Angor did not know what Greya wanted from Sunders and didn’t intend to find out. He was only glad that Toby got to reunite with his old owner.
He returned to his bedroom and slept until the next day.
He woke up at someone’s painful screaming outside the window. After getting washed, he checked the window and saw Greya still “torturing” Toby, the griffin, using her whip.
When Toby showed him his puppy dog eyes again, Angor shrugged.
Toby then lowered his head in sadness.
Greya giggled and started her new training session, while Angor watched and wondered how Toby managed to maintain that griffin form for such a long time. Last time they talked, Toby explained that the power could only last for half an hour. This new form change granted Toby some unimaginable abilities. Apart from superior body strength and flame-based attacks, Toby could still use the sequence of gravity to move his giant body at lightning speed.
Not only that, Toby already learned how to unleash the gravity power to attack targets from a distance. While watching Toby unleashing deadly attacks under Greya’s instruction, Angor felt really glad that he had such a strong friendship with him.
A moment later, Toby’s body trembled a little, which suggested that the griffin form was at its limit.
Greya waved a hand and took out a leafy plant in her hand.
With a sad look, Toby skillfully picked a leaf up with his beak and devoured it.
In a matter of seconds, his energy was fully replenished as his griffin body grew vigorous and strong.
Ah... so that’s how Greya keeps Toby “running”?
Greya saw Angor’s curious expression and sent a voice transmission his way, “You know what this is, don’t you?” She glanced at Angor and showed the plant in her hand.
It took Angor several seconds to realize who sent that voice. “Oh yes, Lady Greya. It looks familiar, but...”
“Come on, don’t tell me you forgot already. I received it from Alan’s grandfather. According to the old man, he found this tea leaf from your home.”
“It’s Morning Dew?” Something suddenly struck Angor’s mind.
It was Morning Dew that helped him meet with Mara, who in turn took him into the wizarding world. Naturally, he knew about this particular plant.
However, Mara only mentioned that Morning Dew could help an apprentice break their limit. Why was it working on Toby?
Angor usually didn’t need extra help for breaking through the limits, and since he didn’t really like the bitter taste of Morning Dew, he merely stored his portion of the tea carefully in his bracelet.
“Yup. Alan showed me this plant which doesn’t seem to belong to this world. It’s already been kneaded, so I used a spell to backtrack its origin. Added with some new theories and spices, I created this brand-new plant called the ‘Mana Flower’,” explained Greya.
Just as the name suggested, a Mana Flower could be used for replenishing someone’s mana—purified mana ready to be used, but not primal mana. This effect had suggested that the flower was a perfect tool during battles. If someone had exhausted their strength in the middle of a fight, they could then devour a flower to fully recover their strength...
Angor was quite surprised to hear that the Morning Dew was made into such an amazing consumable that could refill someone’s purified mana. He never heard about anything else with similar effects before.
The mana pools built by different wizards using different spiritual models all contained mana of varied natures. Each wizard or apprentice had to absorb primal mana and purify it into the right mana that they could use. There were certain ways that could help someone to restore their mana reserve, but they all had strong side effects.
Greya allowed Toby to eat the flower like that because the Mana Flower didn’t have such a side effect. Thinking about this, Angor wondered if Mana Flowers would become another treasure sought after by crazy wizards.
“It does not work on humans.” Greya’s following words quickly denied Angor’s idea. “A monster like Toby does not have a fixed spiritual model. Monsters can use mana of different attributes.”
Angor nodded.
The effect did not sound so brilliant with such a big restriction.
Using Mana Flowers, Toby could stay in his griffin form longer, which gave the bird more opportunities to practice his new abilities.
It wasn’t easy for Greya to create Mana Flowers either. Even so, she was not stingy when training Toby. After all, this would ensure that Toby had a better chance of surviving the challenges to come.
...
Angor left Greya and Toby and returned to the soundproof room again. He still needed to work on finding the magic array used on the strange crown.
The job was a lot easier after figuring out the six correct runes used in the magic array. Soon, by filtering out arrays that did not fit with the known runes, he found two possible choices left.
Bloodline Remake and Bloodline Retrack.
He already knew that the six runes suggested something related to blood. Although he wasn’t expecting that both possible magic arrays were relevant to bloodlines.
The first one, Bloodline Remake, was used for cleansing someone’s bloodline so that they could accept another one. There were many other ways to do this, so using this magic array was a very rare choice. Angor assumed that this magic array was almost lost in history.
He never heard of Bloodline Retrack before. The description in the book reminded him of Astute King and a bunch of alchemists who used the demon’s name to establish their group, the Astute Alchemy Guild.
While spreading its name, Astute King also bestowed certain blessings to its followers, and these blessings included the “Libation of Blood”.
An item that went through such libation could be fully attuned with someone’s bloodline, which allowed the user of said item to better unleash its potential while at the same time preventing others from using it. “Libation of Blood” was considered to be a stronger version of a magic pact.
Libation of Blood allowed many wizards to wield their favorite weapons as if they were parts of their own bodies. It was believed to be another great contribution provided by Astute King, whether the demon intended this or not.
The Bloodline Retrack magic array had a similar effect as Libation of Blood. However, the magic array came with a special effect that allowed the owner of an item to sense the item’s location no matter how far they were apart.
While it was true that Bloodline Retrack had an extra locating effect compared to the Libation of Blood, no one would use this magic array nowadays because Bloodline Retrack required someone to bind their own blood with the item. When the item was damaged or destroyed, its user would suffer greatly.
Angor still had to determine which magic array was used on the crown. He already had an idea when looking at them.
Using Bloodline Remake called for a lot of extra materials to cleanse someone’s bloodline, and the crown did not have enough space for it. Bloodline Retrack was the only choice left.
With the magic array settled, Angor had to practice first so that he could draw the array on the crown perfectly.
The crown itself was easy to make since it only required some basic materials, while the relatively valuable pigeon-blood rubies were already provided by Angor’s client.
Angor spent a week drawing drafts on papers, and finally, with the help of his hologram tablet and the energy stabilizer, he successfully created the crown before the end of the month.
Blood-red clouds gathered above Sunders’ manor.
“An alchemy omen?” Greya briefly stopped her training on Toby and glanced at the second floor where Angor’s room was located.
Sunders also looked up from his paperwork and gazed at Angor’s direction.
Angor now had his eyes closed as he tried to escape from the omen challenge. While an alchemy omen suggested the birth of a tiered alchemy item, it also presented a challenge to the creator. This was why Angor did not put the magic arrays in Enchantment Cyclopaedia: Advanced to practice because he wasn’t confident enough to survive the more difficult omen challenges.
Thankfully, the omen challenge of the crown was relatively easy.
As a level-3 apprentice who had his body strengthened not long ago, Angor had no problem escaping the stage he was sent into—sail on the sea of blood on a simple skiff and find his way to the land.
When he finally stepped onto dry land, he came back to reality and opened his eyes to look at
the beautifully-made crown that was giving out a faint, blood-red glimmer.
Before he could pick it up to check if there were any flaws, someone suddenly popped up in front of him.