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Chapter 117: The Congress of Magic
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Under the moonlight, the many beautiful flowers in the garden looked a bit hazy.
Lucien and Rhine were walking through the flowers side by side, both of them remaining silent.
A while later, Lucien could not hold himself back anymore, "Can you tell me where the headquarter of the Congress of Magic is now, Mr. Rhine?"
Rhine looked at Lucien and smiled, "What do you think? Take a guess."
"I thought about it." Lucien nodded, "I thought it was on the other side of the Dark Mountain Range, or at least deep in the mountains. After all, the Church failed to march further westward across the range. Does it make sense?"
"A good guess," Rhine grinned, "but if you go there, what you can find deep in the mountains will be a bunch of crazy and gloomy sorcerers and sorceresses who survived the violent suppression, or say, slaughter, done by the Church. People call them 'ancient sorcerers'."
"Really? How come they live that long?" Lucien was a bit surprised.
"They are survivors." Rhine explained, "They managed to survive because they are powerful. Many of them are archmages and even legendary archmages. They're cruel and crazy. You can easily become their subject for experiment if you piss them off and die from their brutal torture."
"Then… is the headquarter in a certain country? I mean… in one of the countries which doesn't follow the God of Truth?" Lucien made another guess.
"Nope…" Rhine shook his head again and again, "Have you ever heard of the Kingdom of Holm?"
"Yes, I did…" Lucien did not quite get it.
"The headquarter of the Congress of Magic is in the Kingdom of Holm," said Rhine, "or, to be more specific, in the floating city called Allyn, close to the kingdom's capital, Rentato."
"Allyn… in Sylvanas it means sky." Lucien murmured. Then his eyes suddenly opened wide, and he said, "Wait… it's impossible! The princess' mom came from Holm, and this is a country that follows the God of Truth! The grand duke even visited it many years ago! How come…"
"I knew the answer would shock you, Lucien." Rhine slowly explained, as if he was telling a rather interesting story, "Among all these poems and stories and music works that praised the romantic love between the grand duke and the princess' mom, neither of them specified why and who was trying to separate them. Don't you feel strange?"
"I never thought about it…" Lucien was confused, "Was it the congress? But why?"
"If you had ever learned about the philosophy of ruling," the corner of Rhine's lips curled up, "you'd understand that it's all about the balance between nobles."
"Can you explain it a bit more, Mr. Rhine?" Lucien had some thoughts but was not quite sure.
Rhine walked slowly, "In the last two hundred years of the War of Dawn, the power of the Church reached its peak. Even the emperor needed to kneel down in front of the pope and kiss the pope's shoes. At that time, the Church could easily dethrone an emperor, not to mention deposing those dukes, counts and viscounts."
"So, those nobles…" Lucien rubbed his chin a bit with his fingers, "they decided to support the cardinals who wanted to separate from the Church?"
"Good point." Rhine turned his face toward Lucien, "Although we still don't know why those cardinals back in the days decided to betray the pope, what we know is that some local nobles in the north were more than willing to support them. However, these nobles were clearly aware of the fact that, if these cardinals that they supported gained the core power and overthrew the pope, a new pope would come out among the cardinals on their side and the whole situation of the nobles would not be changed at all."
"So the nobles leaked the secret plan on purpose to let the pope be relatively prepared!" Lucien's brows frowned slightly, "Thus, the north and the south became two sides on a balanced scale. And the balanced situation made the nobles' power rather important. The side that gained the support of more nobles would obviously have the advantage."
"You're really smart, Lucien. The first half part of your reasoning is correct, but the second half was not really what happened." Rhine smiled, "The fact was that, after the division of the Church, the southern Church was still way stronger than the northern. However, the north Church gained the support from the elves, dwarves, many magic creatures and even the ancient sorcerers in the northwest of the Dark Mountain Range. Like the old saying goes, 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. When they were involved, the northern Church finally managed to withstand the violent attack launched by the south."
"Then, the situation on the whole continent looked more balanced. The south was not in such a dominant position anymore." Lucien contemplated, "Something else must have happened afterwards in the south… say, another division."
"Impressive, Lucien." Rhine looked a bit surprised with Lucien's insight, "Yes, there was another division in the south later. Since the nobles in the south saw the great improvement of the status of the nobles in the north, while most of them decided to negotiate with the Church, a small part of them chose to secretly support the mages, in order to turn the sorcerers and sorceresses into a new trouble for the Church, while they stood in the middle and benefited from their confrontation."
"Who were the 'small part' of the nobles? What they were doing was very risky." Lucien murmured.
"Yes, it was." Rhine shrugged, "They were the nobles from the four kingdoms across Storm Strait. And what they did not expect was that a great mage named Douglas evolved the ancient magic system and initiated a huge revolution in studying the laws of the universe. Hence, the power of the magic congress started to soar, and countless great archmages came out. About a hundred years ago, the congress integrated several scattered major magic organizations and became the second most powerful institution in the world."
"Douglas…" he still remembered the name. Lucien was pretty sure that Douglas was still alive, since such a great sorcerer like him must have many ways to prolong his lifespan. For example, there was a magic ritual mentioned in Astrology and Magic Elements that could prolong one's lifespan to a thousand and five hundred years.
"Mr. Douglas, one of the most powerful men in the world, the greatest arcanist ever in history, the chairman of the Continental Congress of Magic, and the founder of the journal called Arcana." Mentioning his name, even Rhine looked a bit awed, "So now, in the Kingdom of Holm, the existence of the magic congress is almost a half-revealed secret, and the power of the congress is way stronger than that of the southern Church. Without the support of the local nobles, the Church might have been rooted out long time ago."
"That's why the Church here made the grand duke visit Holm many years ago. The purpose of the grand duke's trip was to rebuild a solid relationship with the nobles there to fight against the congress' power," Lucien nodded. "So, the grand duke married the princess in Holm, good for him."
"Well… I bet that was out of the grand duke's expectation." Rhine smiled. "The marriage caused a stir across the continent. Many nobles opposed it and tried to obstruct the marriage in every possible way, since the union of the two young people might easily change the tripartite power relations among nobles, the Church and the congress. The congress, obviously, would not easily allow the marriage to happen as well."
Seeing Lucien's eyebrows frowned tightly, Rhine paused a bit and waved his hand casually, "Anyway… you don't have to understand all the complicated stories in history. What you should think about is how to get to Holm. Storm Strait has been blocked by the Church for a long time, and only the nobles and businessmen with a special permit can pass. Or you can pass the confrontation border of the northern and the southern branches of the Church, traverse Schachran Empire and reach the lands to the far north, after which you can enter Holm from its northern border."
"I don't think I can even make the first step, passing the confrontation border…" Lucien shook his head, "I wonder if the congress has its own special path. After all, I know there was a sorcerer from the congress who came to Aalto before."
Rhine nodded, "Yes, I was just about to mention this. It is said that the congress has a liaison in Sturk, the Bright Pearl of the Sea, but I don't know who is it, and you would still have to sneak through the confrontation border, which is very dangerous. So what I suggest is that you first become a real sorcerer and then set off for your destination, to have a better chance at protecting yourself."
"A real sorcerer…" Lucien's brain was working fast. He could not take the risk to use the Professor identity again right now to go back to the apprentice meeting, and the only way that he could become a first circle sorcerer as soon as possible would be to visit the magic lock, "But isn't it a trap set by the Church?" Lucien murmured.
"If you become a middle-rank mage and learn how to fly, you basically won't have to worry about all this stuff." Rhine continued, "The Church can block the water and the border, but it can never completely control the sky. Smart as you are, with the help of the potion called Silver Moon, I believe you can soon make a breakthrough, Lucien. By the way, the Church has been pretty busy recently and they're less likely to pick on you, I think."
"You seem to know everything, Mr. Rhine." Lucien was surprised, "Who are you? Why did you want to help me?"
"I'm only an observer, an outsider." Rhine's smile was mysterious, "You're an interesting person, Lucien. Getting you involved makes the whole thing even more interesting. Of course, when the game becomes attractive enough for me, I'll join it as well."
Then Rhine directly turned around and left the garden through the small gate, leaving Lucien standing alone in the darkness.
Unexpectedly, Lucien now felt more relaxed than excited, as if Rhine just removed the heavy rock that had been sitting for so long on his heart.
At this time, Lucien suddenly felt his soul swelled a bit and started to approach his power limit.
Chapter 118: The End and the Beginning
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
The light fragrance of the flowers and the unique smell of earth were intoxicating, and the cool breeze was nice and gentle. When Lucien was standing in the garden alone, all of a sudden, the surroundings disappeared, and instead, a broad starry sky with a beautiful silver moon enveloped him.
Lucien once again entered the world inside his soul.
The shining string connecting Lucien's actual host star of destiny far away in the universe and the star's inverted reflection in his soul appeared in the air, and the string, as a channel, was eagerly absorbing the power of the host star in order to nurture Lucien's soul.
Gradually, certain changes happened in the soul, and Lucien felt that his soul was slowly "substantialized".
A while later, when Lucien reopened his eyes, there were countless stars in his dark pupils.
He blinked again, and then his eyes went back to normal.
Feeling super refreshed, Lucien sensed that his soul was stronger than ever. The most amazing difference he noticed was that some crystal powder was solidified and produced from his soul, just like the fine dust of the revenant.
"How a person's soul is constituted? Is it constituted of certain special elements, or soul itself is nothing else but a special wave field? Why meditation can improve one's power?" Lucien murmured, having too many questions in his mind that interested him a lot. He was guessing that the substantiation, or say, the solidification of the soul was the premise to construct a magic model.
Right now, becoming a first circle sorcerer was Lucien's main goal. For a senior apprentice, this breakthrough to become a real sorcerer was of great significance, since there was a huge difference in power between the two levels, just like moving from being a knight squire to being a real knight.
…
It only took Lucien half a day to finish all the procedures to collect the documents required to travel through the continent, both because of the princess' special order in advance and his own social status as a well-known musician. For common people, however, it would take at least seven days.
Although many adventurers were also traveling across the continent without any paperwork, it was illegal, technically speaking, and it could put them in big trouble, such as being suspected of being heretics or spies.
Then, Lucien stayed in Aalto for a few more days to plan his trip and also to wait for the upcoming April tenth.
In the morning of April ninth, Lucien's coach set out for Tiran, a province in northwest of the duchy. Since the coach was hired by the association, Lucien told the coachman to go to the north first and then head toward the Kingdom of Syracuse in the east to hide his real destination.
…
The magnificent city gradually disappeared behind the coach. Lucien stopped looking back from the window and started to casually leaf through some paper works. Then, he noticed that there was a pile of newspapers in the corner of the coach.
Taking a closer look, it was the latest Music Criticism and Symphony News.
The front page of the latest Music Criticism was divided in two. The black and white painting on the left side depicted the scene where Christopher was acknowledging the applause at the end of his concert, while on the right side, there was a colored picture of Lucien playing piano.
On the top of the front page, there was a line of bold letters, "The end of the old era, the beginning of a new era."
The full passage was on the second page:
"Mr. Christopher bid his farewell to the stages with his magnificent concert. His symphony the War of Dawn shocked every listener and showed us a great musician's never-ending spirit for further exploration in the world of music.
"In the past seventy years, we have witnessed a tremendous growth of symphony, and the contribution made by Mr. Christopher to the art of composing is more than remarkable. He is a real music master, the representative of the last seventy years. Let us salute Mr. Christopher with our greatest respect."
…
"Following Mr. Christopher, the great master of music, Mr. Lucien Evans showed us a brand-new direction for the further development of music in his concert. Young and inexperienced as he is, Mr. Evans already launched a few revolutions with his fingerings, composing and conducting. The next era of music has arrived.
"Although not everyone likes revolution, the momentum of innovation can not be stopped. Thanks to Mr. Evans, the colorful future of music has been partly revealed.
"Let us send this young music genius our best wishes! Let us wish that Mr. Evans would follow Mr. Christopher's footstep and lead us further in this new music era!"
…
"The end of Mr. Christopher's playing was followed by the beginning of Mr. Evans' performance, and we shall cheer with heart and soul, 'music lives forever'!"
The passage was co-written by a couple of musicians from the association in Aalto.
Some of the other passages in the newspaper gave high comments on piano, and some of them analyzed the formats of Christopher's symphony and Lucien's sonata. Only a few short articles were criticizing Lucien's fingerings and his style of conducting as "lunatic and totally not decent", and one of them was contributed by Wolf.
Lucien sneered a bit and folded the newspapers.
Staring at the bold title on the front page, "The end of the old era, the beginning of a new era", Lucien sat in the coach and lost himself in thoughts.
…
Around six in the evening, Lucien arrived at the small town called Massawa.
The town was located at an intersection, one heading toward the province named Tiran, which belonged to House Violet, and the other that led to Bonn, the small town sitting beside Elsinore Lake, which was very close to Massawa.
"It's pretty late now, Mr. Evans." The leader of Lucien's guards, Joyce, said to him, "I suggest we stay here for the night and set off tomorrow morning."
Although nowadays vicious monsters and creatures were rarely seen around big cities, towns and villages, from time to time people could still encounter robbers and small beasts. Therefore, if the common people needed to travel through the continent, they had to pay mercenaries to protect themselves.
Lucien's mercenary team had six people in total. The team leader and the vice leader were high level knight squires and the other team members were low level ones. Every month Lucien needed to pay them three hundred Nars, excluding meal and accommodation.
Although it was totally unaffordable for common people, money was not a big problem for Lucien anymore. The income of his concert was very decent, and now he had a hundred and five Thales in total with him.
"Sure. You know more about this place than I do, Joyce." Lucien nodded, "Can you find us a hotel? I want a very quiet room."
Joyce was tall and strong. At the age of thirty-two, he was still saving money to awaken his Blessing. Joyce was sort of grateful that such a celebrity would show respect to him, since many other wealthy guys who he safeguarded before were pretty much bastards.
Very soon Joyce booked a decent hotel sitting beside a small lake in the town. Lucien selected the leftmost room on the second floor, which was very quiet.
A bunch of tourists were in Massawa at that time. They had just left Aalto after the music festival.
Lucien entered his room from the side door and avoided them. He ordered dinner and ate it inside his room, after which he told Joyce that he did not want anyone to disturb him. Then, he quietly waited for the darkness of the night to come.
Chapter 119: Unlock
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
The silver moon was not there tonight. Only a couple of starts could be seen.
Standing in front of the window, Lucien looked out of the curtain and felt a bit disappointed, since his Blessing couldn't be fully activated without the silver moon. Tonight only his speed and agility could reach a knight level, but his physical strength would not be as good as when the moon was out.
"At least I can still see some stars, or I wouldn't even be able to calculate the coordinate of the entrance of the magic lock." Lucien comforted himself, "And it's safer to hide in the dark without the moonlight."
According to the ancient script he had read before, the entrance of the magic lock called Grand Cross kept changing its location every ten minutes together with the continuously moving stars, until the sun rose up.
Around eleven at night, Lucien put on his hooded black robe.
Pulling up the hood, when he was about to sneak out of the room through the window, he suddenly felt a bit hesitant: the poem, the script and the two visitors all came to him together, almost at the same time, which was such a coincidence that made him suppose this might actually be a trap.
At first Lucien thought that the brother and sister were sent by the Church to test him, however, after knowing from Rhine that the Church was too busy recently to deal with matters such as those, and after seeing the dozen mysterious visitors in this small town, he felt the story about the magic ruins was quite suspicious.
"Should I take the risk?" Lucien asked himself silently in his mind. After all, it would take him six to seven months to get to Sturk, therefore, he still had enough time to find another way to get the Silver Moon potion and, obviously, the magic ruins was not Lucien's only chance to collect the materials he needed.
However, very soon Lucien made up his mind. He had a foreboding through his host star when Rhine was talking to him the other night. He had a feeling that something significant was going to happen, and if he could not be powerful enough to protect himself before that happened, he would probably die.
Also, Lucien had so many questions in his mind: who was the author of the poem? Who was the original owner of the script? Was it possible that the legendary archmage known as "the Prophet" who wrote Astrology and Magic Elements left anything special in the lock because he forecast something important?
Lucien's curiosity became dominant over his concerns. He gently jumped out of the window and landed agilely outside.
…
In order to save his strength, Lucien moved a bit slower. It took him an hour to get to the small town close to Massawa, called Bonn.
Bonn was a remote town sitting beside the Dark Mountain Range. Occasionally, a few musicians and painters would visit it, but most of the time it had no visitors.
Lucien was quite surprised to find that, when he secretly arrived at the small town, the only tavern there was still busy. He could hear that lots of people were still chatting in many different accents.
…
In one of the rooms on the second floor of the tavern, Sala and Lilith were looking at each other with their eyebrows frowned.
"What shall we do now?" Lilith asked, "I thought only Mr. Evans figured out the secret of the manuscript, but why are there so many visitors here in Bonn?"
"I'm guessing…" Sala sighed, "the manuscript we have is not complete, and it might not be the only one. They might have the complete version."
"That makes sense, after all, we got the manuscript from…" Lilith nodded and switched the topic, "What if there're sorcerers and knights among them?"
"I'm not sure." Sala looked downwards, as if he was trying to see the people downstairs through the floor, "At least I know these macular guys bragging just now are no more than a bunch of adventurers."
"Then, are we still going tomorrow?" Lilith looked hesitant.
Sala did not answer her question immediately. After a while he sighed, "We'll wait and see. I mean, we don't have to, and we also can't compete with them. I feel there's something wrong going on here." Although Sala sensed something wrong, his desire forced him to stay.
"All right." Lilith nodded. "The entrance of the ruins will exist for twelve hours anyway."
…
At the same time, Lucien was standing under the window of Sala and Lilith's room, leaning against the wall and calculating the coordinates of the entrance.
Because that was a magic lock of legendary level, lots of parameters were required. It took Lucien more than half an hour to figure out the numbers.
The calculation consumed Lucien so much energy that made him dizzy. Luckily, there was still a while before the magic lock started to be activated, so Lucien just sat on the ground quietly in the dark to recover.
…
By around three in the morning, Lucien had been fully revitalized. With great caution, he moved toward a plain-looking bungalow.
In the darkness, his black robe made him almost invisible.
Opening the door with a simple spell, he sneaked into the place and then locked the door again from inside.
In the bedroom, a couple was sleeping soundly, completely unaware that someone had just entered their place.
Lucien sat down on a wooden chair in the living room, looking rather relaxed and calm. However, he was counting the time silently in his mind.
Around ten minutes later, Lucien suddenly stood up and threw himself on the dark vortex in the corner of the living room, which was definitely not there a second before.
As if Lucien was sucked in the swirl, his figure completely disappeared from the place.
Ten seconds later, the dark vortex disappeared as well.
…
Lucien felt a great dizziness when he jumped in the swirl, as if his head hit a heavy, thick curtain.
However, when he opened his eyes, he was still standing in the same living room.
Lucien was confused and thought that maybe he had missed the chance. However, soon he noticed the difference: This place had no colors, made purely with black, white and gray, as if he entered the world of a black-and-white movie.
Taking a glance at the bedroom, Lucien saw that the couple who was sleeping in the bed disappeared as well.
Carefully, he pushed the door open and came to the street – It was the same town, but it was empty, and black and white.
"That's creepy," Lucien said to himself, but he could not hear his voice.
Thus, he finally noticed another difference: this whole world was completely silent, as if the world was dead.
This was the lock. Lucien was in the magic lock now.
Looking up at the grey sky, he saw no stars, no silver moon or sun.
Luckily, he could still sense his connection with his host star, which meant he could still use magic, and he was still connected to the real world, so he wouldn't get completely lost inside the lock.
No people, no cats and dogs, no birds, bugs, breeze, color or even sound… Lucien was sweating while he walked through the gray streets.
According to the manuscript he read, Lucien located a few magic gardens. Keeping the locations in mind, he headed toward Elsinore Lake on the other side of this gray town.
Grabbing his sword named Alert, all of a sudden, Lucien's arms were covered with goose bumps. Something was coming!
Quickly turning his head around, Lucien saw the door of a small house on the street slowly open.
A little girl around seven or eight was standing behind the door. She had no color either, and her big eyes stared at nothing.
Then she started to smile, with her big eyes without any focus.
…
"My lord," kneeling on the ground, a person in black robe reported to the man standing on the altar, "following your order, we found out a guy with the Moonlight Blessing arrived in Bonn, but we lost track of him all of a sudden. He disappeared."
In his silver robe, Ilia sneered, "There he is."
Then, he turned around and commanded, "Do not rush. Our plan is always our priority. But we'll give this Moonlight guy a warm welcome as well."
Chapter 120: Silence
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Staring at the street outside of the window, Lilith and Sala couldn't and dared not sleep.
"I heard that, from time to time, there were people missing in this small town, and it has been happening more and more often in recent years." Lilith asked her elder brother, "Do you think it's because of the magic lock?"
Sala shook his head, "I'm not sure. After all, I don't even know what kind of magic lock this is. I know the Church once sent several pastors here before, but they found nothing suspicious. In the end, they guessed that some monsters or creatures in the mountain took them."
Then, Sala pointed at the small house on the other side of the street, "That house once belonged to one of the few literate country gentlemen here in Bonn. Ten years ago, on April tenth, his seven-year-old daughter was missing, and he never found her. Finally, he moved eastwards with his wife, away from Bonn, because they were too sad to keep living here."
"April tenth…" Lilith murmured thoughtfully.
…
The girl, who seemed to be a figure coming out of a black-and-white photo, smiled to Lucien. Slowly, she raised up her arms and then started to run toward Lucien, as if an innocent and lively daughter was running toward her dad.
However, the scenario was very creepy in Lucien's eyes: The little girl's body was floating in the air, and her eyes were hollow.
Lucien started to cast a spell, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. The air surrounding the little girl began to stir and turned into several invisible robes trying to constrain her.
Apprentice spell, Wraith Shackle.
As soon as the little girl realized what was going on around her, her face contorted with hatred and viciousness. She opened her mouth and started to scream.
Lucien was prepared, since he had some experience with the revenants before during his experiments. Right after he cast Wraith Shackle, Lucien activated Silence Wall to protect himself from the attack of sound waves.
In a real fight, knowledge still mattered a lot.
Lucien could see the ripples crashing against the invisible wall surrounding him. Even before he had a second to be proud of his foresight, the wall suddenly collapsed into small transparent pieces!
The rest of the sound waves, although they had been weakened to some extent by the invisible wall, hit Lucien right in his chest.
Feeling the sky and earth were spinning, he fell on the ground and almost threw up right away. Lucien's guts were trembling inside of his body.
Fortunately, a layer of gray light instantly covered Lucien's skin when he was attacked. His Moonlight Blessing was activated on its own in order to protect him. Without the ability of dematerializing into moonlight, Lucien might be dead already.
Lucien realized that this was a revenant as powerful as a real knight!
Quickly analyzing what kind of revenant and how powerful the little girl was, Lucien swiftly shifted to the other side of the revenant, then his lips moved.
Lucien cast Illumination.
Even the weakest revenant was immune to most of the Element spells. Only light, fire and sound waves could hurt them.
However, Illumination did not work very well in this world. The grayish light ball in the sky looked rather dim and faint.
The little girl paused a bit and then directly jumped onto Lucien.
With his Moonlight Blessing, Lucien barely dodged away, like a gray shadow. At the same time, he grabbed his sword and hacked toward the little girl, after which he started running.
Lucien knew the attack was in vain, but he did not have another choice, since he was still during the buffering time for casting.
Seeing the sword did not hurt her, the little girl tipped her head a little bit and smiled.
Then, she suddenly disappeared, and several seconds later, she showed up right in front of Lucien, with her arms wide open.
Lucien reacted fast. Pressing his foot against the ground, he changed his direction and started to cast Homan's Oscillation.
This time, the little girl was injured. Lucien saw her etherious body ripplling like disturbed water.
The great anger appeared on her face again, and it became more and more vicious. She raised her head, screamed silently, and then directly rushed at him.
Once again, although Lucien avoided the frontal attack of the sound waves with Moonlight, his ankles suddenly felt weak and his movement paused for a second.
The revenant had reached him. For a second, Lucien's consciousness faded, and then he felt extremely tired and flimsy. The heat in his body was escaping. He felt cold.
The little girl went directly through Lucien's body and stopped on the other side. Raising her hands, she looked shocked and confused.
The ring Lucien was wearing, Ice Revenger, helped him to stay focused. Without any hesitance, Lucien cast a spell again.
A blast of cold wind blew around them. A revenant was summoned by Lucien.
He decided to use a revenant to fight against the other revenant, since he noticed that, in the weird dimension, while light magic was largely weakened, the undead creatures were strengthened by a lot.
Being controlled by Lucien, the summoned revenant launched its attack toward the little girl.
Wrestling together, their arms pierced each other's "body". However, it seemed like the revenant Lucien just summoned was weaker than the little girl, since within a couple of seconds, it already started to get less and less visible.
It would not even take the little girl ten seconds to completely wipe it out.
Hoever, it was enough time for Lucien to turn the tables.
Lucien took a few steps backward, reached his hand into his pocket and threw out a handful of reagents toward the two revenants who were wrestling, and a white fire wall enveloped them as Lucien finished casting the spell.
This was Lucien's invented spell, Sulphur-fire Wall, which was just an inspirational flash when he was facing the aquatic zombie, and within the past couple of months, Lucien turned it into one of his regular spells.
The only problem with Sulphur-fire Wall now was that the structure of its magic model was not simplified enough, so it took Lucien more time and spiritual power to activate it.
Being burned by the sulphur fire, the revenant Lucien summoned immediately disappeared, and a couple of seconds later, the little girl started to show signs of being in pain.
However, the apprentice spell could not cause a great damage to her, but only contain her within the fire wall. It seemed she was very afraid of fire, and instead of trying to force her way through the fire, she stayed in the center.
Lucien was a bit relieved and was about to run away from the little girl. Facing a revenant as powerful as a knight, the top priority for Lucien was to stay away from her, instead of attempting to eliminate it.
As soon as he turned around, Lucien took a glance at the place where the little girl showed up. Through the open door Lucien saw a small skeleton with thin bones bending over a wooden table.
The scene reminded him of what he had read about revenants. All of a sudden, Lucien changed his direction and ran toward the house as fast as a shadow.
Watching him approach the house, the little girl suddenly panicked. Without any hesitance, she rushed toward Lucien through the fire wall.
By the time the little girl broke through the fire wall, Lucien was already standing in front of the small skeleton. Sprinkling a handful of sulphur powder on it, Lucien lit the skeleton on fire.
The white fire immediately covered the bones.
In the fire, Lucien saw a drawing on the wooden table, carved by something sharp, like nails. It was an awkward drawing of a family of three, but then, like an illusion, it shifted into a little girl waiting beside a door.
Under the drawing, there were a few crooked letters: Daddy… Mommy… Home…
The little girl slowly stopped when she saw the skeleton on fire. She was a bit surprised at first, but then lowered her eyes, looking rather sad.
Then, her body became more and more transparent. She started to gradually disappear.
From the pictures, the letters and the ever-changing entrance of the magic lock, Lucien had a rough idea of why the little girl was here in this world. His sympathy instantly took over his fear.
"Daddy… Mommy… Home," Lucien silently murmured.
His heart was softened. Lucien turned to the little girl, who was almost gone, and said to her, "I'll take you home."
In this world of black and white, the world of silence, the little girl had tears falling down her face, but she smiled sweetly, as if she read the movement of Lucien's lips and understood what he said.
In the last second before she disappeared completely, the little girl nodded to Lucien gratefully.
When the skeleton was burned into ashes by the magic fire, the little girl also disappeared. The wooden table was gone together with the burning skeleton.
Lucien carefully collected the ashes and put it into his pocket.
Now he was even more confused with this world, since it seemed less and less likely to be the Grand Cross he was looking for. The whole place was just too creepy.
Lucien started to feel very uncomfortable with the great silence in this world. He felt himself dumb and deaf. Grabbing his sword tight, he started to walk toward Elsinore Lake.
When he was about to leave the small town, he noticed that the cemetery that he saw when he arrived in Bonn disappeared, and instead, a piece of wasteland was in front of him.
"The magic lock world is actually not a copy of the original world?" Lucien asked himself in his mind with great surprise.
Picking up the pace, Lucien turned around the corner with overgrown weeds. Then, what he saw instantly shocked him.
The scarlet Elsinore Lake in this world was like a huge pool of blood, and it reflected the inverted image of a grand cross consisting of nine bright stars shining in the sky, whose light lit up the whole lake.
That was the first time Lucien saw another color except black, white and gray since he came into this world.
Chapter 121: The Magic Garden
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
There was no wind and no rain. The sky was gray and the stars were absent. Lucien felt that the magic lock world was dead.
However, there were waves on the surface of the red-colored lake under the Grand Cross, as if the lake was alive. The creepy and sharp color contrast also made Lucien very nervous, even though he was a senior apprentice who stayed relatively calm and focused all the time.
Carefully observing the bright and shining Grand Cross in the sky again, and comparing it with the stellar map of Astrology and Magic Elements in his spirit library, Lucien found that the arrangement of the magic lock was quite unique. Unlike most magic locks, that aimed to protecting something, this one was more like a lock gathering power in order to keep something sealed.
If Lucien's feeling was correct, he did not want to stay here any longer. Lucien looked up in the sky and quickly recalculated the coordination of the closest magic garden according to the Grand Cross. Then, without any hesitation, he turned around and ran toward the edge of the black forest in the west along the lakeside path.
Curious as Lucien was, he was clearly aware that it would be too stupid for him to approach this legendary-level magic lock. He knew that he needed to stick to his original purpose for coming here.
Lucien's body recovered quickly thanks to his Moonlight Blessing. By the time he entered the black forest, the pain in his chest caused by the revenant had already disappeared.
The black forest was immersed in the same silence. Even the leaves on the branches were not moving at all. Everything stayed still. No life could be seen.
Lucien tried to keep calm as much as possible when he was walking through the huge trees. A bit more than ten minutes later, he saw a tall and big building covered with shadow sitting in front of him, some distance away. From time to time, there were strange lights coming out of the building and flying towards Elsinore Lake.
He slowed down his pace when he approached the building and grabbing his sword tight. Lucien was slightly sweating.
Reaching into his pocket, Lucien pulled out a small black stone. It was a bat pituitary gland.
Holding it in his left hand, his lips moved silently and then invisible waves started to spread out like ripples. Standing in the center of them, he was waiting for the back echo reflection after the waves hit certain obstacles.
The tall and big firs appeared one by one in Lucien's mind. Different things sitting within a radius of several hundreds of meters became more and more clear. However, some of the objects that made the waves ricochet remained rather blurry, and Lucien could only use their shapes to guess what they were.
Still, no life was detected. Lucien was not sure whether he should feel relieved or even more nervous.
As he was searching for possible magic traps, he kept slowly moving closer to his destination. All of the obstacles that he could not identify turned out to be just big stones.
When Lucien forced his way through the thick bushes, he saw a gray gravestone, behind which there was a small coffin chamber.
Approaching the gravestone a bit, he saw the white letters carved on it, "Here lies the previous mayor of Bonn, Mr. David Terrian, whose greatest exploit was killing the hundreds of people who did not follow the God of Truth.
And this man died because he fell in love with another man, who was very powerful."
Lucien's face twitched a bit when facing the inscription, not because of its absurdity, but because he saw the gravestone before, when he first sneaked into Bonn. He remembered clearly that this gravestone was in the town's cemetery, not in a forest.
"The cemetery moved into the black forest in this magic lock world?" Lucien thought to himself.
He looked around and found more graves. In the world of black and white, they looked even more horrific.
Obviously, a cemetery was not a very pleasant place to stay. So, Lucien decided to leave here and take another way around this place to get to the magic garden, even thought that would take a bit more time.
However, by the time he turned around, Lucien's scalp tingled from the same feeling of coldness that he sensed when he encountered the little girl.
Without any hesitance, Lucien launched a backhand hack with his sword.
Although it felt like he just chopped a random piece of rotten wood, a certain strange power shook Lucien's arm along with the sword in his hand. Turning into a grey shadow, Lucien quickly dodged to the side and knelt down on one knee with his back against a gravestone.
In the corner of his eye, there was a short line of words on the gravestone,
"I was fat, but now I'm skinny."
Lucien was a bit amused for a second. However, just within that second, a rotten arm stretched out of the barrow beside him.
The body in the barrow came back to life!
Most of the skin of the body was rotten, although some small skin pieces were still hanging onto the white bones. The stench of a dead body was horrible.
Turning around, Lucien saw another zombie standing behind him, and the lid of David Terrian's coffin chamber was open!
Lucien turned himself into a shadow again to keep a distance away from the two filthy undead creatures. From their sharp teeth and the way they were moving, Lucien realized that they were not common zombies or skeletons, instead, they were ghouls.
And in this strange magic lock world, their power was strengthened. Lucien could tell that they were almost as agile and fast as him, and probably a bit stronger.
With the characteristics of the undead, ghouls were covered with plagues and a depressing aura. A person who got hurt by a ghoul would feel extremely weak and numb, and would go down with the plague.
If a person was killed by a ghoul, he would later turn into a new ghoul.
Recognizing what they were, Lucien changed his strategy. He tried to avoid any face-to-face confrontation with the ghouls and to launch his attack from behind.
Luckily, the ghouls were not intelligent at all, and the second ghoul seemed to be weaker than the other one. Gradually, Lucien gained the upper hand of the fight and his sword hacked at the ghouls several times. However, the bones of the ghouls were harder than he thought. The two ghouls were still moving, and they got even crazier when their rotten skin and flesh started coming off because of Lucien's attack.
When Lucien was preparing the Sulphur-fire Wall, he saw more ghouls coming out of the barrows. Their rotten arms were like the dark branches of a dead tree.
Without any hesitance, Lucien cast the spell. As soon as the fire wall appeared in front of him, he turned around and started to escape as fast as he could.
The strong smell of sulphur burning came into Lucien's nose from behind. Knowing that this might be his only chance to get away, he did not even take a look back.
Another ghoul got in Lucien's way from the other side of the fire wall. Lucien just wielded his sword and directly hacked toward it.
The horrible smell of rotten flesh became stronger and stronger, and Lucien saw more ghouls were crawling out of the barrows.
Holding the sword in his right hand, Lucien shot three frost blades shining with cold light out of his left hand. He just cast Palmeira's Frost Blades.
The blades cut the the ghoul's throat deep, that is, if the combination of rotten flesh and spine bones could still be called as "throat". Lucien did not expect the blades would end the filthy creature, but only to freeze it temporarily.
Within his expectations, the cold air coming out of the blades quickly covered the ghoul with a thin layer of ice, and the ghoul was frozen still instantly.
At the same time, Lucien activated Disarming Loop and changed the gravity within the small area where the ghoul was. The iced ghoul lost its balance and fell on the ground.
Then, he quickly passed by it like a faint shadow and noticed that the ice was already cracking.
Lucien was running for his life with all his strength, and a herd of stinky ghouls was chasing after him. However, he still knew clearly which direction he should go.
When Lucien distanced himself a bit from the ghouls, he changed his direction and ran toward the magic garden.
Some of the ghouls were stronger and some were weaker. By the time Lucien saw the black gate of the magic garden, only two were still following him.
The whole garden was covered with gray shadows, and only the black gate could be seen clearly. Behind the gate there was a low, pointed building, looking rather creepy.
When Lucien got closer, he noticed that the magic circle carved on the gate was very familiar to him, but the pattern missed a small piece.
The thought that this magic garden was actually left by an archmage on purpose for his inheritor quickly flashed across Lucien's mind, since he remembered the pattern when he was reading Astrology and Magic Elements.
Lucien pulled out a tube of mercury from his robe and grabbed it in his hand. As soon as he arrived in front of the magic circle and opened the tube, drops of mercury flew from the tube to the gate on their own.
He took a deep breath to stay focused. Using his spiritual power, Lucien controlled the fine stream of mercury to complete the magic circle pattern.
He knew that he really got lucky here. Although it was out of his expectation that the magic garden actually used a puzzle as a lock, thankfully he carefully read the book left by the archmage who created this dimension.
When the pattern of the magic circle was completed, the two ghouls also arrived. The horrible smell made Lucien feel weak and dizzy.
The magic circle on the gate suddenly glowed brightly. With all of his strength, Lucien decisively threw himself toward the magic portal with a whirling storm of light in it.
The moment when he entered the portal, Lucien could feel the cold air from the ghouls trying to scratch his back with their sharp claws behind him.
Chapter 122: Sun's Corona
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
As if he just passed through a heavy curtain, Lucien felt a bit cold, and then his body hit something hard.
He heard himself let out a moan and then joy seized his heart for a second: it had been quite a while since he last heard any sound. Then, in the next second, he took a few quick steps back and held up his sword again.
Lucien was now standing in a spacious corridor. His feet felt the soft and thick carpet on the ground. Although everything was still black and white, this place felt more gentle and kind to Lucien.
Then, within Lucien's expectations, the two filthy ghouls followed him through the portal and also spoiled the beauty of the place. However, they were struggling to stand up from the ground, making it seem they were not used to the environment at all.
"Maybe they're not that strong here." The thought flashed across Lucien's mind, and then he immediately wielded Alert toward one of the ghouls, targeting the deep wound on its neck which was caused by Lucien's frost blade.
The second hack almost took the ghoul's head off. Its head slanted to one side, hanging on through just a small piece of skin.
Throwing a handful of sulphur powder toward the second ghoul, Lucien made a fire wall to stop its attack. Then, he turned around, firmly held his sword again and directly chopped the first ghoul's head off.
Black sticky liquid spilled out of the filthy creature's head. The horrible smell made Lucien feel very nauseous and he almost threw up.
A few seconds later, Lucien ended the other ghoul.
Leaning against his sword, he let out a long sigh. He felt lucky that the ghouls were not intelligent at all, or he would now be the one lying on the ground with his brain spread everywhere.
Walking a bit away from the bodies and slowly sitting down, Lucien gave himself some time to recover. Then, he came back to the bodies and disgustedly removed the skin of their palms, or say, claws, with his sword, putting it into a special small bag.
The skin could be used as the reagent for a second circle spell, Ghoul Touch. Lucien definitely would not waste it.
After burning down the remains of the ghouls with his sulphur fire, Lucien cautiously walked along the corridor with his sword at the ready in his hand.
The corridor with the white carpet and dark gray walls seemed to be endlessly long. Lucien felt he was walking in a tomb. The only good thing was that he sensed nothing dangerous.
Finally, in the end of the corridor, he saw a black gate, on which there was another special dodecagon magic circle, that Lucien had already seen before in Astrology and Magic Elements, and the pattern also missed a piece.
He got a bit excited. Taking out another small tube of mercury, he completed the magic circle using the same method.
Then, the magic circle started to shine brightly and the gate slowly opened on its own. Behind the gate there was a luxuriously-decorated lobby.
Lucien first saw the fireplace in the lobby. The flame jumping and wavering in the fireplace was also white, but it felt quite warm.
Beside the fireplace, there was a gray desk, on which a black book lay. Out of the window behind the desk, Lucien saw many bizarrely-looking magic plants: some of them had baby faces, some of them had big mouths, and some were shining like precious gem. The door to the magic garden was right beside the desk.
Surprisingly, no magic trap was detected when Lucien was approaching the desk. He did not directly touch the book with his hand, but used the sword to turn the pages.
On the first page of the book, Lucien saw an inventory written in Sylvanas:
"Moonlight Rose: Room 1, Shelf No. 25;
Jade Green Mycin: Room 1, Shelf No. 72;
The root of Thorn Tree: Room 1, No. 99; Its sap in Room 2, No. 3;
Vampire blood: Room 3, No. 21;
Enchantress teeth: Room 3, No. 46;
…
Ghost-faced leaves: Room 7, No. 17;
The feather of Stone Snake: Room 7, No. 92;
Goatherd's Moon Flower: Room 8, No. 8;
Murloc's lymph: Room 9, No. 1."
…
The following pages were all inventories. Lucien first thought that it was simply a book for registering the assorted materials stored here, but soon he realized that he actually needed all the materials that he just read, as if the book was specially written for him!
Lucien turned the pages back and forth several times and made sure his guessing was correct. Some of the materials were for Silver Moon, some for Magic Gate, and some for Crying Soul…
He was thrilled, but also felt creepy. When he removed his eyes from the book and looked up, he saw that a white-haired old man was sitting on the chair beside the desk, writing something on the book.
Lucien was stunned for a second, but then he realized that this was just an eidolon, or say, a piece of memory left by someone. Looking at the date that the old man wrote down on his paper, Lucien realized that this image was left almost a thousand years ago.
Soon, the image disappeared. Then Lucien turned the book to its final pages. The long diary-like notes left by the owner shocked him, "When I was doing the experiment, I found this world by accident. It is like a copy of the real world, or say, a projection of the main world, but some parts of it are in quite a chaos. Furthermore, no life in the real world is projected. Interesting.
…
"Now, I'm certain that this world is very suitable for the undead creatures like revenants and ghosts, but the black-and-white world is just too boring for a living person.
"Compared to the Skeleton Land located on the 123rd layer of the Pit, a land consisting of fire and ice, this place is almost too silent to be called as 'hell'. This is a world for the dead to enjoy their eternal sleep. Let me name it 'the World of Souls'
"It seems like I'm not the only one who knows about this place now…
…
"Deep in this world, I found a very dangerous but interesting place, which has an astonishing connection with our experiment. I shall invite my buddies to explore there again with me to see if we can find out what the secret is.
…
"We're about to leave now… In fact, I made a prophecy a couple of days ago, at a great cost, and thus I know what I will face, but I'm still going. And you, the one who is reading my notes now, may I call you 'the nonbeliever who walks in light and darkness'. You must have my book, Astrology and Magic Elements, and you have come here because of the poem and the manuscript.
"I might be still trapped there when someday you enter the legendary dimension. I do not expect that you'll come specially for me, but if you find me, please free me. Don't go there when you're not prepared. The legendary dimension is dangerous even for senior-rank mages and archmages."
Lucien's body was covered with goose bumps. He felt the author of Astrology and Magic Elements was communicating with him across time and space through the notes.
Lucien quickly turned the pages and wanted to know more about this world. The fragmented description and explanation was more than confusing to him.
"There is a crystal ball called Morning Light in the left drawer of the desk, and in the right drawer I left my self-made magic item for you. Its name's Sun's Corona. It can help you sense the gaps existing between the World of Souls and the main world late at night. Gaps exist throughout the whole continent.
"The seal on Sun's Corona is made of five layers. Each time when you reach a new level, say, junior-rank mage, middle-rank mage, senior-rank mage, archmage and legendary archmage, one layer of the seal will be unlocked, and you will be able to use the magic of that level. When the last layer of the seal is unlocked, you'll be able to find the dangerous but interesting place I mentioned before.
"All right, my friend, from the moment when you first saw my notes, you'd have an hour to explore this place safely. An hour later, the lock will be collapsing and at that moment you can leave this place through the small door of the magic garden.
"Remember, walk forward and do not look back. And my prophecy showed that you'd be facing a great danger soon, so seize your chance to improve your power here before you leave. Room No. 10 is the alchemy room.
Your friend,
The Prophet
Waldo · K · Maskelyne."
That was a lot of information for Lucien, and the notes left by Waldo confused him quite a bit. However, Lucien was very impressed by how accurate his prophecy was.
Following the Prophet's guidance, Lucien found a fist-sized fine crystal ball in the left drawer, which was definitely a necessity for sorcerers specializing in the school of Astrology.
As he opened the drawer on the right side, Lucien saw a round amulet the size of a regular badge. It was the Sun's Corona that Waldo had mentioned. The light golden amulet was carved with rays of light, as if it were a crown, and at the center of the amulet, there was a cross which was very familiar to Lucien.
Beside Sun's Corona, there was a roll of parchment, which showed the inner magic structure of this magic item and explained how Lucien was supposed to leave his individual spirit imprint on the structure, to become its owner.
"Sun's Corona. Level nine medium rank. Five layers of seal to be unlocked.
Spells that can be used once a day are the following:
1st circle, Holy Strike (sealed); 2nd circle, Death Resistance (sealed); 3rd circle, Burning Radiance (sealed); 4th circle, Death Ward (sealed); 5th circle, Flame Strike (sealed); 6th circle, Exorcist Halo (sealed); 7th circle, Ashes (sealed); 8th circle, Sunburst (sealed); 9th circle, Undeath's Eternal Foe (sealed).
Depending on to what extent the seals have been unlocked, the person who wears Sun's Corona is capable of praying for the undead and freeing them, and the person can also sense the gaps connecting the main world and the World of Souls.
Sun's Corona is the eternal foe of the undead.
Waldo · K · Maskelyne."
Staring at the piece of parchment, Lucien was totally shocked.
The cross pattern at the center of Sun's Corona, the Grand Cross in the sky and the spells…
Different ideas flashed across his mind like films. That night when Lucien went down into the sewers came back to him.
The Saint Truth Badge owned by Benjamin…
The spells Benjamin used…
Lucien's brows frowned, and his eyes opened wide.
All that magic belonged to the category of divine spells!
Furthermore, the pattern at the center of Sun's Corona was a cross, the symbol of the Saint Truth!
How would all that make sense?!
Chapter 123: The Experiment of An Hour
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Lucien felt that what he had just found out was ridiculous and even funny. Obviously, Maskelyne had no reason to lie to him about Sun's Corona, and the cross at the center of Sun's Corona looked identical to the one he once saw on Benjamin's Saint Truth Badge.
Everything was getting more and more mysterious. Lucien wondered how the Saint Truth started to develop and grow at the very beginning.
Putting aside his many concerns, Lucien first followed the instruction left by Maskelyne and built a strange-shaped model with his spiritual power, then carefully sent the model into the magic item.
As soon as Lucien's spiritual power connected to Sun's Corona, he felt himself bathed in the sacred and pure light. This magic item was filled with the purest light.
Without any difficulty, Lucien left his spirit imprint on Sun's Corona and became its owner. He also took a look at the seals inside the magic item, which were very complex.
Now, Lucien was a hundred percent certain that the power of Sun's Corona came from divine power, which felt totally different from his magic power. He hung the amulet around his neck underneath his clothes and felt the warmness of it. The power could also be spread out by Lucien using his spiritual power to pray for the undead and free them.
Lucien lit the parchment and the notes on fire and burned them down completely, since they had already been stored in his spirit library. Staring at the fire, he was really worried because he might be unconsciously approaching the biggest secret ever in this world, which involved the Church, the Congress of Magic, and even Argent Horn.
He believed that Argent Horn was involved as well because he remembered that the so-called "the Great Master of Argent" used "the forever lasting silence" as the title. Lucien already had the feeling before that the strange title did not come from nowhere, and now he came to this world of forever lasting silence himself.
Maybe the great danger foreseen by the Prophet was related to Argent Horn… maybe the revelation of the manuscripts was the heresy's carefully planned conspiracy…
Lucien had no idea what he was going to face, but he knew that all the could do right now was to make the best use of the one hour he had, and that was to gather the ingredients to increase his power.
Taking a deep breath, Lucien left the lobby and walked toward Room No. 1.
There were lots of shelving units and waist-high glass cabinets in that room. All of them looked black and white.
Lucien saw some weird-looking eyeballs soaked with black liquid, flowers that looked like spiders under glass covers, gray stones floating in the air, and dried bodies wrapped by shrouds…There were different magic circles carved on the shelves and cabinets for different means of storage.
Lucien did not have time to go through them one by one. He followed his memory and directly found the No. 72 shelf for Jade Green Mycin.
Although the powder was supposed to be jade green, in this world, it looked plain gray. Lucien held his breath when he was scooping the powder from the jar, because breathing it in could corrode human being's organs.
Then, Lucien went to the other rooms and collected the feather of Stone Snake, which actually looked like scales, Goatherd's Moon Flower and some Ghost-faced Leaves. Lucien felt quite disgusted when he touched the leaves, since each of the leaves had a face on it: some were laughing, and some looked vicious.
Goatherd's Moon Flower + Ghost-faced Leave + the feather of Stone Snake + Jade Green Mycin = Silver Moon.
Lucien was not going to work on the Magic Gate potion right now. Although he tried to analyze Magic Gate before, the process was still too challenging, especially when he was in a rush.
…
In the spacious alchemy room, lots of professional equipment were totally strange to Lucien. There was a metal hand hanging on the top, some mysterious gray liquid running in transparent tubes, an operation table, tall stoves, and dazzling three-dimensional magic circles almost everywhere.
Lucien walked directly to the operation table and activated the magic circles on it. He put a tube of Jade Green Mycin into a container and, half minute later, the gray powder within had been turned into a turbid liquid by the magic circle.
Following the same steps, Lucien processed the Moon Flower and the feather of Snake Stone. When he put the creepy leaves on one of the magic circles, the faces on the leaves started to cry and shout like babies who were crying for their toys, but the scream was completely blocked.
Lucien was very impressed. Compared with his previous underground lab, this place was like heaven for him, after all, this lab had belonged to a legendary archmage.
When all the ingredients were ready, Lucien started to mix them together. Here, the temperature of the fire was the key point, and the most challenging steps for Lucien were to build a model with his spiritual power and to integrate the model into the liquid.
Five minutes later, Lucien's semi-finished potion started to smoke.
"Too early… I integrated the model into the liquid too early." Lucien calmly drew a conclusion from his first failure.
…
Another five minutes later, Lucien stared at the gray gel in the container with his eyebrows frowned, "I dropped the Jade Green liquid too slow…"
…
Looking at the small ball bouncing everywhere in the container, Lucien felt a bit frustrated. This was his sixth failure.
After wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he started his seventh experiment.
This time everything finally seemed to be fine. Lucien half closed his eyes and tried to keep his spiritual power stable while he was building the model.
When the gray liquid slowly turned white, Lucien quickly sent out the model and integrated the model into the liquid.
Gathering power from the model, the liquid in the container instantly condensed into small drops like beads, and within each drop there was a small moon.
Lucien put Silver Moon into a glass tube and returned to the lobby. Sitting down on the ground, Lucien had to recover his power, even though there was only twenty minutes left before the magic lock collapsed.
…
Six minutes later, Lucien felt he was ready.
Looking at the "beads" in the tube, he thought for a second whether he should chew them well. He was a bit amused by this funny idea.
Then, he decisively raised his head and swallowed the whole tube of potion, and the next second Lucien entered his meditative dimension.
The lobby and the black-and-white world were gone. All Lucien could see now was a starry sky, and he could feel the furiousness of the Fire element, the lightness of Wind, and the softness of Water.
For the first time, Lucien saw his own soul from an outsider's perspective. Lucien noticed his own soul was glowing brightly like the silver moon, and within his soul there was also an inverted image of the countless stars in the sky.
This outsider's perspective was indispensable for constructing more complicated models. Unfortunately, Lucien's spiritual power level was not enough to provide him with this perspective yet, and the reason that Lucien could experience it now was because of the potion.
He started to calmly build a magic model inside his own soul. His spiritual power started to be substantialized into fine shining lines floating in the sky, and, being controlled by Lucien, they slowly started to gather together.
The construction of a magic model required accurate length of every line and angle. Only a person who was capable of understanding mathematical and geometry knowledge could manage to build it. Countless magic apprentices were stuck at that point for their whole lives and never had a chance to become a real sorcerer.
Chapter 124: Lucien, the Sorcerer
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
The magic model that Lucien needed to build was called Star Shield. Thankfully, Lucien already practiced constructing the model multiple times in the past, so he remembered clearly how the model was divided, how long the lines were, and how the lines were connected to each other. All he needed to do now was stay calm.
When he was concentrating on the magic model, Lucien noticed that his spiritual power was being consumed very fast. By the time he finished one-third of the work, he found that there was only half of his spiritual power remaining.
"You gotta make the best use of your spiritual power." Lucien talked to himself in his mind. Building a magic model was like drawing a complicated pattern on a piece of paper using a pen, but with a very limited amount of ink. To save the resource, the person drawing the picture needed to stay very calm, to prevent the hand holding the pen from trembling too much.
Thanks to Lucien's throughout knowledge of Star Shield, he could allow himself to be partly distracted and absorb the power of the four Elements surrounding him, in order to slowly recover his own spiritual power.
For most sorcerer apprentices, since they did not have such a profound knowledge of their magic models, they would often turn to the potion called Magic Gate as their short-term supplement for boosting spiritual power, in order to make this great breakthrough.
Time passed, and Lucien started to feel weaker and weaker, and his spiritual power was very close to running dry. Fortunately, the magic model of Star Shield was almost ready. Now, it looked like a transparent small pyramid floating in the air, made up of many sophisticated lines inside.
Just one more line to go.
Although Lucien's whole body was slightly shaking from his weakness, there was no chance that he would give up in the last second. Clenching his teeth, Lucien summoned his last reserves of spiritual power like squeezing out the last bit of toothpaste from the tube and finished the last touch.
The moment the last line was finally linked to the small "pyramid", the whole model suddenly collapsed inwards and at the same time started to frantically suck in the power of the stars.
Lucien's soul was racked by a sudden great pain, caused by the enormous power of stars impacting his awareness. Even from the outsider's perspective, he almost passed out because of the mystic energy.
At this time, a gentle and pure ray of light came out of Lucien's soul, and the great pain was gone. Lucien's outsider's perspective also became more stable.
When the light disappeared, Lucien saw something like a crystal, the size of a thumbnail, shining and revolving around the inverted reflection of his Host Star of Destiny. Taking a closer look, it was the very magic model that he built just now, the Star Shield.
At the same time, Lucien noticed that his own soul had become more stable and denser, as if the power of stars magically changed the soul's texture.
Opening his eyes, he felt more refreshed than ever, and his soul was overflowing with spiritual power. Lucien knew that whenever there was any danger, he could instantly activate the Star Shield.
A smile appeared on his face, and he said to himself with pride, "Nice to meet you, Mr. Lucien, the sorcerer."
His smile came out from his heart, since he believed that, compared with the great success that he had with his concert, this breakthrough was accomplished all because of his own efforts, and nothing could satisfy him more than that.
Lucien looked at the magic hourglass on the table and found that there was only three more minutes left, so he gave up the plan of building one more magic model in his soul.
With his brimming spiritual power, he was confident that he could cast apprentice spells two to three hundred times and almost twenty spells of first circle as well, without pause. That was the sweet gain from becoming a real sorcerer. What was even better was that, as long as one's soul was strong enough to handle it, the person could build more magic models every few minutes.
However, Lucien did not have enough time right now. He must leave soon.
"Remember, keep walking forward and do not look back…"
According to the message left by Maskelyne, it seemed the trip leaving the lobby through the small door of the magic garden would not be a peaceful and sweet one.
Lucien walked toward the door and tried to open it, but he failed. He could not leave this place until the magic lock started to collapse.
Then, following Maskelyne's instruction, Lucien spent only a minute unlocking the first layer of the seal. Now, he could cast the two divine spells, Holy Strike and Death Resistance.
Unwilling to waste any time, Lucien ran into the rooms like a shadow to collect some more magic materials for future use.
"Not the too dangerous ones… nor materials that I don't know about…" Lucien reminded himself not to be greedy. After all, he only had less than two minutes now.
By the end, he had picked a tube of Vampire's blood, two tubes of aether, two handful of goblin's hair, three tubes of Snownia's Burning Power and a box of magic oil. Some of them were magic materials and some were catalysts.
When there were only fifteen seconds left, Lucien came back to the lobby. Standing in front of the small door, he was waiting for the moment that the world started to collapse.
Ten seconds, nine seconds… three… two… one.
The whole lobby started to shake slightly, and the small door opened by itself as if it sensed the change in this world. Behind the door there was a long, long corridor, and along both sides there were all kinds of weird-shaped magic plants.
All of a sudden there were cracks on everything Lucien could see, the desk, the chair, and even the white and gray fire in the fireplace.
Without any hesitance, Lucien rushed through the corridor.
He heard babies crying, but he did not look back.
Lucien walked faster and faster, and then he started to run. The magic plants along both sides started to wield their branches crazily and some of them almost hit Lucien's face.
Some other magic plants were floating in the air; some were jumping forward like frogs; some wrung their own necks and threw their heads away… Everything in the world started to get crazy.
The plants were laughing, moaning and crying. Their voices were very loud, but they seemed to disappear after Lucien passed them, as if a monster with a huge mouth was devouring them while following Lucien.
He forced himself to stay focused on his own footsteps and kept running forward. He swiftly avoided the black vines that seemed to attack him like snakes.
Then, he heard a sharp screaming, which was miserable and vicious. In front of Lucien, a lot of revenants appeared in his way. Countless maggots covered the whole floor, and each of them had a baby crying face.
Lucien did not slow down at all. He directly activated Star Shield.
Before becoming a real sorcerer, Lucien could not cast any spell when he activated the Moonlight, the status in which his body was partially dematerialized into moonlight, but now it was not a problem anymore.
This shield was like a round glass cover that seamlessly protected Lucien from all directions. Being badly burned by the shield, the revenants were screaming even bitterer, but they were still trying to grab Lucien's body with their arms until they turned into smoke and ashes. There so many white maggots covering Lucien's shield that he almost could not see the road in front of him.
Finally, Lucien saw a narrow gap at the end of the corridor, and through it he could see a touch of green.
"It's dangerous! Come back, Xiafeng! Don't go there!"
Lucien heard his parents calling his name.
"Lucien, stop! You'll die!"
That was the mixed voices of Joel, John, Victor and all the people Lucien cared about in this world.
They sounded so real that Lucien's heart missed a beat for a second.
"Do not look back!" Lucien yelled to himself.
In the last second, he jumped right into the gap.
…
The soul maggots all turned into ashes. The night wind felt cool and gentle.
This was a world full of life.
"Lucien?" It was a familiar voice, and the person sounded very surprised.
Raising up his head with surprise, Lucien saw Natasha, who was wearing her Dragon Blood Armor and riding on a black Dragon Scale horse. However, the armor she was wearing was severely damaged, and there were only a few knights, squires and guards following her. All of them looked tired, and some of them were even injured.
Furthermore, Lady Camil was not with the princess, neither were Silvia and her father.
A thin layer of haze settled over the small town named Bonn.
Chapter 125: Ambuscade
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
The people downstairs gradually quieted down, which finally gave the brother and sister a break.
"Bragging and bragging… useless adventurers…" sneered Lilith. "All they have is muscles, but unfortunately no brain."
"Don't underestimate them." Sala shook his head, "Many of them have been dealing with the many horrific monsters in the black forest and the Dark Mountain Range for a long time. They can't be taken lightly."
When he was talking, his eyes suddenly opened wide. The color of the candle was fading, and so was the color of the wall. Little by little, everything started to lose color. A thin layer of haze slowly descended.
Sala's hand touched the table in the room when he took a step back, and he felt the moist of the wood, as if the table had been sitting there for over a thousand years.
"Run!" Sala took his sister's hand and shouted, "Something's wrong!"
However, his voice sounded so far away, as if it came from another world. Lilith looked very afraid and also confused. Grabbing Sala's hand, she followed him and they started to run downstairs.
When the two magic apprentices were running, they took out some of their magic reagents and held the materials tightly in their hands in order to cast the spells for self-defense, if needed.
By the time they got to the ground floor, the tavern was already in a great mess. All those people, including the adventurers who had bragged about their strength for the whole night, were pushing each other fiercely in order to leave that place as soon as possible.
Seeing that there was no chance for them to get access to the door immediately, Sala pulled his sister's arm and they ran together toward the tavern's back door.
Directly kicking the back door open, Sala and Lilith found that the whole town was being affected and was turning gray. However, most people living there had already fallen asleep in their houses, so they did not notice anything unusual, and the town was actually very quiet.
Sala and Lilith started to run toward the exit to Massawa, the city close to Bonn. They had no idea what was going on there.
When they were about to leave the town, Sala and Lilith bumped into a few adventurers who were running toward the same direction.
"Something's wrong with Elsinore Lake!" an adventurer talked aloud to the other people, "It must be the magic lock… The magic lock is… it's collapsing!"
Before the other people responded, Lilith cried out and pointed at the adventures with her shaking hand, "You…"
Their skin started to turn gray as well, and some parts looked rotten already. However, the adventurers themselves looked very confused, as if they had no idea what was happening to their bodies.
Seeing that their eyes slowly lost focus, Sala pulled his sister's arm and shouted, "Run! Don't look back!"
Sala and Lilith were running so fast that they almost couldn't breathe. A slight taste of blood rose from their throats.
The town behind them had turned into hell.
Finally, Sala and Lilith felt a bit warmer after the weird feeling of running through a thick curtain. However, they didn't dare to take a rest. They kept running toward Massawa to stay away from that horrific town named Bonn.
…
"The magic lock…?!" Ilia, the silver-robed great priest, immediately noticed the unusual change when the color of everything started to fade away. "This is not what the Great Master told us!"
Then, he decisively commanded the high and common priests and the dark knights, "There is no more time for the blood sacrifice! The magic lock is changing. Cancel the sacrifice and gather all the people! We shall activate the summoning circle immediately to greet our true God!"
Receiving the order, six high priests flew up in the sky surrounding Bonn and Elsinore Lake, and twelve priests and dark knights were standing on the ground in a corresponding way. These people was all Argent Horn had now in the Duchy of Orvarit, and some of them, following the will of God, came all the way from other countries or even the Dark Mountain Range to support them.
Ilia also flew above Elsinore Lake and what he saw stunned him:
The surface of the lake turned solid within a few seconds and suddenly broke into small pieces, like a mirror being shattered by some great power. The Grand Cross was shining brightly at the bottom of the lake, surrounded by some kind of blood-red liquid which was wriggling as if it was alive.
Lots of ghosts, revenants and black shadows were howling and screaming while they were swiftly flying back and forth above the lake. As they were shouting toward the same direction, the sound waves joined together and gave shape to a translucent, huge ghost, who was wearing a long, black robe with a huge scythe in its hand, standing above the blood-red liquid. Underneath its hood, two black holes could be seen on its skull-like face.
Although being protected by his many spells, Ilia still shivered a bit from the scene, as if the warmth of his life was leaving his body.
The Grand Cross was slowly collapsing. The main world and the black-and-white world were overlapping.
Ilia took out a huge pale hand, and every knuckle of it had sharp bony spurs, shining with some faint light.
Raising up the hand high in the air, Ilia started to chant a long mantra which could drive people crazy. Many silver lines came out of the priests and dark knights, were they in the air or on the ground, and joined together around Ilia to shape a complicated magic circle.
When Ilia finished casting, he directly threw the huge hand into the center of the magic circle. Countless silver lines jumped up and devoured the hand like a monster's huge mouth.
As a silver gate slowly appeared in the sky, the Grand Cross underneath was almost completely gone.
All of a sudden, a bright, burning light beam shot the silver gate right in the center, from a higher position in the sky.
The colors of black and gray suddenly disappeared, and the whole area was filled with sacred light.
As soon as the ghosts, revenants and shadows touched the light, they disappeared like vapor, and even the undead creatures in the town all turned into ashes instantly.
This was the eighth circle divine spell, Sunburst!
"Amelton… Gossett!?" Ilia was shocked, "How come…"
Floating high in the air, Vila Amelton was holding a cross-shaped badge carved with a pattern of a sun in the center, and Gossett was right beside her.
Count Hart Rafati, Count Hayward, who was the deputy commander of Violet Knights and also a gold knight, and another two radiant knights were also there.
On the other side, Salvador and Clown were leading the other night watchers to block the whole area.
Half of the most powerful people of the duchy were there tonight.
"How come?" Putting back the level eight divine badge, Vila said to Ilia coldly, "We've been waiting for you here for a long time."
Although Ilia knew that the Church would definitely send some people here to investigate the usual changes happening around the lake recently, he never expected that the ambush would be this powerful.
"Who betrayed us!?" Ilia's fists clenched tightly, but a moment later an evil smile appeared on his face. "If the true God cannot come, all of us will die here tonight by the hands of what's sealed, or even worse, all of us will become its slaves."
…
In the wilderness at the junction of Melzer Black Forest and the Dark Mountain Range.
"Lucien, why are you here?" Natasha asked Lucien with confusion. Her voice was slightly trembling.
Lucien looked down at the black robe he was wearing and realized that he needed to tell Natasha at least part of the truth, "I found the secret of the magic lock from the poem provided by Mr. Deroni and a roll of manuscript brought to me by two strangers who visited me the other day." Lucien paused a bit and continued, "You know me, Your Grace. I always want to be stronger and more powerful to protect my friends and family, so I decided to take a risk to see if I could find any useful potion in this magic lock."
Natasha's eyebrows frowned a bit.
"As soon as I arrived in Bonn, I was sucked into a creepy hole. The world inside of the hole was all black and white and I almost died there. When I was being chased by a bunch of horrific undead creatures and plants, I found a gap and I jumped in it. Now I'm here… it's very weird."
"I see… some benefits from being a historian, uh?" Natasha put on an exhausted smile. Although she did not really trust Lucien's words, her mind told her that asking too much right now would benefit no one in such a situation.
"What happened to you, Your Grace? And where's Lady Camil?" asked Lucien.
Natasha's eyes dimmed and she looked down, "I got some information about the magic lock the day before yesterday. Out of curiosity, I decided to go to Elsinore Lake to take a look. But we were ambushed. My curiosity led my team into a horrible trap…"
"What?!" Lucien was shocked.
"In order to make time for me to leave, Camil stayed to cover me. She was confronting a radiant knight and a senior-rank mage…"
Natasha's voice became lower and lower.
"Who attacked you?" Lucien's eyes opened wide.
Natasha looked very depressed, and by the time she could answer Lucien, an army arrived and surrounded Natasha's people and Lucien.
Lucien looked up and saw Verdi sitting on a weird-looking horse with two goat horns. Silvia was right beside Verdi, looking rather sad. However, Silvia's father was not there.
"My dear cousin, please give up." Verdi was covered with a suit of dark-purple armor, "It's too late for the Church or the Violet Knights to come and save you."
Chapter 126: The Mutiny
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Natasha ignored Verdi's words and just stared at Silvia. The princess' eyes were slightly squinted, and with a trembling voice Natasha asked the girl she loved, "Was it you, Silvia?"
Verdi did not act rashly, since Natasha still had a level four grand knight, two level two knights, two level one knights and more than twenty knight squires and around eighty soldiers to protect her.
Silvia took a few deep breaths and she gradually calmed down. "I appreciate your love toward me, Natasha, but unfortunately, I care more about my father. My father spent so many years trying to find a chance to go to the Magic Congress in order to live a peaceful life, and his wish is my wish."
"So?" Natasha asked gently, "That's why you wanted me to die?"
"I didn't expect this!" Silvia suddenly lost control and her voice became sharp, "I didn't know that their real purpose in gathering information about you was to actually kill you! But… but my father was killed by you, Natasha, and the only thing I care for now is my revenge."
Lucien was shocked to learn that both Deroni and Silvia were sorcerers. When he thought about it, and after taking a careful look at Silvia's height and figure, Lucien suddenly linked White Honey to Silvia.
"Silvia… White Honey… and Deroni… the master of the raven named Ashley…" Lucien murmured to himself in a very low voice.
"So you've been lying to me all this time? I don't believe it." Natasha's voice became cold, "I killed your father because he wanted to kill all of us!"
"You think I'm really that happy with fine clothes, spacious houses, endless cuisine and the bright future of being a musician, Natasha? No! None of them can compete with the great satisfaction that I felt from learning a new spell, from a successful magic experiment, and from seeing the hope in my father's eyes." Silvia tried her best to stay calm, "You think I only want to be your nightingale in a gold cage?"
"Did I ever treat you like my pet?" Natasha questioned Silvia desperately.
Before Silvia managed to say anything, Verdi suddenly reached out his hand and wrapped Silvia's waist with his arm. "Although I admit that you're very outstanding as a woman, my dear cousin, do you think you can give Silvia the same love as that of a man?"
Natasha closed her eyes and a sad smile appeared on her face. "Silvia, I never knew before that you could be this persistent and firm. I thought that I should be always protecting you, and I was wrong. Maybe I was never… never in your heart."
"You were, Natasha." Silvia lowered her head, "But we're like two intersecting lines. We were very close to each other, and now we are heading for totally different directions."
"So you're heading toward him? Is that what you're doing?" asked Natasha. Then, she turned to Verdi and sneered, "You're much more stupid than I thought, my cousin. You think Sard, the Saint Cardinal, would just crown you as the next grand duke after my death? Do you think he would just let you live a happy life after you colluded with Argent Horn and the Congress of Magic? That's not going to happen… you'll end up being tied to the gallows!"
Natasha decided to put her personal feeling aside first, in order to deal with this situation more wisely, which was a basic quality of a grand knight.
Since Verdi already showed his true intention, every confusion within Natasha's mind was solved. The connection between the intelligence department and Argent Horn, the reason that Rosan Aaron could always escape the careful search of the Church… All those things were related to her cousin, Count Verdi.
Lucien also realized that it was Verdi who betrayed the grand duke family and the Church. Taking a closer look at the high-rank knights following Verdi, it did not take Lucien too much time to recognize Rosan Aaron, who was in a suit of knight armor. After all, Lucien was familiar with Rosan Aaron's picture as a criminal wanted by the Church.
"How stern and just your words are, Natasha!" Verdi laughed, "I knew you'd think I was tempted by the demon, but do you think your father is really that honest and straightforward? It was because of my father's death that he became the grand duke, and I'm not that stupid to believe my father's death was just an accident! I should be the next grand duke, not you, Natasha."
"Then wish your dream come true when you're being burned to ashes." Natasha held her head high.
"If you die tonight, Natasha, no one here will tell the grand duke and Sard what I did." Verdi shrugged easily, "I'd be the biggest hero who provided the important information to Sard and Count Hayward and helped them stop Argent Horn's horrible conspiracy. Unfortunately, while they are busy dealing with the heretics, they don't know that the princess is facing this great trouble, ha!"
"Yeah… smart." The corner of Natasha's lips was slightly lifted. "Somehow the princess would just die here out of no reason. And no one would care afterwards."
"No worries, my dear cousin." Verdi waved his hand causally, "After you die, Mr. Rogerio, from the Congress of Magic, will come to wrap up everything. He will leave the clues which will all lead to the sorcerers, and the Congress of Magic will claim responsibility as well."
"I see. You're neither on the side of Argent Horn, nor that of the Congress. You just betrayed Argent Horn to please the Church." Natasha's eyes looked rather cold, "Impressive."
"My plan went wrong several times, though." Verdi lifted his right hand and pointed at Lucien. "This guy, Lucien Evans… he betrayed Argent Horn, or you'd be dead a long time ago."
Lucien finally realized what was his big trouble predicted by Maskelyne. Because of Silvia's betrayal, his Blessing and what he did to Argent Horn was no more a secret since long ago. The only reason that Lucien and Joel's family stayed safe until now was because the enemies needed to focus on their bigger plan. However, it seemed that Argent Horn still did not know that Lucien was actually the "Professor".
"Lucien, thank you for coming here tonight," Verdi said to him with an evil smile. "So I don't have to bother killing you later, after our plan is done. But don't think you have bad luck, since your death would come to you sooner or later. "
"I bet you're very happy that you can kill two birds with one stone tonight." Lucien put on a calm smile while facing that serious situation. "The poem and the manuscript… they were really good traps to get me, a person who desires power so much."
Although Lucien was acting like he already gave up, he was trying to sense the gaps connecting the world of soul and the main world, which would be the best way to save them. Unfortunately, the gap through which he came back had disappeared completely with the collapse of the magic lock, and he sensed no more around the area.
"Your calmness is impressive. Unfortunately, your loyalty will not bring you anything but death." Verdi lifted his chin a bit and looked at Lucien. Then, he turned to the knights on Natasha's side, "What about you guys? The Hayne and Hill families, as well as the two gold knights in the fortress, they're all taking a neutral standpoint right now. As long as I can kill the princess, I'll be the next grand duke."
All the knights, squires and soldiers standing behind Natasha were shocked, and not even the princess could believe her ears. She never expected that Verdi had actually gained acquiescence from the big families and the most powerful people in the duchy.
"Why would you guys still want to follow her? Why would you guys want to sacrifice your lives for a woman who likes women?" Verdi got more and more vicious. "Shame on her, because she betrayed our honored tradition and she can't even continue her family's bloodline! Do you really think she could bring you guys glory?"
Some people who were on Natasha's side started to murmur at each other.
Natasha forced herself to raise her head. As a knight of pride, she could not flinch even a bit from this situation.
"I have two level five grand knights, one level four knight, three level three knights… and also a couple of hundred of knight squires," Verdi threatened them. "You bend your knees toward me, or you die."
After a short period of time, many soldiers and squires started to run toward Verdi's side, and among them there was even a knight.
Tightly grabbing her lance, Natasha looked at them with an expressionless face. Sitting on the horse, her back was as straight as a longsword.
After a while, when she looked around, there were only less than ten people who were still with her, and a couple of horses without their riders.
There was a sad smile on Natasha's face.
"Knight Wyon, why you're still with me?" she asked.
Wyon was the level four knight, who had blond hair and blue eyes. He answered the princess solemnly, "I made my vow to serve you, Your Grace, and I'll serve you until the last second of my life."
Natasha nodded with great resolve, and then turned to Lucien.
"What about you, Lucien?"
"I'm on your side, Your Grace." Lucien answered shortly but firmly.