Chapter 254: In the Library
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
The middle-aged sorcerer looked around the hall and signed a bit sympathetically, “It’s so unlucky of Bertren. He was just summoning a couple of demons for his experiment, having no idea that his youngest apprentice was also secretly conducting a summoning rite in the chamber, or there was no way that an experienced sorcerer like him would fail to notice what was going on in his own castle in time.”
“Well… Thompson, I don’t see this as just merely bad luck.” The dragon pulled out a bulky bag from under its belly satisfactorily, and started to count the gold nuggets, coins and precious magic materials, “According to my experience, when the kid was trying to seek for power from Pain Fable, the hatred demon had already cast its projection in his mind, and started to affect his way of thinking, behavior, and emotions. The special rite later was only made to reinforce the demon’s power.”
The dragon’s voice was, surprisingly, like that of a kid and also sounded genderless, which was in sharp contrast to its great power.
The sorcerer named Thompson looked at the dragon, who squatted there counting his treasures, smiling, “Atforest, what do you mean by ‘your experience’?”
“I mean it. Every time I see shining treasures, a demon projection arises in my mind, and the demon’s called Greed,” the dragon said innocently. “The demon projection affects me so much that I cannot stop myself from taking all the treasures away. It’s not really my fault…”
“Where’s the demon from?” Thompson was a bit amused, “Now that you can explain all of this to me, I’m sure that you are in control of your thoughts now. Atforest, why don’t you give all the treasure back?”
“But… But you’ve promised me, Thompson. This is my reward.” The dragon shook its head, “And I don’t know where it comes from… maybe the ancient hell… I don’t know. It’s just there.”
Atforest’s nonsense made Thompson think, “Several grand arcanists have explored hell and even met some dukes and counts there. From their adventures and those ancient legends, the grand arcanists heard that once there were seven powerful and mysterious demons in hell, and each of them represented the seven negative things—arrogance, greed, envy, anger, pain, acolasia and hypocrisy, but unfortunately, there’s no solid evidence for this. And there’s also another saying—some believe that the seven negative things were symbols from those cunning and evil demons in hell, and each demon had at least one of the traits.”
“I see…” Atforest was not interested in Thompson’s words. It secretly hid away some small-sized, precious items from the bag for himself. After all, Atforest knew that some of them indeed belonged to the Congress.
Thompson pretended that he did not see what Atforest was doing there but continued, “It is necessary that we pay more attention to the book, Pain Fable, since it might be connected to some secrets of the world. The demon’s power and even its existence were so strange and mysterious. Without you, Atforest, I might have failed the mission and the demon could have escaped from me. Your ability of casting those spiritual and soul spells is very important.”
The senior-rank sorcerer also felt that the demon was very strange and mysterious.
Then Thompson took out his badges and put them on, in front of this chest.
…
In the corridor, because Lucien all of a sudden attacked the wall, Charlie, Sandra and Susan got very nervous again, especially Susan, who didn’t even dare to breathe.
And when all of them heard the solid footstep reverberating through the corridor, the tension peaked. A middle-aged man wearing a flame-like magic robe walked to them. He had black hair and blue eyes, and he was wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. The man was elegant and good-looking.
“Hello, I’m Thompson, from the Affairs Committee. I happened to be around in Caspar, so the Congress sent me to deal with the rest of the stuff here,” said Thompson with a kind smile on his face in front of the magic circles and the defence wall. Apparently, the three sorcerers were still very cautious and alert.
Thompson was wearing three badges on his chest: one was a six-star arcana badge; one was an eight-circle magic badge; and the third one was the black-fire badge representing Affairs Committee.
Lucien stopped Susan, who was just about to step out of the magic circles and defensive wall due to her excitement, and he said to the man, “Mr. Thompson, we mean no offence, but to make sure we’re safe, we want to check your badges. The demon was very creepy and unpredictable.”
Both Charlie and Sandra nodded. They had heard more than once that bad things happened when sorcerers lowered their guard in front of a transformed demon.
Thompson did not mind. Smiling, he took down his badges and let them check it freely.
After making sure the badges were not fake, Charlie walked out of the magic circles and reported to Thompson directly, “Sir, the demon was very weird. When we first entered the castle…”
It was supposed to be Lucien’s job reporting to Thompson, however, he was too weak to talk that much right now.
After listening to Charlie carefully, Thompson nodded, “This task turned out to be tougher than we thought, and the correct level of the task should be ‘Dangerous’. You will all receive way more arcana points later than what was promised, and all the magic items and potions that were consumed in the task would be compensated by the Congress. Just write them down into a list and submit the list to Task Zone. That will take about a week.”
“So good to hear that.” Sandra was relieved. Clearly, the amulet she was wearing was precious and must be very important to her.
Charlie was also glad to hear that he would get the same magic robe back as well.
Thompson blocked the whole castle using magic, and he decided to first send the sorcerers back to Fraser town.
…
In the coach heading for the major city of Kapas, after a long time of silence, Sandra said to the rest of the people in the coach a bit hesitantly, “This task was surely creepy and mysterious, and the only thing we could be certain was that an apprentice summoned a terrifying and powerful demon through a ridiculous rite, which could not yet be explained by Summoning arcana. The whole thing has been bothering me a lot…”
Among them, Sandra was the only one who specialized in the school of Summoning. Thus, she was the one who was influenced the most.
Although the School of Summoning, compared to other schools, fell behind in its arcana study, and it was still of the strong style of ancient magic empire, the summoning rite that Bill followed was even ridiculous in the ancient empire’s understanding of Summoning.
If an apprentice could summon a demon which was at least of fifth-circle, what should sorcerers from other schools do with themselves? This whole thing was beyond Sandra’s understanding, and for most ancient summoners, a summoning rite like this must sound like a joke.
Charlie nodded, “Only part of the summoning instruction was left. We cannot draw any solid conclusion before we see the full version of it. Indeed, the whole thing was very creepy.”
“I feel that the demon was Bill himself…” Susan also made a comment. Honestly speaking, if the rite could really improve the power of an apprentice directly to fifth-circle level, it was actually quite alluring, although she would never want to lose control of herself and look that ugly.
Lucien had recovered a lot, and he looked at Susan and Scott through his monocle and asked, “Have you ever read Pain Fable?”
Susan shook her head, while Scott looked very terrified, “Mr. Evans, I was closer to Bill. Once, I saw the book in his room and I did read a couple of stories in it. All the stories I read were more than gloomy and desperate, and they made me feel so angry and dark that I almost wanted to destroy this world of pain. I don’t understand why they can be called fables… Someone might use them to terrify children who don’t want to go to bed…”
“We need to go to arcana library to get more information, and also I need to expand my magic reserve with two more schools.” Lucien nodded. He was planning on borrowing some basic works in Force Field and Necromancy, and he also had a copy of Book of Necromancy.
The school of Force Field had many powerful defence spells, and for Necromancy, its spells were mostly about soul, spirit, blessing and cursing. As for the School of Electromagnetics and Thermodynamics, Lucien believed that his arcana understanding was solid enough so far that he did not need to dig into them right now, thus he might just pick up some useful ones in the two schools and upgrade several spell models in his soul with some new ones, and it was the same with Illusion and Transformation spells.
Selecting and focusing was very important in further progressing in arcana study.
Of course, the major idea that the Congress pursued was that, despite the existence of the different schools, the word could finally be understood with a fundamental as well as ultimate explanation. Thus, most senior-rank sorcerers also studied other fields in addition to what they were good at.
Charlie and Sandra both nodded. As arcanists, they had this consistent impulse to understand all mysterious things.
…
In the basic arcana library, Alex, the djinn librarian, said to Lucien politely, “Hello, Mr. Evans, what can I do for you today?”
Wearing the level-four arcana badge, Lucien could enjoy half price for borrowing a book there, which was one point for forty books.
“Do you have Pain Fable here, Alex?” After submitting the task report and loss-item list, and because the reward arcana points of the task needed to be reevaluated, Lucien, Charlie and Sandra came to the library together.
Alex shook his head, and due to the style of clothes he was wearing his chest was revealed, “Sorry, Mr. Evans, we only have arcana books here. If you’re looking for fables, you might want to try Allyn City Library or Rentato Royal Library.”
“Then, can you find a book containing the sentence ‘special summoning rite of V…’ or something like that…” Lucien kept trying, using Alex like a searching engine.
The searching took Alex a while, and then he listed, “There are five qualified books – Special Summoning Rite of Verlam, Special Summoning Rite of Viken, Special Summoning Rites in Vertra…”
Lucien asked for all of them and started leafing through the books with Sandra and Charlie.
“I found it! Mr. Evans, it’s Special Summoning Rite of Viken!” Sandra held the book high.
Lucien took over the book and he indeed saw the exact same summoning instruction that he read in the apprentice hall. Furthermore, the whole thing was even more ridiculous compared to the version with missing parts, including crawling and dancing around the brazier, and telling the brazier one’s painful past, and so on.
Lucien turned the book back to its first page, and there was a comment left by a sorcerer, “This ridiculous book borrowed Viken, the ancient legendary archmage’s name, and other than that, it is totally a joke. The book should be kicked out of the library.”
“Viken?” Although Lucien was complimented as a “historian” in Aalto, he was not an expert at all with the history of the land across Storm Strait.
Charlie explained, “Viken was an ancient legendary archmage, and his territory was today’s Brianna. He was very cruel. Once, in order to study a spell, he blockaded a city of twenty thousand people, and he let those people kill each other out of desperate and starvation… They ate each other…”
“I’ve never head his name before. What’s his legendary class?” asked Lucien out of curiosity.
Sandra answered in a casual way, “No idea. He disappeared before the War of Dawn.”
The book Lucien was holding suddenly dropped from his hand and fell on the floor.
