Chapter 359: The Investigation

The many thoughts flashing past Lucien's mind rooted him there beside the desk, and Lazar almost ran into him.

"What happened?"

"There's some kind of curse on the vase," Lucien said to Lazar straightforwardly.

"What?!" Lazar's pitch suddenly rose. He could not understand why Lucien remained so calm.

"Arcana's above! Lucien, someone's trying to kill you!" Lazar grabbed Lucien's arm and fiercely pulled him away from the vase. However, he was certain that, for one second, he saw the excitement in Lucien's eyes.

Lucien was indeed excited, but he knew that he should play like a victim. His voice became angry, "Lazar, close the gate of the institution! Do not let anyone out! Collect all the gifts received! I'll report it to the Affair Committee."

"Got it!" nodded Lazar seriously.

After Lazar left the office, Lucien started to check the vase very carefully under the protection of a magic circle. As the radiation had caused the stir in Lucien's cognition world, Lucien guessed that it was very likely to be the β-ray.

In fact, a long time ago, Lucien had started to find the powerful radioactive elements, as the application of these elements was very wide. However, although many unstable isotopes were indeed radioactive, neither of them could meet Lucien's need. Until today, Lucien finally found the ideal one from another people's evil curse against him.

Making the most use of the time, Lucien adjusted the monocle that he was wearing on his left eye and said, "Thompson, I found a cursed vase in my office in the institution. Please send someone here as soon as possible to inspect it."

"I'll send the investigator from Punishment Department there right now. And I'll get back as soon as possible as well." Thompson got back to Lucien instantly.

After submitting the paper, Thompson had gone out to deal with some of his personal stuff. But he was aware of how serious this issue was, not to mention that Lucien was his fellow, and also the senior-rank arcanist with the highest potential.

Three minutes later, the investigators from Punishment Department had already stepped into Lucien's office.

There were five investigators, and the leading one was a middle-aged man with brown curly hair and dark skin color. He was wearing the badge from Punishment Department on which there was a black scepter. Besides the badge, there was also a four-star arcana badge and a six-circle magic badge.

"Mr. Evan, I'm Bellak, from the Punishment Department. Mr. Thompson sent us here to investigate the cursed vase," said Bellak rather seriously. His dark skin revealed the fact that he was very likely from the desert nation originated from the south part of Calais and Brianna.

There was no minister in Punishment Department, as it was directly led by Affair Committee. There were twelve vice ministers in charge of the department. Their arcana level was not very high, and their magic level was of seventh or eighth-circle. Therefore, although Bellak was already a senior-rank mage, he was still just an executive.

Lucien asked the sorcerers and apprentices to gather in one of the offices to undergo the questioning by an investigator. Lucien and Lazar led Bellak into the small meeting room and showed him the vase.

Bellak used the magic spell to check it, however, the vase seemed to be rather normal.

Bellak was very confused. He activated another magic item that he was wearing. The green light spots were speckled on the vase. But still, nothing special happened.

He checked over and over again but found nothing at all. He turned to Lucien, "Mr. Evans... I don't see any curse here. Did you use a special spell when checking it?"

"I don't have any special spells, but the magic circle in the lab can tell," explained Lucien.

"Can you show me, sir?" Bellak responded, "As an investigator, I have to check every detail."

"No problem." Lucien nodded. He asked Bellak to bring the vase and the other cursed items that Lucien sensed.

...

"This... This is cathode ray?! The power is much greater!" When seeing the familiar reactions and features, Lazar was shocked. And then he realized why Lucien could discover the curse so quickly - no one was more familiar with cathode ray than Lucien!

For the sorcerers whose soul had been substantialized, when they got familiar with something, they were very likely to sense that thing in many ways, which was more common among senior-rank sorcerers.

"But how does this have anything to do with cursing? Isn't this your newly-discovered particle?" Bellak was still confused, "Maybe the material of the vase is special and it can send out streams of electrons... Maybe it's just a coincidence."

"I don't think so. My Host Star of Destiny sensed the danger." Lucien found an excuse.

Bellak wrote down Lucien's words carefully, "I'll report this to Affair Committee and have a senior-rank mage or archmage to help out. Mr. Evans, please give us some time. Meanwhile, we'll still investigate the vase."

That was what a review board member should deserve.

"Thanks." Lucien nodded, and then he came to the outside of the small meeting room with Lazar and Bellak.

Bellak asked Lucien and Lazar to stay here in case there were any other curses, while he went into the office where the other investigators were in to see if they had found anything.

"What is the vase made of?" Lazar asked, "Bellak said that the vase was probably able to emit cathode rays... If we had known a material like this, we would not have used gas discharging for our studies."

Lucien answered and he could not help grinning, "It might be some special material. Hopefully, I can get something out of this assassination attempt."

"No wonder I saw the great excitement in your eyes." Lazar finally understood, "You're really a money-digger, Lucien. One day your passion for wealth should surpass that of a dragon."

Lucien took a glance at him and said jokingly, "I don't think you know a dragon very well."

After about ten minutes later, when the several investigators had finished putting together all the record, the gate of the institution suddenly opened. A tall and thin elder man walked in accompanied by Thompson.

The elder man looked ordinary. His eyes were closed tightly, and his hair was covered by the hood. The magic robe he was wearing was of pure black like the deepest night.

"Sir... the Eye of Curse?" Lucien recognized him. He was Atlant Forman.

"I am not leaving for Calais any time soon, so I am going to stay in the headquarter for a while. Fernando told me what happened to you. I am here to take a look. My hobby happens to be collecting all kinds of weird curses," said Atlant. His voice was gentle and soft. Although the way he spoke was quite slow, his tone was assuring.

"Thank you, sir. Thank you very much." Facing the Eye of Curse, although it was not Lucien's first time standing in front of a legendary-level archmage, he still felt the great pressure and fear.

Atlant nodded casually. He walked slowly to the vase. After a few seconds, he suddenly opened his eyes, and the entire vase was covered with a layer of deep green light.

When the eyes of cursing opened, Lucien felt a sudden dizziness.

There were countless figures in Atlant's deep, black pupils.

"Indeed... it's a curse." Atlant made his conclusion.

There were black spots in the deep green light.

"The magic structure itself is not complex, but the material used is very special, therefore, most of the inspection spells have failed to work. If being affected by the curse for too long, your organs would wear away gradually and you would die from all the fatal diseases."

Lucien nodded, and he was now certain that the use of the radiation was also part of the cursing spells. However, he did not know anything else about curses.

"Thank you, sir, for your confirmation..." Bellak reported to the Eye of Curse, Lucien, and Thompson. "We've found a couple of suspicious sorcerers but we cannot make sure whether they did this on purpose or not. Because all the cursed items made from the special material are from the same shop, and the details of the items resemble each other."

"I want a thorough investigation!" Although Thompson was always rather nice, right now his tone was stern and cold.

Atlant smiled, "So my job is done. But... can I take the cursed vase? I'm especially interested in the curse and the special material."

"No problem," said Thompson, since, of course, there was no way that Thompson would say no to a legendary archmage. "There is more than one cursed item."

Lucien hurriedly added, "Can I keep a couple of them as well? I am interested in the special material as well because it might be closely connected to the electron that I've been studying recently."

"Sure. The Congress is putting much emphasis on the exploration in the micro-world." Thompson nodded, as he was very impressed with Lucien's research attitude. Facing the evil assassination, Lucien was still dedicated to his study. No wonder he had won so many honors at such a young age!

Leaving an investigator safeguarding the items, Bellak led the three investigators to dig deeper into the assassination attempt.

Because there was not yet a conclusion, except Lucien, the rest of the institution members were asked to spend the night in the Congress. Lucien also comforted Heidi, Katrina, and Annick that everything would be fine.

After finishing all the work, it was already late. Lucien had decided to stay in the lab tonight to hurry up studying the radioactive elements in the vase.

The fact that the cursed items were sent to his office only a few days later after Lucien published his finding made Lucien feel quite insecure. Therefore, he suspended his work on producing the new fourth-circle spell—called X-ray, which used the power of cathode ray, and instead started to work on producing two to three new attack or defense magic spells to protect himself, just in case.

There were a lot of new magic spells that could be put forward using radioactive elements, besides the theory of relativity and mass-energy equation that Lucien was so far not able to derive because of his limited knowledge, there were still other things that Lucien could do, such as producing more cursed magic spells and find the element called Helium.

Once Helium was discovered, Lucien would be able to use its liquefied form to produce another new spell and further push forward the limit of ultralow temperature. He would even able to make the power of the spell reach the temperature which was only three or four degrees higher than the absolute zero.

The books in his spirit library were still locked as Lucien had never learned about the theories before. Even if Lucien could figure out how to use these most challenging theories, the correspondingly constructed spells should be of the legendary level, which was far from being practical to him.

This ice and snow spell could be even more powerful than a senior-rank one!

The only problem was that Lucien needed to find the right material when casting it, so he could make sure the caster would not die from it.