Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
At Cocus, the capital of the Duchy of Calais.
In the demiplane called Mind Garden connecting to the headquarters of Family of Sorcerers, daylight was constantly changing in a mysterious pattern, as sophisticated as the human mind.
Atlant, the Eye of Curse, walked on the path through the garden, in which the flowers were half blooming and half dying. His eyes closed tight, and the look on his face constantly changed just like the light in this space.
He kept asking himself the question: Whether he should go and find Douglas to ask him directly why they were hiding the secret of ascending from him.
Atlant knew that Viken was the master of fiddling with human mind, and he knew what Viken was trying to do. The most powerful toxin in this whole thing was not anything superficial, but hiding in the secret itself. As long as Atlant chose to follow the secret, sooner or later, he would stray away from the Congress of Magic because of the difference in their beliefs and paths. At that time, Viken, with his powerful resource of faith, would be the only one who Atlant could turn to.
After all, the Congress of Magic believed in the power of arcana and using arcana they would overthrow the Church. There was no chance that they would support a powerful religion. The moderators that had been split multiple times and were retained as state religions were the most they could stand.
Viken had sent Atlant poison, and directly told him so, but Atlant could not say no. Through the countless years that he had been living, Viken had the vicious wisdom which had made many legendaries fall and produced the Saint Truth.
In fact, from the conversation once he had with them, Atlant knew why Douglas, Fernando, and Lucien Evans chose to hide the secret. The path was full of unpredictable dangers and potential risks, and could very easily turn one into a demon whose emotions were totally out of control. Also, the secret would encourage the development of a new religion or even many religions, which would be a great harm to the spirit of arcana.
Broad-minded and visionary as Douglas, he would not hide this secret for his own interest, especially when the general theory of relativity had brought him hope to ascend to the demigod level.
Fernando was known for his short temper, but also for his passion for arcana and for the truth of the world. Even though Fernando had known the way, he probably would not want to try it at all.
As for Lucien Evans, it was only a matter of time for him to reach the level of demigod, and his general theory of relativity had given him a great boost. He was now already a level-two legendary in his late twenties, and he was the one who had put forward a series of subversive theories which had formed the two major pillars of the current arcana system – the theory of relativity and new alchemy. A promising young man like him would not care about using this method.
A few weeks after Lucien came back from his adventure, Lucien had reached level-two legendary. The status that Viken had once put him in and the thoughts triggered by the Mysteries of Immortality had been a great help to him. This had also set a new record in the history of the congress – Before Lucien, it only took Lucien a year to reach this level.
Lucien was not planning on reporting this to the congress. However, since this time their findings in the World of Souls were incredible, they had all been awarded with the different legendary magic rituals. According to their wish, Erica and Vicente could pick two, Fernando and Douglas five, and Lucien ten. When he was there to choose the legendary rituals he wanted, Lucien on the way told Hellen his progress.
Atlant had run through his analysis of Douglas, Fernando, and Lucien Evans’s intention. He released a sigh as he had decided not to ask. The answers would be the same just as what he expected, but in turn, they would ask him where he got the information and suspect his betrayal.
He could not help thinking that greed was indeed the origin of all the sins.
If it had not been his greed, if he had not been controlled by his desire, he would have confessed in front of Douglas and suggested them to make the access requirement clear among the Highest Council. But now…
At this time, Erica, the Master of Transformation, came to visit him to ask how things had been going with Philibell.
“It’s a bit complicated. It seems that Viken has told him something or made a good offer to him, so he refused me.” said Atlant honestly. As the authority in illusion and mentality, he was always the leader in these kinds of tasks.
Erica said seriously, “Such an old monster… We didn’t expect this.”
“You can’t kill such a monster, so his vision is much, much longer than ours. He sees through time.” said Atlant, a bit absent-minded.
So far, the secret had brought him so many concerns and worries, so Atlant dared not to hurry. He had decided to do some secret experiments first to get some more information for this.
……
On the seventeenth floor of the magic tower of Allyn, in Heredity Laboratory, Felipe, wearing his long, black coat, was reading the latest issue of Arcana with a cup of hot water in his hand. His face still had the same sick look as usual.
Felipe took a sip of the hot water. It seemed that Lucien-Levski geometric space had been confirmed in the microscopic domain, and the two alchemical systems were the different aspects of the same model. He had been closely watching the development of the micro-world, as many of the research topics related were electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic fields, and special elements. These all had to do with the constitution of the human body. Therefore, he had also been working hard on it.
However, after matrix mechanics was born, the microscopic domain seemed to be getting more and more unfriendly. Although the arrival of wave mechanics more or less helped, but the great challenge from mathematics would still bring bad headaches to those arcanists who weren’t as good at it. Felipe had to admit that the paper was even a bit tough to him.
Among necromancers, Felipe was known for being good at mathematics, and this was why he was making progress so fast. However, in the recent two years, his pride had been through a bad setback. The papers published on Nature talking about the general theory of relativity, matrix mechanics, and Lucien-Levski geometric space started appearing to be so abstruse.
“I can’t stop here. Mathematics and the microscopic domains are of great importance to cell and heredity study in the future… or I’d fall behind.” Felipe murmured with a concerned look on his face, reminding himself.
He once thought that once a good magnification spell became available, the secret in cells and heredity would reveal themselves in front of him. However, it had been a long time but Felipe was not making much progress. He indeed had found chromosomes and guessed that they were related to heredity, but that was it.
He knew it clearly that without the support from mathematics and other arcana findings in the school of element and electromagnetism, his study was not going anywhere. To find what he had been seeking for, he had to either wait for other people to do the preliminary studies, or do them on his own.
Therefore, while his cell research was not bringing him much, the other two studies on the integration of spirits and undead creatures had improved his magic level by one circle to the eighth.
After reading Lucien’s paper, Felipe turned to read the studies done by Hathaway and Hellen on crystals, which had more or less inspired him before.
A while later, he stood up and walked in his own exclusive lab. He saw the many plants, red-eyed rats, and the moth boxes.
Magnification spells not working, Felipe had to work more on the observation of plants, animals, and insects. However, observation took a long time.
Sensing the noise, the rats in the lab started screaming, and the moths flying up and down in the boxes. Only the plants remained silent.
Felipe rubbed his forehead, trying his best to stop himself from destroying them all. The anger burnt his guts.
Why he had to deal with them all day long?
He was neither a farmer nor a butcher!
……
In Atomic Universe, after the everyday practice, Natasha went back home and saw Lucien in the chair, just sitting there.
“Not working on your spells?” Natasha asked.
She knew that after reaching level-two legendary, Lucien had been working on constructing the three legendary spells in his soul: Luxury Cracking, Abrupt Magic Reverse, and Mental Fulmination.
Lucien smiled, “Nope, just thinking.”
“So what is it? You seem to be struggling.” Natasha pulled a chair and sat down. Her eyes looked into Lucien’s eyes.
Lucien paused a second and then said, “I was trying to figure out the arcana theory supporting Thanos’ and Viken’s demigod power, how their power could be explained. If I can figure this out, their weaknesses will be exposed, and then we can truly kill them!”
“When they became demigods, there was no arcana, so the only clues might be the magic circles and rituals…” said Natasha hesitantly. She wanted to help, but she did not understand the theories in the world of arcana. “Can demigods be truly killed though?”
Lucien shook his head, “They have their own limits. Nothing is truly eternal. So I’m thinking. If we cannot find the way, even if we kill Viken, he will always be able to come back from the river of fate. At that time, such a shameless demigod will become a great threat to the congress, to the kingdom, and to those we love and care about. It’ll be a sheer disaster.”
“This is indeed a problem, but the South Church is still going to last for a while… a long, long time, I should say.” Natasha comforted him. After knowing that their Lord was in fact Thanos, her belief had become totally abstract. She had the respect to the ultimate existence in the universe, but not to a specific god.
Lucien suddenly said, “Maybe one day, my ‘theory’ will turn my friends into enemies and disappoint my teacher and students…”
Although Natasha did not understand why Lucien would say so, she still grinned, “It’s okay. I’ll be there with you, as long as you’re okay that I don’t even understand your theory.”
Lucien smiled. His hand was on Natasha’s hand, fingers crossed.
……
Holding his paper, in the early morning, Lucien was walking along the corridor in the magic tower of Allyn. It was still a bit dark when he pushed open the door of Fernando’s study.
It was bright in the study. In comparison, the study and the corridor seemed to be two different worlds.
