Angor had already determined the overall theme of the illusion he was going to give Greya, but he had yet to decide what kind of accessory to support the illusion. He had to leave his work midway last time because Sunders summoned him. Now that he had time, he could continue perfecting the unfinished draft he had.
The “feather earring” he gave Greya last time did not involve much work and innovation, and its modest design did not go very well with Greya’s image.
This time, Angor planned to customize his creation solely to fit Greya’s nature, which meant a showy and unabashed lady who always wore garish dresses.
Of course, an accessory to be used on such a lady had to be extremely eye-catching. Shocking, even. Anyone who met Greya had to notice her ornament on the first look, as well as understanding its excessive value.
Apart from these, it had to please Greya.
Angor tried to think about what kind of item Greya might like. As he recalled, the original and “bigger” Greya did have a good number of shiny pieces all over her body, but not the “small girl” Greya.
When Angor met Greya for the first time as a mortal, he didn’t have the courage to look at her directly, so the only thing he remembered about her accessories was “sparkly”.
As for something else... “cooking” and “Toby” were the only concepts Angor could think of right now. There was no way he could add food-related elements to his creation, which left Toby as his only reference.
He spent the entire afternoon working on his draft papers.
After watching several top-class jewelry designs using his tablet and combining them with his current plans, he finally came up with a general result.
In the sketch, two winged beasts were flying while crossing each other’s path. “Seabird Toby” spread his wings wide in the front, and “Griffin Toby” displayed his muscular side-face and his flaming tail at the back while the rest of his body was covered by “Seabird Toby”.
The two figures were both made of silvery materials sided with countless cut diamonds that looked both shiny and complex. Yet the plain color did not hinder its luxuriant extravagance.
Angor invented the item’s shape, but the silver theme and the use of small diamonds were copied from an existing jewelry piece from Earth called the “Bird Brooch”, a special post-war order designed by Cartier in 1948, according to its description.
He planned to craft a brooch that could be pinned in front of Greya’s chest, thus allowing anyone to easily notice it.
He found his design almost perfect, but there was something amiss about all that silver hue.
After watching the draft for a long time, he considered and used his quill to add some colors to Toby’s eyes.
A pair of crimson eyes and a pair of radiant, purplish-red ones brought the whole creation to life.
Now that they had more life-like eyes, Angor felt as if the birds might become alive in the next second and join him in the real world.
...
Five days later, Angor brought what was intended by the draft into reality.
He carefully examined the finished product in his hand and couldn’t help admiring his brilliant work. All materials he chose this time were tiered ones, like Mythril, Relic Platinum, Phantasm Diamonds, Enchanted Blue Agate, Pigeon Blood Rubies, and so on, which helped him outperform his plan—the brooch came out even more dazzling than he thought.
Obeying his earlier theories, he made sure that everything had energy-amplifying properties so that the accessory itself could function as an excellent magic conductor.
He had not put it to test yet, but his estimation suggested the “Mystery energy flood” created using this item would be longer than any of his previous attempts. Six or seven minutes, perhaps.
Unfortunately, he could not cause the energy flood for real and see it because the flood could only happen once in every illusion.
Still, he could activate the illusion and see whether the “manifestation of Mystery” was inside.
There was a tiny slot on the backside of the brooch, which was designed to contain a small magic crystal as its power source.
He did so and “switched on” the illusion, which worked just fine.
Several hours later, he left the illusion with a strange expression.
The illusion was flawless. As he planned, there were many hidden secrets inside that allowed people to explore them for free, as well as several interesting “Easter eggs” that he placed in the illusion.
Since Greya requested that the illusion should have something related to the Nightmare Realm, Angor simply filled up the entire illusion with such ambiance, meaning, the whole illusion felt silent, eerily strange, and frozen in time.
The problem was, he never discovered the manifestation of Mystery after looking around the illusion for a long time.
He could occasionally pick up the sense of Mystery coming from somewhere, but the source of it was well hidden.
He wasn’t too concerned since this happened many times during his previous tests. After exploring for some more, he just gave up and decided to let Greya figure it out on her own. Might as well consider it as another secret to be discovered.
There weren’t that many means of entertainment in the wizarding world. Perhaps Greya would like this little time-killer.
As for whether Greya could find the manifestation at all, Angor would not worry about it because it would no longer be his problem if a truth-finder wizard failed to do so.
He examined the delicate brooch again. He didn’t know for sure whether Greya would like it, but at least he himself was very content with the gorgeous and excessively conspicuous look of it. It sure looked expensive, but at the same time, it was far from pretentious.
Jon once mentioned to him that businessmen from Earth all agreed that it was rather easy to earn money from kids and narcissistic women.
Angor didn’t know about kids, but he’d agree that the woman part of that sentence also applied in this world, telling from how Leona easily made nearly a million crystals by selling the perfume elements that she extracted from his body.
He thought about finding some time to make more of such decorative charms so that he could sell them to witches. Maybe this would get him more money than “honest alchemy work”.
Until now, upon completing every order, he just gave his item to the clients and let them do whatever they wanted with the item. But after watching the jewelry contests from Earth, he noticed that the designers usually named their creations themselves while registering “trademarks” for them.
And he liked that idea. Although there was no “trademark system” in this world, many alchemists would leave their personal signatures on their inventions to claim the uniqueness of their items.
He decided to get himself his own unique mark or symbol as well. And he already did—at an inconspicuous corner around the crystal slot of Greya’s brooch, he left a miniature carving, which showed a mighty lion bound by thorny vines.
He thought about using the emblem of Padt Family directly as his “alchemy trademark”, but then decided not to do so as he did not want to invite unwanted trouble to his family, so he changed the emblem a little by turning the burning flames around the lion into thorns.
He applied a Shroud Rune to the emblem so that it could not be seen unless someone used certain means to check. A means of further protecting his “copyright”.
From now on, he would leave this emblem on every item he crafted unless something required otherwise.
As for naming the brooch...
He was really, really bad at this.
He gazed at the beautiful creation for a long time but without reaching any suitable name for it.
A showy name might be a mouthful, but a “not so showy” name wouldn’t fit with its nature either...
He then looked at the two creatures that returned their own gazes at him.
“Two Toby...” he mumbled to himself. “Two pairs of wings... You’re ‘Twinning Wings’ then.”