Chapter 7 Harvest and temptation
Breathing in the reddish blood mist around him, Lucian's hands and feet were soft, his head was twitching and swollen, and the scene of Correa and Hausen fighting in his eyes suddenly turned into Correa and the giant mouse, and then turned back into the two killing each other, as if the illusion and reality were superimposed.
"Wait, hallucination?!" As soon as Lucian thought of this, he had a general guess in his heart, concentrated his attention, and let the feeling of the spirit spreading like a tide appear, so the scene no longer changed, the red mist was no longer distorted, everything stabilized, it was indeed Correa and Hausen who fought to the death, blood flowed out from multiple wounds on their bodies, and their movements looked very slow and difficult, as if they had reached a limit.
"Is the blood of the red-eyed mouse itself hallucinogenic, or is it that the blood is absorbed and transformed by the strange plant to cause hallucinations? What a clever magic trap."
Lucian finally understood that whether it was Hausen's disappearance or Gary's sudden attack, it was due to the influence of hallucinations, and this effect was likely to start from killing the first red-eyed mouse, and when it was completely blinded to the senses, it was already difficult to distinguish.
The "Holy Light Strike" shot from the Holy Emblem of Truth just now not only vaporized Gary's right hand and part of his shoulder, but also penetrated upwards, directly hitting the top of the stone directly above the secret room, creating a deep hole, and the rubble fell like rain, as if the entire secret room would collapse at any time.
The rubble and dust filled the air, dispersing the light red blood mist, recovering Lucian's weakness in his hands and feet.
Lucian didn't know if there were any other magic traps behind, so even if he was temporarily safe, he didn't dare to relax and quickly think of a way.
Except for the two light techniques, the "Holy Emblem of Truth" could no longer inspire any divine magic, and he no longer had the greatest support, and even the strength of his own body became very weak due to the paralyzing effect contained in the light red mist.
Suddenly, Lucian saw the strange plant being staggered in the falling rubble.
"It has no other ability to protect itself except for creating illusions?" Lucian immediately woke up, stood up with his weak hands and feet, and walked towards the strange plant.
His feet had no strength and stumbled, Lucian walked very slowly, falling into the rubble several times, his body was scratched all over his body, the pain was unbearable, and blood even flowed out in a few places.
"Ugh." Lucian took a breath, held back the pain, and took advantage of the temporary sobriety and strength recovery brought about by the pain of the wound to walk to the strange plant with difficulty.
After this series of encounters, Lucian's youthfulness and hesitation were much less, without delay, holding his breath, he carefully but firmly stretched out his right hand and held it on the trunk of the strange plant.
The meridians under his hands were beating, the blood was rushing like a stream, Lucian felt that he was holding not a plant, but a living creature, and then pulled aside.
"Ah!"
All the branches and leaves of this strange plant shrank suddenly, letting out a sharp and mournful scream, like a dying person.
Without tearing it off, Lucian continued to exert force, and the strange plant let out a miserable scream while stretching out its branches and leaves again and wrapped around Lucian.
A wet, slippery and disgusting feeling came from his skin, countless tiny burrs were piercing into his body, Lucian forcibly held back his fear and fear, and pulled hard again.
"Ugh......"
The crying stopped abruptly, Lucian was sprayed by the reddish liquid in the plant's body to his chest, and the smell of blood came to his nose, which made Lucian's hands and feet more and more soft, and he could only lean against the stone wall next to him to avoid falling to the ground.
As the plant was torn in two by Lucian, the reddish mist in the surrounding air became thicker and thicker, almost condensing into liquid.
The three shimmering books on the nearby desk quickly corroded as soon as they sensed this rich reddish mist, starting from the first page to the last page, and it took only two or three seconds to completely disappear.
Of course, with Lucian's current paralyzed state, it must be too late to stop it, and it is difficult to even take a step.
The desk immediately became empty, but strangely, except for the place where the three books were located, there were no signs of corrosion, and Lucian was puzzled for a while before figuring out the key point: "It seems to be another magic trap, when the concentration of red mist reaches a certain level, the magic trap on those magic notes will activate on its own, destroying itself so as not to be obtained by the enemy."
"It's a pity that these magic notes are gone." Lucian sighed in his heart with great regret, that was a magic note that could learn extraordinary powers!
Suddenly, Lucian was stunned, and he found a strange glimmer of light in the library in his soul.
Curious, Lucian leaned in, and then saw with wide eyes that a brand new bookshelf appeared in the library, with the words "Magic (Arcane)" written on it, and on the bookshelf, there were already three books, which were the three magic notes Lucian had seen just now.
"Does this library still have the ability to collect books? But where did the content come from?" Lucian was very surprised, "Or I need to see the content with my own eyes, well, although these three books were corroded very quickly, if the whole process is slowed down, it should still be corroded page by page.
Lucian can only guess at the moment, and he will have to wait for a few experiments with other books in the future to be sure.
Looking at these three magic notes, Lucian, who was quite regretful just now, hesitated: "If you learn magic, in this world where magic is powerful and can openly burn magicians, wouldn't it be too dangerous?"
Unable to make a decision, Lucian temporarily let go, after all, he and others were still in the secret room and had not completely escaped danger, so Lucian began to accumulate strength.
Without the strange plants, the light red blood mist became lighter and fader, Correa and Hausen gradually got rid of the hallucination and looked at each other in shock, but it was much later to wake up, and both of them were on the verge of death.
…………
Benjamin on the ground snorted as Lucian touched the "Holy Emblem of Truth" with his spirit and stimulated the "Holy Light Strike", put down his right hand, and looked at the secret passage suspiciously.
"Master Benjamin?" Guard Paul saw Benjamin's strange behavior and hurriedly asked.
Under the light of the silver moon, Benjamin's face became very bad, and he whispered: "There is a change below, my spiritual imprint in the Holy Emblem has been touched, damn it, it's just a magic apprentice, it's really useless! Paul, wait for me here, and if I don't come out in five minutes, ask the bishop for help."
It was precisely because of the existence of the spiritual imprint in the holy emblem that Benjamin was able to safely hand over the Holy Emblem of Truth to Lucian for use, otherwise even if the standard divine magic curiosity assigned to him was much weaker than Benjamin's own strength and other divine magic curiosities on his body, he would not casually hand it over to others, who knew that his spiritual imprint was actually touched and failed to stop the stimulation that divine magic should not have at a critical moment.
Negligence and carelessness have always been companions of arrogance and prejudice.
In Benjamin's heart, he has always had a deep prejudice against knights who rely on the physical power of the bloodline, believing that they are crude and lowly, and they are not at all as noble magicians who explore the mysteries of the world, even if the other party is an evil magician, so they are not worthy of using magic and wonders at all, so he subconsciously handed over the Holy Emblem of Truth to Lucian, whose spiritual power is higher than that of ordinary people.
This attitude comes from Benjamin's origin and from his experience.
As one of the most powerful families in the Duchy of Vaulite, the Lafferty family, although they also rely on the power of the bloodline "charism", but they are different from the knights, they rely on the power of the bloodline to cast spells and are the real casters, and Benjamin, as a member of the Lafferty family, even if the bloodline is thin and cannot stimulate his own power, he can enter the monastery to study since he was a child.
But now, as an official pastor, such a small matter has gone through a big omission, and his position within the church will inevitably be affected in the future, so Benjamin hurriedly went down.
Paul was equally surprised: "With the Holy Emblem of Truth, there will still be changes? Could it be that there are other official magicians?"
…………
Lucian regained a little strength, and when he was about to walk out of the secret room against the stone wall, he suddenly heard a sound of footsteps, and his heart suddenly lifted, and his spirit was tense.
When he saw that it was Benjamin's white holy robe, Lucian breathed a sigh of relief, but he still didn't dare to relax, what a good place to kill and silence people in the secret room.
"Lappland Blood Vine?" Benjamin glanced at the situation in the secret room, and quickly judged the general process from the magic common sense and plant knowledge he had learned, and understood why Lucian, who was moving slowly against the wall, Gary on the ground, and others ended up like this, "Fortunately, none of them died."
"This kid is lucky, his spiritual power has increased a little, reaching the level of a low-level trainee pastor, it seems that the impact brought by the breakthrough touched my spiritual imprint, but unfortunately it is no longer the era when the church was extremely strong more than three hundred years ago, and you can learn divine arts by relying on your talents.
As a member of the Lafferty family, Benjamin knows more about the world situation than most pastors, and does not seem to be so devout in his own faith.
More importantly, after the "Supreme Theological Council" more than 300 years ago, the church split, one from the south and one from the north, accusing each other of heresy, but even so, no matter which side, the acquisition of divine magic was not affected in any way.
This attitude directly affected every young man who became a pastor for hundreds of years, including Benjamin.
Moreover, in order to adapt to the era of rapid development, several popes have introduced some of the knowledge obtained by the great arcanists to explore the world to transform the theological foundation, although it also allowed the rapid development of divine arts and the emergence of strong people, so that the Southern Church maintained its position as the largest force, standing tall under the eyes of many powerful enemies such as heretics, evil magicians, and dark creatures, but it also once again caused more cracks in the already unstable internal faith.
Benjamin relaxed, fine white dust slipped from his hands, strange syllables came out of his mouth, and a gust of wind blew, blowing the pale red blood mist without a trace.
Then he didn't recite the spell, nor did he throw out the casting material, just pointing at Gary, a pale white light fell on him, causing the scorched black on his body to fall off, the wound healed, and he got rid of the dying and became an ordinary serious injury.
Performing healing magic at intervals of one to two seconds at a time, Benjamin revived Correa and Howsen, and also healed Lucian's injuries.
After asking Lucian, Correa, Howsen, Gary and others what happened, Benjamin looked at the desk and made sure they were not lying, and ordered: "Move all the items in the secret room to the church, well, including the corpses of these rats."
At the same time, he caught the emblem that Lucian had returned: "Your sins have been cleansed, go back and rest, may the Lord bless you."
Originally, if Lucian could succeed successfully this time, Benjamin would not be stingy with financial rewards, and even if he had the opportunity, he would secretly try to see if he could cultivate it, but if it was so dangerous, Benjamin naturally had no mood to encourage Lucian, and after making sure that he had nothing hidden in him, he sent him away early, after all, Correa and Howsen were fine, and it would be more troublesome to have Gary without his right hand, and the regeneration of severed limbs was not a divine technique he could master.
When he reached the sewer outside, Lucian, who had broken through a certain boundary, suddenly heard a word from Correa inside, which made Lucian's heart a little heavy, and he whispered to Howsen: "Gary has no right hand, I'm afraid he won't be able to become a knight, and he will be invited out of the guard."
Lucian, who didn't know how he was feeling, walked out of the secret passage and immediately greeted the poor people around him.
"Little Evans, have you purified the ghost?" Aunt Alyssa asked from a distance.
Lucian nodded: "It has been purified by Lord Benjamin and several guards."
Everyone suddenly became relaxed and began to ask and communicate eagerly: "Lucian, what does a ghost look like? Isn't it scary?"
"Lord Benjamin is worthy of being an official pastor."
"Lucian seems to have received the Lord's blessing this time, and he can actually use the Holy Emblem of Truth."
"It's a pity that Lucian is no longer a child and cannot be sent to the monastery to be trained, otherwise it would be a great honor for us to have a Lucian in the Adelaide district."
Hearing these discussions, Lucian was slightly in a trance: "I can't be a pastor?"
Although Lucian had never thought of becoming a priest due to his status as a time-traveler, he had only experienced the extraordinary power of divine magic, and was told that he could not take this path, which was inevitably a little dejected.
"Poor little Evans, look at your face, you must be tired, hurry up and go back to rest." Aunt Alyssa saw Lucian's bad face and quickly spoke.
Lucian had a lot on his mind, and he really needed to be quiet, so he nodded, went back to his cabin, sat on the edge of the bed, listened to Benjamin and the others come out and go away, listened to the poor people leaving, listened to the tranquility of the late night, and suppressed his thoughts about his parents and others deep in his heart.
"I can't become a priest, and it seems that because I haven't trained since childhood, I don't have much hope of becoming a knight and inspiring the power of the bloodline."
"If you want to gain extraordinary power, I am afraid you can only learn magic."
"However, once you choose magic, you will be enemies of the church, and you will be enemies of most ordinary people, including Aunt Alyssa."
"Maybe there are other paths?"
"Anyway, the magic notes are in my head, take a look at it first, well, there should be no problem with this."
Lucian, who was hesitant and struggling, decided to look at the magic notes first, so he spiritually entered the library and opened the magic notes.
After a long time, Lucian's low, crying and laughing voice sounded in the room:
"What should I do if I can't read?"
(End of this chapter)