Chapter 225: Preparation
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Felipe raised his left hand, which only had four fingers, with a gloomy smile on his face.
“You publish your paper on synthesizing carbamide first, and as the paper won’t have enough decisive evidence, it would for sure raise heated discussion about the validity of Life Force Theory. When those old stubborn bastards believe in the theory even more as they need to persuade people during the debate, I’m gonna publish a decisive paper to completely overthrow Life Force Theory. Although we haven’t been able to successfully synthesize real life ingredients like cells and thus the papers won’t be shocking enough to blow up their heads, I’m sure the fact that Life Force Theory is gonna be completely overturned can prevent them from making any further progresses for a long time, or even forever. Talking about what you can get… Don’t tell me that you don’t want more credits, more attention from the Will of Elements, and don’t tell me you don’t want to take revenge as Traquair also tried to kill you.”
Lucien sneered, “Come on, Felipe, do you think I’m an idiot? Why would I want to submit a paper that is gonna draw so much hatred to me, specially because I don’t even really need to worry about earning more credits right now? With the periodic table, before level five, I think I’m fine with collecting credits.”
Felipe’s gloomy smile was still on his face. Slowly he took back his hand and said to Lucien, “Sorry, Professor, I don’t think you really have a choice here. If you refuse to work with me, I’m gonna mention your name in my paper specially at the very beginning to thank you for your great contribution, as it was you who inspired me to overturn Life Force Theory. You’ll still take the credit, Professor.”
Lucien did not answer. Instead, Lucien was staring at Felipe, considering if he could kill him right now, as he could feel that he was recovering faster than Felipe because of the ring, Element.
“Professor, can’t you tell that my body’s gonna collapse at any time right now? Even if you kill me on the spot, my soul and body will reunite somewhere else.” Felipe felt that he was having an advantage over Professor right now, thus he said this to Lucien in a pretty good mood.
However, careful as Felipe, he would never carelessly reveal his top secret to his enemy. Without this secret magic buff, he would have been dead already in his fight against Traquair.
Lucien put on a cold smile, “How do you know that I don’t have a plan B?”
Although Lucien indeed did not have any other backup plans, he would not show his weaknesses in front of his enemy. He really wished that two more layers of the seal of Sun’s Corona had been unlocked, so he could launch another round of attack toward Felipe!
Felipe’s heart sank for a second. As Professor was always mysterious and cunning, Felipe was not sure whether what he just said was true. However, he still pretended to be calm, “Don’t take me wrong, Professor. I’m just trying to figure out a way that benefits both of us. I think the paper about synthesizing carbamide can be submitted as your research outcome as you work with the druids. When the paper raises heated debate, you don’t have to mention anything about Life Force Theory or express any of your personal opinion, and I’m sure people will understand, because, after all, you’re not a necromancer. Following you paper, I’m gonna publish my paper with decisive evidence for overthrowing Life Force Theory. At that time, all the attention and hatred will go directly to me, and you’ll be out of the whole chaos.”
Lucien curled the corner of his mouth in a noncommittal manner.
“In the congress, I’m the only one who actually met Professor before. If you can do me the favor, I promise that I’ll keep your secret. I’m sure that you don’t want the Church and the congress to know that you’re also the great musician from Aalto, as you’re still hoping to meet the princess again.” Felipe continued to persuade Lucien, “Besides all the benefits I mentioned before, I promise you a rite which can improve one’s life-span and soul strength, though only once.”
All that Felipe wanted to do now was to take revenge on those old bastards from the Hand of Paleness who planned this assassination against him. As Traquair was already dead, Felipe was sure that most of the recent senior-level members of the Hand of Paleness would not speak for him at the risk of pissing off those old, senior-rank sorcerers.
Lucien carefully thought about it for a few seconds, then he moved his neck with difficulty, “I hope we work well with each other then, Mr. Felipe.”
“Great.” Felipe smiled, although still gloomy, “Let’s find some time to sign a devil pact together.”
After saying this, Felipe gave up his control over this body, and the body started collapsing and falling into pieces.
Before Felipe disappeared, his voice lingered in the air, “Mr. Professor, our cooperation this time doesn’t mean that we’ve become friends. You’re still one of the people who I dislike the most. When I get a chance, I’ll beat you, but before that, I hope you can grow stronger. Killing a second-circle sorcerer cannot make me feel proud.”
“The same. Maybe my arcana level will be higher than yours soon.” Lucien responded, smiling.
Felipe’s body was now covered with white light and then the body disappeared, leaving on the ground the Immortal Throne amulet, which was made of bones, and another ring.
“Life Hiding? The ninth-circle magic?” Lucien murmured, recalling what he had read before on Book of Necromancy, “No… It’s different… Life Hiding concentrates most of one’s life force in a certain part of the body and hide that part somewhere else. What Felipe just did doesn’t look the same… It might be some special rite from the Hand of Paleness, but who’s gonna conduct this rite for him? Who’s Felipe’s teacher…?”
Waiting for his spiritual power and energy to recover, Lucien looked at the amulet on the ground and started planning something.
At this time, the archmages and senior-rank sorcerers who finally noticed what was going on there all arrived, including Raventi and Gaston from the Will of Elements, and Pesor and Tina-Timos from the Hand of Paleness.
Seeing all the remains of the dead creatures on the ground and Lucien, who was standing there with great difficulty, Raventi became furious.
“What the heck did you bastards want to do?!” As Raventi was growling at those sorcerers from the Hand of Paleness. The air suddenly became really hot, as if they were surrounded by burning lava.
This was the signal that Raventi was going to cast his ninth-circle spell, Raventi’s Flame Hell.
Wearing a long, black robe which covered all his body and had white skulls on the collar, Pesor’s face was not revealed. There were only two small clusters of red flame that were flickering under his hood, “Raventi, our member was also attacked. Before we find any evidence, the Hand of Paleness is also the victim.”
Pesor was a level-eight arcanist, ninth-circle necromancer, member of Arcana Review Board. He was not known for having a good temper, however, in front of Raventi, Pesor appeared to be quite mild in contrast.
Then Pesor pointed at the amulet and the ring on the ground, and he used magic to pick them up,
“Hand of Rehabilitation… It’s Felipe…”
After checking around and talking with Lucien a bit, Gaston also stopped Raventi, “It was the winner of Holm Crown prize and the winner of Immortal Throne award who were attacked, Lucien Evans and Felipe Carneiro respectively. The attacker was Traquair from the Hand of Paleness.”
Then Gaston looked at the other side, “Do you two have any clues?”
Tina-Timos, the female sorcerer who had a hellish succubus look said unpleasantly, “We’ll figure this out!”
…
In a secret chamber of a magic tower in Heidler, a fine box decorated with lots of beautiful jewels was placed in the center of a complicated magic circle.
All of a sudden, the box started shining with dazzling white light. A piece of a finger appeared. As it was floating in the air, the finger started twitching and growing. It grew bigger and bigger and eventually the finger turned into a naked man!
It was Felipe.
“Again… I needed Mr. Demigod-lich to conduct this Life Hiding rite for me by utilizing cellular memory…” Felipe looked at his new body and walked toward the bedroom to put on some clothes, “I’m bankrupt again…”
After Felipe took care of everything, Rogerio arrived. He looked very serious, “What happened?”
Felipe answered coldly, “Someone else knows that I’m working on synthesizing life ingredients. We have a traitor among us, Mr. Rogerio.”
“As Mr. Demigod-lich and Mr. Thanatos have got the news, and they knew how serious it was, there shouldn’t be another assassination attempt. Right now we still have to focus on the experiment. How’s it going?”
“It’s in the final stage now.” Felipe put his hands into his pockets as usual, “I’m relatively confident that it’s going to succeed in one week.”
He did not mention anything about Professor.
…
While in another magic tower in Heidler, when Traquair’s soul started reuniting inside a purple gem, a hand suddenly grabbed the gem and smashed it into ashes with the black power of death.
There were shrill cries coming from the inside of the gem, but they soon disappeared.
“Mr. Adol, thank you for your information. Unfortunately, we failed.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
After a short conversation, the chamber quieted down. A space gap appeared, and Adol returned to the World of Souls.
…
In a manor in Sariva.
After half day of rest, Lucien was almost fully recovered because of his own good physique and the help of the ring, Element. He destroyed the partly-done paper that he wrote before and developed a new paper:
The Method for Large-scale Production of the Several Useful Alchemical Products Found in Oat Planting Experiment and the Discussion of Their Proper Use.
