Chapter 161: The Bright Pearl of the Sea

Natasha was sitting in the complete darkness of an underground room in an abbey in Aalto, reading a long letter from her friend with her Dark Vision.

It seemed that she was already used to the dark environment, and the blue veins on her hands and face were already hard to see.

From time to time, she gently hummed the melody written in the letter with joy.

When she came to the last page of the letter, Natasha grinned, "Lucien, you're exactly copying what I did. I'm looking forward to the next issue of Music Criticism to see how you will wish me a happy birthday."

Then she sighed a bit and talked to herself, "It 's really nice to have a friend, or I would definitely go crazy at this place."

...

The ocean-smelling breeze blew away the sultry feeling in October. The waves were, from time to time, flapping the embankment and splashed the white foam everywhere. The ocean was boundless and the sky was clear. The birds were flying free in the sky and shifting to different formations all the time, and below there were boats moving through under arched bridges.

Sturk, the bright pearl of the sea, was similar to the city, Venice, that Lucien knew from a movie that he watched in his original world. Sturk consisted of more than 100 small islands which were connected to each other by numerous canals just like a complicated spider web, around which there was a long embankment protecting the city.

Sitting in an unique, point-headed boat, Lucien saw the buildings along both sides of the canal slowly moving back. He felt very peaceful, just like a real traveler.

"In Sturk, every canal is just like a street in other cities," introduced the boatman enthusiastically. "This is St. Mayo Church... That building... That building belongs to Monastery of the Holy Spirit, and that one... We call the bell tower Truth Tower, and that one Pray Spire..."

"I see..." Lucien listened to the boatman's introduction with interest, "So this area is Sturk's Religion District, I take it?"

No matter if it was a city, a town, or a village, there was always a church. The area where the religious buildings gathered together was called Religion District, for example, the eastern area in Aalto close to Golden Cathedral.

"Yes, that's why this area is not crowded." The boatman grinned while paddling. "When we get into the Commerce District, you'll see the real Sturk."

Lucien's boat went across several bridges and then entered Sturk's Commerce District. All of a sudden, the surrounding environment became very busy. Lucien saw many pointy-headed boats tied to the wood stakes along the canal, and many were moving through the bottom of the buildings through the bridge openings.

Lots of different accents speaking common tongue could be heard in the air. Words like "Fell", "Nar", "Bank", "Mortgage", "ten grams", "Sturgeon", "Sea Bream", "Orange", "Iron", "Wood", "Slaves", "Trade" and others immediately brought Lucien from the world of necromancy to a world full of common people's daily life.

The whole Commerce District here was even busier than that of Aalto.

The whole city was full of vitality. And even the ocean wind smelled like money for trading.

"The market is even more prosperous than I thought..." Lucien praised what he saw sincerely. He really enjoyed the atmosphere here in Sturk.

"For sure," said the boatman in pride. "Sturk is located right beside Storm Strait and owns a natural deepwater port. The city connects the south and north, the east and west, and here's the best transit place for seaborne trade. Because of this, we people from Sturk are born with the talent of doing business. The first Goldsmiths' Association and the first bank were all founded here."

"Connecting the east and the west?" murmured Lucien. When someone talked about the country to the east of Sturk, obviously, it was Holm and the rest of the countries across the strait that the person was referring to. However, Lucien did not know that Sturk could connect directly to the eastern countries.

"Yes, of course. That's why you can see lots of precious goods being traded here in Sturk." answered the boatman with fervour, "The fine fabric named Black Nightingale from Holm, the porcelain from Colette, the spices from Calais, the best tobacco from Brianne..."

"Only nobles can have access to them," agreed Lucien.

The boatman got even more excited, "These four countries are right across the strait. However, due to the great profit, the Church owns the monopoly in those trades. Only the noble businessmen from the nine big families here can send their boats there for trading. Umm... Can't believe how wealthy the nine families are..."

"Which nine families?" asked Lucien with curiosity. He guessed that maybe Granneuve was one of them.

"The family of Viscount Wright, Baron Kap, Baron Moncache..." listed the boatman. However, Lucien did not hear the name that he was seeking for.

"What about switching our topic to the buildings again?" said Lucien as his interest in listening to the names of the families faded.

"Sure." The boatman nodded, pointing at the several buildings on the right side, "Over there... That's the bank owned by Viscount Wright, and that's Moncache Hawthorne Bank..."

"I see. What about that one... the shining building?" asked Lucien.

"Oh, that's Epic Gallery. Next to it is Michelle Sculpture Gallery... And that one, the ShinyGold Bank," explained the boatman.

Although Lucien was already this close to his destination, ShinyGold Bank, he did not ask anything more about this place.

After all, since he already knew who was the liaison in Sturk, there was no need for him to take the risk of asking about Granneuve's information around. Lucien decided to trace Granneuve's daily route and what was going on right now in his bank first to make sure that Granneuve was still serving the Congress of Magic, not the Church.

Betrayers were not rare to see nowadays.

In addition, Lucien's power further progressed within the past three months. With the help of sorcerer meditation, Lucien felt that his soul and the spiritual power had been obviously strengthened. Inside his soul, Lucien built a series of new spells: Cause Fear, Silent Image, Burning Hands, Mage Armor, Iron Organ, Element Endurance and Chaos Circle. And right now he was working on structuring the spell for escaping called Expeditious Retreat. Therefore, Lucien was pretty confident in himself, and there was nothing to hurry.

However, during his practicing, Lucien found that, even with his advantage in the talent of his spiritual power, he needed at least a whole year to move forward to the 2nd circle, even if he could already analyze a 2nd circle spell. And if that was the case, it would cost him at least ten years to become a middle-rank mage, which made the Congress of Magic even more desirable to Lucien.

The boat was still paddling forward, and it slowly left Commerce District.

...

Half month later. In a very famous seafood restaurant in Sturk named "Shark".

Under the guidance of a waiter, Lucien sat down beside a table covered with white tablecloth. While Lucien was ordering, he peeked at the fat man who was protected by a few safeguards and was slowly walking up the stairs to the second floor, reserved for the restaurant's important guests.

This fat man was exactly Lucien's target, Granneuve.

After this half-month secret observation, Lucien was basically certain that his identity was not founded by the Church, and Granneuve was still serving the congress. And right now the only question was how to get into contact with him.

There were always safeguards surrounding Granneuve, and Lucien guessed that some of them might even be dark knights. Lucien was almost certain that Granneuve himself was also not just kind of random guy, instead, he must be very powerful himself as well. Obviously, important as Granneuve was, he must be very careful with those possible night watchers from the Church who tried to approach and test him pretending that they were sorcerers who needed help. And for sure, Lucien was full of secret, and he could not use his identity of being Professor here anymore. That was too risky.

When Lucien knew by accident that Granneuve was about to meet his guest in Shark tonight, he sensed something a bit suspicious. In most cases, people who were as important as Granneuve would not often show up in person in a public restaurant. If they wanted the food there to treat their guests, they would just ask the chefs to go to their places to cook for them right there.

Listening to the cracking noise made by the ceiling above from Granneuve's weight, Lucien saw the same waiter coming back to him again.

"My guest, this is today's Sturk News and the recent several issues of Music Criticism. And tonight, our pianist will play Moonlight Sonata and Canon in D major from the famous musician Lucien Evans. Wish you a great dinner tonight," said the waiter with respect.

Lucien nodded with a polite smile. After all, Shark was one of the best restaurants in Sturk, the service here was definitely great, and even the newspapers they provided here was relatively hard to buy.

In the beautiful melody, Lucien started to read Music Criticism. He missed the days when he was a music student studying after Mr. Victor in Aalto.

As expected, he found a couple of familiar names in the newspaper. Victor was having his world tour concert right now in Holy Heilz Empire, and Felicia also produced her first piano bagatelle.

However, Lucien did not see Natasha's name again since she commented on Moonlight at the beginning of August, which made him feel a bit concerned.

"Her sequelae from taking the vampire blood should be gone already now..." Lucien thought to himself. He needed to send Natasha a letter to see if she was doing all right as soon as he arrived in Allyn.

After reading all the Music Criticism, the dinner was still not ready, and Granneuve's guests had not arrived yet either.

So, Lucien started to read Sturk News casually. Most of what he found there was just some local news, anecdotes, and random news like "Wood from Djibouti for sale."

At this time, Lucien saw his own name again, and this piece of news caught his attention immediately.

The title of the news was: "Our new music star, Ms. Grace, the student of Lucien Evans, is having a concert in Sturk's Crystal Hall with her friends!"

"My student?" Lucien was confused. And then he realized that they were promoting this concert using his name. To some degree, Lucien did discuss with them about his understanding in music and gave them some suggestions for one of their fantasy music works.

Lucien could imagine how quickly they gained their popularity among the nobles and business tycoons when they came back from Aalto to Sturk with their music work directed by him.

Although Lucien felt a bit amused by the fact that the band members took advantage of his name, he was not planning to expose what they were doing.

However, at this time, Lucien saw a voluptuous young lady in a fine black dress coming into the restaurant.

"Grace... What a small world..." murmured Lucien. Immediately, he held up the newspaper to hide his face.

As Grace walked upstairs, Lucien realized that she might just be the Granneuve's guest.