Two hours later, while most of the wizards were randomly looking around the secret dimension, Flunza showed up beside Sliv as his “water avatar”.
They spent a moment looking at the submerged island in silence, before Sliv spoke up somewhat awkwardly, “Sir, no one has found ‘that item’ yet.”
He was so anxious that he once again forgot about adding “hmm” at the end of his speech.
“That lucky little mugger must have taken it away...” said Flunza.
Sliv nodded and looked down. He just reported the matter to their organization, and the authorities were already blaming him for being a failure.
“What should we do, sir? I already requested help from Tuwalu. But as he said, it’s too hard to predict the target without at least knowing its general location.”
“I see... We shall thin down our range then.” Flunza began explaining his theories, “Firstly, there were only a few minutes between when the thief left from a teleportation array and when the thief destroyed it. One needs great expertise in Runecraft to know how to eliminate the two ends of the magic array so swiftly, so we’re looking for an experienced alchemist who knows enchantment.
“Next, they chose to run away from the Leviathan. This tells us that they’re definitely not a truth-finder. Maybe a level-1 wizard, or below.”
“Below? You mean it could be an apprentice, sir?” Sliv asked in great surprise. He couldn’t imagine how a mere apprentice was brave enough to steal something from so many powerful wizards, including some of the strongest ones known in the south, under their noses.
“This is unlikely, but we cannot completely rule it out.”
From what he just heard, Sliv immediately thought about an apprentice who met these conditions—Sunders’ student.
But... Jebra just informed me that Angor was “chilling out” at Farren and he wasn’t doing anything special.
Flunza continued, “This person knows about the secret dimension beforehand and successfully found a way inside before all of us. They must have the full support of an efficient network of informants, including Prophets.”
Sliv quickly disregarded Angor’s name. He knew Angor had been doing alchemy work at Lost Paradise City these days. There was no way for Angor to get such information and commence the right plan in such a short time.
“Do you have something to say, Sliv?” Flunza noticed Sliv’s strange look.
“Oh, it’s just... when you mentioned ‘apprentice’ and ‘alchemist’, sir, a name immediately came to my mind. I believe you know about him as well.”
Flunza nodded. “Angor... As long as what Jebra told us is true, Angor can’t be the one. Sunders has left the southern region a long time ago, and I don’t think that man will leave such a dangerous job to his student before he went to the Abyss. Without Sunders, Angor has no way of acquiring such valuable clues. Besides... the thief got away just before the door was opened to us. This is not a coincidence. They made careful plans for such precise thievery, and Angor isn’t so resourceful.
“However... We should never neglect our true instinct, as my mentor used to tell me. Since you thought about Angor, we will not leave him out of our search yet. Let’s see... Tell Jebra to keep an eye on him.”
Sliv nodded and turned away to send the message. He knew Flunza wasn’t suspecting Angor for real. The order was only meant to keep Jebra busy for the moment. By doing so, Flunza was trying to keep his student away from the organization so that others from Song of the Deep did not trouble Jebra after losing their prize.
A moment later, Sliv received another message from Tuwalu.
His pupils shrank after reading the message.
At the same time, Lady Payne also obtained a similar message from Ewan.
“Ewan just got back to us, Master.” She said with a worried look, “He tried using his ‘balance’ to tell the approximate spot of the item, but the result is ‘not detectable’.”
Summerdew’s expression froze on her face.
Usually, locating something’s general location was an easy task for Ewan. So what just happened? The target knew how to prevent prophecy?
There weren’t many methods in this world that could do such a thing. Besides, Ewan was one of the strongest Prophets from Starliege Temple!
“The intruder must be well prepared for this!” Summerdew and Flunza reached the same conclusion.
In his mind, Flunza hoped that whoever they were dealing with did not represent a major organization. They had to seize this item by any way possible because it was their best shot for getting rid of the otherworldly intruders in their ranks.
...
After tumbling out of the magic array under the dry well, Angor spat out some blood he had been keeping in his mouth. He didn’t dare to vomit blood while escaping. That would leave some serious traces for people to identify him.
The aura pressure released by the Leviathan had left a lot of physical injuries outside and inside his body. Even so, he forced himself to immediately stand up and move to the wall where the magic array was drawn so that he could destroy it as fast as possible.
Thankfully, he learned how to terminate the array while decrypting the runes. With the proper tools, he did a quick work at it.
While bearing with great fatigue and nausea, he left a trap in the mechanism, which would cause the magic array to break down as soon as it was powered up.
He lost consciousness upon finishing.
Just one minute later, the array on the wall shattered.
...
He woke up and felt something warm huddled against his face. It seemed Toby had been sleeping right next to him.
He moved a little and was surprised to realize that most of his injuries had healed. There were only a few more serious ones that might take more time, but other than that, he was totally fine.
Using the light provided by a Luminous Stone lamp nearby, he saw several empty bottles scattered at his feet.
He was sure these weren’t his potions. It was probably Toby who “fed” him the healing potions prepared by Greya while he was out.
Tears welled up in his eyes.
Toby was in no better condition after being hurt by the Leviathan’s power, and the bird still put his master’s safety as his top priority.
Once again, Angor silently thanked his great luck for having such an amiable companion.
After making sure Toby was doing well, Angor transported Toby into his bracelet and asked the Moonlily Fairy to look after him.
Next, he took out his hologram tablet to confirm the time.
He almost spent six days exploring the strange island, and the date on the tablet suggested that it had been a week since he went to the island, which meant he was unconscious for an entire day.
He wondered what could have happened to the island by now.
Then he ejected his soul and checked the room’s wall, only to see nothing drawn on it. This proved to him that someone tried to activate the array at the other side and caused it to break.
While feeling delighted for successfully avoiding his pursuers, he also knew that people were indeed going after him.
He tried his best to remember his journey, and he was certain that he didn’t leave any obvious traces behind.
“Well, whatever secret there was, I didn’t find it. Those people should have no reason to get suspicious... I’ll just keep it low for a few days and nothing will happen.”