Papaya, Kudodo, and Lococo were now officially apprentices of Brute Cavern. Angor would still care about their personal needs since he was responsible to take care of the Krakoks.
Even though most wizards were all ready to walk on their own paths alone, they would not completely neglect their families.
As for whether the three Krakok apprentices would like to stick to their family, Angor planned to let them decide on their own. No matter what they chose, some of the Krakoks would need to bid farewell to either their children or their clan.
He left the Krakoks’ room and returned to his bedroom.
Toby was still sleeping, but his fever was gone.
Angor waited for a while without hearing anything from Greya.
He considered and headed to The Tributary, with Toby in his pocket.
...
Three days later.
When the sun showed its first brilliance over the horizon, Greya sighed and dropped her pen.
The sound of the morning breeze and fish diving in the lake water usually annoyed her greatly in the past several days. However, Greya was relaxed enough today to enjoy the great concert of nature.
The change in mentality had allowed her to approach everything around her in a different way.
With a smile, Greya finished her brief respite before landing the finishing strokes on her paper.
She met no obstacles this time. Using a bottle of precious red ink made from the blood of a Sun Unicorn, she left a trail of glossy, pink symbols under her pen tip.
The pink color glowed brighter and brighter, along with Greya’s bright smile, until Greya held her breath and left the finishing touch, which was a unique symbol that completed everything.
The paper shone brightly. In Greya’s view, the last symbol suddenly became a black hole that began to draw all the other data around it. This symbol alone had represented everything Greya worked on so far.
In the end, this particular symbol was left alone on her paper, which was still shining with pink color.
This is it.
She successfully went over another challenge.
According to her estimation, creating the spell of “Birth” involved 369 challenges in total.
These challenges mainly required her to summarize her theories using solid calculations performed on papers. Unlike mortal scientists who needed to make new discoveries through trial and error, wizards usually could see the direction of their work from the start, as well as the numerous obstacles that lay along the way—they simply had to get over them.
It was like climbing a mountain when you knew where the mountain peak was. As one proceeded closer to the peak, the obstacles also grew harder, which tested the challenger’s knowledge, perception, and how well he or she understood the path they were walking on.
Greya had spent 30 years working on Birth, and there were five more challenges to be solved.
Knowing how to use Artificial Life had granted her a boost on this path. However, she had wasted most of her time on the last five challenges because she never managed to find the insight to tackle them.
That was until today, when she finally solved one of them.
Perhaps the remaining four challenges would take her a long time, but she knew that she still had hope. She could move forward.
After memorizing the precious symbol in her mind carefully, Greya stretched her sore arms and moaned. The violence and impatience in her eyes had been replaced by carefree laziness, like how she used to be.
At the same time, the second soul in her body was no longer stirring too aggressively.
“Aha! Toby is my lucky star. He always is!” Greya’s smile suddenly turned into an evil grin. “I think I need to spend more time with him from now on. And maybe give him more lectures while at it!”
For the first time in a long time, the door to Greya’s hut was pushed open.
Several Phantom Servants sent by Goode were already waiting outside.
“Any of you saw where Toby is?” This was the first question Greya asked them.
“Lady Greya, it seems that Mister Padt has brought Toby to The Tributary.”
“The Tributary?” Greya found that name to be familiar. “Oh, the lab area that was hidden in a mirror dimension?” She raised an eyebrow. “I heard rumors that ‘she’ has been hiding there as well. Is that true?”
The servants didn’t answer her this time.
“Ugh, fine. I don’t really want to poke around your secrets. And this is not a secret, ’cause everyone knows it. Well, I feel pretty good today so... not going to mind these matters!”
After sending the servants away, Greya planned to go to The Tributary herself and maybe visit that particular figure along the way.
But on second thought, she believed Angor was probably doing alchemy again, so it was not a good time to bother him.
With this in mind, Greya returned inside her hut and was going to check on her new gift.
The item had been sitting at a corner on her desk for four days. Now that she had time, she wanted to find out what kind of surprise Angor presented her.
“So this is ‘Twinning Wings’...”
She inspected Toby’s two forms, which showed perfect, streamlined shapes decorated with small diamonds. This wasn’t the first time she saw this item, yet its masterful design once again shocked her.
Especially Toby’s eyes. A pair of them were embellished using pigeon blood paint, while the other pair showed lucid crimson-purple, adding much more lifelike ambiance to the silver theme.
Greya nodded as she felt content with the looks of the brooch.
Even without the illusion inside, she would gladly keep it in her collection. The item was made from tiered magical materials. It could be considered a decent personal ornament as it was.
Next, Greya checked the backside of the item and saw a magic crystal already slotted inside a small chamber. Touching the crystal would allow it to send energy into the brooch and activate the illusion.
Before doing so, Greya frowned when she noticed another energy stream concealed at a corner.
But she couldn’t see anything when looking at the energy source.
Confused, she ran a finger on the seemingly smooth surface and sensed something like a relief engraving.
“What is this for?”
She tried and failed to ascertain what this “engraving” meant to show her, as if it kept changing on its own.
She could tell that the engraving was absorbing a small amount of energy from the magic crystal and used the energy to sustain its function.
“How about...”
Greya tried injecting more energy into the hidden picture.
When she did, the engraving changed drastically until it became obvious enough for human eyes to see. It showed a lion entangled in thorns.
“Why would the boy use so much effort just to hide an emblem here? Wait...”
She knew that every master alchemist from Floating Mech City tended to add their own “identifications” to their creations. For example, “Elixir of Miracle” Mithra always used his own bottles and vials that had his personal signatures on them.
Greya wondered if Angor was trying to do the same.