He was an autistic, crazy, and paranoid freak.
Due to his personality, the freak never stepped out of the clock tower. However, he liked to stay at the top of the clock tower and peek at the people below with his terrifying eyes while imagining how to kill them.
Angor was trapped inside the body of such a freak.
He could not control the freak's body, but he could sense the freak's thoughts, spirit, and obsession. It was like a second soul inside the same body.
Even though Angor was an independent being, being trapped inside the freak's mind was like falling into a dark swamp.
The freak must have sensed Angor's presence as well. However, due to his autistic nature, he never spoke to Angor.
Angor was trapped inside the freak's body, but he knew how to get out.
There were two options. First, he could merge with the freak's soul and accept all of his thoughts and obsessions. Second, he could become a bystander and wait for the freak to die.
These were the only two ways to break free from the monster's physical restraint.
The first option was the fastest, but it also came with a great cost. The freak was a mortal, but according to Angor's observation, the freak's mind was filled with all kinds of distracting thoughts. If Angor merged with the freak's soul, he might lose control of his mind.
Such extreme thoughts might also cause a drastic change in the freak's personality.
Would the freak still be himself if his personality changed? This might all be an unknown problem. Therefore, Angor chose not to merge with the freak's body. Instead, he watched the freak's life as a bystander.
During this process, Angor tried to communicate with the freak. Whenever the freak showed signs of madness, Angor would explain his own ideas to him.
The freak's ideas were not necessarily wrong, and Angor's own ideas were not necessarily correct either. They were just different standpoints. Angor explained his ideas in the hope that he could get some ideas from the freak. If there was a spark, he might be able to change some of the freak's personality defects, such as being autistic.
However, the freak never spoke to him. Angor could feel that the freak knew what he was thinking.
In this way, Angor stayed inside the freak's body for five years.
He knew that he was in a strange dimension, so his concept of time was definitely wrong, but he could clearly feel what the strange man had been through for the past five years.
The strange man still lived a lonely and autistic life in the clock tower. Every night, he would adjust the clock at midnight. This was his job and also his source of income. When he was adjusting the clock, he would still look down on all living beings, thinking about how to torture and kill them.
To him, the life of another person was like a piece of duckweed floating in the ocean. No matter how strong the storm was, no matter how strong the waves were, Angor would just sit on this piece of duckweed and slowly sail to the other side.
He thought he would be trapped inside the monster's body for decades.
However, on a snowy night in the fifth year, when the strange man was adjusting the clock, he jumped off the building without warning and landed heavily in the snow. The pure white and the seductive red gradually merged together.
The strange man closed his eyes as the crowd around him exclaimed in surprise.
Angor knew that he should be able to leave the monster's bondage. Suddenly, the strange man who never responded to him spoke to him in his mind. "You're weird …"
You're weird.
At the last moment of his life, the strange man broke through the wall of autism and whispered to Angor in confusion.
Angor always thought the strange man was weird, but the strange man thought he was weird.
They both lived in the same body, but they were still two sides of the same mirror. Perhaps the person in the mirror only felt what was on the surface.
As the snowflakes fell from the sky, he once again heard the roaring of the River of Fate.
Then, he woke up.
Angor remained silent for a long time. Even when the River of Fate slowly disappeared, he did not react. Instead, he was trying to digest the strange life experience he just experienced.
It took him a long time to regain his senses.
He was no longer at the bank of the River of Fate. Instead, he was in a dark and empty world. The only light in this world was the giant clock that kept ticking above his head.
This clock was a roulette. When the needle inside moved, the outer gears of the roulette also moved slowly.
The gears were connected to an unknown space, so Angor had no idea what their rotation meant.
But he had a vague idea about the name of the clock — the Wheel of Time.
Just like the River of Fate, the Wheel of Time was one of the three major schools of divination. Angor wondered if he had to go through the tests of all three schools of divination in order to create an item to draw a blank poem.
While he was thinking, he heard a strange laugh coming from the top of the Wheel of Time.
Angor looked up. He could not use any cantrips or fly, so he could only watch from afar. There seemed to be a dark figure sitting at the top of the Wheel of Time.
Angor could not see the man's face clearly. Perhaps he was trying to hide it. All Angor could see was a shadow.
"Who are you?" Angor asked in confusion.
The figure did not answer. Instead, he laughed even more happily. After a while, the figure on the clock spoke again, "Too bad you chose to wait. Wouldn't it be faster if you just fuse with it? "
Angor was surprised. Was the figure talking about the strange life he went through?
"That's right, young man." The figure's tone was a little cocky.
"I don't want to be changed," Angor considered and answered.
"Hmm," the black shadow said. "But, every time you go to a place, every time you meet a person, every time you experience something, when you make a choice, aren't you changing your past self?"
Angor frowned. The figure was trying to argue.
"The you of yesterday is not who you are today." The figure suddenly laughed. "The future you imagined when you were young was not what you are today, right? Moreover, ask yourself honestly, have you lived the way you wanted to live? Is your current appearance the one you used to like? "
"You're changing the concept. Even if I'm living the life I hated, it's still my own choice. " Angor looked at the figure in confusion. Was this a test from the Wheel of Time?
The figure seemed to be able to read minds. Instead of continuing the previous topic, he said, "Wrong. The Wheel of Time didn't ask you to do this. I gave you the choice."
"What choice?" Angor didn't know what the shadow was talking about.
"You've already made your choice. That's what I said earlier. Between fusing and waiting, you chose the latter. "
"But what does that have to do with what I'm doing now?" Angor was confused.
The figure chuckled in a strange manner. "Since you chose to wait, I'll take the other choice away."
"Huh?" Angor's head was full of question marks. What did he mean by "take the other choice away"?
"My test is over. I can only take away one of your past choices, but it's still delicious." The figure's body suddenly turned into a black dot and was about to disappear.
"Who are you?" Angor shouted. "What do you mean by 'take away the other choice'?"
A faint reply came from the void:
"My real name is long. I prefer to be called … Cassini. You people from the Adept Realm often refer to me as … Time. "
The figure's voice was getting smaller and smaller. Angor could not make out the words clearly. He only knew that the figure's name was "Cassini".
As the figure disappeared, so did the giant Wheel of Time.
His surroundings began to change as well. He thought he was going to experience the last of the three major divination techniques, the World String.
But he did not.
As the void around him disappeared, a door appeared in front of him. Behind the door, he could already vaguely see the cloak that could not wait to rush out of the shackles of the golden patterns.
Angor stepped out of the door, and everything behind him became nothing more than a bubble.
At the same time, when he slowly opened his eyes, the clouds surrounding him dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye, and a strange energy surged into his cloak. At the last moment, he had achieved great success!
The three people on the hillside also saw the changes happening at the top of the mountain. They also sensed a spirit wave scanning the area.
"It's done," Haku muttered.
"Also, judging from the energy wave and the omen, it's at least a mid-tier alchemy product," Swan added.
"Half-tier?" Haku looked at the changing clouds with a surprised look. "Does that mean he's one step closer to becoming a master alchemist?"
Swan sighed. "I didn't believe it until now, but now that I've seen it with my own eyes, I have to believe it."
Haku sighed. Even the most powerful alchemist in Song of the Deep could only refine a half-step Advanced Alchemy item.
If Angor joined Song of the Deep, he would be treated even better than a wizard.
"Brute Cavern sent an alchemy genius like him, and they even gave him the most troublesome job of all. I don't understand."
Jebra, who had been silent all this time, jumped onto the whale's back. "Time to go, Haku."
"Aren't we going to meet him, sir?"
"Didn't you feel that spirit wave scanning the area? I don't care if he's grateful or disgusted. He already knows we're here, and that's enough. "
"Do you think he has time for a new alchemy product?" Swan sneered at Haku as she turned her arms into black feathers. Then, she flew away from Haku's side.
Haku also jumped onto the whale's back and followed Jebra.
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