Beals left Vifet’s place with a confused look.
The story of the Time Thief was one of the most famous legends in the wizarding world, passed down since ancient times. Of course Beals knew about the Time Thief. Though he only heard about “Cassini” for the first time in his life.
According to the story, the Time Thief was known to steal “choices” from people like a scavenger traveling through the river of time. Each time someone made a choice, the Time Thief would come and take the remaining one away.
It was said that there were certain ways to backtrack in time and correct someone’s incorrect decisions made before. However, the Time Thief would usually come and make sure this did not happen. He would always completely erase the other path.
Nobody could tell how the Time Thief chose his targets. But they did know that the Time Thief tended to abide by certain rules. For example, someone who lost a choice would get compensated in an unpredictable way. Unpredictable, but always helpful in the long run.
Secondly, the Time Thief did not select his targets randomly. Those who interacted with the Time Thief before all met with greater chances of becoming truth-finders in their wizarding career. In other words, someone who was yet to become a truth-finder was very likely to reach that level if visited by the Time Thief.
This was why lots of people regarded such visits from the Time Thief as a blessing.
However, this wasn’t always a good thing to happen because the Time Thief could steal the “correct choices” as well, should one fail to grasp them. If a man entered a delicate situation where he barely let a great fortune slip but was still possible to fix it, the Time Thief would make sure the failure stayed that way.
However, those who achieved enough to actually hate the Time Thief already went beyond common levels and joined the rank of legendary, and only people who had earned enough experience on the path of truth could realize what the Time Thief did to them.
The southern wizarding region had not seen any new legendary wizards in a long time. Now, common wizards and apprentices alike only wished that they earned the Time Thief’s blessing someday.
“Cassini the Time Thief...” Beals removed some sweat from his hands.
Telling from Gauss’ reaction, Beals knew that Angor probably once saw Cassini, or he might even be “blessed” by Cassini.
An apprentice favored by THE Time Thief. What that signified was obvious.
Beals was already well-informed as a professional slave dealer, yet he knew less than a hundred people in history who were visited by the Time Thief.
“Goddammit. Mister Padt spoke to the Timer Thief for real? I need to find out no matter what.”
A part of him believed that Angor did receive the blessing—this would perfectly explain how Angor was improving so rapidly.
Still, he would like to find Angor and ask, even if this might not be proper.
...
Inside Vifet’s underground chamber, the two wizards were still recovering from the big surprise.
“You can keep the Time Thief’s name in mind, but remember, don’t reveal it to anyone,” Gauss warned.
Vifet nodded. The clue was so precious that he might even use it to find the Time Thief or those who met with the Time Thief.
“Pity, Beals is stubborn when it comes to protecting his team,” Vifet complained. “Maybe the customer he mentioned did not directly encounter Cassini either.”
“No...” Gauss shook his head. “Anyone who caught the slightest wind of Cassini’s name will surely hold certain connections with the Time Thief.”
“But it doesn’t matter now. Beals won’t tell us, and it’s not like we can change his mind.”
Gauss suddenly showed a cunning smirk. “Not really.”
He tapped a finger on the desk, and under Vifet’s surprised look, a shining sphere with a human mouth on it emerged from the wooden surface.
The “mouth” licked its lips using a slim tongue like that of a reptile before it spoke, “Gauss! Ya b*stard. Who are you gonna peek at this time, huh?! I won’t help you if it’s not a lovely lady, I tell you!”
Embarrassed, Gauss cleared his throat and explained, “Pardon me, I just obtained this Deity’s Thrall. Never had time to teach it manners yet.”
“I... I see.” Vifet stared.
This strange creature, despite its name, had nothing to do with real deities. It was a tool used by a minor prophecy sect called the Wordless Deity.
It was usually known that Prophets of this sect tended to be untalkative. Though strangely, the Deity Thralls they created were all quite the blabbermouths.
“You’ll like the smell, I assure you,” Gauss said to the ball.
He waved a hand and guided an invisible air current to the thrall, which came from Beals’ seat.
Wizards all knew how to conceal and remove their traces. But there was no absoluteness. Gauss’ Deity Thrall was a specialized life form used for detecting the tiniest trails when other trackers couldn’t.
Gauss delivered the “smell” to the desk. “Here, bodily hormones left by a sweet woman. Have a taste.”
“Don’t fool me just ’cause I don’t have eyes!” the ball protested. “I can get angry, you know! You and your freaking pranks! The last time you gave me sh*t and told me it was from a girl in Pleasure House...”
Vifet looked away and pretended he heard none of it.
Gauss saw Vifet’s reaction and grew even more awkward. “Ahem. Beals is our only clue right now, so... I must use what I can.”
Next, Gauss and the Deity Thrall began talking in a strange language Vifet couldn’t understand. It seemed the thrall was furious when it found out what Gauss gave it, but Gauss somehow persuaded it into helping nonetheless.
A moment later, Gauss put the ball away.
“Did you get it?” Vifet was curious to find out.
“I didn’t get a name, but I got a direction, by presenting possible choices and asking for a most probable one. What I can tell for now is that Beals’ ‘customer’ possesses an alchemy tool that blocked my spell. Also according to Beals’ implication, that customer crafted the tool by himself.”
This had greatly thinned down the range of possible answers. Even among all alchemists, the number of people who knew how to counter prophecy was slim.
Also, they were looking for someone who recently traded with Ashen Traders.
...
Naturally, Angor had no idea that more wizards just got his name onto their bounty list.
He was still busy with an alchemy process in Freighting Town. He came here after leaving Lloyds so that he could help Freud recharge the “dream launcher”.
He did not need to make anything new, but he had another problem right now, which was the capacity of the launcher. The launcher could be used 979 times when fully powered, which seemed sufficient at first, but it would quickly get depleted if Freud kept inviting more people to the dream wasteland while going in and out himself.
As for the quickest solution... Giving Freud several more launchers would do.
Angor did some experiments and noticed that using better materials would not increase the capacity very significantly, while doing the opposite could easily degrade the launcher, so he had to stick to the old recipe.
He made six of them in the end. The final usage limits of the products turned out to be slightly different from each other due to uncontrollable factors. Together, these launchers would provide about 5,500 chances to enter the dream wasteland. This should be enough to support Freud until his next visit unless Freud mistakenly overused them.
Next, he spent another day summoning more construction materials to the Foundation City, to fulfill several new city expansion plans. While at it, he also made sure that Freud knew Rossum’s name so that Rossum wouldn’t get stood up if he was to come over.