Chapter 323: The Surprising Change

The invisible force field was wiped out by the dissociation rays. Furthermore, the antimagic ray targeted the crystal ball in Lucien's right hand, trying to hit it and thus build a small antimagic field inside the crystal ball in order to cut off its connection to the magic tower.

Since Lucien had been hit by the antimagic ray, he could not cast any spells on his own for now. He slightly turned around and blocked the antimagic ray with his own right arm. At the same time, he continued casting the creepy spells with the magic tower. Since he was using the great power of the magic tower, hurriedly interrupting the chanting process would bring horrible damage to Lucien's soul from the backlash!

Several powerful flashes of lightning were summoned from the ceiling, turning the whole space into an ocean of lightning and thunder. Except for the desk and the floor carved with reinforcing magic symbols, the rest of the things in the study were destroyed completely.

The seventh-circle spell, Lightning Storm!

A piece of shadow embedded with complicated patterns instantly surrounded the old witch, safely protecting her from all the bolts of lightning.

The seventh-circle spell, Energy Immunity—Lightning!

Then the old witch's yellowish-brown eyeball launched colorful light rays again. Some could charm people; some could make them fall asleep; other could slow people down or turn people into stone. The eyeball in the center released the strong smell of death.

The seventh-circle spell, Finger of Death!

After this fierce round of attacks, the old witch's left eye now looked dim. The eyeball had to wait for a while before launching the next round.

In most cases, no beholder would fight like this. The different eyestalks would cooperate with each other and fight using strategies to make sure that they would not run out of their spells. However, right now it seemed that the old witch had lost her mind, or maybe there were other reasons.

Lucien put his hand on the crystal ball and summoned Forcecage again to protect himself.

The colorful rays hit the force field cage but could not go through it, until the green dissociation ray quickly broke the cage down.

If the witch had not lost her mind, she could have launched the dissociation ray in the first place. If that was the case, Lucien would have been in great trouble!

After this round of attack, Lucien saw that the old witch quickly took a glance at the several statues of beauties in the corner to her right.

Lucien was very surprised. He did not notice the fact that the statues remained completely intact from the flashes of lightning. Why did the old witch choose to protect them so well?! Were they even more important than her magic books?!

However, right now he did not want to waste any time on thinking about it. Lucien quickly cast another spell and a huge hand with sharp nails broke out from the floor. The hand tried to grab the statues in the corner.

The seventh-circle spell, Sajeman's Ice Hand Prison!

The magic tower's power also had its limit. Including the spells that Lucien had used, there were nine kinds of spells altogether. Lucien wanted to finish the fight as soon as possible, as once he used up all the magic tower's spells, the old witch could easily kill him.

Therefore, as soon as he noticed that there was something wrong with the statues. Lucien decisively switched his target.

The old witch screamed angrily, and black miasma spread out. Adam, who just recovered from the witch's spell and was climbing to his feet on the corner suddenly felt completely exhausted.

The seventh-circle spell, Dying Waves. This was a spell enchanted in her magic robe, as she was still waiting for the buffering time.

Lucien did not panic. He calmly finished chanting a spell. Then, a dark ray shot out from the wall and the ray instantly built up a small antimagic field around Lucien.

When the waves died out before reaching Lucien, the statues in the corner burst out bright light and countered the power of the hand.

Within Lucien's expectation, they were not just common statues.

As soon as Lucien entered the study, he felt it very strange that the old witch would want to put some statues of beauties there to make herself upset. Also, if the witch's body and soul had been cursed so badly, why was she still alive?!

Lucien believed that the old witch would put all of her most important things in the core section of the magic tower!

Lots of thoughts filled his mind. The crystal ball rose into the air and a red light ray shot out at the statues!

The seventh-circle spell, Ruby Reversion Ray, could remove the strongest defending effect of the target!

After the several rounds of attack, some of the defending magic circles on the statues had been worn out. When the ruby ray hit them, one of them lost all its protections and the original color of the statue was revealed.

The old witch went crazy. She immediately gave up attacking Lucien and instead turned her force field into a huge palm. The palm grabbed the statue and brought it back to the old witch.

Obviously, these statues were the weakness of the old witch. Lucien seized the chance and summoned a powerful lightning again.

At this time, a beauty statue was struck into pieces. A piece of soul disappeared together with the lightning.

The old witch suddenly aged. Her back bent forward even further, and her left eye instantly became sunken.

The old witch put part of her life in the statues!

Lucien continued casting. More and more bolts of lightning were summoned. And the statues were broken into pieces one by one.

The old witch's flesh started to rot. She could not use magic anymore.

Lucien saw victory, but at the same time, he could not help doubting himself. How come he could just kill a senior-rank mage like this?

The old witch had been making mistakes choosing what spells to use from the very beginning. Fortunately, Lucien's guess with the statues was correct...

At this time, he heard Adam's voice in his mind, "Good for you, man! You killed the witch! We're free now!"

"I'm not sure about it, Adam..." Lucien murmured.

Then he saw a creepy smile on the old witch's face.

"...?!"

When Lucien was just about to take actions, the magic tower started to shake fiercely. Chunks of bricks and stones started to fall down...

Lucien's vision became blurry. He passed out in the darkness.

...

Lucien saw light again. However, when he instantly tried to sit up, he found that both of his arms and legs were tied up by something.

"Good, very good. Your foundation to learn magic is very solid." The old witch giggled, "The development of magic in the recent several hundred years is really impressive..."

Lucien was shocked. He saw the old witch, wearing the red magic robe as usual, walking back and forth in the lab. Lucien was lying on the table as if he had just received another round of the electric shock treatment.

"What..." He was confused.

The old witch was quite proud of herself and said, "Dream Casting, sixth-circle. I've seen the spells you know and how developed the current magic system is."

Lucien was still confused when knowing that the escape adventure was just a dream. However, this explained the many questions that he had had in his mind: why he could not use his spirit library after getting rid of the collar; why he failed to contact Rhine; and why the witch made so many mistakes during the fight...

"I have to say that your so-called Arcana has impressed me." The old witch seemed to be in a pretty good mood, "I'll take you to the underground remain, where there's a maze in it. I hope that you can surprise me."

Lucien quickly calmed down and bargained, "Ms. Eudora, I think I can do a better job for you without the collar."

"No problem. I'll free you before entering the maze." As she was a powerful sorcerer, Lucien was not a threat to her.

Lucien followed the old witch to the ground floor of the magic tower. Then, they walked downstairs to the underground passage.

The passage paved with huge stone slabs had a height of five or six meters and a width of seven to eight people side by side. The slabs were carved with pictures of ancient people fighting against monsters from the underground world.

"Magnificent..." Lucien said sincerely.

The old witch did not say anything. Everything down here was more than familiar to her.

At the end of the passage, there were ten gates. Each gate had different, mysterious patterns on them.

Pointing at the gray gate in the middle, the old witch said, "Here, the maze."

Lucien saw that the patterns on the gate were quite familiar. They looked like mathematical symbols. So, he asked confusedly, "What is in the maze? I could be more prepared if you told me."

"There's no monster in there. Just... difficult questions." The old witch looked a bit upset. Then, she removed Lucien's collar and shackles and urged him to enter the maze.

Feeling that his spiritual power had recovered, Lucien pushed open the gate and slowly walked into the maze. If there were no monsters in there, it should be a pure intelligence maze.

As soon as he entered it, the gate behind him closed silently. Lucien, with his dark vision, saw himself standing on a bridge with no ends, in the middle of nowhere. He was confused once more. He took a couple of steps ahead and saw stars appearing in front of his eyes. Then, the stars connected to each other and formed a line of words.

"Prove that any even number larger than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers."

"What...?" The question was totally out of Lucien's expectation. Then the stars formed more mathematical questions.

The questions looked very familiar to Lucien. It seemed that they were all from the exercise book that Lucien once read before—Demidovich Problems in Mathematical Analysis.

The mathematical symbols, numbers, equations, and hypotheses moved around Lucien's head and made him feel dizzy. Suddenly, the darkness broke into pieces and light came in again.

Lucien opened his eyes and shook his head. When he looked around, he saw Elvis, who should have been dead in the Black Forest.

Elvis covered his nose and mouth with his hand, where blood was dripping down. He said to Lucien angrily:

"What the hell is it in your head?!"

Kris_Liu Kris_Liu

Many thanks to SRandom for correcting my translation on the math problem!