Throne of Magical Arcana

Although this was not his original plan, Lucien nodded, “No problem, Mr. Victor.”

As long as no one would suspect him of being involved with sorcery or heresy stuff, Lucien did not really care if some people would accuse him of plagiarizing.

In many of the religious books in the library, music was compared to a treasure that God gave to people, the most powerful weapon that people had in fighting against all the difficulties. Thus, music was always regarded as a symbol of light and hope, having nothing to do with darkness and evil.

Besides, from the books he read and the conversations among Lott, Felicia and Herodotus, Lucien noticed the barrier between the church and the nobles. Although the nobles still revered God, the idea that religion and government should work separately started emerging in Aalto, the city where the church dominated almost everything..

Therefore, Lucien was pretty sure that the church would not easily suspect a new musician from the association, which had a close relationship with both the nobles and the church.

Lucien’s only concern was that he might need to go through security inspection in the future, when being invited to attend concerts or evening parties. However, Lucien believed that if he could be relatively famous, there would be rare or even no security inspection toward him.

Rhine took up a pile of paper and a quill from the desk and handed them to Lucien.

Lucien grabbed the quill. Before he had the chance to write anything down, he suddenly sneezed. His hair was still wet, and several drops of water fell onto the paper.

Victor just noticed that Lucien’s clothes were still wet, “You didn’t bring an umbrella?”

Felicia’s face slightly blushed, since she could see Lucien’s fit body underneath his wet shirt.

“I did. But the rain was too heavy. I ran all the way,” answered Lucien.

Victor was moved, “Let’s find you some dry clothes first, Lucien. I got several suits here. Some of them should fit you well.”

“I can do part of the work for you first, ” urged Rhine. He took away the quill in Lucien’s hand, “Go and change your clothes.”

At that moment, Rhine’s fingers touched Lucien’s hand. Lucien surprisedly noticed that Rhine’s hand was even colder than his.

…

In the changing room, Lucian dried his hair and put on Victor’s white shirt, black coat, pants and leather shoes. By then he looked brand new―black hair, black eyes. In the mirror stood a good-looking young man.

“Look at you, Lucien! You look really good in this suit!” Victor nodded with satisfaction.

Seeing Lucien in this decent suit, Felicia, Lott and Herodotus felt somehow Lucien looked more reliable now.

Judging a person by one’s appearance did not only happen on Earth.

“Lucien, come and check if this part Mr. Rhine just wrote down is correct,” asked Victor.

When Lucien passed Lott, the latter said to him in a low voice with his standard, polite smile, “Hope we can exchange our ideas more often in the future.”

“Sure,” replied Lucien politely as well.

Hearing their conversation, Felicia bit her lips with her white teeth a bit and made a tough decision, “Lucien, you have my apology. I am sorry that I was being really mean to you because of my prejudice. I hope we can get along well and help each other in the future.”

Her face blushed again.

Only Herodotus was still standing on the other side, his head lowered and his eyes staring at the feet, without saying anything.

“Not a problem, Felicia.” Lucien nodded and then walked toward Rhine and Victor.

…

Three o’clock in the afternoon, Felicia saw that Baron Othello’s coach stopped in front of the association building.

Victor looked very pleasant, “Great work, everyone! We are such an efficient group, aren’t we? The excitement I felt from the music is still lingering upon my mind. Although the rewriting hasn’t been finished yet, the rest of the work is pretty detailed. I feel like it’s ready to be registered with the association now. And I don’t think changing the list will be a problem either.”

Lucien knew that his playing just now was still not very skilled, and thus he believed that it was his emotions infused in his playing that moved his listeners.

Following Victor, Lucien came to one of the rooms on the third floor, where an elder gentleman wearing glasses was sitting there.

“You got your work done, Victor?” asked the elder man.

“Joseph, not me, it’s my student, Lucien. We want to get his great work registered,” Victor answered and then introduced him to Lucien, “This is Mr. Joseph, a very experienced senior music critic. Mr. Joseph knows most of the music works in the world, including those of other nonhuman species like elf’s music. At the same time, Mr. Joseph is also a pastor in training. He can tell if you are plagiarizing or it’s really you own work. After that, Mr. Joseph will register you work with a time mark using his pastor power. Any work that comes afterwards which is similar to your work will be regarded as plagiarism.”

“How long have you been learning music after Victor?” adjusting his glasses, Joseph asked, “A pretty promising young lad, uh…”

“Well… about… three months.” Lucien felt a bit embarrassed.

“You must be kidding me.” Joseph’s eyes were full of surprise, “Three months?”

“Take a look at it first, please.” Victor did not say anything else, but stood there with a smile on his face.

“All right. Let’s see what are we looking at here.” Joseph felt like it was somewhat a joke.

Soon the smile on Joseph’s face was replaced by a serious look. His left hand was beating time when he was humming the music notes, as if he entered into a whole new world, or a fascinating story.

About ten minutes later, with a long sigh, Joseph told Victor with excitement, “What a great work! It reminds me of the years when I was helping the knights fighting against the evil creatures in the Dark Mountain Range. Oh those years, with courage, with faith and with hope…”

“I told you, Joseph.” Victor looked proud.

“I… I still cannot believe it. You said it’s your student’s work… from this young lad?” Joseph’s glasses were slanted on his nose.

“Lucien’s a young lad who knows about tough life,” said Victor. Then he shared some of Lucien’s stories with Joseph.

“Well… I guess our association’s gonna have another gifted musician then.” Joseph was very impressed, but still found it unbelievable. He turned around and said to Lucien, “If you want to further prove yoursef, keep working on new music themes. About every two years, you gotta have something new to prove yourself.”

“In two years… I would have left Aalto already.” Lucien thought to himself, while watching Joseph leaving a time mark with his pastor power on the music sheets.

“Does your work have a name? It’s sort of a trend now.” Joseph raised his head.

“Fate.”

…

After Victor and Lucien finished the registration, they came to the Director’s office.

Before entering the office, Victor suddenly smiled.

“I can’t wait to see Mr. Othello’s reaction to this.”

Lucien realized that it had been a couple of months since he last saw this bright smile on Victor’s face.