Vol 1 Chapter 7 (1/2)

Chapter 7: Gains and Temptations

Breathing in the rosily b.l.o.o.d.y mist, Lucien’s hands and feet tendered, his head cramped. He witnessed the dogfight between Correa and Howson being transformed into the fight between Correa and the giant rat, and transforming back to Correa versus Howson, just like illusions intersecting with reality.

Wait, illusions? Lucien had an idea as soon as he thought of this. He concentrated his mind, and recalled the feeling of spiritual force spreading like tidewater. Soon the scene stopped changing and the mists faded away, things became clear again. The ones who were killing is Correa and Howson, their wounds were bleeding and their movements looked numb and slow. Seemed like that had reached their limit.

Is the mice’s blood itself hallucinogens, or is it affected by that odd plant? Such a clever magic trap.

Lucien finally understood that both Howson’s disappearance and Gary’s sudden a.s.sault were influenced by the illusions. Such influence may have started when they killed the first red-eye mouse, and it was already indistinguishable when they felt the illusion. Only Lucien, who was under the protection of the divine s.h.i.+eld, and had his spiritual strength improved, had been able to break away from the illusion.

The “Holy strike” that came out of the Holy Badge of Truth not only destroyed Gary’s right arm and shoulder, but went through him and hit the top of the sewerage, brickbats rained down, and looked like the back room was going to break very soon.

Rubbles and dust spread all over the place, diluting the blood mists in the air, Lucien finally felt better about his body.

He had no idea about the existence of any other magic traps that may be following.

‘Even if I’m temporarily safe now, I shouldn’t be relieved at all.’

He quickly started considering the way out.

Other than two more “Light”s, there were no more divine spells that he can activate on the Holy Badge of Truth. Lucien already lost his biggest weapon and even his body was greatly paralyzed by the contents in the mist.

Suddenly, he saw the human-like plant being “staggered” by the falling rubbles.

Without creating illusions it cannot protect itself? Lucien realized, he struggled his body up, and walked toward the plant.

His legs had little strength, Lucien was actually staggering, instead of walking. For several times he tumbled among the sharp, broken stones. Wounds covered his body and started bleeding.

“Siii…”, Lucien groans with pain, utilizing temporary soberness and strength brought by the pain, he finally approached the plant.

After all those, Lucien was less immature and less hesitated about his action, without wasting any time, he held his breath, cautiously but firmly reaches out his hand, and gripped the stem of that miserable plant.

The plant’s vessels throb and its blood streams flew at a great speed. Lucien feels that he was gripping an alive animal instead of a plant. He dragged the stem with maximum strength.

“Ah!!!!”

That weird plant suddenly shrunk its leaves and branches, and made a wretched shriek, like a man on his last legs.

Seeing that the stem doesn’t break, Lucien continued to pull it. The plant, while screaming, reached out and tried to twine Lucien with its branches and leaves.

Wet, humid feeling on his skin disgusted Lucien, countless tiny burrs stabbed and extended into his body. Withholding fear and sickness, Lucien dragged the stem again.

“Wu……”

The shriek halted abruptly, light red mists in the broken stems, which smelled like blood, erupted onto Lucien’s chests, further weakening his body. Lucien had to lean on the walls to prevent himself from falling.

When Lucien torn the plant into two pieces, the red mists around became thicker and denser, almost condensing into liquids.

The three book with faint lights, lying on the adjacent desk, eroded as soon as they sense the mist. From its first page to the last, the erosion only took two to three seconds, and the books completely disappeared. It’s so fast that Lucien couldn’t even take a glance at its content.

However, Lucien’s body was semi-paralyzed now, he couldn’t even make a move, not to mention stopping the erosion.

The desk was now empty, but the strange thing was, the erosion only took place on the books but nowhere else on the desk. Lucien soon understood the key reason of this. Another magic trap——it automatically activated as soon as it sensed the b.l.o.o.d.y mist, and destroyed the magician’s notes.

What a pity for those notes! Lucian sighed to himself, the sorcery notes that could have given me supernatural power!

Unexpectedly, Lucien froze, he saw the library in his spirit sparkle in a mysterious light.

Out of curiosity, Lucien reached his spirit into the library, and surprisingly saw that there was a brand new bookshelf in the library, labeled with “Sorcery (Arcane)”. There was already three books on the shelf—the sorcery notes that disappeared.

The Library also has the ability to gather other books? But how does it get the contents, though?Lucien was amazed. Probably it needs me to see the contents with my own eyes. Um, although those books were almost instantly eroded, if we slow down the entire process they are still disappearing page by page. So the library can record the contents from top to bottom? That explains why I can see the projection of those three books, it’s impossible for it to fabricate stuff from scratch.

This was just Lucien’s hypothesis, he needed to do some more experiments with other books to confirm it.

Staring at the sorcery notes, Lucien, who just felt sorry, was now unsure about the matter. In this world, divine art dominated, and mages were publicly opposed, even burnt. Is is too dangerous for me to learn magic?

Lucien couldn’t decide, therefore he dropped the question for now. They were still in the backroom, not completely away from danger, therefore Lucien still needed to save his energy.

Without the strange plant, the b.l.o.o.d.y mists faded away, Correa and Howson soon got rid of the illusion and was shocked when they looked at each other. But the soberness came too late, as they were already halfway into death.

………………

When Lucien used his spirits to communicate with Holy Badge of Truth, and activated the “Holy strike”, Benjamin, who was still on the ground, mumbled, and anxiously gazed at the entrance.

“Reverend Benjamin?” Paul worriedly asked when he saw Benjamin’s strange expression.

Benjamin made an angry face, he whispered, “Something happened down there, my spiritual imprint is touched. Dammit, how can they mess that up against an apprentice, Hilding! Paul, wait there, If I don’t come out in five minutes, go find the Bishop.”

Even though the Badge is just a standard item from the church, and was much weaker than Benjamin’s own strength and his other divine items, he wouldn’t be giving it to Lucien that easily. The spiritual imprint in the Holy Badge was the only reason why Benjamin was feeling secure to give it to Lucien. But who knew that his imprint is impacted, and failed to stop the divine spell from activating unnecessarily.

Negligence and carelessness were often the concomitant with pride and prejudice.

For Benjamin, he always had deep prejudice against the knights who utilizes physical strength from their bloodline, regarding them as clumsy and hilding; he believed that they were nothing in comparison to the n.o.ble casters who discovers the world’s truth——even the evil magicians——Therefore those Squires don’t deserve to use a divine item, and that was the reason why Benjamin subconsciously gave the Holy Badge of Truth to Lucien, whose spiritual strength was higher than ordinary people.