Angor and Toby landed among the mountain range outside Grue Town and easily saw Thewis waiting for them because that red hair was so eye-catching.
“Thank you very much for your help, Mister Thewis.” Angor bowed.
“I suggest you take your alchemy omens to the sea so that you draw fewer people who want to get their hands on a skilled alchemist. At least stay very far away from Padt Manor. You know this much, right?”
Angor nodded obediently. He didn’t leave Yamei Province because he wouldn’t mind Thewis and Eureka noticing his alchemy omen. It was just that he wasn’t expecting to see more people from other organizations to show up at the Old Earth.
The Old Earth was not big. If any other wizards saw him, they were likely to discover Padt Manor as well. Angor was truly grateful that Thewis warned him in time.
“Well, sir, this place has not seen any recruiter for ages. The last one was Mister Mara, who came to visit his home along the way. What’s going on all of a sudden?”
Thewis frowned. “I have no idea. It must be something we don’t know. We shouldn’t get concerned though.”
Thewis began walking down the mountain slope instead of flying. Seeing this, Angor quickly followed behind him for it was obvious that Thewis had something else to say.
“That omen displayed different types of energy, one of them being something about ‘stealth’. You crafted something for hiding stuff?” Thewis asked while pretending that he was striking up random conversations.
“You’re right, sir. I need it to conceal the Dream Whelk’s signal.”
Thewis suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. By hiding the whelk, Angor was clearly trying to keep curious wizards who saw the Mystery energy away. This meant Thewis was also on Angor’s “blacklist”.
But compared to this, Thewis was more surprised at the fact that Angor spent all the time and resources making a mid-tier alchemy item, just to hide a useless Dream Whelk. This had proved to him that Angor was even more adept at creating different items than he expected.
“How did you reach such a level so fast? You train faster than any other apprentices I know of, while at the same time polishing your alchemy skills to the extent of exceeding those who spent centuries at it!”
Thewis immediately regretted asking such a straightforward question. But since he did, he still grew curious as to what Angor would say.
“It’s all about luck.” Angor used his good-old excuse.
Of course Thewis wasn’t satisfied. Though he wasn’t going to push.
“Luck, huh? Guess a really generous Prophet cast a very powerful spell such as Bless on you?”
It was a joke. But when Angor heard about “Bless”, he thought as if something clicked in his mind.
“I want to negotiate a trade with you,” Thewis said, interrupting Angor’s thoughts.
“Trade, sir?”
“You help me make potions, in return, I’ll agree to one of your requests.”
“Potions for healing spirit injuries?” Angor knew Eureka was in need of these potions, but for some reason, the woman never asked him for help. He was a bit confused to see Thewis mentioning this matter instead.
“Correct.” Thewis nodded.
“I’m afraid I’m not up for the job.”
“Why? You think earning my favor is not worth it?” Thewis narrowed his eyes and showed a rather dangerous expression.
“That’s not it. I’ll certainly consider it if it’s a Tooling request. But for Apothecary, there’s not much I can do. I only learned the recipes for two to three types of potions, and the simple antidote is one of them.”
“Didn’t you—”
“You saw what I did when I was brewing Leon’s antidote, sir. I needed to thoroughly consult Master Mithra’s handbook. He did grant me lessons regarding Apothecary, but spirit cure isn’t included in what I learned so far.”
It was a fact. Thewis didn’t need lie-detection spells to tell that Angor was being honest.
So he never learned how? Thewis carefully considered. He has Mithra to teach him though, THE Mithra. Surely it won’t take him long to study a new recipe?
No... He’s fully focused on helping his teacher right now, and he can’t find extra time for it.
They had arrived at the main road at the foot of the mountain, where a refugee camp was built. But there weren’t many people living there right now.
“I suggest yer turn back if you’re planning to head to Grue Town. It’s haunted!” An old refugee wearing rags spoke to Angor and Thewis from far away.
“No, it’s not!” A younger man showed up from a tent nearby. “We saw a team of knights leaving the town just the other day. Maybe a deity or something used amazing magic to cover it up, like in the stories!”
“Deity my a*s. If there are deities and whatnot watchin’ over us, I should be enjoying a cup of hot tea at home, rather than pullin’ my old legs in this sh*thole! Who knows, maybe it’s some wicked witch who turned the entire town into a graveyard and fed on human flesh.”
“Quit it, old man.” The young man lifted a bird he just caught. “Fresh meat. You can have some tonight.”
He tore one of the bird’s legs off, causing a small tube-like object to fall on the ground with a sharp “click”.
“Wait, what do you have there? A carrier pigeon?” The old refugee picked the tube up. “Where did you get this bird?”
“Just outside the town. It can’t get inside, so I thought I could shoot it down with my bow. I got lucky with it.”
When the young man began exaggerating his bowmanship, Angor approached the speakers and checked the letter tube. It seemed his illusion barrier discouraged more than human visitors.
He wasn’t interested in someone’s letter. Even so, he wouldn’t mind passing it to its destination since he was partially responsible for the dead pigeon.
A moment later, Thewis saw Angor coming back and grinned. “You would stick to ‘equivalent exchange’ with mortals too?”
He said this because Angor paid a silver coin to get the letter.
“Rules are better if they apply to more places instead of fewer, no?”
“Heh. If you say so.”
While continuing to the town, Angor uncapped the tube and dropped its content out.
It was indeed a letter. But Angor was surprised to see his own name written as the recipient. He didn’t remember anyone at the Old Earth who would send him letters in this old-fashioned way.
“The sender is... Aaron Morn?”
As he remembered, General Aaron parted ways with Princess Tavier after the victory at Moonwater City. While Tavier went to deal with enemies at other parts, Aaron stayed at Moonwater as the guard commander.
He also helped Angor greatly when Angor needed criminals to commence his dream experiment.
While wondering what Aaron could possibly want from him, he quickly finished the short letter.
It seemed Aaron meant to inform him that the “god-forsaken brat” they captured last time had come back, who then asked to talk to him.
When helping Princess Tavier remove a great threat from the war, which was a rogue apprentice from the Centipede Guild who could summon Heart Gorgers, Angor also found a child, who was supposed to be the “reserve member” for the guild. Previously, Angor thought about taking the kid with him as a new recruit for Brute Cavern since the child had not studied anything from the summoner apprentice yet.
But later, the kid put the entire army under an uproar by inflicting deadly poison on several soldiers, who would definitely die should Angor didn’t help them in time. After hurting the soldiers, the kid escaped from Aaron’s camp.
Angor decided to forget about this matter since he was no longer interested in bringing such a little demon with him. And as long as people were aware, the poison wasn’t much of a threat.
“He came back? After all these months?”