Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
In the garden villa, Lucien looked at the thick pile of letters and released a sigh. After checking them carefully with magic to ensure that they were safe, Lucien opened them and quickly browsed through.
“Felipe?” Lucien looked at the letter in his hand, feeling a bit confused. He had no idea why Felipe would write to him.
Was this for an academic discussion? As younger-generation arcanists that received high hopes, they were both deemed to be of the few that were most likely to become legendary sorcerers. They were certainly competitors, but they specialized in different fields — Element and Necromancy were two schools quite opposite to each other in some fundamental beliefs. Besides, also they collaborated in private once, they couldn’t even be called friends and had never written to each other before. It was very unlikely that the proud Felipe would suddenly write to Lucien to discuss academic problems.
Was this another criticizing or threatening letter? Lucien did not think so either. Although as a necromancer, Felipe was, without doubt, a supporter of the wave theory, as Necromancy perceived the existence of the soul as something close to electromagnetic waves, he was too proud to do such filthy things. If he strongly disagreed with Lucien, Felipe would directly write to the journal and dispute in public.
“Something’s fishy…” Lucien carefully checked the letter again, making sure there was no cursing, poisoning, or soul controlling magic on it. Then he even cast Horoscope and activated quite a few defense spells before finally opening the envelope.
It turned out to be just a common dispute letter, in a typical Felipe tone. There’s nothing really special about it, even the evidence listed inside it lacked experimental support and contradicted with the classic electromagnetic theory. However, as Lucien read further, he started frowning.
There were simply too many spelling errors in this letter — almost thirty of them, in just a few pages. Although they were just tiny errors which did not hinder the understanding of the letter, Lucien still caught them because he was suspicious about this letter and read it scrupulously.
Lucien spontaneously picked up a quill-pen and started correcting the errors in red ink, which was a habit he formed from reading the apprentices’ papers.
Lucien had only read Felipe’s published journal articles, so he did not know if this was the very way that Felipe wrote his letters, but he did not think a person as proud as Felipe would send a letter full of spelling errors to his despised opponent. He seemed to be the kind of person who hated to lose face in front of an opponent
Suddenly, Lucien noticed something unusual. His heart squeezed for a second. However, he face looked the same calm, revealing nothing inside of his heart.
He stared at the misspelled words and replaced them with the right letters in his head.
And the right letters formed a few words:
“Spectres conspiracy… particle vs. wave… internal conflict… inform congress…”
Lucien caught some clues, but there were still four letters that he could not make use of.
Although Lucien had not figured out the full information, he had got enough for him to understand the situation: The spectres in the World of Souls were trying to trigger an internal conflict in the Congress utilizing the wave-particle debate war.
As for their purpose… Lucien believed that it was because of the Congress’s investigation into Heidler.
Lucien rubbed his chin and thought to himself that this definitely meant something big. Felipe wanted him to inform the Congress, which was probably because Felipe had confidence in neither Lucien nor himself. Facing powerful sorcerers, say, Thanatos and the Demigod-lich, senior-rank sorcerers really had nothing much to do here. The difference between could not be compensated by wisdom and strategy. Meanwhile, Lucien also wondered why Felipe would trust him. What if he was working with the World of Souls as well?
Lucien put the letter back into its envelope and threw it aside. Pacing back and forth in his study, Lucien began to think about how to make the best use of the letter and reveal the deal between the Hand of Paleness and the World of Souls.
Walking to the bookshelf, Lucien took a random glance at the books. Just as he was about to turn around, he noticed the row of language books including ancient Sylvanasian, the common tongue, ancient Meshkatish, elf tongue, devil tongue, demon tongue…
The brilliant moment came; Lucien realized that the meaning of Felipe’s last four letters may not be that complicated.
“This letter is the second alphabet of the common tongue; this is the 23rd; this is 11; this is six… so, it’s 223, 116.” Using the mind of an Astrology sorcerer, Lucien immediately recognized that it was a coordinate pair!
It corresponded to a location within the city of Heidler… It’s the entrance of the gap connecting to the World of Souls!
Lucien’s plan started coming into shape:
He was going to use the Hand of Paleness to make the Congress find clues about the World of Souls. In this case, he would be safe, as he could directly submit the letter to the Congress and appear as someone who knew nothing else other than the letter. So even if the Congress decided to silence someone, it would not be him.
Meanwhile, he had an even bigger plan in his mind: He was going to expose the dangerous plotters in the Hand of Paleness together with the spectres, so the Hand of Paleness would fall into complete chaos. The Congress could thus seize the chance and incorporate the Hand of Paleness into its system, hence preventing further threats once and for all.
…
Possessing a somber air, the grey gravestones planted on the barren plain looked both lonely and miserable.
In a giant mausoleum, “Thanatos” Vicente Miranda was floating in midair, attempting to turn the powerful golden dragon in front of him into a puppet lich.
He had no flesh; only a thin layer of pale skin covered his the bones. The dark-red cluster of flame in the two eye sockets flickered, and the deadly wind traveling across the plains suddenly came to a stop, so did the legendary-level spell he was casting.
The golden dragon howled in agony and was about to seize the chance to take off and escape!
The Miranda Twelve Life Circles magic circles burst out bright light one by one and restrained the powerful creature within.
Seeing that it could not escape, great determination rose in the dragon’s golden pupils, and its body started inflating quickly.
Bang!
The power of its explosion was so great that the entire mausoleum seemed to be struck by a horrible earthquake! From above fell down the stone pillars, the vault, the walls… and everything.
When stone and dust settled, what was left of Vicente Miranda was only a skull head. Vicente was now quite pissed and even more gloomy, as it had taken him lots of effort to capture a golden dragon close to the legendary level.
However, he soon calmed down and flew back to the main hall of the mausoleum. Landing on a giant black coffin, he illumined the vault, and countless stars lit up.
A moment ago, when he was dealing with the dragon, he suddenly had a great sense of danger and thus became distracted. As a result, he was almost backfired by his spell. Although the backfiring turned out to be more startling than dangerous, he still lost the dragon and his body as a cost.
When one reached the legendary level, no matter whether the sorcerer was good at Astrology or not, he or she would purposefully pay great attention to make up for it. Even if the power of Astrology conflicted with their body constitution or soul, a legendary level sorcerer would still try to find a same-level astrological magic item for compensation. Otherwise, a legendary sorcerer who specialized in Astrology could become their most dreadful enemy at any time!
The power that Astrology could give became one of the prominent advantages for being a sorcerer over being a caster or a knight. Unless their talent includes prophecy-like powers or they possess similar legendary items, a knight or a caster could only rely on intuition to predict danger within a small range, but would be completely blind when facing the unknown hiding threats in the broader sense.
Vicente Miranda’s spiritual power was not in conflict with Astrology. Therefore, although he did not study Astrology in depth, what he knew were enough for him to use and actually greatly surpasses that of the other legendary sorcerers who did not have the title of grand arcanist.
Against the black vault, the tracks of the stars was rather clear. The remaining skull head of Vicente bobbed in the air, and soon figured out the result:
“Storm… Tumult… Fernando… Destructive strike…”
The two flames in the skull flickered several times, and then Vicente said to the darkness,
“Congus, Rogerio, Demartes, Adol… Come and see me.”
The lid of the black coffin opened fiercely. A giant corpse surrounded with black smog sprang up. In the smog, countless layers of bodies made up the giant corpse. Those were all bodies of intelligent creatures — human beings, elves, dwarves, demons…
The huge corpse which was as tall as half a mountain possessed an extremely dangerous air, as if it could absorb all life power. Vicente’s skull landed on top of it, like a pale crown.
The corpse’s eyes suddenly opened wide, and two clusters of dark-red flame lit up in the eye sockets.
Only silence and darkness were left in this space.
…
On the thirty-third floor of the headquarter of the Congress.
“Sir, I received a letter from Felipe,” said Lucien straightforwardly to Fernando, who was strolling back and forth in his study.
“What letter?” Fernando asked with a strange look that was both serious and confused.
“He used a secret message in the letter, telling me that the Hand of Paleness has made an agreement with the spectres in the mysterious black and white space. They are going to stir internal conflict within the Congress using the debate war over the particle and wave theory to gain benefits. Felipe worried that the mysterious space could go out of control. Thus, he’s on the Congress’s side and told me the coordinate pair for the entrance of the space.” Lucien spoke briefly and clearly, but purposefully described the Hand of Paleness as the initiator.
Fernando nodded slightly. There was a hint of anger in his voice. “So that’s why…”
“What is it, sir?” Lucien was quite surprised by Fernando’s response. From what Lucien knew about his teacher, Fernando was supposed to be beyond furious right now.
Fernando looked out of the window and said in a low voice, “five minutes earlier before you arrived, Vicente came with Congus and the others. He asked to call for the Highest Council meeting.”
“What?” Lucien had no clue what was going on.
Fernando snorted. “Vicente has caught all the spectres in the Hand of Paleness that came from the mysterious space, and put all the blame on Congus, Rogerio, and the others, claiming that they misled him. He then confessed all the secrets in the World of Souls, and told me that it is a space full of great dangers, so we have to take time to explore it.”
“… What about Mr. Congus? What did he say?” Lucien could not believe what just happened. He had arrived here as quickly as possible after reading the letter. How could so many things happen within such a short period of time? Had they caught Felipe?
Fernando shook his head. “Congus and his people took all the blame, but they denied doing any damage to the Congress. Hiding some secrets itself won’t bring them any severe punishment. The next step is to investigate those spectres…”
Fernando paused a bit, and then cast a glance at Lucien,
“If you don’t know how to cover yourself using Astrology, don’t ever plan on turning against a legendary sorcerer again, especially when you are trying to pose a threat to their life.”
