“He’s crafting something new? Now?” Jebra frowned over the situation. “Was he yelling like a mad man because of some new inspiration?”
Until now, Jebra had seen Angor as someone impassive and calm most of the time. The only reason he could think of for explaining Angor’s unusual behavior was that Angor entered some kind of special mental state as an alchemist.
“This is gonna look fun. I wonder what he’s bringing out this time?” Jebra hunkered down and observed the surface, relaxed.
The mermaid princess gradually lowered her voice after singing for almost two hours because she felt tired out. And when she didn’t see Angor blaming her in any way, she gladly stopped her performance fully.
Meanwhile, the unsettled environment around them became peaceful again. The merman guardians all moved closer to their princess to protect her better.
“Your Highness, shall we tell the Umbra Shell to return below?” a dashing-looking guard wearing a black pearl ear stud whispered to the mermaid singer.
The princess frowned as she tried to make a decision. She didn’t sense any enmity from the person above them yet, but she wasn’t sure if he would allow them to leave.
“Let’s wait a bit more.”
Her guards followed her order without a second thought. However, they still summoned all the children back to the giant creature they were riding on just to be safe.
For a moment, Jebra, Tulu, as well as all the sea dwellers, carefully watched the cloud of mist in the sky and waited for Angor to show up.
But instead, the mist only turned thicker as it grew harder to see the surroundings when the moonlight was fading away.
Compared to Tulu and the mermaids who were anxious to find out what was going on, Jebra was relatively collected because he was almost sure Angor was doing alchemy. He expected to see an alchemy omen soon, which might generally tell him what Angor was making.
However, there was no omen coming. Instead, he heard gentle melodies once again.
Jebra was never a man of music. In his view, even the lovely performance of the mermaid princess was something “good to listen to” at best.
Yet the music he was listening to right now somehow aroused a strange feeling in his mind.
As the “Child of Ocean”, he could feel that the sea around him was changing with the tunes. It was as if... the very sea itself were enjoying the music.
Jebra felt his heartbeat quickening all of a sudden. He knew the music was affecting him in some way, but he couldn’t understand why.
He wasn’t the only one. All the mermaids and mermen, who always considered the sea as their eternal home, were all gazing at the cloud of mist above them in a hypnotic state. To them, the music was far from perfect, and of course, inferior to what their princess could offer. But they were still amazed to see different views that showed a different ocean magically entering their sights.
Tulu was the only one present who wasn’t affected by the music too much because his condition didn’t allow him to fully perceive sound. But still, he knew that the music was good. And since this one didn’t sound like the tempting harmony performed by mermaids, which were used for drawing him to death, he felt safer.
“But where did it come from? Is Mister Padt like, playing an instrument over there?” Tulu wondered.
He was partially correct—it wasn’t Angor, but a team of “teacups” wielding their different instruments inside the mist.
Currently, Angor was frantically manipulating his cantrips and various melted materials between his hands with a pair of passionate, reddened eyes, while the “teacup band” he summoned from his Nightmare Domain was accompanying him.
The music piece they were playing was a random one Angor instructed them out of boredom. But today, Angor decided to use this music as the main theme of his new music box.
Earlier, he barely grasped the brief stimulus in his mind, and he’d like to turn it into his creation before it slipped. With a quick decision, he started to craft a music box. For one, he was pretty good at making music boxes now. And when he saw the singing mermaid and her guards, he suddenly remembered that he still needed to present a music box to Lady Mirror, who requested an illusion that “contained bare-bodied handsomes that did not appear too erotic”.
Angor listened to Lady Mirror’s suggestion and checked out the show “Phantom of Festivity”. Yet the lowly display intended to entertain lustful folks did not provide him with any useful idea at all.
He postponed the request because Lady Mirror had been in seclusion and nobody knew where she went. For this, he was glad that he had more time to prepare, so he didn’t need to put Sunders in the illusion to improvise.
But the sight of the singing mermaid and her loyal guards instantly stirred something in his mind. It was mainly his instinct of an alchemist that controlled his actions this time instead of Lady Mirror’s order.
Besides, he wasn’t making a simple illusion. He wished to mix the tiny “spark of mind” just now into the illusion. He didn’t know how to explain the special notion using words. He only knew that it was a whim made possible by the mermaid’s song as well as his special state of madness, that would probably occur only once in his life. This was why he got down to alchemy work immediately without worrying about time and place. He HAD to do it right now.
After quickly setting the frame of the music box, he began applying permanent illusion nodes onto the item while adding the most important component—the unknown fancy of mind—inside the illusion.
He closed his eyes and recreated the fantastic memory he kept a moment ago, and he allowed his primal instinct to take over his movements.
While completely focused on his task, he wasn’t aware that the music he blended into his creation was traveling away while carrying a strange sequence to those who could hear it.
...
It was early morning. Angor had not shown up from the mist yet, but his music had already halted since a long time ago.
Jebra was still savoring the wonderful music he heard that seemed to alter the ambiance of the sea. He couldn’t see what had exactly happened to the sea, but he knew something had changed as if a person with the same everyday getup just developed a completely different character.
It was like... the sea suddenly became cheerful because it “agreed with” the music.
Jebra tried repeating the tones by himself to see what would happen, but he failed. He wondered if he needed a special way of performing or a particular instrument to cause the strange effect.
After remaining silent for over three hours, Angor’s music suddenly came again, and Jebra quickly discarded random thoughts and focused.
His pupils shrank, and he saw his vision shifting.
When he could see clearly again, he found himself somewhere different. It was a world troubled by unrelenting tidal waves and great storms. Jebra saw himself sitting on a simple boat that rocked back and forth between the looming tides like a sailor who carelessly stumbled into the wrong part of the sea at a bad time.
Jebra was never afraid of tides and hurricanes that would normally drown ordinary people. However, he had forgotten who he was. For now, he was one such “ordinary person” who was trying to reach safety across the thunderstorm.
And it terrified him for good.
While desperately steadying himself on the unreliable and confined boat, Jebra looked for a way home while every element around him was attempting to stop him.
A sky-high tidal wave slammed down onto the boat and washed him away.
His mind was immediately taken over by chaos and panic. The only thing he could feel was the salty and choking seawater that announced his death.
There was music again.
Jebra gave himself one last push on the surface and looked at the source of the music. He saw something glowing between the dancing tides. It appeared to be a person wearing a long dress, who was somehow standing on top of the sea...
Then he sank.
...
Jebra opened his eyes with a start.
He took several minutes to calm down. He looked at the stone he was sitting on and was sure that it was just a bad dream. But...
It felt too real to be a dream.
He was the “Child of Ocean” Jebra! What made him so afraid of the sea? And who was the shining person at the end?
He didn’t have time to worry about these questions because he noticed that the giant turtle on the surface was slowly looking his way. It was probably because his camouflage failed when he was “dreaming”. Fearing that Angor would notice him, he quickly turned into bubbles and blended into the water.
“Wait... My power. It’s one step closer to the next phase!”