.
When he tried to climb higher to get a better look at the place, he heard the sharp noises of wind that were caused by something large.
He looked up and saw the entire area above him occupied by a giant shadow.
There’s something flying in the sky?! That thing’s as big as a cloud whale!
It seemed the “monster” did not need to attack him at all—the disrupted air current it created easily pushed Angor away. Before Angor could do anything to steady his flying course, he felt a sharp pain coming from his back as he crashed on the ground.
Aw... Well, that was at least a wizard-level monster. What happened to “the Witch’s Town is almost clear”?
He feared that the monster above him might come down and squash him like a bug, so he activated the sequence of gravity and bolted toward one direction.
It seemed the mist could obstruct both his view as well as the monsters’ views. He came to a halt after making sure nothing was chasing him.
He didn’t move for a very long time. He assumed that the full power of the sequence of gravity brought him somewhere like a hundred kilometers from his original landing point. According to Sunders, walking for a thousand kilometers meant taking a full tour around the entire Witch’s Town, which meant he had moved for quite some distance.
He didn’t pay much attention to the environment while running. When he had time to check, he saw a small wooden house not far from him.
He quickly tensed up when looking at the ordinary-looking house because the window was bright—there was firelight inside the building.