Chapter 166: The Darkness underneath the Explosion
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
It was dark inside the museum. As the wax statues standing along both sides of the aisles were very vivid in the gla.s.s covers, many of the visitors were both impressed and a bit scared.
"Great work! The only difference is that the statue has a skil slightly darker than mine!" Viscount Wright laughed. "Great art skill, Mr. Saugus! If I stand together with him here at night, I bet no one could tell who is real."
Because of the attack earlier, Saugus" face looked quite gloomy. Hearing the viscount"s praise, Saugus cheered up a bit, "My lord, the statue was customized for you when you just came back from Holm. At that time, your skin did look a bit darker."
"Haha… Saugus, you just won"t give me any chance to say that your work is not perfect, will you?" Viscount Wright laughed again, even louder, "You reminded me, and that"s true. When I came back in July, my skin was quite tanned."
"Yes, yes… I almost could not recognize you at that time." Granneuve followed the words of the viscount in a flattering smile. Then, he took a glance at Harrison Brown and said to Wright, "My lord, it was Harrison Brown who was the target of these attackers. I wonder if I should stay away from him. After all, I"m not a knight."
Wright tidied his clothes a bit and answered, "No worries. Although those sorcerers want to kill Brown, they cannot afford losing more of their people, especially their important members, or they would just directly send a middle-rank sorcerer here and easily kill Brown. However, if that was the case, the sorcerer would be caught later for sure. So, even if there are still more attacks, they would not get close to us."
"I see… That definitely makes sense, my lord," answered Granneuve, although still feeling concerned.
"Just appreciate Mr. Saugus"s artworks. If anything really happens, you"ll have my protection." Viscount Wright added.
"Thank you… thank you, my lord!" Granneuve, who always claimed to be the most loyal servant of the viscount, hurriedly showed his grat.i.tude.
Hearing the viscount"s words, the rest of the n.o.bles also felt a bit more relieved.
On the other side of the museum, with the black suitcase in his hand, Lucien calmly walked toward the end of the corridor.
After a couple of turns, Lucien found a corner where there was no one, except only a few empty gla.s.s covers that were waiting for the upcoming wax statues.
Quickly calculating the distance between Brown and himself, Lucien carefully hid the suitcase after taking away the Thales inside and opening the secret layer.
Underneath the layer, there were ten tubes of Flame Gel and a pack of gunpowder, as well as a very long rope piling in circles.
Furthermore, these tubes of Flame Gel were way more powerful with regards to the explosive compared with their original version. Lucien had got sulphur, nitric acid and some other equipment and made nitroglycerin out of them. Then he added it into the pre-made Flame Gel.
The reason why Lucien did not directly use nitroglycerin only was that he would need the power waves produced by the Flame Gel later on.
On the previous night, Lucien had calculated the speed of the rope being burned. After placing the rope and the extra pack of gunpowder properly, Lucien lit the rope on fire with a flintstone.
Even the rope was specially treated by Lucien. He soaked the rope in a chemical liquid in advance to make sure the burning was steady and stable.
After finis.h.i.+ng all the work, Lucien lowered his black top hat and walked back to the crowd in a swift but calm pace.
The tiny sound of a rope burning in a secret corner was almost impossible to hear.
The process was slow, but it was steadily going on.
Two minutes later, Lucien came back to the crowd. He saw the n.o.bles were still chatting, walking around and appreciating the artworks.
"One minute to go," Lucien thought to himself.
...
Brown was hoping that one day his own wax statue could be made by the city museum.
Close to him, Mr. Saugus was busy with talking to a couple of n.o.bles, discussing the issue of making more new wax statues for them.
Brown also wanted to talk to Saugus. When Brown was walking to him, he saw a black-haired and black-eyed young man who was observing a wax statue very carefully. The young man was wearing a black top hat and an elegant-looking monocle, which was a typical popular dressing style from Holm.
"The fas.h.i.+on of Holm is now influencing Sturk," thought Brown to himself, "Indeed, many young n.o.bles in Sturk are following this trend."
Brown felt that probably he should try this style some day as well.
As he was thinking, Brown was already beside Saugus.
The adventurer-looking night watcher closely followed Brown on his left side to protect him from any sudden attack.
Fifteen seconds, fourteen seconds …
Lucien left the showcase and walked toward Brown.
Six, five…
Lucien brushed past Brown.
As Lucien was walking, he counted silently in his mind, "Four, three…"
"Mr. Saugus, I wonder if…" Brown talked to the owner of the museum.
"Two, one…"
Bang! There came a thunderous sound of explosion!
The great explosion brought a fierce blast, and the whole museum was shaken by it!
The horrible sound actually consisted of a few waves of explosion, and together with it, the power of magic waves were also very powerful.
The explosion happened one second later than Lucien"s expectation, probably because the change of wind or something else, but since Lucien was on high alert, as soon as the explosion happened, he quickly took action.
The first circle spell: Charm Person.
The target of the spell was Brown.
After obtaining the Book of Necromancy and a.n.a.lyzing the necromantic way of meditating, Lucien found that the shared principle of most necromantic spells was to affect human being"s hormone secretion and sensorial judgement by using some kind of special brain waves.
Based on this, Lucien developed two new versions of Charm Person. One put more emphasis on the influence of the magic on the individual"s soul, which in exchange would reduce the power from the intervention of brain waves. Thus, it worked better on sorcerers, but would also produce stronger magic waves and was hence easier to be noticed or identified. Meanwhile, the other one was the opposite version, which was more for common people.
As the latter was very hard to be noticed, it worked perfectly right now. And also because Brown"s power was awakened by the potion, his willpower was not as strong as those knights who made this achievement on their own.
At that moment, the tiny magic waves produced by Lucien"s spell were impossible to be noticed, specially because the explosion blast was totally overwhelming!
No one present noticed Lucien"s casting.
The white light burst out again from Brown"s amulet for the third time, only one second slower than Lucien"s movement. However, Brown suddenly looked very confused for a second before he was covered by the feathers.
The great explosion made the whole museum shake fiercely, and the strong magic waves indicated that it was likely that a middle-rank mage was launching that attack. At the same time, the night watcher, Viscount Wright and other knights immediately took action: some of them took a defensive stance, while others rushed to the place where the explosion originally happened.
n.o.ble ladies were screaming. Most people present terribly panicked. Everything here was a great chaos.
And they started to flood out of the museum, pus.h.i.+ng and shoving.
Seeing that Brown protected himself well with the feathers, the night watcher alertly looked around when most of the grand knights were away to check the place which got exploded.
Anyone dare set a step close to Brown would be killed by the night watcher right on the spot.
As the night watcher was checking around, he saw the young man wearing the black top hat was also pus.h.i.+ng other people to hurriedly get closer to the gate to escape. His elegant monocle was now hanging on his ear awkwardly.
"Useless…" thought the night watcher out of contempt.
And then the young man got out of the museum hall together with the crowd.