Throne of Magical Arcana - Unlock

Standing in front of the window, Lucien looked out of the curtain and felt a bit disappointed, since his Blessing couldn’t be fully activated without the silver moon. Tonight only his speed and agility could reach a knight level, but his physical strength would not be as good as when the moon was out.
    

“At least I can still see some stars, or I wouldn’t even be able to calculate the coordinate of the entrance of the magic lock.” Lucien comforted himself, “And it’s safer to hide in the dark without the moonlight.”
    

According to the ancient script he had read before, the entrance of the magic lock called Grand Cross kept changing its location every ten minutes together with the continuously moving stars, until the sun rose up.
    

Around eleven at night, Lucien put on his hooded black robe.
    

Pulling up the hood, when he was about to sneak out of the room through the window, he suddenly felt a bit hesitant: the poem, the script and the two visitors all came to him together, almost at the same time, which was such a coincidence that made him suppose this might actually be a trap.
    

At first Lucien thought that the brother and sister were sent by the Church to test him, however, after knowing from Rhine that the Church was too busy recently to deal with matters such as those, and after seeing the dozen mysterious visitors in this small town, he felt the story about the magic ruins was quite suspicious.
    

“Should I take the risk?” Lucien asked himself silently in his mind. After all, it would take him six to seven months to get to Sturk, therefore, he still had enough time to find another way to get the Silver Moon potion and, obviously, the magic ruins was not Lucien’s only chance to collect the materials he needed.
    

However, very soon Lucien made up his mind. He had a foreboding through his host star when Rhine was talking to him the other night. He had a feeling that something significant was going to happen, and if he could not be powerful enough to protect himself before that happened, he would probably die.
    

Also, Lucien had so many questions in his mind: who was the author of the poem? Who was the original owner of the script? Was it possible that the legendary archmage known as “the Prophet” who wrote Astrology and Magic Elements left anything special in the lock because he forecast something important?
    

Lucien’s curiosity became dominant over his concerns. He gently jumped out of the window and landed agilely outside.
    

…
    

In order to save his strength, Lucien moved a bit slower. It took him an hour to get to the small town close to Massawa, called Bonn.
    

Bonn was a remote town sitting beside the Dark Mountain Range. Occasionally, a few musicians and painters would visit it, but most of the time it had no visitors.
    

Lucien was quite surprised to find that, when he secretly arrived at the small town, the only tavern there was still busy. He could hear that lots of people were still chatting in many different accents.
    

…
    

In one of the rooms on the second floor of the tavern, Sala and Lilith were looking at each other with their eyebrows frowned.
    

“What shall we do now?” Lilith asked, “I thought only Mr. Evans figured out the secret of the manuscript, but why are there so many visitors here in Bonn?”
    

“I’m guessing…” Sala sighed, “the manuscript we have is not complete, and it might not be the only one. They might have the complete version.”
    

“That makes sense, after all, we got the manuscript from…” Lilith nodded and switched the topic, “What if there’re sorcerers and knights among them?”
    

“I’m not sure.” Sala looked downwards, as if he was trying to see the people downstairs through the floor, “At least I know these macular guys bragging just now are no more than a bunch of adventurers.”
    

“Then, are we still going tomorrow?” Lilith looked hesitant.
    

Sala did not answer her question immediately. After a while he sighed, “We’ll wait and see. I mean, we don’t have to, and we also can’t compete with them. I feel there’s something wrong going on here.” Although Sala sensed something wrong, his desire forced him to stay.
    

“All right.” Lilith nodded. “The entrance of the ruins will exist for twelve hours anyway.”
    

…
    

At the same time, Lucien was standing under the window of Sala and Lilith’s room, leaning against the wall and calculating the coordinates of the entrance.
    

Because that was a magic lock of legendary level, lots of parameters were required. It took Lucien more than half an hour to figure out the numbers.
    

The calculation consumed Lucien so much energy that made him dizzy. Luckily, there was still a while before the magic lock started to be activated, so Lucien just sat on the ground quietly in the dark to recover.
    

…
    

By around three in the morning, Lucien had been fully revitalized. With great caution, he moved toward a plain-looking bungalow.
    

In the darkness, his black robe made him almost invisible.
    

Opening the door with a simple spell, he sneaked into the place and then locked the door again from inside.
    

In the bedroom, a couple was sleeping soundly, completely unaware that someone had just entered their place.
    

Lucien sat down on a wooden chair in the living room, looking rather relaxed and calm. However, he was counting the time silently in his mind.
    

Around ten minutes later, Lucien suddenly stood up and threw himself on the dark vortex in the corner of the living room, which was definitely not there a second before.
    

As if Lucien was sucked in the swirl, his figure completely disappeared from the place.
    

Ten seconds later, the dark vortex disappeared as well.
    

…
    

Lucien felt a great dizziness when he jumped in the swirl, as if his head hit a heavy, thick curtain.
    

However, when he opened his eyes, he was still standing in the same living room.
    

Lucien was confused and thought that maybe he had missed the chance. However, soon he noticed the difference: This place had no colors, made purely with black, white and gray, as if he entered the world of a black-and-white movie.
    

Taking a glance at the bedroom, Lucien saw that the couple who was sleeping in the bed disappeared as well.
    

Carefully, he pushed the door open and came to the street – It was the same town, but it was empty, and black and white.
    

“That’s creepy,” Lucien said to himself, but he could not hear his voice.
    

Thus, he finally noticed another difference: this whole world was completely silent, as if the world was dead.
    

This was the lock. Lucien was in the magic lock now.
    

Looking up at the grey sky, he saw no stars, no silver moon or sun.
    

Luckily, he could still sense his connection with his host star, which meant he could still use magic, and he was still connected to the real world, so he wouldn’t get completely lost inside the lock.
    

No people, no cats and dogs, no birds, bugs, breeze, color or even sound… Lucien was sweating while he walked through the gray streets.
    

According to the manuscript he read, Lucien located a few magic gardens. Keeping the locations in mind, he headed toward Elsinore Lake on the other side of this gray town.
    

Grabbing his sword named Alert, all of a sudden, Lucien’s arms were covered with goose bumps. Something was coming!
    

Quickly turning his head around, Lucien saw the door of a small house on the street slowly open.
    

A little girl around seven or eight was standing behind the door. She had no color either, and her big eyes stared at nothing.
    

Then she started to smile, with her big eyes without any focus.
    

…
    

“My lord,” kneeling on the ground, a person in black robe reported to the man standing on the altar, “following your order, we found out a guy with the Moonlight Blessing arrived in Bonn, but we lost track of him all of a sudden. He disappeared.”
    

In his silver robe, Ilia sneered, “There he is.”
    

Then, he turned around and commanded, “Do not rush. Our plan is always our priority. But we’ll give this Moonlight guy a warm welcome as well.”