Chapter 384: Transformation Mask
After the familiar dizziness left Lucien, he saw many creepy red flowers in front of him. The sea of flowers in red was boundless.
Sensing the smell of a living thing, the flowers gradually bloomed, petal by petal, and the inner blood and flesh were revealed. The flesh was moving! Like a heart, the center of the flowers could beat!
Seeing the flowers, Lucien's heart missed a beat. He knew how dangerous these flowers were! However, soon he calmed himself down since he was standing in Rhine's garden, after all. Lucien started to cast a creepy and mysterious spell.
Once the spell was cast, the beautiful but ominous flowers gently swung back and forth as if they were welcoming Lucien, and then the flowers quickly turned into countless tiny red bugs and retreated like the fall of the tide, leaving the black land in the middle.
Lucien was curious, wondering how to define those creatures. Were they flowers, or bugs? He had never read anything like this in any books. As an arcanist who was crazy with all kinds of arcana studies, Lucien almost tried to catch a few of the bugs for future experiment...
However, he had a job to do. He walked out of the magic circle and through the gate of the hall following the black path revealed. After Lucien left, the tiny blood-colored bugs quickly gathered again and returned to the form of the eerie beautiful flowers. The flowers smelled incredibly sweet, making one feel very dizzy and soggy in his limbs.
Lucien immediately cast a filtering bubble to keep away the unpleasant sweet smell.
However, the red ocean suddenly boiled and leaned toward Lucien aggressively, like countless ghosts and zombies trying to grab him with their rotten pale arms.
Lucien did not expect that the flowers, or bugs, were this sensitive to magic waves! He tried his best to stop himself from casting more spells to protect himself, and instead just simply let the petals gently sweep on his face. Lucien felt a bit itchy and numb.
Although no further magic waves could be detected, the furious red ocean was not going to calm itself down. Surrounding Lucien, the ocean was roaring.
With the help of his Holm Crown ring, Lucien stayed very calm and completely ignored the dangerous and horrible scene.
Although he had no idea how powerful these flowers or bugs were, he had decided to be very careful with everything in this castle.
In a pretended calm manner, Lucien walked out of the red ocean and stepped on the path connecting to the gate of the castle.
Two rows of tall trees were planted beside the road, and pieces of semi-withered yellow leaves were swirling to the ground. The beautiful scenery in front of this dark, gloomy castle was like what Lucien was used to seeing in Gesu District in Aalto.
When Lucien was walking toward the gate, suddenly, the rows of eyes on the trunk of the trees opened, revealing a sharp contrast of black and white. Lucien's figure was reflected in every single pupil, but some of the eyes looked confused, some were calm and peaceful, some angry, and some cold...
The eyes were all staring at Lucien. Sweat formed on his forehead, and he knew that this time the trees were the real scarlet trees. The last time Lucien saw these trees was in his dream. As what he saw in his dream was based on his imagination, the trees in the dream were quite different from the real ones.
Not many of these magic trees could manage to grow mature, but once they grew up, the trees were of the power of a senior-rank mage, and like the Beholders, the trees could shoot out many rays. Also, the scarlet trees could drain one's blood and produce illusions.
Although wearing many great magic items, Lucien was confident that he could deal with one or two scarlet trees and turn them into some good magic materials. However, there were two rows of them!
Under the gaze of the trees, Lucien walked step by step and finally reached the gate of the castle.
When Lucien's feet touched the smooth and hard floor, he released a sigh of relief. It was such a torture walking through the crowd of horrible creatures, although Rhine had told him the spell to protect himself.
Before Lucien raised his right hand, a deep voice came from the inside of the castle.
"I feel master's mark on you."
"Yes, Mr. Rhine sent me here to pick up a few items," said Lucien, short and brief. Once he was recognized by the alchemical life in the castle, the rest of the mission should be of no risk.
The deep voice responded, "I'm Castle Mikhalik. Password, please."
"Kilahkim," answered Lucien. He realized that the password was simply the retrography of the name of the alchemical life. Lucien had to say that this was not creative at all.
"Distinguished guest, please," the gate of the castle slowly opened, and the elegant and well-decorated main hall was revealed. "Except for the controlling core, energy room, and the base of the treasury vault, you can go anywhere you wish."
...
In the study loaded with all the different kinds of books, Lucien cast the spell Rhine taught him and, at the same time, he formed the spiritual power in the shape of a sharp spine and fiercely stabbed it at the quill pot.
The quill pot lit up with a layer of dim light and started to make a cracking sound. When the pot retreated, a black hole was revealed.
After carefully checking around, Lucien took several items using Mage's Hand out from the hole. There was a mini-statue of a Sphinx, a filthy bloody ball, a Broom Brooch, and a clown mask with a ridiculous smile on it.
"Transformation Mask, a level nine middle-rank magic item. The wearer can transform oneself into any creatures of the same gender, but cannot carry on the creatures' talents. With the corresponding blood sample, the wearer can become another person completely."
Lucien studied the mask using his spiritual power and found that so far the mask had recorded seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-five kinds of blood, and it was up to the wearer which one to pick.
"The power of transformation came from the blood, therefore, even a legendary archmage can be deceived without carefulness. The wearer's spiritual power or willpower has to be close to senior-rank, or the wear would go crazy.
"Very often, identity works better than magic! From: A mind-split, anonymous sorcerer."
Lucien got to know the complete information about the mask with the spell, Identification. And for the rest of the three items, he could only tell that they contained some kind of mysterious and ambiguous supernatural power, and each of them was different from the other. They were the items for activating the three magic circles.
Putting the mask and the three items into the pouch, Lucien recorded some of the books in the study in his spirit library. Rhine always called himself the Observer of History, and Lucien was certain that there were some interesting books here.
It took Lucien a while to record the books, as he did not want Mikhalik to notice his special ability. Lucien recorded fifty of the books after six hours.
...
The shining gems, gold coins of different time periods, brand-new knight armors, many magic robes, weapons, and magic items dazzled Lucien's eyes. Rhine's collection consisted of all the more precious items!
Among the many extraordinary items, most of them were of senior-rank, but the level nine, ten and legendary items were obviously stored in the basement of the treasury.
After careful selection, and after making a lot of difficult decisions, Lucien finally picked out a scroll and a belt.
The eighth-circle magic scroll, Night Travel.
Health Belt, the level eight high-rank magic item. The wearer would be immune to disease, poison, negative energy, and magic spells that could sicken the target.
"Health is the key to life. From: White Philosophy."
The scroll could make Space Lock invalid, thus it would be very useful for escaping. Since Time Travel was the talent magic of vampires, arcanists had not figured out a way to copy it. Lucien was planning on studying the scroll and using it at the most crucial moment.
Furthermore, the belt was also very powerful.
After leaving his spiritual mark in the belt, Lucien looked at the shelf where all the magic staffs were stored. He was about to pick a good one for himself. The one he had right now was still a level two magic staff, which did not really match his rank.
When Lucien was having a hard time making up his mind, he saw a very ordinary-looking sword on the shelf beside it. The sword looked so plain with its wood cross guard.
Lucien was curious why Rhine would keep such an ordinary sword in his collection. Thus, he quickly cast Identification on the sword. When he received the message, Lucien was shocked:
"Pale Justice, level eight, perfect rank, extraordinary sword. When facing evil creatures, including evil spirits, demons and devils, the sword can become a rank one legendary weapon. The person who wields this sword is immune to fear, charm, ferocity, and helplessness, and each hacking and attacking can hit the target as guided by justice. The person has to at least have the power of a level six radiant knight to pick up the sword of justice."
"Justice can be pale, especially when compared to other kinds of radiant powers, but justice is everywhere, and it applies to everyone and everything. Be it on the battlefields or in the farming fields, justice is everywhere."
Lucien heard of this famous sword before!