“What am I looking at? The fusion of world and nature? Or the other way round?”
Is someone showing me the birth and termination of a civilization? But what’s the point?
Angor always believed that it was the most important thing for a civilization to create its own continuance, which could be passed down in history. The progression of it was not so decisive as everything had to come to an end.
He did not know what he should learn from the strange sight presented to him. But he could feel something new contained in the droplets—something mysterious that couldn’t be interpreted by words.
He waited for a long time, yet the two droplets never moved again.
“Do they need external help to transform?” He reached out a hand to touch the water droplet this time.
Slowly, the water droplet was pushed into the gray one, until they fused together once again.
Instead of expanding the water droplet into a vast sea, the gray droplet, which represented “unknown power”, became the “main subject” this time by growing into spacious land, while the water turned into several puddles, which covered upon the land evenly.
Like a planet.
For a moment, Angor thought he was looking at Jon’s home, which was called Earth.
Water gave birth to mist and clouds, while the colliding land plates created high mountains and deep trenches. Seaborne creatures found their way onto dry land and evolved into curious beings, and soon, humans came into existence.
Similarly, a brand new civilization was established and then destroyed in a matter of seconds.
The last of the human survivors knelt on top of the remains of their home and prayed to a statue called “The Creator”. Unfortunately, their God never granted them their wish until the last human drew her last breath in despair.
When all corpses disappeared into the soil beneath, Angor saw a single flower growing from it.
The strange flower had six petals, three of which were glossy and shiny like crystals, while the other three appeared gloomy and dim.
As soon as the flower appeared, time stopped and began to revert again. It was like a dream. Soon, Angor found himself floating beside two simple droplets.
But again, not everything stayed the same. He saw the strange flower in the middle of the gray droplet slowly withering. Whereas the three shiny petals displayed the brilliance of “hope”, the three darker petals released the depressing aura of “despair”.
In the end, the flower completely became one with the gray droplet and vanished.
Angor felt as if something new flashed in his mind after observing the amazing development of natural events, yet he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Eagerly, he tried pushing the water droplet into the gray droplet for the third time.
The “unknown power” chose yet a different way of development. Unlike the last two times during which civilizations were created, the droplets only presented two simple elements—darkness and light.
As always, both the darkness and light joined the gray droplet in the end.
Angor kept trying. He saw a great variety of contradictory elements came into being, which all ended up inside the gray drop.
Death and life, elimination and creation, real and false...
Just like the rules of this world.
Different worlds had injected different “rules” into the gray droplet. The droplet never gained any change in color, but each time it absorbed something, it would give birth to a more colorful world in the next “cycle”.
Until Angor noticed that the gray droplet almost became “full”.
He knew there were more worlds to observe, but the gray droplet refused his further attempts. It would no longer interact with the water droplet.
Angor felt both disappointed and expectant.
His instinct told him that it was almost time for the final answer to show up, which would tell him what this strange space was.
Patiently, he stared at the two droplets, one of which was almost bulging with unknown power.
He waited until he began to question his previous presumptions. Then, the water droplet slowly approached the gray droplet on its own.
Instead of fusing, the water droplet covered up the other droplet and began to shift its shape.
Angor immediately sensed Mystery energy, which he somewhat expected to happen.
The Mystery energy came so suddenly and rapidly that Angor soon found himself overwhelmed by it, as if he had fallen into a swamp that purely consisted of such energy.
Soon, his attention was distracted by the amazing Mystery power around him, and he was no longer paying attention to the morphing water droplet.
When he accidentally worked on a Mystery item in Dark Castle several months ago, he did feel regretful when he failed to do so in the end even though the miraculous occurrence was mainly made possible by the aggregated resources of Dark Castle, while he was only lucky to be the one who triggered the chance.
But still, successfully finishing that item would grant him the title of a Mystery Alchemist and thus allowing him to look into a brand new province of knowledge that he could never imagine before.
Regretful, true. But at the same time, he knew that such miracles were not something he could ask for. And since he already lost it, he would not keep upsetting himself for it.
He even believed that he was merely being used as a tool back then. That there was someone powerful who let him ignite the great energy saved in the entire Dark Castle so that he might welcome Isabelle back to this world.
By thinking in this way, Angor had completely gotten over his failure in becoming a Mystery alchemist. It was not like he gained nothing out of it—the incident granted him fame among alchemists. Even the Research Department in Floating Mech City sent him an invitation. He was free to join the best alchemists in the entire southern wizarding region at any time.
However, he did not give up his ambition yet.
Creating a Mystery item in Dark Castle using the prepared resources might not earn him a “solid” achievement since someone would consider his work flawed or false. But how about finding a chance and craft a Mystery item purely by himself?
There was such a chance right now! There was rich Mystery energy around him, and he was free to observe and even use it.
Maybe I can fully comprehend what “Mystery” meant and thus use the knowledge to create Mystery items later!
With that in mind, he fully immersed his mind in this amazing atmosphere.
However, the truth was harsher than he expected. No wizard had ever “comprehend” such a mysterious concept yet. Surely, it was beyond difficult for a mere apprentice.
Angor might not comprehend the Mystery energy, but he had another exclusive way of approaching new knowledge.
Sensing and injecting emotions.
He managed to create a music box that bewildered an ancient soul like Lady Mirror because of the ambiance of the Nightmare Realm that he subconsciously blended into the item.
The ambiance of the Nightmare Realm meant “still”. Time did not move, while every small detail contained meaningful stories and implications waiting to be discovered.
Mixing traces of the Nightmare Realm into illusions was Angor’s unique talent. Since he could memorize the particular “texture” of the Nightmare Realm and use it for later, could he do the same by remembering how “Mystery energy” felt like as well?
Angor gave up on “interpreting” the energy around him. Instead, he tried copying the particular sense into his mind as it was.
This tactic was a lot faster since he didn’t need to learn the nature of the energy for real. But the complexity of the great power still made his head throb.
While “copying”, he also noticed something else.
The mysterious impression of the power would easily slip from his mind if he tried to copy it directly. It would work better if he did it in a “mindless” and unfocused manner.
As he memorized more and more, he began to have a better understanding of what was shown by the droplets.
He believed that whoever gave him the droplets meant to tell him that the foundation of “Mystery” was unknown and contradiction. Destroying civilizations was not necessary—it was only a method to create such contradictions.
He almost saw the tip of a giant iceberg, which was already impressive enough.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t cast illusions in his soul form, so he had no way to confirm whether he could put what he remembered into his illusions for real.
It had to wait until he went back to his body.
As more time went by, the Mystery energy around him gradually grew thinner.
Angor opened his eyes and glanced at the water droplet, only to notice that it had been replaced by something else.
That spotted puppy was floating next to him.