Throne of Magical Arcana - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Things that travels together with me

The sunlight at dusk pierces the crimson clouds at sunset, illuminated the Square of Adrien’s Cathedral. The small, shining “sun” that the bishop was holding no longer shined. He hung it back to his chest and walked back into the cathedral.

In the middle of the square, the witch in black had already been burned into ashes, but still, in the atmosphere, echoed her hysterical cursing and laughing. Many citizens were scared about her “testament”. They followed the bishop and the priests into the church, praying sincerely, confessing their sin to the God.

Lucien, who can still remember the blinding light, and remember the holy and mighty strength inside the spell, now accepted his new identity without any hesitance. He buried everything about his past in his mind and didn’t dare to act any different

“The divine art looks so powerful, do I even have a chance to learn it?”

Lucien, without any reverence that a normal citizen should have, was now shocked by and dreaming about the power of the divine art. Suddenly, a “juggernaut” struck on his left shoulder, almost knocking him down to the left.

“Oh! My poor little Evans, you finally recovered! Gloria in Excelsis Deo. I’m just afraid that you would be like your father, got sick and never recovered. Thank god for letting this good boy live.”

Lucien got away from being shocked right after he got knocked. There was a woman with gray hair standing next to him, as wide as two people standing together. She was weeping and patting with her “bearish” paw on Lucien’s shoulder.

Lucien moved slightly to the right, preventing himself from getting his crap hit out of him. He wanted to start talking, but finds nothing to speak, “What should I call her? I remember my full name is Lucien Evans……”

The women looked even sadder when Lucien dodged from her: “Poor little Evans, you must have suffered a lot from the illness! Look at your face, “

Lucien was really embarrassed, as a “traveler”, except for the fact that he could say and understand the language here, he doesn’t inherit any of the memories from the previous owner of this body. If he made a wrong response, others would probably be “mistaken” that he has been possessed by a demon. Well, obviously, the “Lucien”’s soul was now possessed by a demon, a demon from the 21st century.

Luckily, a middle-aged man patted the aunt’s back, trying to placate her: “Alyssa, little Evans has just recovered, his mind is still really weak now, don’t fuss him. Irwin, hold your mom, let’s go home.”

The man speaking was thin, humble backed, with half-white hair that was blonde before, wrinkles on his face were telling how handsome their owner was before.

In Lucien’s face, however, this uncle looked like an angel with a pure halo, saving him from being nervous and embarrassed.

“Aunt Alyssa, it’s all good now, I just felt a little dizzy.” Lucien was preparing his words carefully, trying to not give himself away.

Irwin, the little boy who took Lucien to the church, made a grimace and said: “Lucien is not that kind of coward who dies by illness, only you still thinks he is the child that needs your care.”

“The damn, evil witch in hell shall be blamed for everything!” Aunt Alyssa was still weeping, “Oh…I feel much better when I saw you recover.”

Leaning on Irwin’s arm, Aunt Alyssa was garrulous on her way home: “When she just moved to the house next to yours, she was so pretty and elegant. I’m even thinking that it would be the grace of God if little John can marry a girl like that——But, but she is a witch! And she stole the corpse from the graveyard for her evil magic! Fortunately, the glory of the Lord rises upon us, her evil plan was discovered by the Night Watchman. I’m afraid that everyone in Adrien Area will die if she finished her evil magic.”

Lucien was walking behind her with the middle-aged uncle, and he basically learned about the whole thing through Aunt Alyssa’s grumble. The witch was captured by the Night Watch while stealing corpses in the graveyard. As her neighbor, Lucien himself was also seized by the church and interrogated. There may be been some divine arts involved during the interrogation, which eliminated the suspicion but also dealt physical or mental damage to him. Such damage made Lucien sick to death, and that explained why his body is spiritually possessed.

Getting no response from Lucien, the middle-aged uncle patted Lucien’s shoulder, and whispers to comfort him, “Alyssa is such kind of a garrulous person, just pretend like you didn’t hear that.”

Doesn’t know what to take, Lucien could only keep nodding his head.

The middle-aged uncle looked at Aunt Alyssa’s back and made a silent sigh: “Ah…Alyssa was such a pure and passionate beautiful girl back then, but she’s like being cursed by the devil after little John was born, and um, became what she’s like now in just one year.”

Seemingly he was now filled with sighs of human life, and his eye deep and penetrating the air——he paused——and said, “I am no match for her in any fighting anymore…”

Lucien was greatly shocked by the reality of traveling through space and time, and witnessed the power of divine arts up close, he currently felt really unsettled, and therefore he smiled reluctantly, and made no response to that——further he doesn’t even know that name of that uncle.

Probably the uncle was recalling so deep that he forgot to control his voice, Alyssa heard that and gives a sniff: “Joel, the energetic and aspiring bard, the young man who overcame innumerable trials and hardship to pursue his music dream in Alto, does you not also became a Scottish drunkard all day now?”

Joel smiled with slight embarrassment, “Alton is the city of chant, every day there are countless young dudes with their music dreams, but few accomplishes. Anyways, Alyssa, didn’t I quit drinking after little John starts his training?”

Aunt Alyssa turned back and glared at him, “Fortunately there’s the God blessing us, you know that John and Irwin are our hope. If John wasn’t exercising hard every day, how could he be selected by Sir Wayne, and start official training to be a knight? If he can activate the “Divine Favor” in his bloodline, and become a real knight, he would eventually be given the title of Lord, and became a Reverend noble under the Archduke.”

Joel shrank his shoulder under the rigorous glare, but Alyssa soon realized the absent-minded Lucien at her side, “Oh, I’m sorry Lucien, I didn’t mean to intentionally bring that up, you have the gift too, it’s, it’s just you didn’t start training early enough……”

Realizing that speaking more will only make Lucien feel worse, Alyssa immediately zipped her lips and signaled Joel to talk with her eyes.

Joel laughed, and patted Lucien’s shoulder, “How could our little Lucien be so fragile, he is the man who’s gonna inherit the music dream of his Uncle Joel.”

Clearly still with his mind in a turbulent sea, Lucien reluctantly smiled, “Of course, my dream is to become a musician.”

Knowing that Lucien still felt awkward, Alyssa kept talking about all kinds of trial matter, which allowed Lucien to know more about the city he lives in.

This was a huge city called Alto, near the Mount Obscurité. It had the name of “the City of Melodious Chant”, flourishing, and full of opportunity.

The place Lucien was currently living was District Adrien, the most impoverished area in Alto, and seemingly he lost his job of cargo carriage in the Trading area, due to days of sickness.

Really quickly, the four persons arrived at Lucien’s small hotel.

Alyssa invited Lucien to her house for dinner, but Lucien, who was badly in need of staying alone, euphemistically declined her invitation.

Upon leaving, Irwin curiously whispered to Lucien, “Brother Lucien, when did your dream become a musician?”

“Just then.” Lucien numbly opened his mouth.

“Oh——OK…”, said Irwin.

Walking into the room, locking the door, Lucien sat down with his mind being somewhat unhinged. He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his head deep in his elbows.

“Seriously I traveled!?”

“And I traveled to such a world with supernatural power…”

“Which I will be easily tied to the stake and burn to death if not being cautious…”

The emotions that emerged from witnessing the witch’s tragedy finally came out when there was nobody nearby, Lucien was so shocked and scared. 

Lucien was usually shy and easily flurried. However, even under the pressure brought by the great changes, he managed to keep calm until now.

Bitter experiences and environments sharpened someone.

Time passed and night came, Lucien finally assuaged himself from the horror and calmed down. Since the travel already occurred, fears and worries would not help anyways. The only thing he could do now was to be cautious and go step by step——there was probably no chance of any travels happening anymore

Lucien recovered his fluctuating emotion and soothed his thoughts and worries about his parents and friends. When he started attempting to plan his future action, Lucien immediately felt the turbulent hunger, his stomach was almost on fire, along with the secretion of saliva.

Lucien swallowed his saliva reluctantly, the urgent affair now was to fill my stomach, he halted his thoughts, and toward the only crate that is able to store things in the room.

In the worn-out crate, other than several clothes, there were two loaves of black, bread-shaped food, and seven brass coin with metallic luster shining.

Stomach had already replaced Lucien’s brain, with no energy to think about more, he just grabbed a loaf of bread and bit on it.

CLICK, Lucien suddenly covered his cheek with both hands, it nearly broke my tooth, is that a bread or a wooden stick!?

Smelling it again, Lucien barely confirmed the fact it was a loaf of bread——just hard enough to stun an adult man.

Stifling his hunger, Lucien turned the crate inside out and found the flint. After several failures, he lit the firewoods in a rough stove and started toasting the bread like people normally do.

“Red Braised Pork, Hot Chicken Wings, Flour-Steamed Beef, Kung Pao Chicken…”, while baking the bread, Lucien kept talking to himself——with even more saliva.

The black bread is a little softer, Lucien couldn’t even wait and started biting it, the horrible taste was like chewing sawdust.

Lucien kept wolfing the food down his throat, but can’t stop himself from lamenting, “I would rather die if I’m going to eat such food every day. Nope, I much find ways to earn some cash, and escape such life as a pauper.”

“If I can learn the divine arts, and became a priest or even the bishop…” Lucien started daydreaming when he thought about the dapper bishop and priests, their noble status coming after their supernatural power. He was palpitating with excitement and eagerness, “but in my case, am I not courting death if I just go to the church? Is there any other way to gain superhuman power? Such as the Divine Bless?”

“If there’s no way for me to gain such power, will the knowledge I learned back then work in this world?”

Being temporarily free from hunger, Lucien started seriously mapping his way for surviving; when he was recalling his past knowledge, Lucien suddenly realized that there was something else in his brain.

Feeling it carefully, Lucien was amazed and opened his eyes wide, “Is that a library? They traveled together with me?”

There was an entire comprehensive library from his college, unlike memories, it was more like a projection, arranged in subjects, for Lucien to read through.

Lucien was extremely curious and he read the books.

Yet, unfortunately, and for some strange reason, most of the books were locked