Chapter 743: Empty Ballad
At night, Tulu went to Angor’s room alone to learn about the basic knowledge for entering the world of wizards, such as how the three major arts worked and the levels of apprentices and wizards.
When this was done, Angor took out a handbook and gave it to Tulu.
“This is Circular Cut Channeling, one of the easiest channeling methods given by Brute Cavern. Use this until you find something better. As I said, knowledge is always the most valuable a.s.set in the wizarding world. You’re not supposed to share the book with anyone unless allowed to.”
Tulu happily accepted the gift. During the years he worked on The Limpet, he more or less knew that wizards would never entrust knowledge to outsiders easily.
Even at this moment, a small part of him told him that this was all a dream. He could have never imagined that he would become a talented one who could study wizardry overnight!
One reason why Angor gave Tulu a channeling method book without a second thought was that he did not want to repeat Mara’s mistake—when Sunders took him away from the recruiter of White Coral Academy. Mara still had not given him a channeling method and made him a student of the academy for selfish reasons, and it gave Sunders a chance to intercept him.
He fully knew that his task was to successfully bring Tulu back to Brute Cavern. By giving Tulu a channeling method of the organization, he could at least prevent recruiters from other organizations seizing Tulu.
“Let me see… Every two weeks, I’ll give you one hour during which you’re free to ask questions regarding your studies. Now, you can go.”
Tulu showed a hesitant look.
In fact, Tulu had been carrying this look since he entered the room, and Angor saw it. But he wasn’t going to ask why.
It seemed Tulu couldn’t hold back his idea and finally decided to speak frankly. “Mister Padt, there-there’s another matter I have to say.”
Angor simply looked at him in silence.
“I said I didn’t see any ‘change’ during the test earlier today, right? But that’s not the case. I only found something wrong after leaving your room. It’s the sky. It looks different from what I saw in the test.”
According to Tulu, he saw the sky being all gloomy as if it were going to rain during the test. But when he was asked to leave and went onto the ship’s deck, the weather was sunny and clear without a single cloud in his view.
“Is that the change I’m supposed to see, sir?”
“It is,” Angor replied while thinking about the possible talent this meant.
There were way too many examples to consider if he only looked at “clouds”. In Abelles’ Annual Talent Collection, many Occultists and Elementalists saw clouds changing colors or sizes or even getting frozen up when they touched an Abelles’ Eye.
As for anything else… Tulu mentioned rainclouds during the test, and it did rain in the afternoon. This suggested another possibility, that Tulu might be another Prophet like Dodoro.
And Brute Cavern did need more prophet-in-training right now.
“Officer Helen told me that you know how to predict the weather, right? It was you who foretold the tornado at Death Loop?”
Tulu tilted his head. “It’s not really ‘predict’. I just read the moisture and temperature, which somehow tell me how the climate is going to change. I used to spend days gazing at the sea back in my village. I think that’s how I learned to do it.”
“I see.” Angor nodded. “You’re perhaps talented in controlling the sea around you, just like Roman.”
Tulu was glad to hear something about the sea since this was his second home, but he wasn’t so happy when Roman’s name was mentioned.
Angor could easily see that Tulu was sort of obsessed with “being a good wizard”. The idea of becoming a wizard like Roman upset him greatly.
“The characters of wizards are not defined by the skills they use. You will see kind ones who wield dark arts or merciless killers who are good at healing. Remember what Helen told you in the morning? The wizarding world is more complicated than you thought. Even Roman might not be the selfish person you believe him to be. There are countless people studying the same art like him. You can’t flag them as one.”
He ended his lecture here even though Tulu still looked a downer. It wasn’t his job to teach right and wrong.
After Tulu left, Angor took out his notebook, found the page he used to record the apprentices he recruited, and added Tulu’s name after Dodoro, Papaya, Kudodo, and Lococo.
He had found five talents already. Only one more to go to fulfill the minimum quota of his quest.
Even so, he wasn’t planning on bringing back six talents only. Years ago, Sunders brought 9 talents back to Brute Cavern, and he used a very extreme way of selecting talents. Angor thought he could travel around different places while looking for more talents as long as he had the time for it. This would also increase his reward.
…
Once again, The Limpet enjoyed calm waters for a few days.
Tulu did a good job hiding his new career from the sailors. And to follow Erwin’s plan, he intentionally revealed his hope of returning home and get a wife whenever he had a chance in hope that when he did leave the crew, it would not cause suspicion.
At night, Tulu stayed in his room to read Circular Cut Channeling and used his “lesson time” as best as he could to receive advice from Angor that helped him meditate better.
Even so, he never managed to enter a proper meditation session for real yet. Devil’s Water was obviously not an ideal place for it.
With fewer jobs to do, Angor returned to his routine life, which was all about meditation and studying Truth Manipulator cantrips. Occasionally, he would read Enchantment Cyclopaedia using his tablet.
The book came with four volumes for alchemists of different levels. He wished to find some runes that could help him block detections performed by Prophets.
It was very likely that the thugs sent by Centipede Guild located him because of the help provided by a Prophet. He had to find a way to prevent this from happening again so that he could keep people with bad intentions from coming for him or his family.
The ancient book left behind in the Nightmare Realm did not disappoint him. When his eyes started to ache after reading for too long, he managed to list out all the useful runes and magic arrays for this purpose.
Most of them were recorded in Enchantment Cyclopaedia: For Masters. Apparently, these were not something he could attempt right now, so he had to give up.
There were seven magic arrays found in Enchantment Cyclopaedia: Advanced. Six of them were too enigmatic for him to draw even if he burned all the magic crystals using his Energy Stabilizer, while the last one seemed… acceptable. Almost.
This one was called the “Empty Ballad”, which was used to block off prophecy spells that targeted him. But the array had to be and remain activated for this effect to work, during which it would consume magic crystals at a scary speed.
Compared to one of the pa.s.sive effects introduced in Enchantment Cyclopaedia: For Masters, which even worked against legendary wizards, this one was just too weak.
Even though the magic array “Empty Ballad” was made of 15 different runes.
The most difficult magic array Angor tried previously consisted of 8 runes only. It was almost impossible for him to suddenly do something so hard.
This also told him that items with such an anti-detection effect were very rare in this world.
He once checked the descriptions of several tactical weapons used for annoying enemy Prophets, and he had forgotten how many digits he saw in their prices.
In the following days, he devoted himself to learning Empty Ballad full-time. However, his progress wasn’t good.