392 The New Beaulac (1/2)

When he was telling everything to the demon, Beaulac had a sense of relief, as he was letting out all the emotions that had been hidden for so long.

In the end, Beaulac felt that his mind was cleaner as if he had found the power to move forward.

The night was very quiet. Beaulac felt that his soul was drifting in the air and then slowly became part of the darkness. In the darkness, he felt very sleepy.

”You have signed the compact. When you wake up, you will find yourself a real knight,” Greed's voice made Beaulac feel even more drowsy.

Beaulac was very excited and finally felt very relaxed. Then, he fell into the boundless darkness.

...

The secret guard outside of the study shivered because of the cold breeze in November, and then he heard a vague voice in the study, ”You have signed the compact. You will give me ten years of your life as the payment, and you will become a knight, still with the potential to become a grand knight.”

Frederick, the secret guard, who was a level-five grand knight, slightly nodded when hearing that Beaulac did not choose to sell his soul or betray the family. However, he had no idea why, for a short while, he felt very dizzy and lost his mind.

As there was no clock in the corridor, and Frederick also forgot to check his own pocket watch. He thought that his dizziness only lasted for around ten seconds, thus in his mind, everything was fine.

When Frederick extended his willpower into the room, he felt the strong heartbeat from Beaulac. He could tell that the heartbeat belonged to a knight.

It seemed that Beaulac, who had just become a knight, was not yet able to control the state of his body, thus Frederick was able to detect the difference.

Frederick could not believe that the ridiculous magic rite indeed worked, but it was true. Driven by greed, he felt like trying the magic rite as well, since he had been trying to become a radiant knight for almost thirty years!

...

In the study, Lucien looked at himself in the mirror in the dim candlelight. In the mirror, he had turned himself into a good-looking, blond young man with blue eyes.

It was known that the members from the Gorse family were all very good-looking. The blond Lucien smiled and combed his shoulder-length hair with his hand casually.

The gloomy and depressed Beaulac was gone, and he was now looking energetic and confident just the way he was five years before.

Among the many widely-told stories and poems about the Gorse family, although there were countless made-up or exaggerated ones, there was one thing true: the family was indeed the descendant of Thanos, the Sun King. Underneath one of their old villas in Antiffler lay the palace of Thanos, guarded by a gold knight all the time.

Lucien had to go to the palace, but there was no way that he could force his way into it.

The good news to Lucien was that there was an old and important tradition in this family: when time was proper, more than ten candidate successors would be sent to the secret underground palace, and they would fight against or cooperate with each other to explore the palace. The one who first completed the mission would be the first successor.

In the palace, the powerful knights in the family would not interrupt the competition. Only those who were dying would be sent out by magic circles. Therefore, the game was rather cruel: some chose to fight face to face; some chose to use the dirty methods; some lied; and others betrayed, and since the palace itself was rather mysterious and dangerous, the winner of each generation was either very powerful or resourceful. In other words, it was blood which made the family stay strong for hundreds of years.

However, in the recent several decades, the relatively remote nobles from the Gorse family also started to send their children to the palace to challenge the young nobles. In the game, they could also become closer to the possible future successor. Some young nobles from other big families might also join the game, as they simply wanted some excitement in their boring life.

In this game, social skills were very important.

Since only the Gorse family's blood could open the inner chamber where Thanos' Quadrant was kept. Based on Lucien's observation, he picked Beaulac, a young successor with many strong desires in his mind, which made his mind very vulnerable.

Because the spell for opening the chamber was very complicated, Lucien could not charm Beaulac to do the job for him. Lucien had to go himself.

In front of the mirror, Lucien made sure that the way he behaved was typical of Beaulac. Then, he looked at Beaulac, who was sleeping in the secret chamber which Lucien just spent two days building. He put on a smile and said to Beaulac, ”When I have some spare time, I'll change your blood power.”

If one still wished to grow into a grand knight after becoming a knight with external help, there was one way: a senior-rank vampire could change a person's blood power using another form of Embrace. And right now, Lucien was a senior vampire who was able to do so.

At the very beginning, it was vampires' Embrace that inspired the sorcerers when they were studying how to change blood powers.

At that time, they discovered that a vampire's Embrace could give the target the power of a knight, and the target was still able to increase the power further. Although the process would be much slower, this was definitely an easy way to obtain power.