Chapter 371: The Good News

After the short speech, Schokola put the dark gray magic robe on Lucien and said, "The exploration of the secret of life shall bring us the real immortality."

As told, Lucien left his spirit mark in the magic robe and got its information:

"Fountain of Life, level seven perfect-rank magic item (one layer of seal). A sorcerer whose spiritual power has reached the senior rank can unseal it and the magic robe's full power could be released.

"When wearing the magic robe, the wearer can awaken all the dead bodies within two kilometers (except those above senior rank) and make them fight for the wearer. When wearing the magic robe, the wearer can have the ability of transformation. Without the careful check, even senior-rank sorcerers and archmages will not be able to notice the difference. When wearing the magic robe, if the wearer dies, his soul will be protected by the magic robe, and once someone else tried to possess the magic robe by controlling its core, the magic robe will exchange the two souls between, and thus the wearer can take over the new body.

"The magic robe also offers the wearer the magic resistance power of a fifth-circle sorcerer and the defense of a level three grand knight. The great power of death enables the wearer to cast Soul Cage, the fifth-circle spell, three times a day, Ghost Transformation three times a day, and Weakening Ray, the seventh-circle spell, three times a day. When sealed, the wearer, before reaching level six, can still force to cast the seventh-circle spell once at the cost of completely draining up his spiritual power and damaging his life force.

"October, Year 819, for Mr. Lucien Evans' great contribution to the origin of life.

"The origin of life contains the secret of immortality!

"From: Gauci Cromwell."

Putting on the magic robe, Lucien was a bit amused by the stinginess of the Hand of Paleness: The enchanted magic effect on the robe was transformation, and the two fifth-circle spells were almost useless. Soul Cage could draw one's soul out of the person's body when the person was still alive and put the person's soul into a magic item, which was used mainly for getting information, and it did not work on a dead person whose soul had not dismissed. Ghost Transformation could turn the common undead creatures and the caster into the form of a ghost.

Lucien was definitely hoping for something better, such as replenishing his life force or regrowing limbs, so he would be able to use his rings with no fear. However, there was no way that the Hand of Paleness would be that considerate.

Fortunately, Lucien still quite liked the seventh-circle spell and the other enchanted magic effect. Weakening Ray, like Dark Sword, could ignore the target's defense level and lower the target's power by one level. If no action was taken, the target's power level would be further lowered twelve seconds later. However, unlike Dark Sword which required one to conduct the special rite to recover the power, Weakening Ray's effect could only last five minutes, and it could be counteracted by other spells.

Although Lucien felt that it was quite dirty hiding oneself in the magic robe and stealing another person's body, Lucien had to concede that it was a perfect way to save one's life and the only left hope, which complied with the style of the Hand of Paleness.

"Mr. Lucien Evans, would you like to share with us your feeling right now and your insight into Necromancy?" asked Schokola with no facial expression as he only had the skull.

"My insight... in Necromancy?" Lucien murmured to himself. He took a step forward the saw the cold face of Felipe and Sousa's eyes shining with red light.

Lucien remained rather calm and said, "The immortality of life is the ultimate pursuit of the School of Necromancy, and this is also the terrain we hold the most respect toward. There are so many things we want to explore: why can the bloodline be passed on? Why can blood powers be combined? Why do people age? When aging, what happens to the cells? However, our ways of investigation are restraining us from going further, and thus we need the other schools of magic to work together. There is no such a thing as an isolated school of magic!"

Hearing Lucien's words, Felipe frowned a bit. He wondered what kind of progress Lucien had made. Was Lucien facing the same difficulty as he was?

Lucien finished his short speech, and Felipe saw him walking off the stage directly toward him, with a gentle but suspicious smile. So he asked confusedly, "What?"

"I remember... we once had a promise." Lucien grinned. He almost forgot the promise, but when he saw Felipe's face on the stage, Lucien was reminded of it.

Felipe's facial expression changed, "What do you want? Prolong your life-span? Strengthen your soul?"

Felipe was reminded by Lucien. He remembered that after escaping the assassination from Traquair, he was being rather short-tempered to take his revenge, so he instigated and also threatened Lucien to publish his paper on the synthesized carbamide. Felipe promised Lucien that he would run a rite for him.

"Strengthen my soul. My soul potential has just got developed, so the common magic rites won't work," said Lucien with a meaningful smile on his face.

Felipe squinted a bit, "The Hand of Paleness does have some special rites."

However, those rites were very expensive! Still, a promise was a promise. Proud as Felipe was, he would not fail his own words. No matter how expensive the rite was, he had to pay for it. He indeed earned some decent money from improving Life Hiding, but now the money would be soon gone.

He had to say that he did feel a bit regretful.

"Thank you very much. I hope that you can kindly run the rite for me as soon as possible. Well... in Allyn, under the watch of my teacher, Mr. Fernando." Lucien grinned and slightly bowed to Felipe.

Felipe's hands clenched into fists in the pockets and he wished that he could directly punch Lucien's smiling face. And he said the words one by one from his teeth, "You have to give me five days to get prepared."

"No problem. I'll be waiting for you, Mr. Felipe." Lucien was in a very good mood. He did not care about Felipe's attitude.

Seeing that Lucien just turned around and was about to leave, it suddenly occurred to Felipe and he hurriedly asked, "Your cognition world has been substantialized?"

Was that why that Lucien was in a rush to strengthen his soul power?

Felipe was clearly aware of the fact that, for the geniuses like Lucien and him, under the special attention from all the directions focused on them, getting the important magic potions was not a big deal for them, and their speed of improving the soul power and spiritual power mostly depended on themselves and their teachers' suggestion—who usually would not rush their students to advance, as the foundation might not be firm—, therefore, the two biggest challenges for them to become a senior-rank were to substantialize their cognition world and to analyze the sixth-circle magic spell.

Facing the two challenges, no one could help them, but they could only rely on their own effort. Felipe himself substantialized his cognition world after he successfully synthesized grease, and then his spiritual power and soul soon met the requirements of the further advancement. With the help of the magic rite, he managed to become a senior-rank with relatively less effort. However, Lucien's advancing process was too fast, and unlike Felipe, his spiritual power level was not ready yet, and solely relying on the magic potions could not help him.

When Felipe was still a middle-rank mage, he got the guidance and help from Congus, the Demigod-lich, and thus he soon became Congus' student after reaching the senior rank.

Lucien turned around and thought for a second, "Well... I'll let you guess..."

There was no way that Lucien would directly tell this to his enemy! Felipe was quite pissed off, but Lucien's reaction affirmed his guess.

Did he substantialize his cognition world because of the assumption of the discontinuous form of energy, or the discovery of electron?

Many thoughts flashed through Felipe's mind.

...

On the thirty-third floor of the magic tower in Allyn, Lucien was standing in front of Fernando nervously.

"Are you sure you want to use the rite from the Hand of Paleness?" asked Fernando seriously, "Your soul's potential has just got developed. Rushing to use the rite will leave you an unstable foundation, and you'll have a harder time improving your power in the future. If you take the steps one by one, after becoming a senior-rank mage, in the recent fifteen to twenty years, there is a possibility that you can become an archmage. But if you insist to do so, it is going to take you thirty years, sixty years, a hundred years, or even longer. I did once consider whether I should help you with running a similar rite for you, but I decided to let you grow by yourself. Why are you in such a rush?"

After thinking about it for a second, Lucien said to Fernando directly, "Sir, I have some personal stuff to deal with, and it is an emergency. I have to leave Allyn. For my own safety, I have to do so."

"Personal stuff? What is it? Do you know how big a risk you are taking? Did someone cast any spells on you?" asked Fernando. His red eyes shone with many tiny bolts of lightning to make sure that Lucien was not mentally deluded by anyone.

"Sir, can you keep it as a secret?" Lucien was anxious. He did not know how to persuade Fernando other than telling him the truth.

Fernando's red rigorous eyes stared at Lucien for a long time, but he did not say anything.

Lucien was almost sweating. Finally, Fernando closed his eyes and slightly nodded, "It's your own choice. Don't regret it."

Lucien released a long sigh seeing that Fernando did not insist on asking. When Lucien was about to leave, he heard Fernando's voice:

"Wait."

"Yes, sir?" Lucien became nervous again.

Knocking at the desk with his knuckle gently, Fernando said, "The special soul rite from the Hand of Paleness is indeed much better than the similar rites that I know. Still, maybe it is not going to affect you that much."

"Yes, sir." Lucien did not get Fernando's point.

Fernando paused a bit and then slowly took out a scroll from under his magic robe, "You used it before... the teleportation scroll. Take it with you. Don't get killed, my flathead student."

"Sir..." Lucien was touched.

Fernando suddenly grinned, "When I was young, I did many ridiculous things as well. When I look back, some of them are very funny. So I more or less understand how you young people think. And this is probably the price you have to pay to grow. Well... the scroll is made of the skin of ninth-level creature called Karachi. I only have two pieces. So you don't have another chance to be stupid... Also, I don't think you have had enough money to buy all the materials you need for reaching the senior-rank. Go to my demiplane warehouse to take a look, but you should leave me your following three years' annual earnings as a pledge."

"Yes, sir..." Lucien's voice trembled slightly.