Dox originally thought that when Angel said "take away," he meant putting the Round Wood in a Spatial Artifact and taking it as a trophy. But in reality, what Angel meant by taking away was completely different from what he had imagined.
Dox watched as Angel first chopped and cut the Round Wood, then burned it with fire. In less than half a minute, what was once a not too small Round Wood turned into a thin, short rod.
Then he used hot melting and wax sealing techniques for the final shaping and sealing.
Eventually, the short rod became delicate and smooth.
When Dox saw this step, he already understood Angel’s plan. He guessed it was meant to be inserted into the staff head they discovered earlier.
Sure enough, Angel’s next step was to insert the short rod into the handle of the original quad-ornament, making the staff complete.
Moreover, in a certain sense, the staff was the original. Or rather, it was an upgraded and more refined version of the original.
After all, the staff’s body was made of Extraordinary Material. Even though Angel just casually shaped it, the staff underwent essential sublimation.
Angel played with the staff for a moment, confirmed it felt good in hand, and then said with satisfaction, "Alright, let’s go."
The others had all seen the original appearance of the staff, so they weren’t surprised. Only The Sage stared at the staff with a slightly different look in his eyes.
When the staff’s body was still an illusion, he vaguely felt that the staff looked familiar.
Now, looking at it again, he still had a sense of déjà vu... Where had he seen it before?
"The Sage is interested in my staff?" The Sage’s gaze was not concealed, and with a slight lift of his head, Angel noticed that The Sage had been staring at the staff.
The Sage: "I’m just curious, you know Alchemy?"
Setting aside the puzzlement about the staff, The Sage was indeed a bit surprised that Angel knew Alchemy. Although Angel just simply handled the Round Wood, the techniques involved were very intricate.
Particularly, the technically challenging part, Angel managed with considerable skill. For instance, in the extraction of essences from materials, how does one retain the Extraordinary traits? How much of the Extraordinary traits are retained? This requires a lot of experience, and the more experienced an Alchemist is, the broader the range of materials they can handle, and the more Extraordinary traits they can retain.
After Angel turned the Round Wood into a short staff, no Extraordinary fluctuations arose, seeming as if no Extraordinary traits were retained. However, this was not the case. The faint dark golden patterns on the staff’s body indicated that Angel had locked the Extraordinary nature inside the staff’s body, and these patterns were Magic Patterns drawn out of thin air.
The dark golden patterns were so dense that it could be inferred that Angel suffered almost no loss of Extraordinary traits during the essence extraction step.
Preserving the most essential parts of the material, Angel also conducted a simple Magic Pattern process, making the staff’s body into a "semi Alchemy product" state.
For an Alchemist, this kind of processing is not too difficult. However, Angel managed to complete it in less than two minutes, something an ordinary Alchemist couldn’t achieve.
Even if it were left to The Sage to handle this Round Wood himself, under the same technique, his speed might be about the same as Angel’s. Perhaps even a bit faster, but not by much.
This left The Sage somewhat astonished.
Knowing Magic Patterns, knowing Alchemy... he’s not only a Magic Rune Mage but an Alchemist from the Enchantment System? And his Illusion Techniques are quite strange.
This Supernova’s depth utterly surprised The Sage.
"Just a little bit," Angel said modestly, then continued, "I heard from Miss Cicia that The Sage also excels in Alchemy. If there’s a chance, I’d love to learn from The Sage about Alchemy."
Angel’s words weren’t false. Although Cicia had warned Angel to be wary of The Sage, the caution only applied to not letting The Sage know about the Wilderness of Dreams. This was because The Sage was loyal to Naraku City and would use all means for its Resurrection. If he discovered the Wilderness of Dreams, he might exploit it.
However, putting aside The Sage’s stance, purely based on The Sage’s abilities, Cicia was very impressed.
To ascend to the position of Dominator of Naraku City with the identity of a Low-level Demon, relying on wisdom and skill, speaks volumes.
Every Alchemist has their own set of interpretations of Alchemy and corresponding self-consistent logic. Angel knew about many human Alchemists’ understanding of Alchemy but hadn’t learned about it from non-human perspectives. What does Alchemy look like in the eyes of non-human entities? Is it entirely different, or is it the same goal by different paths?
Therefore, his words of advice came from the heart.
"As long as you can leave this place safely in the end, there will always be a chance," The Sage said, looking deeply at Angel. If Angel really could leave this place smoothly, not only would he be open to advice, but he might even initiate exchanges with Angel at that time.
Angel: "Is The Sage indirectly reminding me that Noah’s elder’s legacy is a dragon’s pool and tiger’s den?"
"You’ll know when the time comes."
The Sage still kept a secretive attitude, with a look that said, "I’ll talk about it once you fulfill the bonus conditions."
Angel could do nothing but sigh, refrained from saying more, and turned to walk into the Void Road.
Watching Angel’s distant back, The Sage subconsciously glanced again at the staff that felt familiar to him.
And upon this look, The Sage’s eyes suddenly froze... He seemed to understand where that sense of familiarity came from.
The sense of familiarity didn’t come from the staff itself, but rather from the silver staff handle.
Specifically, it was the hollow carved emblem on the handle: a Knight’s Rapier with wings, inserted among thorns and roses.
This emblem, he had seen on the 6163 experiment subject that he had been paying close attention to lately.
The 6163 experiment subject was a very special Ghosteye Witch. It possessed a clear concept of aesthetics, fundamentally different in thought from other Ghosteye Witches.
This Ghosteye Witch could be said to be the one The Sage paid most attention to in nearly a thousand years, even more than the two Ghosteye Witches who reached Wizard Level. Because its situation reminded The Sage of himself in the past.
This Ghosteye Witch was not born an anomaly. It only started to distinguish itself from other Ghosteye Witches after one day when it suddenly conceptualized "beauty." It pursued "beauty" and was willing to undergo self-transformation for "becoming beautiful."
This was very similar to his situation back then.
In the past, The Sage was quite ordinary amongst the Triclops Blue Demon clan. Until one night, when he was picking spider eggs and got bitten by a Poison Spider, he fell from the trees, landing flat on his back. As he was paralyzed and couldn’t get up, he simply lay on the ground waiting for the toxin to wear off.
While he was lying there, he saw a brilliant Starry Sky.
He had looked at the Starry Sky before but never took it seriously. He didn’t care as much about it compared to food.
But this time, due to the poisoning, he couldn’t move and was forced to watch the Starry Sky for an extended period. At first, he just found it densely packed, slightly annoying; but after a while, he suddenly noticed the Stars seemed to twinkle, winking and greeting him.
Then he became fascinated. Since then, every night he would look up at the Starry Sky. From initially being obsessively watching them, he progressed to counting them one by one, then to imagining what it might be like beyond the Starry Sky...
Once he began to imagine the Starry Sky, he was no longer like the other Triclops Blue Demons; he had learned to think. It was also because of this thinking that he gradually grew to where he was now.