Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
A beautiful melody echoed in the restaurant. The peaceful and tranquilizing notes calmed everybody down. However, no band could be seen in the room. There was only one magic gramophone that was slowly spinning a resin disc on a table next to the wall.
After several minutes, the music was over, and the disc had reached the end. The servant nearby hurried to change a new one.
As the music echoed again, John put down his fork and said to Lucien in mixed feelings, “The common resin disc can only record several minutes of music. It can barely accommodate a complete symphony unless the pure-magic discs of higher levels are adopted, but they will be unaffordable for ordinary people in such a case.”
He did not forget his past and therefore paid much attention to the life of the ordinary people.
“The problem is that ordinary people cannot even afford the magic gramophone.” Lucien cut the foie gras while he joked. “But of course, the pure-magic discs are indeed expensive. They are almost equal to the level-two alchemical items. The small nobles can only buy one of them occasionally and use the resin discs most of the time. However, it shouldn’t be a problem in Viscount Wesley’s house.”
Because the simplification was based on magic, Lucien did not have a mature plan and could only redesign the magic circles from scratch. He had to achieve his purpose step by step.
After being nominated as a manager of the Musicians’ Association in Rentato, Joel was so rejuvenated that he seemed to have stopped aging. “However, the small nobles are much greater in number. Also, since most restaurants are using them, the resin discs are the unquestionable mainstream nowadays. It is an important source of income for most musicians. Therefore, it appears to me that they are more and more inclined to create simple songs with only a duration of several minutes. It is both easy and pays well.”
Unlike in Aalto, the musicians of Rentato did not have many concert opportunities. Their income mostly came from the service for the nobles in the past as the music consultants or teachers for the nobles. After the magic gramophone was invented, they got another important source of income, which was song royalties. According to the sales of the resin discs and magic discs that recorded their music, they would earn a certain ratio of money.
Thanks to the “patent fee” that was applied to magic exchange and usage earlier, and since Mr. Atom Controller was himself a great musician, the sorcerers did not quite reject the royalties. Besides separating the musicians into different levels, which were given different ratios, the Bill of Intellectual Property that the Parliament of Nobles passed and the queen signed was regularly carried out.
Although the magic gramophone was only an entertainment for nobles right now, it was quite expensive and added significantly to the musicians’ revenues. So, stimulated by money and under the influence of “light music”, most musicians were more and more inclined to the simple verses that lasted only several minutes. Such simple, unsophisticated “recreational music” was popular among the citizens, too. As a result, the music in Rentato was developing in quite a different direction from that of Aalto.
According to Lucien, Rentato would become a place where pop music and songs were born sooner or later.
Hearing Uncle Joel’s concerns, Lucien smiled. “Sometimes, the reform of instruments, means of communication, and means of carriers will all change the course of music, just like how music was changed in the age of the heptachord, after the violin and the piano were invented. Only in such reforms can music be forever invigorated instead of getting dry. So, Uncle Joel, there’s no need to worry that the capacity of the resin discs will be a bad influence on the development of music. It will show us even more different types of music that is beyond what we can imagine right now.”
The most famous musician today had expressed his opinion firmly. Joel, as a bard and a street performer, had a natural fondness for short music. So, he had no more concerns and directed the topic to the food. “I didn’t know that you were also talented at cooking, Evans. This sweet and sour meat is truly delicious!”
“Yes.” Aunt Alisa nodded her heady, her mouth occupied all the time. Instead of being talkative as usual, her attention was completely on the food.
On the table, except for foie gras and some other cuisines in the Tria style, she had never seen most of the food before. They were different from the cuisines of other countries. She found it barely possible to stop eating.
“Thank you. Natasha loves the food, too.” Lucien accepted their compliment straightforwardly. There were many Chinese foods, but not all of them were attractive to the people of an alternate world. The dishes on the table were selected after Natasha tasted them as “experimental mice”. Naturally, Joel, Alisa, and John enjoyed them so much that they were almost biting their own tongue.
Lucien, on the other hand, was adept at magic and identifying animals and planets, and since many bizarre items that did not exist on Earth could be found here, the range of the Chinese cuisines was further expanded, and the number had been increased by at least three times.
Now that Lucien mentioned Natasha, Joel asked, feeling it strange, “Why did Her Majesty not come tonight?”
Normally speaking, as long as Lucien was in Allyn, he would come to visit Joel at least twice every month, and Natasha came with him most of the time.
Before Lucien replied, John answered for him, “Recently, Rentato is being modified and expanded. The divine power circles and the magic circles have to be rearranged. Since the villas, manors, and other real estates of many nobles are involved, the Parliament of Nobles wrangles all the time. So, the queen is quite busy mediating in the matter.”
“Rentato is changing too fast. All the changes in my twenty years of residence in Aalto were not as many as what happened to Rentato during only a couple of months. I truly wonder what Rentato will be like in the future,” said Joel with mixed feelings.
After dinner, Lucien and John stood next to the window in the small drawing room on the second floor, each holding a cup of wine.
Looking at the lights in the district of nobles that were as brilliant as a river of stars, John suddenly sighed. “Ever since you were implicated by the witches, I have been feeling that I’m in a dream that I never woke up from. All my hopes for the future have come true, but the future is not exactly what I had in mind.”
“Me too.” Looking out of the window, Lucien’s eyes became thoughtful and deep. He spoke calmly, but he did mean it. It was not entirely impossible that his current life was a dream.
Although Lucien had basically ruled out the possibility of a dream during his exploration and research on the world, he was still short of the conclusive proof to disprove it. Even though he already had basic speculation about this world, it was impossible for him to declare that “brain in a vat”, “virtual world”, or “experimental facility” was impossible.
John naturally could not tell what was on Lucien’s mind. After a sip of the wine, he said, “My original dream was to become a real knight so that my father, my mother, Elvin, and you could live an opulent noble life, but you realized the dream earlier than I did by turning into a musician…
“After I became a knight, I was ready to be sacrificed in the North Fortress or the Dark Mountain Range as was destined for every knight. However, you told me that you were a sorcerer, which cast me into confusion for a long time…
“When I thought that we would never meet again, and after I began to serve the duchy and the Church wholeheartedly, Her Majesty brought me to Rentato…”
As he spoke, he smiled, “When I was used to the peaceful life that was defended by many experts who prevented me from meeting real dangers, incidents of demon worship, devil worship, and abyss corruption happened in the kingdom frequently, which kept me occupied in battles again.”
He was not complaining. Instead, he was more or less excited. A peaceful, risk-free life would stagnate him and stop him from turning into a radiant knight.
“Life is full of surprises. It never goes as you planned.” Lucien clinked with John’s wine cup. “Also, it is very difficult for you to become a radiant knight with your blood power of ‘Elimination’. There are not enough files in the kingdom for you to learn.”
The bloodline nobles, after their generations of inheritance, or thanks to the tests of a certain legendary knight, had their own ways to polish their blood powers and improve their willpower. Therefore, the nobles with heritages were more likely to advance than the newly-promoted nobles even though they were all knights. They allowed the Congress of Magic to publicize the training methods before knighthood in order to raise more talents to deal with the Church and develop more alternate dimensions because the methods to hone their blood powers were their real capital and the secrets that they had to keep.
The people of the blood power of “Elimination” were few, and they had mostly been absorbed into the Church as divine knights or night watchers. None of the nobles of Holm were of such a bloodline. Naturally, there was no corresponding method of polishing that they could offer to John.
Before this, Lucien did not think that it was a big deal since blood power was the creation of the ancient sorcerers and the files of different bloodlines had been preserved in the Congress of Magic. He believed that he would devise an appropriate way of polishing for John by studying the cases of the “Elimination” blood power. However, none of the files that the Congress of Magic collected were about the “Elimination” blood power, which made Lucien suspicious of the origin of the bloodline. He wondered if it was a product of Viken’s research.
John smiled, not thinking that it was a big deal. “All the previous methods of polishing were figured out by knights too. I am no more stupid, lazy, or cowardly as they were. Can’t I figure it out on my own? Also, didn’t you always say that we should not be restrained by our experience? It is possible that this is actually a good thing for me.”
He made a joke humorously.
……
After he left Joel’s house, Lucien roamed inside Rentato City casually with his hands in his pockets and his black top hat lowered. Watching a city evolve according to his ideas filled him with a sense of achievement.
When he passed the quarters of the alchemical works, Lucien suddenly saw a dwarf walking to him. The stranger covered his eyes with his right hand and paid respect. “Steam Above.”
Then, he smiled. “Mister, would you like to join our steam church?”
Preaching in daylight? That was completely against his instruction given to the dwarfs! His eyes turned grave as Lucien asked solemnly, “Who are you?”
“Hehe.” The dwarf smiled. “Although we never really met, we sort of met before.”
He spoke in a strange way, but Lucien narrowed his eyes all of a sudden. “Viken?”
