Throne of Magical Arcana - Chapter 163

Chapter 163: The Requirement of Ferryman

In the separate dining room on the second floor, Granneuve was smoking a thick, black cigar, and he commented in a rude way, “A lady musician is surely way better than those chicks who wanted to directly jump on my lap after receiving a couple of gifts from me.”

“But… my lord, I don’t think Miss Grace really likes you very much.” His closest safeguard whispered to him.

Granneuve was not pissed off, instead, he laughed, “What do you know? This is all about a sense of achievement! You see… conquering a reserved-mannered lady with my own charm, haha!”

“Charm…” The safeguard was speechless. However, as Granneuve’s closest safeguard, he knew that all of Granneuve’s rude behaviors were just his disguise. If he was really good at nothing, how came he became one of the maintainers of the secret order in Sturk.

At that time, Grace came in.

Granneuve hurriedly stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray and asked, “Grace, why do your eyes look a bit red? What happened?”

“Nothing serious. Just feel quite dry in my eyes.” Grace easily found a random excuse.

“I’ll let my family doctor send you some potions tonight, then, for your eyes.” Granneuve looked quite concerned.

“Thank you, Mr. Granneuve.” Grace nodded. Then, she handed him the tightly-folded small piece of paper and at the same time she picked up a glass of wine with her left hand.

Granneuve thought that his effort paid off. As this beauty was just too shy to express her affection toward him directly, he thought that what Grace just gave him was a short love message.

Grace took a sip of the wine, and when Granneuve was opening the folded paper, she slowly explained, “Mr. Granneuve, this is a message to you from a gentleman that I met downstairs.”

“Humm…” Granneuve was a bit surprised. And when he actually saw what was written on the small piece of paper, his brows frowned a bit but soon his facial expression returned back to normal, “Ha… one of my previous acquaintances… always thinking about things in the past.” Granneuve casually waved his hand and burned down the piece of paper with a match, then he asked with a smile, “Grace, what does that gentleman look like?”

“Black hair… black eyes, decent looks. Sorry, I didn’t know that the message would bother you, Mr. Granneuve. I thought I was just doing that man a favor, since he looked quite polite,” apologized Grace.

Her description about Lucien was very blurry. Black hair, black eyes, decent looking… That was all Granneuve could get from her words.

“No worries, no worries, Miss Grace! Nothing really important.” Granneuve waved his hand again, “Don’t let him disturb our romantic dinner.”

Grace nodded. Inside of her mind, she was a bit relieved, since she fulfilled the task given by Mr. Evans, and maybe she could still maintain her dream life hopefully.

…

In a dark corner beside Shark, Lucien, who had changed part of his look by using the first circle spell, Disguise, was watching as Granneuve sent Grace back home with a fancy pointy-headed boat.

“Get out, my friend. I know you’re there,” said Lucien to the darkness all of a sudden.

A black figure showed up in the wall and walked out, “It was you who was tracing all the time.”

The person who said this was a middle-aged man. His face was thin, and he had light brown hair hanging down to his shoulders. His brown eyes were sharp and clod. And Lucien knew that he was not one of Granneuve’s safeguards.

“Are you a sorcerer?” asked the middle-aged man, staring at this black-haired and black-eyed young man.

“Of course. If I was not a sorcerer, why would I bother trying to get into contact with Mr. Granneuve to get to Allyn?”

At the same time, when he was speaking, Lucien did not disguise his power waves preparing for casting spells.

“I see, but…” The middle-aged man smiled, “but you might get something wrong here, my friend. Granneuve’s not the liaison from the congress, but I am. Please call me Ferryman.”

Because of the magic, Lucien’s facial expression looked a bit stiff. Although he was a bit surprised, there was not much showing on his face.

“You’re not the only one who got the wrong information. Actually, lots of people thought Granneuve was the liaison.” Ferryman added, “That makes sense since he is very influential in maintaining the secret underground order of Sturk. So we also keep tracing and monitoring him all the time as well, in order to find you folks.”

Lucien was not really nervous toward the fact that he might have sent the message to the wrong person, since the message he left on the paper was of nothing special but just a common sorcerer seeking for help from the liaison of the Congress of Magic. Lucien directly called Granneuve the liaison of the Congress of Magic in the letter, instead of using his name, and left the place and time for their meeting.

However, Lucien never really expected that Granneuve would actually send someone to meet him according to the message left by him, after all, it was obviously too risky for him. His real purpose was that he wanted to inform Granneuve that someone was tracing him, so he would secretly send his people to find out who was this person.

And then Lucien would let them find himself on purpose to get into contact with Granneuve’s people in a less risky way.

Facing this middle-aged man, Lucien did not really believe his words. After all, Lucien did not really think that Felipe would lie to the apprentices and necromancers right in front of Professor, who also came from the Congress of Magic.

“How do you prove your words?” asked Lucien calmly.

“Well… I don’t need to prove myself.” Ferryman grinned, “If you don’t trust me, I can leave right now. But think about it, if I was really a night watcher, when you’re already exposed, why I’d bother talking to you, a first circle sorcerer? I would just show up with other pastors and cardinals in Sturk and kill you in a second.”

From Lucien’s power waves, he could roughly tell Lucien’s strength.

“All right… That’s true.” Lucien shrugged.

“But shall I trust you?” Ferryman shook his head, “There are a few night watchers who were sorcerers themselves before, but they betrayed us. Also, two months ago, when Mr. Felipe was leading the other twenty-two sorcerers to cross the blockage of the Church, they got exposed. However, he broke the blockage by force and made the leaders of the Church more than furious. The Church did a throughout check and we suffered a great loss because of the betrayers, and they also ranked Felipe no. 359 on the Cleansing list.”

Lucien first thought when he heard Ferryman’s words was that his ranking now fell to no. 360, after Felipe, which for sure did not make him feel good.

“Then how do you want me to prove myself?” asked Lucien. He still did not trust the man who just showed up tonight in front of him.

“Our traditional practice… you find someone from the congress to prove your identity, for example, the person who told you where the congress is and who is the liaison in Sturk.”

“He left already. I don’t even know his name.” Of course Lucien would not say that it was Felipe.

“Well… that’s common, too.” Ferryman nodded, “Then you have to do something to prove yourself.”

“Like what?” wondered Lucien.

“Last month, a man betrayed us. Although his Blessing was awakened by the potion given by the congress, this man deserted to the Church and offered them lots of our secret information. Many of our people died, including more than thirty very promising apprentices. They died in Storm Strait,” said Ferryman. The muscles in his face looked more conspicuous as he was speaking.

Lucien did not respond but waited for Ferryman’s further explanation.

“Now this traitor is living a wonderful life and was rewarded a Knight’s Cross by the city council. If you can kill him, you can definitely prove that you have nothing to do with the Church.”