It was dusk before nightfall.
Angor was sitting on a moose-pulled sleigh while reading his map, whereas Neet was diligently controlling their vehicle.
They had entered the Tail Mouse Street where many common residential buildings were located, which were releasing cooking heat from their chimneys to repel the snow. People on the street were mostly kids in thick clothes who were snowballing at each other while waiting for dinner.
While traveling, Neet’s sleigh became someone’s target as it received several playful strikes.
And unfortunately for Neet, a nicely-timed snowball hit him right in the face, turning a part of his cheek into a reddish color.
The little devil who committed the assault held his stomach and laughed.
Ordinary noblemen would have probably done something to punish the offender even if it was a child. However, Neet possessed a completely different character as a sailor. He learned to be more tolerant after all the hardships he went through.
Instead, he was a little terrified that the kid might have offended Angor.
But he was rather surprised to see Angor completely unaffected by the snowball fight. Or rather, the flying objects all moved past Angor’s position nicely without hitting him while denying the law of gravity.
What was more, Angor would occasionally capture several snowballs with a bright smile before launching them back at the naughty children. Even if their sleigh was moving pretty fast, each of Angor’s attacks could find its target perfectly.
The galloping sound of the moose was now accompanied by muffled thuds when the kids hugged the snowy ground.
Like a victorious general, Angor traveled through Tail Mouse Street and left a trail of defeated children behind his trail. When he was done, he even looked back and gave his “enemies” a salute, much to Neet’s bewilderment.
While satisfied with the crying voices, Angor saw them arriving at a red cedar tree under which a public well was built. But as the city no longer needed wells to provide water resources, this well was sealed by a large boulder.
“That’s the 26th one I’m going to check today. Oh, please don’t disappoint me…” Angor muttered while walking to the well with a serious look.
Neet joined him after parking the sleigh, and he saw Angor’s expression being completely different all of a sudden. He wasn’t sure if human beings could change their attitude so fast.
Well, Officer Helen was so right… Mister Padt is different, even by wizard standards!
After checking the bottom of the well with his spirit feelers, Angor put a hand over his forehead as he felt greatly disappointed.
“I’m going to take a better look down there. You wait here.”
After using Hand of Spell to remove the boulder, Angor put a thin water barrier around himself as protection and jumped into the well.
The well wasn’t deep. And just as what he expected from the initial examination, there was nothing particular in view.
Irritated, he levitated out of the well again while the warmer water left on his barrier released some vapor into the cold environment.
Neet could see from Angor’s look that the search yielded no result. Even so, he wasn’t going to carelessly ask or comfort Angor when he wasn’t supposed to.
“Shall we continue, sir? I think there are four more wells at Widow Street we haven’t looked at.”
Angor took a moment to consider. According to the records brought back by Neet, there were a total of 33 wells in the designated parts of the city that were more than 3,000 years old, plus 3 unknown ones. If nothing delayed them, they should be able to check all 36 wells in the city within a day.
However, the remaining ten wells yet to be inspected were all located inside Lucas’ old territory. While the well used by Lucas was very likely among these ones, Angor could not check them now because he saw supernatural individuals hidden in those parts. Heading into Lucas’ places right now might draw unwanted attention.
“Speaking of Widow Street, one of the wells belonged to a friend of mine. He’s the son of the knight commander who’s in charge of our westward expedition team, and he’s a baronet in the city,” Neet spoke while checking their map again.
Angor’s eyes gleamed as he got a new idea.
“Hey, Neet, my top mission for coming to Lost Paradise is recruiting talented apprentices. Since you have a friend who’s the son of a knight, I might as well check him.”
Neet frowned. Do knights pass better talents to their offspring? Never heard of that.
Of course, he wasn’t going to ask such a question. He simply listened to Angor’s suggestion and prepared their sleigh again.
Angor closed his eyes and pretended that he was taking a brief rest. “Tomorrow, help me spread a message that I’m looking for new talents in the city. As for the place… let’s use your home.”
Neet was more than glad to hear this as this basically showed everyone that the Ross Family knew a wizard.
“I won’t fail you, sir! But… the population of Lost Paradise is over a million, and a large part of them are of eligible ages. I’m afraid my home isn’t big enough to test all of them. And… are you sure this won’t be too burdensome to you, sir?”
“You’re right. Don’t tell the message to just anyone. Let’s see… We shall set a limit. Those who wish to take the test must pay 5 gold pieces as an entrance fee, and this would not be refunded no matter what the test result is.”
Ordinary families might have a hard time gathering so much money. Of course, Angor wasn’t going after profit by this decision since mortal money was pretty pointless to him. He meant to thin out the candidates by telling them that great destiny came with a great price.
In the wizarding world, paying enough price and effort didn’t necessarily guarantee success. However, not paying anything at all pretty much meant getting nothing in return.
In addition to the entrance fee, Angor also planned to draw a special rune, which would test the spirits of the visitors, at the door of Neet’s house. The rune would put some pressure on their spirits while only allowing people who endured the pressure to enter the house. In other words, only people with relatively strong spirit power or those with enough willpower to make up for their weakness could enter the house and take the test.
This way, the number of participants should be lowered to an acceptable level.
Neet listened to Angor’s plan and sighed in relief. For a moment, he was worried that his house would get wrecked by too many people trying to squeeze inside.
While they talked, the moose sleigh had taken them to Widow Street. This was when Angor suddenly noticed that the apprentice guards he saw before were no longer here. Those people either got what they needed or determined that there was nothing to find.
Personally, Angor inclined to the second possibility since all of Lucas’ clues should have gone after 3,000 years.
And since there was no danger of being found out, Angor told Neet to change their route so that they could start looking through the wells before heading to Lucas’ friend.
As for whether he should check Lucas’ old houses…
No. Anything worth picking up would have been taken away by Song of the Deep by now.
They inspected three wells, which were all common, shallow ones, without anything of interest hidden down below.
Angor wished that the fourth well at Neet’s friend’s place could finally provide something.
But to his disappointment, this one was just as empty and boring as the other ones, and Neet’s friend also turned out to be talentless.
They continued going to the remaining marks shown on their map, which were all inside the territory owned by Lucas’ family. Similarly, all the supernatural individuals watching them were gone. Also similarly, Angor failed to discover anything from the remaining wells.
Did Lucas wander into someone else’s well for real, instead of using the more convenient ones? Angor wondered while on their way back. But that doesn’t make sense.
Or… is the “jumping into a well” part one of his lies?
The other stories mentioned by Lucas such as the flowerbed on the sea and the Tree of Blessing all happened way after his time. Was it possible that Lucas committed suicide “way after his time” as well?
Apart from the fantasy-like stories, Angor mostly considered the other descriptions in the logbook as truths. When not telling stories, Lucas also used a lot of words and phrases to record more boring stuff like his daily routine on the ship and his meals. There was no point telling lies about these matters.
Until now, Angor regarded the last part of the logbook as another piece of true fact. This was why he had been searching all the wells to find what Lucas left in his “grave”.
But no. He left no stone unturned in the wells and found absolutely nothing. Not a bone chip.
Did Lucas tell another “fiction” at the end of his book then?
