Angor reached the manor and saw Leon also returning on a horse.
“You done with Princess Shannon already?” Leon hopped off his stallion and gave his brother a happy look.
Angor nodded and inspected Leon up and down. The wet clothes and sweat on Leon’s forehead meant that he had been working out.
“Well, can’t wait to use my favorite bow again,” Leon saw Angor’s look and explained. “No luck though. Those exiles scared everything away. So what’s the situation—”
Leon stopped talking when he saw someone coming. It was Auri, who was running their way. It seemed the maid came to invite them to dinner as soon as she saw Angor home.
“Well, let’s talk over the food,” Leon said while dragging Angor inside the manor.
Angor didn’t resist. He didn’t need to eat, but he didn’t have a reason to disappoint Leon or Toby, who was having a rumbling tummy.
When sitting at the dining table, Leon couldn’t wait to learn what had happened to Moonwater City.
Instead of talking, Angor used an illusion to fully demonstrate the situation he saw in the military camp, including the fight between Toby and the Heart Gorger, like playing an action movie.
Leon, as well as Auri and Mana, watched the display in awe, and they were completely immersed by the exciting story they saw.
The “movie” ended when Toby killed the Heart Gorger and saved Princess Tavier from death, who then encouraged all her soldiers.
As a relatively emotional woman, Auri was almost sobbing after enjoying the inspiring sight, which was better than any books or illustrations she ever read.
“I don’t know about wars, but those men seem capable of winning their next fight for sure!” Mana claimed.
As someone born in the Goldspink Empire, they naturally hoped that their motherland would triumph over the challenge. They also heard that the Heylans “cheated” their victories until now, and they weren’t happy about it.
“Where have you been?” Leon frowned while looking at the last moment shown in the illusion. “Toby was dealing with the monster, that’s fine. But what about you?”
“I went to look for the summoner. A pretty weak apprentice. Killed him in a minute. Trust me, it wasn’t fun to watch.”
Leon gave him another suspicious look.
Angor was telling the truth. He did finish off his target with one single move. It was just that he didn’t wish to mention the bothering matters of the Centipede Guild.
Next, he used another illusion to show his visit to the capital city, and Auri and Mana both admired the flourishing city in amazement.
Of course, he omitted everything related to the underground vault. The Torrent Plane had to remain a secret, especially when Eureka was here.
Leon was eager to see how the battle at Moonwater City proceeded, but since he obviously couldn’t go there for real, Angor helped by simulating the terrains around the city using an illusion so that Leon could do a military drill as a game.
By the end of the dinner, Leon claimed that Tavier’s troops would win unless something else unexpected came and weakened their morale again.
...
News of victory came after several days, which was soon known by most people in the empire. By repelling Heylan soldiers from Moonwater City, Tavier successfully comforted both civilians and refugees who spent the last few months in fear.
As everyone in the empire celebrated their win and praised Tavier’s name, the one who actually promoted the victory—Angor—was quietly looking at his Soft Larva nest in his bedroom.
He never paid much attention to this gift he received from Kanter, but since he needed to use Transform to enter the “magical door” created by Mirafall, he had to rely on this thing now.
Since the Dream Weaver ant was no longer here, Angor generously gave the nest lots of Akeso’s blood. The eggs visibly grew more “lively” in the previous month. In fact, on the day when Angor returned home, there was already a Soft Larva that made it out of its egg and was wriggling around in the nest.
Since it was still a common Soft Larva, Angor did nothing more than giving it necessary food and water.
As he observed, more of the eggs were beginning to show signs of spawning.
There was one particular egg that drew his attention. Compared to the other eggs that happily absorbed Akeso’s blood to grow, this one always stayed dormant even though it remained in a perfect condition.
After several more days of inspection, he noticed that the egg was drawing nutrients at a rather low speed.
He tried to isolate the egg in another spot and gave it more blood. That was when he realized that its energy absorption rate was far from slow. It was, in fact, quicker than any of the other eggs.
Yet this only happened when it was left alone. In such a condition, this exceptional egg could completely drain a large amount of Akeso’s blood, which would otherwise take a dozen eggs several days to drink.
“Highly active when separated... Does it know how to spare more food for its kind, or...”
If the egg was intelligent, it either was too generous or too aloof to “dine” with its kins.
Nevertheless, it was now worthwhile to focus on this one egg and find out what happened next.
Angor did not slack off on other tasks while watching over the nest. While going over the remaining books that might provide a cure, he would also find time to study Dream Walk.
For now, he had completely no idea about how to deal with the corruption in Jon’s body, so he could only note down Jon’s vital signatures and tried to find similar cases.
As for Dream Walk, he was progressing, albeit extremely slowly. Telling from his current pace, he expected to spend at least two years to fully grasp this cantrip.
To common apprentices, using two years to learn something out of their “profession” was acceptable. Yet it was not in Angor’s view, because Jon only had two more years to live if he didn’t do something to help.
He suddenly remembered that he might be able to use the Dream Whelk to help with his study, and so, he took it out from his bracelet.
According to Freud, the whelk could only be triggered by using “dream energy”. But when testing the item, Angor managed to find a second key to it, which was his nightmare energy. He guessed that this was because dreams and nightmares were closely related.
He couldn’t study Dream Walk very well because he had not figured out how to actively induce a lucid dream on himself. But... What about using nightmare energy for this purpose?
With the new idea in mind, he sent a ray of nightmare energy into the whelk to activate it.
And he instantly regretted doing such a thing when the whelk began emitting Mystery energy into the room.
The window of his room was shattered by something, which was followed by a woman’s voice.
“Hey, what do we have here?”