Angor was disappointed that he missed a chance to discover more wonderful mysteries in the Nightmare Realm. However, he had no trouble accepting Sunders’ decision because he also knew that such mysteries were always accompanied by deadly traps.
“I’ll tell you what I saw when I return,” said Sunders.
“I’ll stay at Phantom Island tonight, sir, and borrow some of your books to learn about alchemy materials.”
“The library in my Gravity Garden also had several alchemy textbooks, I’ll leave them—”
Sunders suddenly stopped talking as his body convulsed.
Angor watched in confusion when he saw the gentleman open his eyes while breathing heavily, which looked like someone who just earned serious illness.
“What’s going on, professor?” Angor decided to ask. Was Sunders injured in Sleepless City?
Sunders took a moment to calm his breath. “It’s nothing. An old condition I got a long time ago just came back.”
Sunders had managed to regain his composure, but his face went paler than before.
“I think you’re too weak, sir.” Angor was getting worried. “Please consider delaying the exploration in the Nightmare Realm if it’s not urgent.”
“I know my own condition, it shouldn’t be your concern,” Sunders said. He added something so that he didn’t sound too harsh, “As I said, this is nothing new to me, and it won’t affect me too much...”
“He” cannot afford to harm me after all. Sunders finished the last part of his phrase in his mind.
Angor wondered what Sunders meant, but he did not ask since he knew Sunders probably wasn’t going to explain further.
Just now, when Sunders’ condition briefly worsened, Angor believed he saw a faint shadow looming over the man’s body.
Angor could not recognize any details on the shadow. However, for a blink of a moment, he saw one of Sunders’ eyes glowing in red. But it vanished soon. When Sunders recovered, the strange glowing, as well as the shadow above Sunders, all went away.
Angor wondered if someone had placed a curse on his professor.
But before he could say anything else, someone interrupted them by knocking on the door.
“Good afternoon, Master.” Goode was standing at the door. “Miss Greya is currently waiting in the guest hall. She wishes to talk to Mister Padt.”
Talk to Angor? Sunders glanced at his student and noticed that Angor was expecting Greya to come since the boy didn’t look surprised.
“I crafted a chest brooch containing an illusion for Lady Greya,” Angor explained, “maybe she found something wrong with it.”
“You did?” Sunders looked toward the direction of the guest hall. “I see it. You hid the illusion nodes pretty well. Now go and see her.” Sunders considered and stood up. “On second thought, I’m going to look at the item as well, and see how good your studies were.”
Sunders usually let Angor figure out his own ways of learning illusions rather than giving him restrictive lessons, but before an Illusionist could manipulate different types of illusions at free will, they still needed to follow certain rules and logic.
Sunders decided to join Greya since he had time for it right now. Besides, he also had something to tell Greya.
As they both headed toward the guest room, Angor was getting pretty nervous about his coming “test” because Sunders had not checked his illusions in quite a while.
Until now, he either used a simple mist to fill up his illusion, which did not require any logic, or combining his talent and nightmare energy to disturb someone’s emotions and senses so badly that logic did not matter. As for “rational” illusions, which required all the elements inside to obey rules of nature... no. Angor basically never considered such things.
He didn’t even check whether the illusion in Greya’s brooch followed any logic. This was why he didn’t feel so confident when Sunders was going to examine the illusion.
Greya was still inspecting her new gift when the two gentlemen arrived. “Huh? I asked for Angor, not you.”
Greya complained until she suddenly noticed something on Sunders. She then sent Sunders a voice transmission.
“The condition of your soul manifestation is quickening? Did something in Sleepless City force you to lower the protection?”
Sunders glanced at Angor, who was fumbling his fingers due to stress, and replied with his own voice transmission.
“I was ambushed by the animals on my way back.”
Greya showed a grim look. “Did you kill the fox? You want that harp, right?”
“Yorkshire interfered later, and they all got away.” Sunders looked extremely frustrated since he failed to capture any of the monsters even when he used the strength of “him”.
“Good. I’ll find a chance to deal with that fox then. I wonder how a bunch of stupid monsters ambushed you?”
“Yorkshire has taken control of a group of wizards who are hiding among others in the Monsoon Sector, and no one noticed.”
This was all he had to say for Greya to understand what happened.
It was disastrous when your trusted ally stabbed you in the back during a fight. It was already impressive for Sunders to retaliate and even forced the enemies to escape in such a situation.
“That thing controlled some wizards without letting anyone know? Well, the situation in Sleepless City is a lot worse than I thought!” Greya chuckled. “So when are you helping me look for my body? As soon as you do, I’ll make a special dish to treat your condition right away.”
Sunders considered and said, “Mister Monkey has been urging me to join his mission in Abyss Plane. I’ll get back to you after I’m done with it. Also, we won’t be able to sneak our way under the nose of a legendary monster even if we work together. We need careful planning ahead. Since Sumesh is coming back, I’ll discuss it with him as well.”
Greya had no choice but to agree because she also knew the difficulty of their job.
“That fox monster in Sleepless City wasn’t hostile to Angor, right?” She suddenly glanced at Angor. “How about taking him with us?”
Sunders shook his head. He did consider this matter once, but after the incident in Witch’s Town, he no longer believed that Angor was safe from nightmare monsters.
That witch inside the oil painting meant to kill Angor for real.
“An apprentice won’t help us with anything,” Sunders replied, while still using voice transmission.
Greya wasn’t fully convinced since Angor had created miracles many times for others to see. But the boy was just too weak when it came to fighting. Maybe he could survive from danger better after becoming a wizard, but now...
Greya shook her head and did not push.
When their private conversation ended, Sunders sat on a sofa together with Angor, looking relaxed.
“Do you have something else to do here?” Greya frowned.
When Sunders remained unresponsive, Angor decided to explain why his professor came.
Greya made a duck face. “Alright. But I should tell you that as a truth-finder wizard myself, I didn’t find many noticeable flaws in Angor’s illusion. Is that good enough for you?”
By those words, she meant to tell Sunders to leave her and Angor alone.
Sunders didn’t move. “Of course I trust in your opinion, but you just made me more curious. Since the illusion is almost perfect, what do you want to ask Angor in private?”
Greya sneered and crossed her legs, but she did not tell Sunders anything.
Sunders didn’t look concerned. “You can’t hide it from me if I want to find out. How about being frank? I’m rather interested in the illusion Angor gave you.”
Greya pondered and decided to speak up, but she was speaking to Angor this time.
“What is hidden on the ‘Mysterious Mountain’?”
She didn’t mention the Mystery energy she felt and was hoping that Angor could understand her hint, which was that she would like to hear the answer without telling Sunders too much.
Angor was expecting Greya to have questions about the illusion, but he was a little surprised to know that Greya had failed to find the “manifestation of Mystery” too.
Greya saw Angor’s frown. “You can’t say it?”
“That’s not it, but... Pardon me, Lady Greya, I don’t know what is hidden there either.” Angor shrugged as he gave Greya an apologetic look.