Half an hour later, another figure appeared in the pipes, close to the broken iron net.
It was a decently dressed man in his thirties — black shirt, black suit, black shoes, almost everything black. His moustache was carefully trimmed, and his hair was of Pompadour style.
Graceful as the man might look, he had a dark aura of ferocity and brutality, and he was not a nobleman.
He was Rosan Aaron.
All his men knew that Rosan Aaron was a knight who had already awakened the Blessing in his blood. When he was about to become a grand knight, unfortunately, his power went awry and turned out to be vicious and dark. The power not only destroyed his noble title, but also caused Aaron’s endless hiding from the church.
Aaron hated the God for treating him so cruelly. Losing all of his possessions, for a long time he lived like a rat, hiding all the time. While he was trying to at least dress like a nobleman, bitter hatred was still burning his guts day and night.
The grading of knight and pastor was similar to the different levels of sorcerer.
The ability to use the third circle spell Fly, the sixth circle spell Magic Trigger, or many other ninth circle spells symbolized different levels of sorcerer. When a sorcerer or sorceress could start using one of these spells, it meant he or she had made a new breakthrough. Their spiritual power would grow by a large extent, and their souls would transform into a higher-level form. Even their lives would be extended.
In the ancient magic empire, people regarded the first and second circle sorcerers as junior-rank mages, while third to fifth circle were middle-rank mages, and sixth to eight circle, senior-rank mages. Above them, a ninth circle sorcerer or sorceress would be respected as an Archmage.
Similarly, the levels three, six and nine were the key promoting points for a knight. If a person successfully awakened the Blessing in their blood, they would first become a level one or level two knight. From level three to five, they would be regarded as a grand knight; then six to eight, a radiant knight; in level nine the title was gold knight; and after that was the highest level of all, a legendary knight.
For pastors, it went from junior-rank to middle-rank pastor. Then a middle-rank pastor could be promoted to bishop. For the senior-rank pastors, most of them would become cardinals. There was no special title for a level nine pastor, but if one could successfully join the conclave, he or she would be respected as a grand cardinal.
There were more than four hundred registered official knights in the Duchy of Orvarit. Among them, there were only around fifty grand knights and less than ten radiant knights.
Most of them were members of the Violet Knights, garrisoning different key fortresses.
Back then, Aaron, who was a level two knight, was very close to becoming a grand knight, and thus ranking among the top fifty knights in the Duchy. Now, he has been working for a big man for a long time, doing all the evil and bloody things for him to maintain his fake honor.
Jackson and his men did not come back to the hideout in time. Aaron felt something went wrong, so he came down here himself.
“Sulphur, blood… and something else.” Sniffing the air, Aaron’s eyebrows frowned together. With the Blessing power, Aaron was more sensitive to environment in general than common people.
Aaron could tell that someone had cleaned this place up before. But there were still slight traces of blood, brain tissue, acid and sulphur on the ground, showing that a fierce struggle just happened here.
“Acid… sulphur…” Aaron was thinking out loud, “Acid Splash? It was a typical apprentice spell. An apprentice sorcerer did all this?!” Aaron could not believe his guess, but the reasoning did make sense.
The person who did this had left quite a while before he arrived. It was too late for Aaron to track the responsible. Aaron was also concerned that what they were doing would be reported to the church or nobles.
It was still possible to track him if he turned to the priests of Silver Horn for help, but Aaron would not. He knew their magic could not guarantee finding the person, and more importantly, if the person had already reported what they did to the church, what he should do immediately was escape.
Then Aaron quickly turned around and disappeared in the darkness. Only his footsteps were still echoing there in the sewers.
…………
Lying in the bed, Lucien was too nervous to fall asleep. Any little noise could scare Lucien out of the bed. Since there was no chance for him to have a good rest for now, he decided to take a look at the ring again. Doing research could calm Lucien down, and also if his enemies did find him, the ring might help.
Inside the ring there was a solid geometric model, of which the structure was not very complicated. With his high school mathematics and physics knowledge, it only took Lucien an hour to finish the analysis. But when Lucien was trying to imprint his spiritual mark on the magic structure, he almost failed during the process. His soul was damaged and Lucien felt his power totally unstable.
With great effort, the magic structure was finally imprinted with Lucien’s mark. The information of the ring came to his mind:
“The original owner of the ring, Ice Revenger, was a sorcerer apprentice who was betrayed by his best friend. In order to take his revenge, the apprentice turned to a great alchemist for help and spent all his money on that. The ring felt ice-cold, so he could bear the bitterness of being betrayed in his mind. A second circle spell, Palmeira’s Frost Blades, was sealed in the ring. The spell could torture people with bitter cold and pain.”
The ring could help promoting the spiritual power of its owner to match a level one knight’s strength. Furthermore, its owner could also use Palmeira’s Frost Blades once a day. Therefore, it was a middle-rank level two magic item.
Lucien was not going to wear the ring for now, since it would definitely draw some attention and bring him unnecessary trouble, but he decided to carry the ring in his pocket, just in case.
…………
Lucien woke up early at dawn with a bad headache. He felt dizzy and also had a fever. His physical weakness was caused by his internal injury from the magic backfire.
There was no time for breakfast. Lucien wanted to report the heretics to Lord Venn as soon as possible. After changing to new linen clothes, he pushed the door open and headed towards Lord Venn’s manor.
The cool air outside was refreshing. He took a deep breath and felt his headache lessened. After forty minutes walking, Lucien finally saw the magnificent manor.
Lord Venn was a level two knight who used to pledge his allegiance to the Violet Knights. The grand duke of Orvarit and him became good friends when the grand duke was still the Violet Count and the commander of the Violet Knights. When Lord Venn became older, he left the fortress in the Dark Mountain Range and started having a more peaceful lifestyle here. But from time to time, he was summoned to the palace to be the grand duke’s military consultant.
The manor was surrounded by a high wall and several watchtowers, demonstrating the owner’s military background.
Outside of the manor, a number of farmers had already started working. Two young men in their grey knight squire uniforms were patrolling, followed by some guards.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Noticing Lucien was walking towards them, a dark blond knight asked sternly.