BXBX NOVEL Chapter 369: Urgency
"You... smell Maskelyne?" Angwoods didn’t quite understand Adol’s words, but his tone became rather serious and grim when he mentioned the name.
Under the pale sunlight, Adol’s delicate but lifeless skin was covered by a faint black air, and under his hood two red light spots were dancing like flames. He snorted, "The amulet he wears is made by Maskelyne... I can recognize it. Maskelyne can sense me using the amulet, and I can also recognize the amulet he made..."
"So, the last time when you leaked the secret information to Sousa was not because of Felipe, nor for triggering the internal strife in the Hand of Paleness?" Angwoods reached out his hand and caught a piece of rotten flesh falling from his body, and rubbed it back in his face.
"Those human beings are stupid and greedy. Their mind can’t see. So we can play them between our hands." Adol sneered.
Angwoods’s voice became deadly, "Maskelyne knew too much about our secrets, and he was a powerful prophet and an astrologer. There must be a reason why he left this magic item. Since the sorcerer named Lucien Evans in coming to Heidler for receiving the award anyway, shall we just..."
He made the gesture of grabbing someone’s neck tight.
"Idiot, have you ever thought about the consequences of killing Lucien Evans in Heidler? Are you trying to let the secret of the World of Souls out, or trying to directly show the Congress the secret of the World of Souls? We may be able to do so if facing a grand arcanist or a legendary archmage, but we are now facing seven grand arcanists and eleven legendary archmages! You’ve got any secret weapons? Don’t forget, the Congress is not our only enemy!" scolded Adol severely.
"So are we just going to let him keep his own life although he is going to give out our most important secret at any time?" Angwoods replied angrily. Although Adol’s rank was higher than his, Angwoods was still a senior-rank specter. Adol should not rebuke him like this.
Adol turned around and the two red light spots flashed a bit under his hood, "If he was going to say, he would have already done so. When knowing this kind of information, it is always safer to him to keep it as a secret, since the powerful ones who know about the World of Souls are going to make his mouth shut up forever. Since there is no sign showing that the Congress is taking any actions, it shows that Lucien Evans does have a brain. Even if he is going to leak the information, Lucien Evans will wait until he becomes a legendary archmage so he is able to protect himself. We still have plenty of time. Sooner or later, he is going to leave Allyn for his exploration, and the grand arcanists cannot follow him everywhere."
Angwoods tried to say something but finally closed his mouth.
Adol warned him, "Our most important task right not is to draw the power to get ready for the return of Lord. You’d better watch your behavior, Angwoods. If you interrupt the plan, you will be thrown into Souls Furnace."
"I hear you, Adol." Angwoods put on his hood and answered in a low voice.
...
In the brach of the Will of Elements, on the first floor of the magic tower.
After Lucien bowed to the audience and left the stage, Morris calmed down a bit and introduced the next award-winner:
"Now, let’s welcome Mr. Larry Clark!"
Larry, wearing a magic robe embroidered with the element symbols, walked out of the crowd. On his way to the stage, Larry walked to Lucien.
"Congratulations, Mr. Larry." Lucien smiled and nodded to him.
"Thanks, Evans..." Larry touched his yellowish-brown beard a bit awkwardly, "The weather is not bad today."
Lucien was amused. Maybe Larry was too nervous.
"Congratulations. The Will of Elements is proud of you. You’re the first one who has won Holm Crown prize for three times." Florencia raised the glass and smiled to Lucien.
Lucien showed Florencia the rings and slightly bowed, "Thank you very much for the great design, lady."
Listening to Morris’s introduction of Larry’s great contribution to the field of magic potion making and the school of Alchemy, Florencia swirled the wine in her glass and said to Lucien, "We have got the investigation result. Bellak applied for the shift himself using the excuse that he wished to take a long break later."
"So, that being said... Was Bellak the only plotter?" Lucien slightly frowned.
As soon as Lucien went back to Allyn, the investigation on Bellak had started, as Lucien believed that this was not only a coincidence, but someone else was helping Bellak, or how would Bellak know when Lucien could notice the cursed vase?
However, according to the investigation result, Bellak just chose the time that Lucien was most likely to notice the difference of the vase. If Lucien did not notice the difference at the first a few days, Bellak would have plentiful time to get prepared and the vase would gradually damage his health. However, Lucien did see it through, and Bellak thus had to be the one taking action directly.
After all, no assassination was guaranteed to be successful.
Florencia nodded slightly and her blond hair hung down gently, "So far we haven’t found any senior members suspicious. But we did make some other progress: we found Lorban in Bellak’s magic tower, and from the remaining materials and Lorban’s memory, we have caught a dozen low and middle-rank mages who have surrendered to the Church. Some did so because they could not make any further achievement in magic, and some because of money and materials for better development."
"We cannot fully get rid of religion when there is still death, pain, and desperation, but we cannot surrender to the Church. All the religions must be in our control." Lucien sighed.
Florencia was quite surprised by Lucien’s words, but a second later, she started to laugh. She was laughing so hard that her body was shaking, "Lucien, no... I should call you Mr. Evans, you are acting like a board member! You sound exactly the same as the president Douglas and Mr. Fernando!"
Lucien smiled, feeling a bit embarrassed. He switched the topic by joking, "Really? I’m thinking of establishing a board called Sorcerers’ Development and Mental Health."
"Hahaha... Sounds awesome!" Florencia laughed really hard.
On the stage, Larry was giving a short speech.
After taking a sip at her dry throat from laughing too much, Florencia said to Lucien through the electromagnetic message, "You asked me to look into where the special material came from, and I’ve got some clues here. Although it was the Church who provided Bellak with the special material, as it is very special, we have traced it back to the desert in the south part of Gusta."
"It’s really a good news," said Lucien sincerely. In the future, he was going to need the special material made from the unique mineral.
Florencia’s green eyes stared at Lucien and asked through the secret messaging, "Although the special material consists of the new element, why is it so important to you?"
Lucien did not keep the first part of his paper as a secret—the part discovering the new element, Uranium, and he got thirty arcana credits from it. Facing Florencia’s question, Lucien just smiled but did not give her an answer.
Florencia was always very curious, but she knew how to restrain herself. Seeing that Lucien did not want to say, she joked, "Oh, my poor teacher, Mr. Morris..."
Their conversation ended there, and they turned to look at Larry on the stage giving his speech.
Larry was calmer now, and his speech was more and more fluent:
"Just as what Evans mentioned, the most unexpected accidents can also contain inevitability. So I am thinking: why when a substance dissolves, it will be broken down into ions carrying different charges? Why do we have valence states? Why do the states show periodicity? Does it have anything to do with the internal structure of atoms? Does it have anything to do with Evans’s newly discovered electron? In the world of arcana, if there is a result, there must be a reason. Any phenomenon is strictly determined by the law, so we cannot be satisfied with simply getting the result, but we need to explore further."
Florencia looked at Lucien and joked, "Mr. Douglas is really acting like a role model. More and more people resemble the president, and you are the No. 1, Lucien."
"My great honor." Lucien smiled.
...
In the wilderness of death, where tombstones were everywhere.
Lucien, Alferris, and a skull-headed lich wearing a dark brown robe showed up at the edge of the wilderness.
"So this is the Land of Long Sleep?" Lucien looked around curiously at the demiplane belonging to Thanatos.
"Yes," replied the skull-headed lich whose eyes were the two spots white flame, "His Excellency Thanatos created the place. We should move on now, Evans."
"Sure, sir Morus." Lucien grabbed Alferris since it was trying to rob the tombs, and walked to the teleportation circle after the lich.
The Hand of Paleness was very unwilling to give Lucien the award, and thus it was not going to spoil Lucien like how the Will of Elements did by holding the ceremony in Allyn. However, at the same time, as the organizer, the Hand of Paleness also had the responsibility to protect Lucien. Therefore, Morus, the vice president, a level eight arcanist, ninth-circle necromancy archmage, was given the task to welcome and protect Lucien.
Time and space changed. After the familiar feeling of dizziness, Lucien arrived at the headquarter of the Hand of Paleness.
Morus led Lucien to the lounge and said to him:
"Evans, you take a rest here. Two hours later, I’ll take you to the banquet hall. By the way, many of our researches are not very pleasant to be observed and many necromancers don’t like you, so you might not want to walk around. If anything happens, it would be a trouble to every one of us."
After Morus left, Lucien stood beside the window and stared at the quiet streets down there and the gray sky.
Heidler was different from other cities. Although there were a few human-shaped creatures wandering on the streets, they rarely talked to each other. Most of them were ghosts, zombies, ghouls, skeletons, and the low intelligence undead creatures developed by the Hand of Paleness such as the Skinless, whose eyes were shining with red light, and zombie dogs.
Looking into the distance, Lucien saw an invisible gap connecting to the World of Souls surrounded by the magic tower. An idea came to him—did the Hand of Paleness find the existence of the World of Souls?
When Lucien was thinking, he felt that one spot in his neck was burning. He was surprised that Mr. Rhine was now reaching to him. When being close to the gap, the power of Rhine’s casting could be intensified.
"Alferris, I need to take some rest. You have fun," Lucien said to the little dragon and lay in the bed.
Lucien hypnotized himself in the bed and soon fell asleep. Seeing that Lucien had fallen asleep, Alferris jumped toward the bed and sat beside it like a little puppy, staring at the three Holm Crown rings while drooling.
Suddenly, Alferris snuffled a bit confusedly and its big amber-colored eyes blinked, as if it felt something, however, it did not find anything. Soon, its attention was drawn to the rings again.
In Lucien’s dream, Rhine showed up again. He said to Lucien directly, "Something big happened to the World of Souls. Soon, the world is going to change."