Chapter Fifty-One Message

  As he pressed down on the last key, Lucien raised his hands and listened quietly to the reverberations of the melody in the music room, with a faint sense of accomplishment in his heart.

  It's not that I'm going to plagiarize the fate symphony for myself, but because within the past three weeks, apart from studying magic, I've devoted all my energy to practicing piano. In the morning, at the music library, virtual playing, just like Pierrot, completely immersed in the world of music. At noon, hastily eating lunch, no rest, directly going to Mr. Victor's house and the association's piano room, practicing until evening, only when Mr. Victor comes over to guide me will I play simple tunes.

  There is gain with effort, and Lucien can now barely play the Symphony of Fate without being called noise. Although many technical places are still incomplete, anyone who has a deep understanding of music will definitely discover the precious value hidden in this song.

  I'm sure Mr. Viktor is no exception. Lucien put away his pride in his improved piano skills and stood up, because he himself was very aware that this improvement was seriously deformed, relying solely on a large amount of practice, repetitive practice, and superhuman memory to play this piece of music. For other pieces with slightly higher difficulty, he still couldn't play them, each one requiring a long time of similar effort, far inferior to those who had laid a solid foundation before starting to practice more difficult pieces.

  Turning around, Lucien saw Phyllis's plump lips stuck to the flute, but she didn't blow it. Her ruby-like eyes were filled with puzzlement staring at him, and her bright face even had a lingering surprise.

  "The melody you just played..." Phyllis stopped practicing her flute and was about to leave when she heard Lucien's smooth final phrase. Although the technique was still immature and the rhythm a bit slow, it somehow sounded pretty good, which made her unbelievable.

  Lucien disrupted the melody of the Destiny Symphony with his trash chord, causing people to only hear one segment at a time. Every time they were about to feel a pleasant sensation, they would be interrupted by the trash chord. As a result, Phyllis and others in the same room thought that Lucien's playing skills were improving, but didn't think much of the music he wrote until just now, when Lucien played the final part smoothly and fluently, completing the ending melody with one breath, which gave Phyllis a strong sense of contrast.

  There are still three days, and the music festival is only a week away. Lucien plans to find an opportunity to ask Mr. Viktor to "appreciate" his composition tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Therefore, he is not flustered by Phyllis's doubts, but instead thinks it's just right, making them feel this way. Even if Phyllis didn't notice today, Lucien plans to find an opportunity tomorrow to make them feel a similar surprise.

  "Phyllis, what's your opinion?" Lucien flashed a "sincere", polite smile.

  Ferris put down his flute and opened his mouth: "This... you... your playing skills have improved a lot."

  She still doesn't think that's the melody written by Lucien himself, attributing the reason to the improvement of Lucien's piano playing skills, and that music should be some piano piece she hasn't heard before, after all, she mainly learns flute.

  Lucien just wanted to give her an impression, seeing that she didn't ask, he smiled and said: "Thanks for the compliment, Phyllis. Night is falling soon, and it looks like there might be a storm tonight, so I should head back first."

  In the "harvest month" (September), the weather is still sweltering, and with the dark mountain range blocking the seasonal wind, the entire Wawel Hill Park is in a basin, so in recent months, every few days there has been a torrential rain, and today, before six o'clock, the sky was already as dark as seven or eight o'clock, humid and sultry, as if heavy rain would pour down at any moment.

  "See you tomorrow, Lucien." Phyllis replied normally for once, then watched as Lucien walked out of the music room, her face still filled with doubt even though she had already come to a conclusion.

  At this time, Lott and Hierodotus had left for a while, leaving her without an object to negotiate with.

  Lucien went downstairs and saw the butler, Ace, directing the servants to sweep the hall. He walked up and asked, "Mr. Ace, where is Mr. Victor? I have something to discuss with him." Since Phyllis had already noticed, Lucien was also preparing to move things forward - after all, it's always better to be early than late.

  Ace was always serious and polite: "Mr. Viktor has gone to the cemetery, he may not be back until very late, Mr. Lucien, is it urgent?"

  "It's okay for tomorrow." Lucien didn't know how long he would have to wait, so he put it off until tomorrow. He still had to go back and conduct his magic experiments, which was the real path he would take in the future.

  During this period, Lucien basically understood the "Arcane" magazine and quickly improved his basic knowledge with the literature, data, books and other materials that could be opened in the library. It was a stage of rapid progress in magic analysis, construction and application. For example, Lucien combined some frequency and vibration knowledge to transform the structure and construction process of the sound wave magic "Hormantz's Cough". After many experiments, he created two new apprentice-level informal magics that may not be available at the Continental Magic Council headquarters.

  In comparison, Lucien's progress in terms of soul and spiritual power is far behind his fusion of knowledge and magic, as well as his understanding of magic. He still lacks a bit to reach the level where he can continuously cast ten apprentice-level spells, becoming an official magical apprentice, which is the opposite of the usual situation for magical apprentices. This stage is actually a period of rapid growth in spiritual power, and as long as one's talent isn't too poor, they can become a high-ranking magical apprentice within one to two years, so it's normal for knowledge mastery to lag behind spiritual power growth.

  …………

  As the evening grew darker, Lucien walked into Aunt Elisa's house and casually glanced at the corner of the wall of the neighboring house. Suddenly, he found that a new mark had appeared in the position where the original mark was erased.

  [There's news of an evil creature......] Lucien walked into Aunt Elisa's house with a nonchalant expression, as if his gaze had just happened to fall that way.

  "Respected Professor Sir, wise one has news of evil creatures. Tonight at 10 o'clock, same place as before. Owl."

  After several consecutive times of not attending the secret gathering, did they finally lure themselves with the news of the evil creature? Lucien thought about this while eating black bread with potato stewed beef. Would it be a trap? If so, was it the owner of the crow or someone else?

  After thinking for a long time, Lucien decided to sneak out and observe first, roughly confirming that there was no ambush before meeting with Smiley and the Sage.

  As long as the blood of evil creatures is obtained, vengeful spirits can be summoned. After collecting the powder of vengeful spirits, Lucien can rest assured to make money and try to buy Moonlight Rose.

  But before that, we need to prepare some items.

  …………

  At night, in Lucien's magic laboratory.

  On the surface of the stone table, where an alchemy formation was carved, a black vessel about the size of a cup was placed. A blue flame was burning at its bottom, and inside it, a red molten lava-like substance was churning.

  Lucien's face was solemn, his left hand holding a 20cm long coarse ceramic rod, carefully stirring the red ** inside, while his right hand grasped a glass tube, slowly tilting it to let the black ** drip into the container, mixing with the red **.

  Every drop of black liquid that fell would stir up a burst of white mist, causing the red liquid to suddenly contract and solidify, as if it were about to explode. Fortunately, Lucien's left hand assisted in stirring, along with his precise control over the alchemy array using his spiritual energy, preventing an experimental accident from occurring.

  As soon as the black liquid was poured out, Lucien placed his right hand on the alchemy formation and altered its operation. A thread of red lines appeared, wrapping around the black container. At the same time, Lucien recited an incantation with a twisted tone, and his left index finger shot out a beam of light emitting white cold air, which fell into the black container.

  Extreme heat meets frost, and there is a drastic change immediately. White mist rises, with even an explosive trend, but being wrapped in those red threads, it gradually stabilizes.

  Thick white mist dissipates, a small amount of red viscous substance appears in the black vessel, and as it flows, it seems to have flames burning.

  Lucien finally let out a breath of relief, pouring the red viscous substance into a glass tube and sealing it tightly. This was exactly what the witch had prepared to refine as "Blazing Adhesive".

  After collecting the experimental materials, Lucien began to experiment with alchemy. According to the witch's description, the power of "Blazing Adhesive" was not small, and based on Lucien's previous few experiments that ended in failure and minor burns, as well as the power test using a small amount of "Blazing Adhesive", it could be seen that it was similar to gasoline bombs, only with insufficient explosive force.

  Lucien originally wanted to refine some nitroglycerin and add it, but considering the danger and the fact that he didn't have a good protective spell at present, he temporarily gave up.

  Open the box in the magic laboratory, and there are seven tubes inside. These are Lucien's alchemy achievements during this period of time. There are two tubes of "Blazing Glue", three tubes of "Brown Owl" that accelerate spiritual power recovery, with the brown substance constantly bubbling violently inside, and the other two tubes are "Stormy Weather" that treat injuries and overdraw physical strength.

  Lucien took out the seven tubes of magical potion and inserted them, along with the tube of "Blazing Adhesive" he had just refined, into a secret pocket near his waist on his black robe. The inside was lined with many small pieces of velvet to prevent the glass test tubes engraved with magic symbols from colliding with each other during intense movements.

  Having done all that, Lucien opened his own magical notebook on the desk and looked at the two new apprentice-level magic structures and construction processes written on the left and right pages.

  This is Lucien's modification of the "Hormone Cough" sound wave magic based on his knowledge of vibration and frequency, after hundreds of experiments and attempts. The spiritual power required is equivalent to a stellar system magic, and its function is very special. Although it is not very useful in actual combat, it will have an astonishing effect in special situations.

  Quietly watching the two spells for a while, Lucien took out his feather pen and wrote a row of fancy words at the top of each page to give them names:

  "Bats' Scream"

  "The Professor's Resonant Hand"

  After finishing this, Lucien walked out of the magic laboratory and returned to the small house, lying on the bed to recover his spiritual power. At 9:40, he pulled down his hood and went out of the door.