Chapter 314: The Adventurers
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Feeling still numb, Lucien looked at the wall on the left side in a confused way. His brain was working way slower than usual from the electric shock. After a few seconds, Lucien finally realized what was going on. He walked to the wall and asked in a low voice:
“Who is it?”
“Your neighbor, Adam. We’ve just met, buddy,” answered a man.
Then, a brick in the wall was removed. The man on the other side pulled the brick out.
Lucien saw a pair of dark blue eyes through the hole in the wall.
“No magic circles on the wall?” Lucien was quite surprised and he lifted his left eyebrow slightly, like Natasha usually did.
In this senior-rank mage’s magic tower, Lucien could not believe that the bricks and walls were not protected by any magic circles to prevent them from being easily destroyed!
The blue eyes were smiling, and the man answered, “Because this is the Devil’s Territory! Although there are quite a few ore resources and assorted magic creatures, the resources for building up a magic tower are still very hard to obtain. The fact that the old woman has built a magic tower here shows that she’s very powerful and wealthy. So, except for the exterior and the core of the tower, nothing is protected by special spells. By the way, buddy, what’s your name?”
Adam seemed to be very talkative. Maybe he had not found anyone to talk to for too long.
“Mr. Adam, you can call me Lucien.” Lucien was used to being polite, “How did you remove this brick?”
Adam blinked at Lucien through the hole in the wall, “You’ve really got some good manners, man. Are you a sorcerer or a knight? What is your rank?”
“Sorcerer. Middle-rank.”
Adam grinned, “Come on, man. We are both in the same bloody situation, so just call me Adam. I’m a grand knight. Dark Blessing.”
He reached out his right hand and his long nails were as sharp as knives, “I used my nails. These shackles can suppress my Blessing power, but it cannot change my physical strength.”
Lucien took a glance at his neat nails and joked, “If there were only ordinary guards here, we could use your nails to break out of prison. Adam, do you know anything about this place? And what this old woman is working on? I passed out in the mountains. When I woke up, I was here…”
Adam’s voice now sounded more serious, “Buddy, knowing a bit more about this place doesn’t really help… at least for me… I know that in the area covered by the magic tower, there are two cities and some villages. People who live in there should be the descendants of the human beings trapped in the Devil’s Territory. It was said that once a whole village next to the Dark Mountain Range was devoured by this place.”
Then, Adam added, “On the margin of this area, there is a big forest of huge trees. It’s a very dangerous area where there are lots of scarlet trees, killing vines, three-arm trolls, feather snakes, stone lizards and many other horrible creatures. I was there when I first stepped into the Devil’s Territory. I almost died there. I’m not sure what is outside of the forest. But, according to the law that the further it is from the Devil’s Territory, the more powerful the creatures are, I’m afraid there will be chimeras, soul catchers, sphinxes or dragons…”
Adam’s voice became deeper and deeper, “There is an ancient remain underneath the magic tower, and it seems to be related to the secret of this place. The old woman has been working on it for a long time to get out of this place. But she kept failing and she believes that it is because she’s not powerful enough as a senior-rank mage, so most of her experiments are about improving her power using limited resources. An experiment accident has contaminated her body and soul, so she can’t make herself look young anymore, and she’s losing her life force very quickly. She’s still trying to solve this…”
Lucien asked concernedly, “Has she already found a way out? Maybe we’re her solution…”
Adam’s voice was full of fear, “Her soul has been damaged. She tried several bodies of the young girls she caught but it never lasted for more than a minute. She believes that the major problem lies in her soul, so what she is trying to do is to see the possibility of cutting her soul into parts and only keeping the parts that are not contaminated. She will then raise the parts that are clean, so they can grow and become her new soul.”
Lucien was a bit shocked, “Then, which part will be in charge? Which part will be the old woman?”
As far as what Lucien knew, so far, no one ever succeeded with those experiments trying to divide one’s soul. And this was different from how those people save part of their soul or a finger in a life box in a Lich Convert rite since the parts were still connected to the major piece of the soul and body.
No matter how far they were from each other, only when the major part died, the small piece of soul in the life box could come back to life. There was no conflict in philosophy or cognition. If the process of the small piece of one’s soul coming back to life was disturbed by some certain power, the revived soul would also be injured.
Adam slightly shook his head, “Who knows. All of her experiment subjects died. And their souls were completely destroyed.”
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Adam pointed to the wall behind Lucien and said, “The guy in that cell is going to be her experiment subject tonight. If he fails, he would die. If he did it, he probably would also die but hopefully, we could be set free.”
“If the experiment works…” Lucien murmured. He knew what it meant—it was a path to being immortal.
The currently available rites could extend one’s lifespan, but one’s soul would still age. Even if one could successfully separate the part of his or her soul that had not aged from the whole, the influence could not be removed. Therefore, the sorcerer who lived the longest recorded by the Congress was a legendary archmage at the age of six thousand four hundred and forty-nine. Other either died before this age or somehow went missing.
Adam lowered his voice, “Man, I gotta remind you. Be prepared.”
“What?” Lucien looked at Adam’s blue eyes.
“The old woman has been seeking for a powerful soul like yours. You’re gonna be her main experiment subject for sure. But before she conducts the experiment on you, she’s gonna improve the power of your soul as much as possible. This is dangerous, but this is also a chance.”
Lucien took a deep breath and slightly nodded, “I will. Adam, can you tell me how much you know about the inner structure of this tower? Say… where’s the energy core?”
“Sure. Anytime.” Adam was very straightforward.
After their conversation was over, Adam put the brick back in the wall.
Lucien walked back to the bed and sat down. He knew what Adam was planning: Adam wanted Lucien to find the way to escape, so he could follow him. On the other hand, Lucien was totally fine with it. Also, he got some pretty useful information from him.
The servant sent him dinner. Lucien grabbed something to eat and went to sleep. He had to recover his physical strength as much as possible. And the next step would be getting rid of the shackles.
…
At midnight, the iron door suddenly opened. The young servant said to Lucien coldly, “Master asked me to bring you to the moonlight outside. Good for the recovery of your soul and body.”
Lucien now felt that he was totally a prisoner. However, for sure, he would not reject a chance to go outside. So, he followed the young servant to the patio on this floor.
The silver moon was up in the sky, covering everything with a thin layer of white light.
Every single cell in Lucien’s body was craving for the moonlight. The moonlight greatly cured Lucien’s injuries.
“Hey, buddy.” It was Adam’s voice.
Lucien turned around, “Also here for the moonlight?”
“Yup. I was part of the experiment earlier this afternoon as well.” Adam grinned. Then, he lowered his voice and said, “He didn’t make it.”
“What a pity…” nodded Lucien.
The patio was not very high above the ground, but the old woman was confident that they could never escape with their power restrained. Lucien and Adam decided to take a break here and chatted randomly.
At this time, the small hill in front of them suddenly burst out bright light, making the area look like it did during daytime.
Lucien saw that two males and two females ran out of the hill. Quickly, they came rushing to the magic tower. It seemed that they just stepped on some magic traps.
“Wow, cool. Two level two knights, a level one knight, and a second circle sorcerer.” Adam was a little excited when looking at the people down there working hard on killing the skeleton guards.
Lucien was very confused, “What is going on here?”
“The old woman, except for studying and doing magic experiments, is very lazy. In order to have endless experiment materials, she’s been leaving magic books and ways of awakening Blessing power in the nearby villages and hid the magic tower to let them grow. At the same time, she spreads the words that anyone who could find the hidden magic tower and kill the vicious witch here could gain everything, including great power and wealth. So, those experiment materials just come to her automatically.”