Throne of Magical Arcana - The Magic Garden

However, there were waves on the surface of the red-colored lake under the Grand Cross, as if the lake was alive. The creepy and sharp color contrast also made Lucien very nervous, even though he was a senior apprentice who stayed relatively calm and focused all the time.
    

Carefully observing the bright and shining Grand Cross in the sky again, and comparing it with the stellar map of Astrology and Magic Elements in his spirit library, Lucien found that the arrangement of the magic lock was quite unique. Unlike most magic locks, that aimed to protecting something, this one was more like a lock gathering power in order to keep something sealed.
    

If Lucien’s feeling was correct, he did not want to stay here any longer. Lucien looked up in the sky and quickly recalculated the coordination of the closest magic garden according to the Grand Cross. Then, without any hesitation, he turned around and ran toward the edge of the black forest in the west along the lakeside path.
    

Curious as Lucien was, he was clearly aware that it would be too stupid for him to approach this legendary-level magic lock. He knew that he needed to stick to his original purpose for coming here.
    

Lucien’s body recovered quickly thanks to his Moonlight Blessing. By the time he entered the black forest, the pain in his chest caused by the revenant had already disappeared.
    

The black forest was immersed in the same silence. Even the leaves on the branches were not moving at all. Everything stayed still. No life could be seen.
    

Lucien tried to keep calm as much as possible when he was walking through the huge trees. A bit more than ten minutes later, he saw a tall and big building covered with shadow sitting in front of him, some distance away. From time to time, there were strange lights coming out of the building and flying towards Elsinore Lake.
    

He slowed down his pace when he approached the building and grabbing his sword tight. Lucien was slightly sweating.
    

Reaching into his pocket, Lucien pulled out a small black stone. It was a bat pituitary gland.
    

Holding it in his left hand, his lips moved silently and then invisible waves started to spread out like ripples. Standing in the center of them, he was waiting for the back echo reflection after the waves hit certain obstacles.
    

The tall and big firs appeared one by one in Lucien’s mind. Different things sitting within a radius of several hundreds of meters became more and more clear. However, some of the objects that made the waves ricochet remained rather blurry, and Lucien could only use their shapes to guess what they were.
    

Still, no life was detected. Lucien was not sure whether he should feel relieved or even more nervous.
    

As he was searching for possible magic traps, he kept slowly moving closer to his destination. All of the obstacles that he could not identify turned out to be just big stones.
    

When Lucien forced his way through the thick bushes, he saw a gray gravestone, behind which there was a small coffin chamber.
    

Approaching the gravestone a bit, he saw the white letters carved on it, “Here lies the previous mayor of Bonn, Mr. David Terrian, whose greatest exploit was killing the hundreds of people who did not follow the God of Truth.
    

And this man died because he fell in love with another man, who was very powerful.”
    

Lucien’s face twitched a bit when facing the inscription, not because of its absurdity, but because he saw the gravestone before, when he first sneaked into Bonn. He remembered clearly that this gravestone was in the town’s cemetery, not in a forest.
    

“The cemetery moved into the black forest in this magic lock world?” Lucien thought to himself.
    

He looked around and found more graves. In the world of black and white, they looked even more horrific.
    

Obviously, a cemetery was not a very pleasant place to stay. So, Lucien decided to leave here and take another way around this place to get to the magic garden, even thought that would take a bit more time.
    

However, by the time he turned around, Lucien’s scalp tingled from the same feeling of coldness that he sensed when he encountered the little girl.
    

Without any hesitance, Lucien launched a backhand hack with his sword.
    

Although it felt like he just chopped a random piece of rotten wood, a certain strange power shook Lucien’s arm along with the sword in his hand. Turning into a grey shadow, Lucien quickly dodged to the side and knelt down on one knee with his back against a gravestone.
    

In the corner of his eye, there was a short line of words on the gravestone,
    

“I was fat, but now I’m skinny.”
    

Lucien was a bit amused for a second. However, just within that second, a rotten arm stretched out of the barrow beside him.
    

The body in the barrow came back to life!
    

Most of the skin of the body was rotten, although some small skin pieces were still hanging onto the white bones. The stench of a dead body was horrible.
    

Turning around, Lucien saw another zombie standing behind him, and the lid of David Terrian’s coffin chamber was open!
    

Lucien turned himself into a shadow again to keep a distance away from the two filthy undead creatures. From their sharp teeth and the way they were moving, Lucien realized that they were not common zombies or skeletons, instead, they were ghouls.
    

And in this strange magic lock world, their power was strengthened. Lucien could tell that they were almost as agile and fast as him, and probably a bit stronger.
    

With the characteristics of the undead, ghouls were covered with plagues and a depressing aura. A person who got hurt by a ghoul would feel extremely weak and numb, and would go down with the plague.
    

If a person was killed by a ghoul, he would later turn into a new ghoul.
    

Recognizing what they were, Lucien changed his strategy. He tried to avoid any face-to-face confrontation with the ghouls and to launch his attack from behind.
    

Luckily, the ghouls were not intelligent at all, and the second ghoul seemed to be weaker than the other one. Gradually, Lucien gained the upper hand of the fight and his sword hacked at the ghouls several times. However, the bones of the ghouls were harder than he thought. The two ghouls were still moving, and they got even crazier when their rotten skin and flesh started coming off because of Lucien’s attack.
    

When Lucien was preparing the Sulphur-fire Wall, he saw more ghouls coming out of the barrows. Their rotten arms were like the dark branches of a dead tree.
    

Without any hesitance, Lucien cast the spell. As soon as the fire wall appeared in front of him, he turned around and started to escape as fast as he could.
    

The strong smell of sulphur burning came into Lucien’s nose from behind. Knowing that this might be his only chance to get away, he did not even take a look back.
    

Another ghoul got in Lucien’s way from the other side of the fire wall. Lucien just wielded his sword and directly hacked toward it.
    

The horrible smell of rotten flesh became stronger and stronger, and Lucien saw more ghouls were crawling out of the barrows.
    

Holding the sword in his right hand, Lucien shot three frost blades shining with cold light out of his left hand. He just cast Palmeira’s Frost Blades.
    

The blades cut the the ghoul’s throat deep, that is, if the combination of rotten flesh and spine bones could still be called as “throat”. Lucien did not expect the blades would end the filthy creature, but only to freeze it temporarily.
    

Within his expectations, the cold air coming out of the blades quickly covered the ghoul with a thin layer of ice, and the ghoul was frozen still instantly.
    

At the same time, Lucien activated Disarming Loop and changed the gravity within the small area where the ghoul was. The iced ghoul lost its balance and fell on the ground.
    

Then, he quickly passed by it like a faint shadow and noticed that the ice was already cracking.
    

Lucien was running for his life with all his strength, and a herd of stinky ghouls was chasing after him. However, he still knew clearly which direction he should go.
    

When Lucien distanced himself a bit from the ghouls, he changed his direction and ran toward the magic garden.
    

Some of the ghouls were stronger and some were weaker. By the time Lucien saw the black gate of the magic garden, only two were still following him.
    

The whole garden was covered with gray shadows, and only the black gate could be seen clearly. Behind the gate there was a low, pointed building, looking rather creepy.
    

When Lucien got closer, he noticed that the magic circle carved on the gate was very familiar to him, but the pattern missed a small piece.
    

The thought that this magic garden was actually left by an archmage on purpose for his inheritor quickly flashed across Lucien’s mind, since he remembered the pattern when he was reading Astrology and Magic Elements.
    

Lucien pulled out a tube of mercury from his robe and grabbed it in his hand. As soon as he arrived in front of the magic circle and opened the tube, drops of mercury flew from the tube to the gate on their own.
    

He took a deep breath to stay focused. Using his spiritual power, Lucien controlled the fine stream of mercury to complete the magic circle pattern.
    

He knew that he really got lucky here. Although it was out of his expectation that the magic garden actually used a puzzle as a lock, thankfully he carefully read the book left by the archmage who created this dimension.
    

When the pattern of the magic circle was completed, the two ghouls also arrived. The horrible smell made Lucien feel weak and dizzy.
    

The magic circle on the gate suddenly glowed brightly. With all of his strength, Lucien decisively threw himself toward the magic portal with a whirling storm of light in it.
    

The moment when he entered the portal, Lucien could feel the cold air from the ghouls trying to scratch his back with their sharp claws behind him.