After practicing many times, when dawn was drawing near, Lucien finally mastered the five apprentice spells: Eyes of Stars, Freezing Rays, Darkness, Mage’s Hand and Acid Splashing. Furthermore, now Lucien could activate Disarming Loop without a verbal component in about three seconds.
It took the witch much longer to understand all these spells. It was amazing how Lucien could grasp them in such a short period of time. In his eyes these magic structures were related to different mathematical models and the knowledge of planar geometry. After reviewing what he had learned before in high school, Lucien found they were actually pretty easy to be understood.
Here magic could be explained by science. In Acid Splashing, for example, sulphur was transformed into sulfuric acid. However, Lucien had a hard time understanding how Darkness worked. His farfetched guess was that the magic reconstructed the Light Moss and made it absorb the light. As expected, Lucien had to spend more time to master the Darkness spell.
Lucien reflected on his magic experiment: His knowledge from the past, like physics and chemistry, was useful, but it could not be used to explain everything in this magic world. There were some similarities shared between this place and the earth, but there were also many things he couldn’t understand, like those precious metals and magic materials. He knew he should explore the world more by himself.
After a ten-minute break, Lucien started doing some simple cleaning.
“These apprentice spells are not powerful enough.” Rubbing the floor, Lucien thought to himself, “They can only kill someone when they hit the vital parts, or the most they could do is make the person move slower or suffer a bit.” But Lucien was not disappointed. He knew that, if need arose, they could still be more than helpful.
Finishing the cleaning, Lucien carefully hid the materials nearby. He didn’t go back to the surface directly but continued his exploration towards the end of the outlets. He was looking for Corpse Mushroom, which meant he had to find some carcasses first. Searching in a graveyard under the nose of the church was too risky. Lucien heard that many poor people, who had no families or friends, died lonely and miserably down there. Besides, dead animals and rotten flesh were even easier to be found.
The witch did not mention any possible danger in the pipes, but Lucien was still very cautious, staying alert to any sign of trouble.
…………
Within twenty minutes, Lucien had found two dead rats and a jelly-like creature body, but no Corpse Mushroom was there.
Turning around a corner, an open area appeared in front of Lucien. That was where the homeless people lived.
The sewer here was very broad. An underground river was flowing slowly with waste floating in the middle, which went all the way to the Belem River. On both sides of the river old dirty rugs and pots were scattered everywhere. The clothes the beggars were wearing could barely cover their bodies.
“Why did you come here, young lad? You don’t belong here.” An old man probably in his sixties asked Lucien. His ribs stood out like arching blades. However, when Lucien heard his voice, the old man sounded like he was only forty or something.
Lucien’s old but clean linen clothes were far from decent, but compared to what they were wearing, the youngster looked like a noble.
“I have a friend who also lives here.” Lucien tried to sound confident and strong. He must hide his feeling of insecurity in front of these guys, or they would think it was easy to prey on the teen standing there.
Several beggars behind the old man stood up. Their eyes were full of greed and ferocity. Lucien was not scared. Instead, he pulled out his dagger and took a step forward.
The beggars did not dare take any further action. On the contrary, they were now standing in a defensive position.
At this time, the old man started grinning. “You don’t look like a guy with a decent job, young lad.”
“None of your business.” Lucien answered coldly.
“Anyway, I can tell you’re not doing very well. Even a hard-working young lad like you couldn’t afford proper bread and beef. It’s not your fault.”
Lucien was not sure about the old man’s intention.
“The Saint Truth Church tells people that all of us are God’s servants. But why can the noble live an extravagant life while the poor have to suffer every day and night. There’s no difference between us, and all human beings are born with sin!”
“I’m not interested in your nonsense.” Although his words were pretty obscure, Lucien knew the old man was trying to preach, but obviously not the Saint Truth. No matter what the old man believed in, other Gods or demons, Lucien had no interest in it. The price for having something to do with a heresy in this world could be his own life.
He did not want to end up being tied to a stake and burned to ashes alive.
Facing such direct rejection, the old man and the other beggars were very angry. Their belief was blasphemed.
Lucien knew it was time to get away from those guys. He started walking towards the outlets slowly and calmly, grabbing his shiny dagger in his hand.
“Anyone wanna try me?” Lucien stared at them fearlessly.
When he walked by, Lucien noticed that there was a clean black cloth lying on the ground, on which there was a shiny silver-colored horn. He remembered these beggars were sitting around the cloth when he arrived here.
The beggars were hesitant. No one wanted to fall on Lucien. Finally they gave up and sat back on the ground.
…………
After walking for another ten minutes, the sound of the river flow gradually became louder.
“Here should be the end of the sewers. The underground river joins the Belem River here,” Lucien thought to himself. There was a iron net covering the water outlet at the confluence and tons of floating trash accumulated in front of the net.
Lucien slowed down his pace. He was hoping that he could find more dead bodies here.
Lucien did not find anything until he walked towards the end of the sewer. When he started feeling disappointed and was about to go back to the surface, Lucien suddenly noticed that the net was missing a part, under the water.
Out of curiosity, Lucien grabbed the net and tried to shake it. As expected, there was a big hole under there on the iron net. What was really unexpected was that, at this time, a black bulk of something gradually surfaced from the water.
Lucien moved closer. It was a dead body, swollen and rotten. Many parts of its skin had fallen off. The clothes on the body were tangled with lots of trash, which increased the buoyancy a lot.
Lucien felt very disgusted and also a bit scared. However, he was still trying to see if there was any Corpse Mushroom on it.
There was a long wound on its chest. Someone cut the poor man open vertically and took away his heart. Checking with the dagger, Lucien’s eyebrows frowned.
“Wait…This is…my purse?!” Lucien was shocked. He picked the purse up using the dagger and was certain that it was the purse which was taken away by the gangsters some days ago.
“Why is it here…” Lucien was confused.
Then he looked at the face of the dead body. The corpse was so badly decomposed that it took Lucien quite a while to finally recognize the guy.
“An…Andre?!”