There was nothing Angor could do from this point since all the remaining work relied upon Brofen’s bio-alchemy skills. However, when he wanted to excuse himself, Brofen stopped him.
“The repair should be easy. It’s not like I’m going to make anything new. You can stay and watch if you like.”
Delighted, Angor agreed without a second thought.
Brofen summoned his first “lab door”, which was his bio-alchemy workshop, and invited Angor inside.
Angor was immediately attracted by all the strange lifeforms in the lab. Compared to those “failures” outside, the products inside Brofen’s workshop were clearly cultivated and more complete.
For example, he saw another “eyeball with tentacles” here. But this one was at least two meters wider than the one outside. When he moved closer, he noticed clusters of smaller eyeballs growing on the tentacles all looking at him.
The goosebumps.
“This is a Vile Demon I created, called Neyavolde,” Brofen explained with a proud smile. “Vile Demons are native in the Loft Plane. They’re long extinct though. I made this clone based on another monster.”
He pointed to the other displays as he spoke, “If you see anything that interests you, you can ask me later, and I’ll tell you how I enriched my collection.”
“Thank you kindly, sir.”
Brofen usually did not welcome outsiders into his personal space. However, Angor was a different case—Brofen felt extremely good when showing off his creations to such a famous alchemist.
“I need to make some organic antennae for the vehicle.” Brofen went to an operating table. “It’s one of the basic bio-alchemy creations. You can take a look.”
He carried everything they prepared and began mixing them up with several unrecognizable live organs.
As he said, the repair work was a lot simpler compared to making something new, so he wouldn’t mind allowing Angor to observe. Besides, he didn’t believe Angor would actually gain anything by watching.
In order not to disrupt Brofen’s work, Angor could only use his eyes to look. At the same time, he slowly went over what he had read about bio-alchemy before.
Like apothecary, bio-alchemy also came in different schools, such as the Sentos School mastered by the Karabits, who used something called “prime cells” to alter lifeforms as was or transplant something onto them.
Brofen probably studied the Aurogue School for he just mentioned “organic antenna”. Alchemists from this school were usually better at compound and material modification.
After adding many items Angor couldn’t recognize into the “organic antenna”, Brofen successfully caused it to grow larger and gain new “branches” like a thriving tree.
When the “antenna” was big enough, Brofen tossed it onto the floor, much to Angor’s surprise.
It then sank into the floor beneath and went to join the damaged wing of the vehicle automatically as if it had intelligence.
There was something else that troubled Angor, which was Brofen himself. As Brofen fully focused on his crafting, his energy signatures declined rapidly, along with his size. As Angor watched in shock, the once fat alchemist gradually “shrank” into the shape of a moderate-sized young man with a decent look.
It seemed Brofen didn’t mind what happened to his body—he simply continued his job without looking up.
His new look might easily tickle the hearts of young maidens seeking a lover... as long as they didn’t get scared away by the wriggling, bloody leftovers Brofen was dissecting.
It took Brofen about half an hour to finish the last “antenna”, which also joined the vehicle on its own.
“Nice. We made it.” Brofen glanced at an hourglass and shook some sweat off his head. He then quickly sent a private message to Maher, who had been waiting outside.
“The repair is done. Restarting the vehicle!” Maher announced to everyone.
Brofen felt the Frozen Wing gaining speed and smiled at Angor. “I must say we succeeded all thanks to you.”
He did not ask what Angor learned from his work. As he believed, it was pretty much impossible for Angor to understand a thing.
“As a passenger, I do hope we can continue as soon as we can,” said Angor.
“Welp, that leaves me nothing else to do for a while. Shall I show you more of my masterpieces?”
Angor nodded. It was better if he stayed with Brofen rather than going back and getting annoyed by the other wizards.
Brofen was quite excited when introducing all the different “creatures” he made before, and even more so, when he received several good comments from Angor. In return, he occasionally offered to explain some small tricks he learned during his career, much to Angor’s delight.
Knowing what was going on, Angor began flattering Brofen whenever he could to gain more knowledge.
This was until they came in front of a separate room in Brofen’s workshop.
“Oh, oops, let’s not go that way. I keep my unfinished stuff inside.”
Angor peeked through the gap of the door and saw several really thick tentacles attached to a huge body. And whatever was in there, was alive.
“Getting a bit peckish here... Let’s hit the pub.” Brofen turned around and took Angor outside.
Angor did feel a bit unsatisfied with his tour, though he was in no place to go against Brofen’s decision, so he obediently followed.
Brofen took Angor through several narrow paths across the Frozen Wing, during which they ran into several guards from Moonfrost Union, who all showed their regards to Brofen.
In the end, they came to a colorful door which had “Moonfrost Pub (outlet 007)” written on it.
“Every Frozen Wing has such a pub,” Brofen whispered to Angor, “because Miss Sennefer loves alcohol. Not any alcohol, mind you. She only prefers the ‘Bentley Firzen’ served in these pubs.
“Me, though... If you were to ask me, I’d pick the ordinary black rum. That Firzen stuff is way too strong.”
Brofen went ahead and entered through the door.
...
A moment later, Angor pinched his nose bridge as he watched Brofen endlessly eliminating glasses of rum and plates of roasted monster meat as if this man’s stomach belonged to another dimension.
Angor thought Brofen was using food as an excuse so that they could chat somewhere else. Wizards had many ways to keep their bodies “fed”, and consuming food was one of the most inefficient ways. Well, except for food cooked by Gourmets.
But Brofen’s hungry look didn’t appear to be pretended. Or, this man wasn’t hungry. He just enjoyed eating.
As Brofen chewed and swallowed quicker than the most ferocious beast in the world, his “better look” slowly returned to his original, fat image.
By the time he looked exactly like his previous self, he claimed that he was only half done. Meanwhile, Angor had hardly finished a single serving of meat yet.
Angor put his fork down—watching Brofen had somewhat ruined his appetite.
A woman’s voice was suddenly heard nearby.
“There he goes again. He’s a nice gentleman when he’s working. But once he’s done... You just saw what happened. There used to be witches in the union who tried going after this guy. Guess what became of them?”
Angor was slightly startled by the voice. As he remembered, there was only a mortal chef and several puppet waiters inside the pub.
He looked at the source of the voice and saw a white-haired, orange-eyed woman gracefully sipping a glass of wine. That was “Witch of Wasteland” Sennefer. Angor saw her yesterday.
He just learned from Brofen that Sennefer loved coming to the pub, but he wasn’t expecting to bump into her for real.
As he struggled to come up with something to answer the great witch, Brofen spoke to Sennefer first with an annoyed look, “You’re one to talk! Just look in front of you!”
Angor looked toward Sennefer’s table and saw a large pile of more than thirty emptied wine bottles. The signature of space-expansion runes suggested these bottles could hold more liquid than they looked.
Guess these two aren’t much different when it comes to food and drink? Angor thought.