Song of the Deep and Brute Cavern were already on bad terms. Even so, Sliv didn’t wish to be the one who worsened the problem because this would give Emmagan’s group a new reason to alienate him in the organization.
When that happened, even Flunza wouldn’t be able to cover him up.
Attacking Angor only worked to solve his personal grudge but would leave him with a ton of troubles to deal with later.
Sliv had decided to give in. Yet he couldn’t do it openly or his mighty figure of a wizard would be ruined.
Jebra, as a bystander, saw both Sliv’s concern and Angor’s intention to escape, made a quick decision and stepped up.
“Angor, so you don’t have the Mystery item. Then how do you explain the Mystery energy I detected from this place earlier?”
Taking the chance, Sliv canceled his aura and moved away, pretending that he was allowing Angor to speak more properly.
This was exactly the escaping chance Angor was waiting for, but instead of doing so, he stopped to think about Jebra’s abrupt question.
“You... came all the way here to put these groundless accusations on me just because of that energy you felt?”
Jebra looked away in embarrassment.
“Right.” Angor snickered. “I was testing out a Mystery item. I just found it.”
“You... did?!” Jebra wasn’t using a truth detection spell but he was sure that wasn’t a lie. “Are you serious?”
“By now, I’d say you don’t need a truth detention spell to tell whether I’m lying. Do you?” Angor scoffed.
Jebra felt himself already persuaded that they had truly been wronging Angor.
But... he didn’t believe Angor could just pick up a Mystery item out of the blue.
“You acquired another Mystery item, huh? How about letting us have a look?” asked Sliv, as his eyes twinkled ominously.
“Have a look? Heh. You’re planning to do more than just looking, right? Say, if I refuse, you’ll kill me and take it, then spread false rumors that you are doing justice by beating up a thief?”
While Jebra was getting even more embarrassed at those words, Sliv only silently prepared his moves. In Sliv’s view, compared to dignity and respect, acquiring a Mystery item to earn forgiveness from his organization was more important.
At the same time, Angor was carefully observing Sliv’s reactions while using his fake persona of a disobedient apprentice. He could see that Sliv had decided to rob him. Sliv hadn’t done it already probably because he wanted to ascertain the nature of the Mystery item first do it didn’t get in his way.
“Sure, I can give it to you.” Angor pretended that he was seriously considering a trade. “Not for free, of course. I went through lots of trouble to get it, as you can expect from a Mystery item. Here, I’ll pass it to you for... 100,000 magic crystals.”
That was a very good price for buying a Mystery item.
Sliv was now reconsidering his options. Spending the money seemed to be a good choice because he could both obtain the Mystery item AND avoid completely getting on Angor’s bad side.
But there was a problem. The offer was way too cheap.
This, combined with Angor’s attitude, greatly confused both Jebra and Sliv. There was no one in this world who was willing to part with a Mystery item this easily. Besides, Angor was an alchemist. He knew better than anyone what such an item meant.
Sliv happened to know about a certain “useless Mystery item”, which was only worth 10,000 crystals at an auction. As long as Angor wasn’t referring to that particular one...
“Fine. But I have to see it first,” said Sliv, “I can sure buy it from you if it’s something of use.”
“That’s no problem.” Angor quickly took out the Dream Whelk from his bracelet. “I just got it from Neya like an hour ago. Do you have to throw a Detect Truth at her too?”
Jebra turned around to look at the woman who had been pretending that she didn’t exist.
Neya nodded as rapidly as she could.
Sliv then looked back and found the item to be rather familiar. “Mister Sliv... I think I saw this thing before.”
Sliv, however, instantly recognized the whelk to be something that wasn’t worth his time.
“*Sigh* That’s ‘Whelk of the Dreaming Coast’, a Mystery item that got sold for 10,000 magic crystals at Sky Auction 30 years ago. It broke the bottom price ever recorded for any Mystery items in history.”
“I remember it now...” Sliv widened his eyes. “The most useless Mystery item ever discovered, they say.”
“As I said, 100,000 crystals, and it’s yours.” Angor waved the whelk in his hand.
By now, both Jebra and Sliv had realized that the whole matter was a giant, pointless mistake that got them nothing other than Angor’s grievance. And what Jebra offered to Angor at Lost Paradise City had gone down the drain.
Of course I’ll not buy that stuff even if you cut the price to 10,000... Sliv thought to himself before he gave Jebra an angry glare.
“I have no use for it, so I’ll pass. You talk to Jebra. He was the one who located the energy after all, maybe he’ll need it.”
Without waiting for any response, Sliv opened up a plane passageway and hopped in.
“Don’t call me again unless you’re absolutely sure of what you’re doing, or you’ll have a bad time even if Flunza’s your teacher.” Sliv’s voice came from the passage before it vanished.
Angor let out a sigh of relief. Now that Sliv was gone, he had nothing to be afraid of.
Now Jebra felt REALLY bad because Sliv just threatened him, and he could not show his bad mood because he still needed to be “friendly” with Angor.
He still had another task given by Flunza, which was to acquire Angor’s new alchemy creation. However, what happened just now more or less ruined their fragile relationship, and he had lost the advantage of requesting for the music box as a “VIP customer”.
“You need this thing?” Angor twiddled the whelk again.
“No no no.” Jebra quickly shook his head. He didn’t have that kind of money on him.
Angor scoffed again and put the whelk away. Then he summoned Gondola, called Freud to him, and prepared to depart, without minding Jebra at all.
“I-I’m sorry for this.” Jebra made another difficult decision. “It was my misjudgment.”
Angor didn’t respond.
Jebra showed a painful expression as he summoned a white space capsule from his “scale tattoo”. “Some more material for your trouble. Consider it compensation for wasting your time. Please.”
“I did say that we are even from this point and on. But... I’ll take it. I was hurt by Mister Sliv’s power, so you know, medical expense.”
Angor drove his boat away. “I don’t mind you following me the last few days. However, you better quit it from now on.”
Jebra remained behind and wondered whether he could finish his teacher’s task at all. He just upset Angor greatly AND exposed his stalking plan.
...
Meanwhile, Angor silently thought over the dispute.
What annoyed him most was that Jebra had been watching him closely and he never noticed.
He did feel strange energy signatures coming from the sea since he left Ferran Land but never gave it much thought. It seemed he should have been more careful.
As for why Jebra did such a thing, Angor was almost sure it had something to do with Lucas’ skull.
He took nothing and left nothing in the secret dimension, and people from Song of the Deep still went after him. This had menacingly told him that he could never be too careful when dealing with wizards who were hunting their prey.
Most wizards usually acted all arrogant and cocky, yet they could be mercilessly observant and unrelenting at the same time. As soon as they smelled something they were interested in, they would NEVER let go.