Chapter 100: The History

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

In the following morning, on his way to the musicians’ a.s.sociation in the administrative district, Lucien was very surprised to find that the bagatelle he played at the party last night was being played everywhere in Aalto.

Just like Victor said, it was way easier for a piece of serenade to become popular than for a symphony.

As soon as Elena saw Lucien coming into the lobby, she waved to him with a big smile on her face.

"Morning, Elena!" greeted Lucien, "Why are you so happy today?"

"I’m happy for you!" Covering her mouth, Elena giggled in a low voice, "Before you arrived, a few n.o.ble ladies came to the a.s.sociation to look for you. They were hoping that they could become your piano students. Miss Felicia’s friend, Yvette, was here as well."

Then, she handed a pile of letters to Lucien, "These are all feedbacks from musicians who live nearby."

Lucien took the letters and was about to walk upstairs, but paused a bit and turned to Elena instead, "Can you tell the ladies that this year I won’t accept any students? Apart from being the princess’ music consultant, I still have to work on producing more music."

"Mr. Lucien, how come you’re always that inspired?" Cathy’s eyes were wide open and she asked with great curiosity, "I heard that, aside from the serenade, you also finished recomposing Mr. Hersey’s Canon in D."

Lucien nodded, "I’m just hoping that I can hold my own concert as soon as possible."

"Wow…" exclaimed Elena and Cathy at the same time.

Then, Elena asked Lucien with expectancy, "I understand that you don’t want to have any student right now… but can I ask you some questions related to music once in a while?"

"Of course, we can exchange our ideas," said Lucien. The true reason that Lucien refused to have any student was that, as a sorcerer, he might be found out by the church someday and his students would be in great trouble.

After giving Joseph the music sheet of his serenade for registration, from the window Lucien saw that a purple coach was arriving, which was sent by Natasha.

...

In the study of War Gallery.

Natasha, wearing a long black dress, was introducing the books to Lucien, "Some of them are written in common tongue. I take it that you want to start to read them as soon as possible."

That was Natasha, pa.s.sionate, decisive and motivated. As soon as she decided to do something, she wanted to get it done as fast as she could.

From her introduction, Lucien had a rough idea about the different book sections in the princess’ study. At that moment, a middle-aged man came in and bowed to Natasha, "Your Grace."

Turning around, Natasha nodded to the man and then said to Lucien, "Mr. Bake, from House Hill, is a very reputable scholar and linguist. He is your designated consultant and translator for these books."

Bake was already bald in his forties. A thick pair of gla.s.ses was sitting on his round face.

"Thank you, Mr. Bake," said Lucien.

"It’s my great pleasure to serve the princess and to be your consultant, Mr. Evans," Bake bowed slightly to Lucien.

"You’re working on translating the books already, Mr. Bake?" Lucien noticed that there was a thick book under Bake’s arm with many small colorful tags among the pages.

"Yes… as you may see, Mr. Evans, translating these books takes time, and the princess told me about your hunger for knowledge. I’m hoping that I can cover as many books as possible in this study for you, Mr. Evans," answered Bake slowly.

"That’s very nice of you, Mr. Bake." Lucien was grateful, "And thank you, Your Grace." Lucien smiled to Natasha.

"It’s very sweet to see that, young as you are, Mr. Evans, you’re this interested in the ancient language and culture of Sylvanas Magic Empire. You’ll see that their culture was fascinating." Bake walked toward the desk and opened the black book in front of Lucien, "The book that I’m working on right now is Heroes’ Epic, very beautiful poems…" Bake became a bit excited.

"What is this book about?" asked Lucien, "Sorry, I’m… I’m not really well-educated with in history."

"Oh, that’s totally fine." Bake smiled. "The beauty of poem does not require its reader to have much educational background. Instead, it’s something you can feel. Get closer and take a look, Mr. Evans."

Lucien’s long fingers gently ran down the spine of the thick, black book, feeling its antiquity.

When Lucien was flipping through the pages, Bake said to him, "The poems in the book were written in memory of those great heroes who followed the lead of the G.o.d of truth and together overthrew the rule of the vicious mages."

"Fascinating." Lucien quickly went through all the pages, and then in his spirit library the copy of the book emerged on one of the bookshelves in the "Ancient Literature" entry.

Then, Lucien turned to Natasha, "Have you read these books before, Your Grace? Do you have any book that has already been translated?"

"I’ve learned Sylvanas in the n.o.ble abbey before. I don’t need translation," answered Natasha casually. "I’m going to the practicing room now. If I have any question I’ll come back for you. Enjoy your reading, Lucien."

After Natasha left, Lucien directly jumped onto the books and started to read them a.s.siduously.

...

In the following month, Lucien gradually gained a new perspective toward the continent and even this whole world from the effort he put on reading.

In order to gain great power and break the limit of the human body, lots of sorcerers and sorceresses in the past operated countless cruel experiments on human beings by infusing them with the different powers extracted from magic creatures. Most of the subjects died, but the ones who made it gained tremendous power.

Surprisingly, yet undoubtedly reasonable, following the lead of those surviving experiment subjects, people from different parts of the continent who were fed up with being bullied launched uprisings against the empire.

At the same time, the Saint Truth, with its many years of secret development, quickly gained its momentum and became the shared belief for those people. That was when the great powers derived from the magic creatures started to be called "Blessings" and the Saint Calendar started to count, followed by the epic war called "the War of Dawn", which lasted for over four hundred years.

Because Lucien was reading the translated versions of the books, all the texts were shedding glory light on the people fighting against the empire while depicting the sorcerers and sorceresses as terrifying representatives of the darkness and the devil.

At that time, Natasha’s family, House Violet, was guarding the remote west territory of Holy Heilz Empire with the great power of the Violet Knights. In the end of the War of Dawn, House Violet provided the Church with great help and became the biggest contributor to the success of taking down Aalto. The host of House Violet was thus granted the t.i.tle of the grand duke of Aalto and became independent from Holy Heilz Empire.

In the year 425 of Saint Calendar, the church held one of the most significant synods in history, discussing the topics related to the final stage of the war and the further attack toward the fiend empires across the Dark Mountain Range in the west. However, during that meeting, a great, carefully premeditated divergence over the reading of the doctrine bursted out between some of the grand cardinals and the pope.

Since then the Church was divided into two. Supported by Schachran Empire and the other duchies, the grand cardinals betrayed the pope and set up a separatist regime in the north. The westward march of the Church’s army was thus stopped.

Lucien realized that the topic of heresy in this world was way more complicated than he thought.

Knowing that the Sword Brothers were stationed on the border between the Duchy of Orvarit and Schachran Empire, Lucien asked Natasha why the Church never started to march westward again. Her answer was very obscure but meaningful, "In most believers’ eyes, the enemy within concerns us more than external threats. Today, no one except the pope knows why those cardinals betrayed us."

Lucien also read from the books that the the frontline against the heresy was formed by the north provinces of the Duchy of Orvarit, the Kingdom of Syracuse and Holy Heilz Empire. Among the total of 60 kingdoms, duchies, empires and territories on the continent, most of them retained their glory through the years. However, in some, like the Gusta Empire to the far south, the royal family had lost their control over the empire, since the several preeminent n.o.ble families in Gusta seized a major part of the political and economical power.

Besides, there was a continental sea in the center of the continent, which was called Storm Sea. Natasha’s mom was the princess from the kingdom across the Storm Strait, although very little reference could be found about that kingdom.

...

Two weeks before the new year, sitting in front of the fireplace, Lucien was reading Astrology and Magic Elements.

After the great amount of reading, now Lucien could already understand the most commonly used characters in Sylvanas.