Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Gains and Temptations

Breathing in the rosily bloody mist, Lucien’s hands and feet tendered, his head cramped . He witnessed the dogfight between Correa and Howson being transformed into the fight between Correa and the giant rat, and transforming back to Correa versus Howson, just like illusions intersecting with reality .

Wait, illusions? Lucien had an idea as soon as he thought of this . He concentrated his mind, and recalled the feeling of spiritual force spreading like tidewater . Soon the scene stopped changing and the mists faded away, things became clear again . The ones who were killing is Correa and Howson, their wounds were bleeding and their movements looked numb and slow . Seemed like that had reached their limit .

Is the mice’s blood itself hallucinogens, or is it affected by that odd plant? Such a clever magic trap .

Lucien finally understood that both Howson’s disappearance and Gary’s sudden assault were influenced by the illusions . Such influence may have started when they killed the first red-eye mouse, and it was already indistinguishable when they felt the illusion . Only Lucien, who was under the protection of the divine shield, and had his spiritual strength improved, had been able to break away from the illusion .

The “Holy strike” that came out of the Holy Badge of Truth not only destroyed Gary’s right arm and shoulder, but went through him and hit the top of the sewerage, brickbats rained down, and looked like the back room was going to break very soon .

Rubbles and dust spread all over the place, diluting the blood mists in the air, Lucien finally felt better about his body .

He had no idea about the existence of any other magic traps that may be following .

‘Even if I’m temporarily safe now, I shouldn’t be relieved at all . ’

He quickly started considering the way out .

Other than two more “Light”s, there were no more divine spells that he can activate on the Holy Badge of Truth . Lucien already lost his biggest weapon and even his body was greatly paralyzed by the contents in the mist .

Suddenly, he saw the human-like plant being “staggered” by the falling rubbles .

Without creating illusions it cannot protect itself? Lucien realized, he struggled his body up, and walked toward the plant .

His legs had little strength, Lucien was actually staggering, instead of walking . For several times he tumbled among the sharp, broken stones . Wounds covered his body and started bleeding .

“Siii…”, Lucien groans with pain, utilizing temporary soberness and strength brought by the pain, he finally approached the plant .

After all those, Lucien was less immature and less hesitated about his action, without wasting any time, he held his breath, cautiously but firmly reaches out his hand, and gripped the stem of that miserable plant .

The plant’s vessels throb and its blood streams flew at a great speed . Lucien feels that he was gripping an alive animal instead of a plant . He dragged the stem with maximum strength .

“Ah!!!!”

That weird plant suddenly shrunk its leaves and branches, and made a wretched shriek, like a man on his last legs .

Seeing that the stem doesn’t break, Lucien continued to pull it . The plant, while screaming, reached out and tried to twine Lucien with its branches and leaves .

Wet, humid feeling on his skin disgusted Lucien, countless tiny burrs stabbed and extended into his body . Withholding fear and sickness, Lucien dragged the stem again .

“Wu……”

The shriek halted abruptly, light red mists in the broken stems, which smelled like blood, erupted onto Lucien’s chests, further weakening his body . Lucien had to lean on the walls to prevent himself from falling .

When Lucien torn the plant into two pieces, the red mists around became thicker and denser, almost condensing into liquids .

The three book with faint lights, lying on the adjacent desk, eroded as soon as they sense the mist . From its first page to the last, the erosion only took two to three seconds, and the books completely disappeared . It’s so fast that Lucien couldn’t even take a glance at its content .

However, Lucien’s body was semi-paralyzed now, he couldn’t even make a move, not to mention stopping the erosion .

The desk was now empty, but the strange thing was, the erosion only took place on the books but nowhere else on the desk . Lucien soon understood the key reason of this . Another magic trap——it automatically activated as soon as it sensed the bloody mist, and destroyed the magician’s notes .

What a pity for those notes! Lucian sighed to himself, the sorcery notes that could have given me supernatural power!

Unexpectedly, Lucien froze, he saw the library in his spirit sparkle in a mysterious light .

Out of curiosity, Lucien reached his spirit into the library, and surprisingly saw that there was a brand new bookshelf in the library, labeled with “Sorcery (Arcane)” . There was already three books on the shelf—the sorcery notes that disappeared .

The Library also has the ability to gather other books? But how does it get the contents, though? Lucien was amazed . Probably it needs me to see the contents with my own eyes . Um, although those books were almost instantly eroded, if we slow down the entire process they are still disappearing page by page . So the library can record the contents from top to bottom? That explains why I can see the projection of those three books, it’s impossible for it to fabricate stuff from scratch .

This was just Lucien’s hypothesis, he needed to do some more experiments with other books to confirm it .

Staring at the sorcery notes, Lucien, who just felt sorry, was now unsure about the matter . In this world, divine art dominated, and mages were publicly opposed, even burnt . Is is too dangerous for me to learn magic?

Lucien couldn’t decide, therefore he dropped the question for now . They were still in the backroom, not completely away from danger, therefore Lucien still needed to save his energy .

Without the strange plant, the bloody mists faded away, Correa and Howson soon got rid of the illusion and was shocked when they looked at each other . But the soberness came too late, as they were already halfway into death .

………………

When Lucien used his spirits to communicate with Holy Badge of Truth, and activated the “Holy strike”, Benjamin, who was still on the ground, mumbled, and anxiously gazed at the entrance .

“Reverend Benjamin?” Paul worriedly asked when he saw Benjamin’s strange expression .

Benjamin made an angry face, he whispered, “Something happened down there, my spiritual imprint is touched . Dammit, how can they mess that up against an apprentice, Hilding! Paul, wait there, If I don’t come out in five minutes, go find the Bishop . ”

Even though the Badge is just a standard item from the church, and was much weaker than Benjamin’s own strength and his other divine items, he wouldn’t be giving it to Lucien that easily . The spiritual imprint in the Holy Badge was the only reason why Benjamin was feeling secure to give it to Lucien . But who knew that his imprint is impacted, and failed to stop the divine spell from activating unnecessarily .

Negligence and carelessness were often the concomitant with pride and prejudice .

For Benjamin, he always had deep prejudice against the knights who utilizes physical strength from their bloodline, regarding them as clumsy and hilding; he believed that they were nothing in comparison to the noble casters who discovers the world’s truth——even the evil magicians——Therefore those Squires don’t deserve to use a divine item, and that was the reason why Benjamin subconsciously gave the Holy Badge of Truth to Lucien, whose spiritual strength was higher than ordinary people .

Such attitude was due to Benjamin’s background, and all of his past experiences .

La Fayette family is one of the strongest clans in the Grand Duchy of Varolit . Although its descendants rely on the power of “Divine Favor” in their bloodline, unlike knights, they are the real casters, who utilizes such power to cast spells . Benjamin, as one of the descendants of the Lafayette, though he can’t activate the “Divine Favor”, such talents still emerges when he entered the Abbey at a young age . It helped him to successfully become the top apprentice, later a priest and open the road for him to develop as a caster .

But for now, if he messed up such a piece of cake as a formal pastor, it would definitely affect his future development inside the church, therefore Benjamin hurriedly went underneath .

Paul was also surprised, “How come there are other changes when they have the Holy Badge of Truth? Is there a formal wizard also?”

…………

Lucien restored some of his strength, when he leaned on the stone wall and tries to walk out of the back room, he heard footsteps from the sewerage . Lucien immediately goes on alert . If it is the witch’s remaining magical creatures or her fellows, there probably won’t be the hope for me to escape .

As soon as he saw Benjamin’s saintly white robe, Lucien now managed to lose his mind, but still, he keeps being alerted . A secret room, what a good seeing for a murder to get rid of the witness .

“Lapland Blood vine?” Benjamin glanceds at the back room, he quickly deduced the entire situation from the knowledge of sorcery and herbs he had learnt——and what happened to Lucien, who was unable to move; Gary, who’s already half-dead; and the rest of them, “Luckily they are not dead yet . ”

This kid really has the beginner’s luck huh? His spiritual strength grew into the level of a Low-order Apprentice Priest, what touches my spiritual imprint must be the impact of him breaking through the limit . Unfortunately it’s not three hundreds years ago, when the church had its incomparable advantage . During that era only talent is needed to learn divine arts . However for nowadays, without learning a systematic knowledge of divine arts since a young age, no one can become a Priest——who were also much stronger than before . I have to admit that it’s that “Arcane Emperor” who began the golden era of growth in the past hundreds of years——for both sorcery and divine arts .

As a Lafayette, Benjamin knew far more about the world’s affairs than most priests . Therefore he was not that devoted to his own religion, in fact, the Benjamin among the aristocrats, and the Benjamin of the church have completely contradicted standpoint against each other .

More importantly, following the “Supreme Theological Conference” three hundred years ago, the church divided into Northern Church and Southern Church and denounced each other’s doctrine as heresy . Even so, neither side could still obtain their divine powers freely without any diminishes . That directly caused many Bishops and Cardinals to question the existence of God in silent .

Such attitude directly influenced every young priest in the next several hundreds of years, including Benjamin .

Also, in order to fit with the rapidly developing era, the Popes introduced knowledges of the world from their biggest foes——the Grand Arcanists——to improve the basics of their Theology . It also enabled the rapid development of divine arts, and produced numerous saga-styled heroes . They were the ones who allows the Southern Church to maintain its stand as the strongest force, and lasted among the heresy, evil mages, dark-spawn creatures and other powerful enemies . However, that also ended up deteriorating its worshipper’s faiths even more .

Benjamin was much assuaged, silver sands flow down from his palm, combined with mysterious incantations, a sudden glad blew through and dispersed the blood mists .

Then, without using any reagents or materials, or casting any incantations, Benjamin pointed his finger at Gary, a holy white light falling on his body . It cured Gary’s wounds and got rid of the charred skins, it directly let Gary recover from a half-dead man to just a normal badly injured patient .

After several second, Benjamin also rescued Correa, Howson and cured Lucien’s wounds .

After learning the dangers they encountered of Lucien, and the rest, Benjamin looked at the desk, and basically confirmed that they are not lying . He ordered, “move everything in the room to the church, Um…and those dead rats as well . ”

At the same time, he took the Holy Badge that Lucien returned to him, “Thee already cleanse thee sineth, anon wend home, may the Lord blesseth thee . ”

If Lucien had succeeded this time, Benjamin had thought of giving awards or maybe even trying to train him . However, now, upon confirming that he didn’t hide anything, Benjamin quickly sent Lucien away . Unlike Correa and Howson, Gary was still in danger——“Regrow limbs” was not a divine spell that Benjamin could learn .

Seeing that Benjamin had no attempt to silence or murder him, Lucien was glad to leave right away . He quickly left the back room, when he entered the sewerage outside, his improved spiritual strength allowed him to hear Correa’s whisper to Howson, “I’m afraid that Gary is not going to work as a guard, or make himself to a knight without his right hand . ” That made Lucien sad .

Not knowing what he actually felt, Lucien walked out of the sewerage . The paupers around all came and asked him about the situation .

“Little Evans, did you all got rid of the ghost?”Aunt Alyssa asked from a distance .

Lucien nods his head, “It’s already cleansed by the Reverend clergy and his guards . ”

The crowd now looks much more relieved, they eagerly ask, “Lucien, how does the ghost look like? Is it scary?”

“No wonder pastor Benjamin is a formal Priest . ”

“Lucien used the Holy Badge of Truth, he must really be getting the Lord’s favor this time . ”

“Sadly he is not a young kid anymore, otherwise he may get the opportunity to study in the Abbey . It’s going to be our pride if a ‘Reverend Lucien Evans’ comes from the Adrien District . ”

Hearing the discussion, Lucien became a little absent-minded, “I’m never gonna be a Priest?”

As a traveler from the “modern era”, Lucien had little thoughts about being a Priest . However, since he just experienced the transcendental power of Divine arts just, Lucien nonetheless felt upset about the fact that he couldn’t become a priest .

“Poor little Evans, look at your face! You must be really tired, go home and take some rest . ” Aunt Alyssa promptly realized Lucien’s uneasiness and says .

Lucien had a lot to consider, and really needed a silent period of time . He answered with a nod and returned to his small house . Sitting on his bed, Lucien listened to Benjamin and the guards get out and leave; the crowd also leaves, and the deep night restores its peace . He once again forces himself to hide the homesick in the bottom of his heart .

“I’ve already got no chance to be a Priest, and seems like that without early training, I also can’t activate the bloodline power and become a knight . ”

“To gain the supernatural powers, I’m afraid that learning magic is the only way . ”

“Yet if I chose magic, I’m going to be against the church, and most common people, even include people like Aunt Alyssa . ”

“Is there any other ways?”

“Anyways the sorcery notes are in my brain, I will take a look at it first . Mmmm, just like that . ”

Lucien, who hesitated for a long time, finally decided to view the sorcery notes first . He entered the library in his spirit and opened the notes .

After a long pause, Lucien found something both funny and annoying:

“I forgot . I don’t know how to read…”

TL NOTE – Grand Duchy of Varolit(瓦歐里特公國): I just directly translated by its pronunciation because the author basically made up a western country name that has no translations in any western language—-I tried to change some of those names using my Chinese knowledge, but for important names like that I decided not to .