Chapter 216: The Task
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
When Lucien put the ring on the middle finger of his right hand, he suddenly felt greatly refreshed, as if his body was cleansed by clear spring and the wounds in his soul were healed. The power of the ring was so great that, for a moment, Lucien thought that he got a significant upgrade in both his sorcerer circle and knight level.
Clearly, this level seven perfect rank ring was specially designed for him. Lucien, as quite a money-lover, could not hide the smile on his face. He knew that, with Element, upgrading to the third circle would probably only take him two to three years, and with the help of some potions, hopefully, he could become a middle-rank sorcerer before twenty.
Although Lucien was smart, regarding the gift in spiritual power, he was still not close to the geniuses. Therefore, if he had no other assistances but just only the book, Astrology and Magic Elements, it might take him at least twenty to thirty years to get to a middle-rank level, and that’d be already very lucky of him, if he refused to use some vicious magic rites to change his body and soul.
However, with the statistics and mathematical knowledge saved in his spirit library, Lucien would find it way easier when he needed to analyze some complex magic models involving curves and spheres, thus there’d be a lower requirement on the spiritual power needed to build the middle-rank models. In this case, ten years should be enough for Lucien to move a step forward. But now Lucien had Brook Meditation, the ring, many kinds of potions, lots of arcana points and his own research interests, so he was confident that one or two years later he should be able to fly in the sky as a middle-rank sorcerer.
Of course, every attempt to upgrade came with risks, and the risks were even greater when sorcerers needed to move forward to senior rank, archmage or even legendary archmage level. In the worst scenario, a sorcerer might die from it.
Lucien knew that a magic ring like Elements must be worth at least hundreds of thousands of Thales or arcana points, which could easily buy out a busy city together with its surrounding towns and villages. While the Will of Elements and Holm Royal Magic Academy were being very generous, in comparison, the Congress of Magic seemed to be a bit cheap.
Staring at the ring, lots of thoughts flashed through Lucien’s mind. He knew that many other prizes following Holm Crown prize also awarded their winners with great level seven perfect rank magic items: necklaces or amulets from Immortal Throne award; medals from Silver Moon award and Ice & Snow award; crowns and other headdresses from Sorcerer Laurel; staffs from Arcana Staff award… Lucien wondered how would it be if he could win all of them…
After realizing he was grinning like an idiot, he cleared his throat a bit and tried to calm down.
Morris knew what Lucien was thinking just now when he was staring at the ring. No one knew better than him, the ring maker, how valuable this ring was. Fortunately, technically speaking, there should be only one winner of Holm Crown prize every ten years.
After the award ceremony, most arcanists left the main hall within five minutes, as they could not wait to do experiments following Lucien’s suggestion.
When Lucien was about to go back to Allyn with Lazar, Gaston and a beautiful lady walked to him.
“Evans, would you like to join us, the Will of Elements?” asked Gaston directly.
That was exactly what Lucien wanted, so he also answered directly, “I’m more than willing to.”
Gaston nodded with satisfaction, and then he took a glance at Morris.
Morris laughed, and then he reached out his right hand to Lucien, “Welcome, Evans. As a gift for you, later you can go to the headquarter of the Will of Elements, Holm Royal Magic Tower, to pick up any magic items, potions or ingredients within two thousand arcana points in total.”
For low-rank sorcerers, gifts worth of only fifty to two hundred arcana points were often given. However, despite the fact that Lucien had not updated his arcana badge, in everyone’s eyes, he was already a level four arcanist who was the winner of Holm Crown prize!
After shaking hands with Morris, Lucien asked, “Any tasks or responsibilities coming with the gifts?”
Morris adjusted his purple robe a bit and smiled, “Yes, there are some. We protect our members, and we also want our members to make their contributions. But if you feel that some tasks are too risky, at a certain cost, you can replace those with something else. For you, Evans, we’ll protect you as much as we can, and you only need to focus on your research so far.”
“Thanks a lot, Mr. Morris.” Lucien nodded. After a second thought, Lucien stopped himself from showing the president the Holm Crown ring from Natasha.
“Work hard, Evans.” Morris patted Lucien’s shoulder, “Well, you can go and get your gifts from Holm Royal Magic Tower now, and Florencia will tell you what task you’ll be given next.”
Morris looked down at the ring on Lucien’s hand, and then he left the hall with Gaston, leaving Lucien alone to deal with the mature and charming lady, Florencia.
Florencia smiled, and her green eyes glanced at Lucien from head to toe, “Good-looking, elegant, polite, smart, decent, humble, famous. What a dream lover you are, Evans. Honestly speaking, Lucien, I’d love to have a date with you.”
Lucien was embarrassed, or say, he was a bit scared.
Florencia was amused, “What a young man. No worries, I’m married. But you definitely need to learn more about women.”
Lucien put on am embarrassed smile.
“You’re a level four arcanist now, Lucien,” Florencia got more serious, “and according to the regulation of the Congress, you gotta leave Douglas, unless you want to be the school master. And you know what? Having a Holm Crown prize winner working in a school is definitely a piece of surprising news.”
Compared to the mainland, newspaper industry here was very well-developed.
“I don’t mind working in a school at all,” answered Lucien, feeling a bit emotional.
“Anyway, I have a task for you right now, Lucien,” Florencia said seriously. “Don’t blame me for pushing you. If I don’t get you occupied first, you never know what tasks those nasties would give you in order to give you a hard time.”
“What is it, Ms. Florencia?” Lucien got serious as well.
“Relax… It’s a simple task.” Florencia smiled charmingly, “Malfurion, a legendary druid and also the elder of the druids from Stroop Forest in the east, is visiting Allyn for a research program which is jointly set up by them and the Congress. The Elder has devoted his life to guarding the forests and lands, and what these druids have been trying to do is to help those poor farmers who have worked hard their whole life just to survive. They tried to use their magic power to increase the productivity of their lands, however, Malfurion’s only got less than a thousand druid apprentices, so his power is far from being enough. They’ve tried their best, but they couldn’t even save the farmers from one single country.”
“Despite the fact that their power’s not enough, they’re doing kind things, for sure.” Lucien nodded.
Florencia agreed, “That’s right. Therefore, they want to find a way together with us to see whether we can turn their magic power into some kind of alchemical items that could consistently increase the productivity of lands and could be produced relatively easily.”
“It doesn’t sound like an easy job like you just said.” Lucien frowned.
“No, it is not. What we need to do is to analyze those druids’ magic, understand the power, then simplify and popularize them, and this requires profound arcana understanding. But as Mr. Fernando Brastar, Ms. Hathaway and Mr. Vicente Miranda are taking the lead, and Mr. Raventi and Mr. Gaston are also involved, even if the project fails in the end, you won’t be blamed.”
Druids’ power was very different from that of the Church and the Congress of Magic, which seemed to strangely sit in between the two. The congress had been trying to study it for years, and now this was a great opportunity. So of course, great emphasis was put on the project, and that was why the three grand arcanists took the lead together.
Lucien knew that what he needed to do with this task was to learn something new, and probably he could take advantage of this great opportunity to create some new spells out of the druids’ unique magic.
“I’ll get the task from Task Zone as soon as possible after I finish handling the things from school.”
“Great.” Florencia nodded, “It took me quite a bit of effort to put you in there. If you hadn’t won Holm Crown prize, those stubborn druids wouldn’t have accepted you.”
At this time, Raventi walked to them. He quickly pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Lucien, “Evans, here’s my book list for you. Read those books, and enhance your knowledge foundation of arcana.”
Lucien took a glance at it, and saw that there were at least forty to fifty books on it.
Before Lucien managed to say anything, Raventi took out a thick pile of test paper, “Evans, I’ve heard about your way of teaching, and I appreciate it. These are the exercises that I have collected, and they’re suitable to you. Take them, and finish them carefully.”
Lucien’s eyes suddenly opened wide. What a karma…
…
Soon afterwards, all the groups, arcanists, pastors and even important nobles in Holm heard the news that there was another winner of Holm Crown prize.
Lucien was the twenty-sixth winner of Holm Crown prize in the past two hundred seventy years, and, of course, he received lots of attention.
