Chapter 2647 Forehead Chain <TOC> Chapter 2649 The Past
Translator: SumTLMan
Angel said nothing. He merely gazed quietly at Cecia.
Being stared at so intently gave Cecia goosebumps. She had the distinct feeling that Angel had already guessed her inner thoughts.
After all, it was she who changed her mind so abruptly. Feeling awkward about it, Cecia could only turn away, avoiding Angel’s gaze: “If you’re not curious about anything, then I’ll just take a little rest…” Or, more precisely, calm the sudden fear that had washed over her.
As soon as Cecia finished speaking, the black fog that shrouded the palace began to gather, as if intending to encircle Cecia on the throne completely.
Just before Cecia’s figure vanished into the darkness, Angel spoke up: “Then shall we talk about these treasures?”
“Treasures?” Cecia stopped manipulating the black fog, hesitated, and looked at Angel:
“You mean these treasures?”
With a light wave of her hand, four items hovered into view——
A dark crystal ball, a piece of stitched parchment still somewhat wrinkled around the edges, a faintly glowing cane made of vine, and a plain, undecorated slab of bluish-gray stone.
These were the four treasures her visitors had handed over as payment for passage.
“That’s right. Let’s talk about these,” Angel said, then added: “Of course, if there are any other meaningful or special treasures in your collection you’d like to discuss, that’s fine too.”
Cecia eyed him warily: “If you want to hear about the treasures in my collection, that’s doable. But you have to trade other treasures with me first. Only once they belong to you will I discuss them.”
“How about these four items, though? You’re not going to make me trade first just to talk about them, are you?”
“That won’t be necessary, but…” Cecia looked at Angel with suspicion: “You don’t seem all that familiar with your companions, do you?”
“The so-called ‘meaning’ of a treasure lies in what it represents, and that significance is hidden deep in each person’s most secret corner. Even if they’re extremely close, family, even, they might not fully understand a treasure’s meaning.”
After making that point, Angel adopted a matter-of-fact tone: “Still, you’re right that I don’t know my teammates very well. We only formed a temporary team before coming here, and the one I’m closest to I’ve known for less than half a month.”
Cecia said nothing for a moment: “…In other words, you just wasted your breath with that righteous-sounding spiel.”
Angel replied: “I was just being logically consistent.”
Narrowing her eyes, Cecia said: “Are you sure you want to correct the logic of someone who used to be a prophecy witch? After being sealed away in the box, I lost my powers of prophecy, but certain stirrings of the mind remain intact.”
“…Had I known earlier that you used to be a prophecy witch, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
Prophecy wizards never conformed to ordinary logic. Their words were cryptic and erratic, sometimes referring to events that might happen days or even months later, logic hardly applied to them.
“You were the one who showed no respect for your elders and kept talking back, and now you’re blaming me?” Cecia said, somewhat exasperated.
Angel remained silent, but his eyes glimmered brightly. Seeing this all-too-familiar look, Cecia almost supplied the words in her head: “After all, I’m still under twenty years old.”
Quickly, she waved her hand: “Forget it, I don’t feel like arguing with you. But you’re pretty bold, venturing into a ruin with people you barely know.”
“Everyone is here for different reasons, but our general goal is the same, to explore the depths of the underground sewer,” Angel explained: “As long as there’s an oath in place, there shouldn’t be any serious problems.”
More importantly, Angel had his own trump cards.
“Besides, people in the Wizarding World don’t consider the underground sewer to be a major ruin at this point. At least outsiders don’t think it’s all that dangerous.”
Cecia nodded: “That’s true enough. With your team, as long as you don’t court disaster by awakening any slumbering ancient beings or deliberately stepping into places you shouldn’t, it’s not too perilous down here.”
She paused: “Anyway, back on topic, do you want me to evaluate your teammates, or the treasures they gave me?”
Angel said: “Either one works. Whatever you find easier to talk about… After all, you’re already quite worn out, and if you get even more exhausted, Popoca might end up waiting a long while.”
Angel’s tone was perfectly serious, but Cecia still felt a twinge of mockery in it.
That’s just his personality… He’s only twenty, a brash youth… Endure it… Once upon a time I was someone important, so I shouldn’t stoop to his level, I shouldn’t…
Such thoughts circled repeatedly in Cecia’s mind; though she felt stifled, she forced herself to appear calm.
“Well, you probably know your teammates better than I do, so let’s just discuss these treasures,” Cecia said: “Which one do you want to start with?”
Angel was indifferent: “Any of them will do.”
To Cecia, his casual attitude still seemed to hint that she was wasting time by avoiding her people. It was rather irritating.
Yet Cecia had misunderstood. Angel actually knew something about all four treasures. What he really wanted to learn about was the situation with the Black Count. But he didn’t want Cecia to catch on, so he acted noncommittal, if they talked about them one by one, eventually they’d get around to the Black Count.
Unaware of his true aim, Cecia silently ground her teeth and forced a smile: “Then we’ll take them in the order they came. I’ll begin with the crystal ball.”
She let the dark crystal ball float above her palm, regarding it with a rare glimmer of appreciation.
“To me, this crystal ball is more interesting than those two gold coins of yours.”
“It appears to carry a heavy aura of death, but that aura isn’t the real thing. It’s caught between life and death, seemingly on the brink yet still full of vitality.” Cecia paused: “Do you know what that implies?”
“Changing destiny,” Angel ventured.
With a soft laugh, Cecia said: “That’s too grand a phrase. It can’t really change the heavens, and it won’t rewrite destiny. All it does is lightly tug the strings of fate, averting the worst outcome.”
She summarized the core of Vai’s ability: Death Scent.
Vai ran the so-called “Death Divination Shop” under the Noah name. Those who visited him generally wished to avoid dying. They sensed that the path ahead might be fraught with mortal danger, so they came to Vai in hopes of sidestepping it.
Which made Cecia’s statement quite apt: Vai was subtly plucking the “strings of fate,” steering away from the final deathly outcome.
“How is that meaningful?” Angel asked.
“It suggests that all that seems dire on the surface secretly teems with life,” Cecia replied.
When she finished, she gently tossed the crystal ball up and caught it again. Under the dim light, Angel thought he glimpsed a faint purple shimmer within it.
“In this orb, life and death are reversed, and the strands of fate upend themselves. Even ignoring the deeper significance, it’s a fine extraordinary object. Someone on the brink of death who carries it might evade disaster by taking advantage of the death aura on its surface.”
Cecia’s concluding remark made Angel’s heart suddenly race.
He thought of Jon.
If Jon had had such an orb infused with intense death aura, yet harboring hidden life, might it have saved him from a fatal end?
That thought stirred him enough to speak up: “Miss Cecia, you’re certain this crystal ball can help someone at death’s door dodge calamity?”
Cecia gave Angel a look: “Yes, it’s possible, but its limits aren’t high. It might help an ordinary person or a low- to mid-level apprentice. Anything stronger, it becomes useless. …Why, is there someone you want to protect?”
Angel nodded: “Yes, a normal person who drifted here from another world.”
He didn’t mind revealing that Jon was from “another universe.” When a wizard hears “another world,” they rarely picture a completely separate universe; calling him merely an ‘ordinary human’ was just a general label, no different than a native inhabitant of the Abyss Plane. Angel saw no need to conceal it.
Cecia, possessing a deep well of knowledge, made the connection at once: “Erosion by the World Will?”
Angel confirmed with a nod.
“How far along is it? If it’s just begun, you might circumvent the corrosion by finding a way for him to attain transcendent attributes and embark on the extraordinary path.”
Angel lowered his gaze: “…He’s near death. Right now, we’ve only been able to freeze him in an ice coffin.”
Cecia frowned: “You let it get that bad? If you truly wished to protect him, why did you do nothing earlier?”
“He was my mentor, raising me from childhood. By the time he was already on the verge of wasting away, I finally met a passing guide. At that time, my age, ”
At the mere mention of age, Cecia cut him off: “I get it, you don’t have to go on. You met him long ago, back when you were still an ordinary child, and had no idea what was happening or how to save him, correct?”
Angel nodded: “Would this crystal ball still be of any use to him now?”
Cecia mused for a moment: “Likely not. If he’d kept it on him before he started showing signs of decline, perhaps it would’ve helped. But that death aura has already seeped into his bones, and he’s fighting the World Will. With this orb’s limited capacity, it can’t do much for him.”
Though Angel had half-expected this, the answer still dimmed the light in his eyes.
“Would you like to know more about the orb itself or about its user?” Cecia asked.
Angel pushed aside his gloom and forced himself to regain composure: “Miss Cecia, please speak freely.”
“There’s not much more to say about the orb’s properties. Its user, on the other hand, is rather intriguing. I can sense that he hates to part with the orb, yet he’s thrilled to do so at the same time; he fears his own ability, yet also takes pride in it.”
Angel nodded: “I’m aware of that, he inherited his power from the Black Count’s bloodline. The Black Count is the nose embedded in that stone slab.”
“He’s part of the Noah family?”
“Yes. Almost all the Black Count’s inherited abilities got passed on to his descendants. The Black Count scattered countless incarnations among them for ‘protection,’ though it inevitably made them suspicious.”
From her experience in the Wizarding World, Cecia said: “Usually, when something sounds odd on the surface, it turns out to be quite ordinary. And that which seems ordinary may in fact be extraordinary.”
She shrugged: “On the other hand, with extraordinary families, anything that unusual likely involves some hidden conspiracy.”
Angel asked: “Miss Cecia, so you think the Black Count harbors no ill will toward his descendants?”
“If he went so far as to pass along his own bloodline abilities, he clearly has some plan in mind. But whether it’s malicious, that’s impossible to say.”
Here, something occurred to Cecia. She picked the orb up again: “His ability was inherited from the Black Count?”
Angel nodded: “It’s called Death Scent, passed down through the Black Count’s lineage. Because it’s connected to the sense of smell, the Black Count’s ‘nose’ is the incarnation following Vai.”
“I see…” Resting her chin on her hand, Cecia thought for a while before addressing Angel again: “This crystal ball won’t help that person from another world you wish to save. But if the Black Count himself has Death Scent, and if he too can transfer that ability into some medium, maybe an orb of his own, then perhaps his ‘crystal ball’ might help your friend.”
She added cautiously: “But that’s just speculation. Given that your mentor has already reached the brink of death, in an ice coffin, even possessing the Black Count’s ‘orb’ might not truly bring him back.”
Yet these words landed like a shot of adrenaline to Angel. Just when his hopes had been dashed, they flickered again: “Even if it can’t fully heal him, it shouldn’t make things worse, right?”
Cecia nodded: “For someone whose body is healthy, even a false death aura could be harmful. But for someone already steeped in the aura of death, it may not help, yet it won’t do any harm.”
Once certain it wouldn’t hurt Jon, Angel offered Cecia a deep bow: “Thank you for telling me this.”
“So you do know how to be polite,” Cecia teased. But Angel, mindful that anything he said might come across as bickering, opted to remain silent. He felt he was being sincere, but Cecia inevitably saw it as talking back, so he just kept his mouth shut.
“Well, there’s nothing more to say about this crystal ball. Let’s move on to the next item.” Cecia gave the orb a light toss, letting it drift into the black mist. Simultaneously, a wrinkled piece of parchment descended from midair into Cecia’s hand.
“As for this parchment… I’m not sure where to begin.”
“A small twist of fate allowed an ordinary person to embark on the extraordinary path. Yet that same small twist cost him decades of his life.”
“If I were to judge, I’d sum it up with a single word: Foolish.”
Quietly, Angel thought: Indeed, that’s the same word you used before when judging Kael.
“This parchment is imbued with Kael’s obsession. Beyond that obsession, it holds little value, right?” he asked.
Cecia acknowledged: “Essentially, yes. However, I sensed something interesting about its original owner. Do you want to hear it?”
“The original owner of this parchment? Who?” Angel asked automatically. But the moment the words left his mouth, he regretted it.
He had no time to retract the question before Cecia shot him a glare: “How would I know who it was? I can only sense the meaning imprinted on the parchment and a few scraps of memory and emotion. I can’t actually glimpse the past.”
She sighed: “Besides, the parchment only dates back a few centuries. Why would I know about someone from that era, thousands of years after my time?”
Angel thought wryly, My mouth really moved faster than my brain…
He cleared his throat: “Ahem, so about this original owner…?”
Cecia shook her head: “I should label you ‘foolish’ as well.” Letting out a huff, she moved on: “Before discussing the original owner, let me ask: The formula on this parchment, does it involve a space energy equation?”
Angel nodded: “It’s a transformed variant of the Bazel Biphasic Theorem.”
“Bazel Biphasic Theorem?” Cecia, with her millennia-old background, was clearly confused.
Angel projected an illusion in the air, displaying the original form of the Bazel Biphasic Theorem: “This is the base form, created a thousand years ago by Bazel, the High Wizard of Twisted Space…”
Angel’s lengthy explanation brought nothing but bewilderment to Cecia. She had once been a prophecy witch and knew little about space theory, much less the developments made over the centuries. It was unsurprising she had no clue what he was talking about.
When Angel finally finished, Cecia meekly asked: “So you’ve also researched space theory?”
“Just a bit,” Angel replied.
“…Fine,” Cecia muttered, tamping down her annoyance: “You’re rather knowledgeable for someone so young.”
Angel shrugged: “I owe it to the pioneers who came before me. I’m only picking up their scraps.”
Afraid that Angel would continue with “I’m not even twenty yet, and I must work even harder, blah blah…,” Cecia hastily steered back to her point.
“The reason I asked whether the formula on that parchment is a space energy equation is that the parchment’s original owner wasn’t a space wizard.” Cecia clarified: “He was a wizard of the gourmet branch.”
“A gourmet wizard?” Angel echoed, remembering Kael had mentioned the relic belonging to a white wizard. He hadn’t expected it to be a gourmet wizard.
Then again, in the Southern Region, gourmet wizards were almost always white wizards. If it were the Northern Territory, where it wasn’t unheard of to cook humanoid creatures as offerings to demons, maybe you’d find a black wizard specializing in gourmet studies. But not in the Southern Region.
“So, why was a gourmet wizard studying Bazel’s Biphasic Theorem? Just out of curiosity?” Angel asked.
“Were it mere curiosity, this story wouldn’t be so amusing,” Cecia said: “He had eaten some hallucinogenic food that sparked a surge of ‘inspiration.’ Feeling all-powerful, he grabbed the closest book and started fiddling with the formulas in it.”
“…And?” Angel prompted.
“When the hallucination subsided the next day, he saw the variant form he’d scribbled and recalled everything from the night before, he was so embarrassed that he stuffed the parchment into a random book to keep it out of sight.”
She let out a soft sigh: “After that, the gourmet wizard left and forgot all about that book and the parchment inside. Much later, your teammate Kael discovered it.”
As Angel listened, his face remained composed, but inside he was floored.
To think that the backstory of Kael’s parchment was such a bizarre, almost ridiculous chain of events.
If Kael ever learned that the formula he’d spent decades analyzing came from the random scrawling of a “gourmet wizard junkie” on a hallucinatory binge, he’d be so devastated he might cough up blood on the spot…
Still, though Kael had wasted decades, that accident led him to the wizard path. Through studying that altered formula, he’d come to understand the basics of space theory.
In that sense, the gourmet wizard had done him a favor.
A drug-induced doodle from a few centuries ago inadvertently paved the way for a new space wizard a few centuries later.
Strange as it was, it truly was A Marvelous Encounter.