#189 - Fire Emblem Key

Mu En didn't bring back much from Montoya's sailboat.

A small package could hold everything.

Letters from within the Unbelievers organization, Montoya's own magic manual, a spell-assisting ring, three bottles of magic potions, and the corpse of a fire snake.

Mu En first opened and read all the letters.

Through the contents of these letters, Mu En learned most of the secrets of the Unbelievers organization.

As the person in charge of the Unbelievers on Solman Island, Montoya obviously had more information than the two captured magicians.

Mu En originally thought that the Unbelievers organization only had twenty or so wizards on the Vina Islands.

But judging from the information in these letters, the power of the Unbelievers organization was greater than Mu En imagined.

This organization has been established for over a hundred years, with at least a hundred wizard members.

From the beginning, the Unbelievers established a firm goal.

【To fight against the Holy Church】

And they have been carrying out this goal over the years.

Since the establishment of the Unbelievers organization, they have launched three large-scale attacks on the Holy Church, but all of them ended in failure without exception.

Even before the last operation, the secret base of the Unbelievers organization was found by a cardinal of the Holy Church and magically destroyed.

Then their leader was also arrested by the Holy Church and imprisoned.

In the letter, Montoya speculated that there was a traitor within the Unbelievers organization, which led to the failure of their four operations.

It was also after the failure of this operation that the Unbelievers organization fell into division.

One branch came to the Vina Islands after many twists and turns, trying to take root and survive here.

However, at the beginning of their landing on the island, they were strongly expelled by the local spellcasters.

Then, in the next thirty years, the Unbelievers seized two of the islands through repeated wars, barely supporting the survival of the organization's remaining forces.

"So the origin of the Unbelievers is not on this continent."

After checking the information in the library of Meyerzu Castle, Mu En already knew that the Holy Church's ruling area was on the Cortel Continent, which was across the sea from the Federation.

There are no countries on that continent, and everyone must obey the orders of the Holy Church.

And the Unbelievers organization also launched a rebellion against the authority of the Holy Church on this continent.

"I wonder if using the Bailey family's banquet as cover can hide it from them."

Mu En originally chose to counterattack on the night of the banquet in order to avoid a direct conflict with the Unbelievers organization.

Now it seems that this choice was very wise.

But now that he understands the organization's background, he is still a little worried.

According to the introduction in the letter, this branch of the Unbelievers force on the Vina Islands is only one-third of the original organization.

In addition to finding a place suitable for survival, they have also been actively preparing to rescue the Unbelievers leader imprisoned by the Holy Church.

And the alchemical key that Mu En accidentally obtained was actually their secret weapon.

The letter introduced that this key was specially hired by the Unbelievers from an alchemist in the Magician Association.

Specially used to break the Holy Light cage of the Holy Church.

"The real name of the alchemical key is the Fire纹 Key, which has the effect of restraining the magic of the Holy Church."

After Mu En read the relevant content on the letter, he took out the alchemical key for comparison.

He now not only knows the purpose of the key, but also understands its specific material.

The main part of the key is Star纹 Cloud Iron.

This was searched by the Unbelievers organization in a mysterious valley on the Cortel Continent.

This kind of meteorite iron is very hard, and it also contains a trace of mysterious energy from the stars, which has natural resistance to magic.

The tooth part of the key is made of amber stone, produced in the depths of the volcano.

The pure and hot flame magic is sealed by the rune magic circle.

According to the design concept of the alchemist, this flame magic can just burn the special wood used to build the Holy Light cage.

As for the handle of the key, it is wrapped in a layer of Spiritual Rhinoceros Python skin.

It can enhance the magic resonance between the user and the key, and keenly perceive the user's intentions.

Even at the end, if the key cannot succeed, then this snake skin will absorb the wizard's own ability as a supplement.

"No wonder the magic energy color of this key is so high."

Mu En had observed this alchemical key with a monocle.

The color of the magic energy it emits ranks third among the alchemical items Mu En has seen.

The first place is of course Mu En's old willow wand.

The second is the magic talent testing device that Mu En observed in the Bailey family.

And the color concentration emitted by this key is similar to the concentration of the invisibility cloak given to Mu En by Dumbledore.

"It seems that the Holy Light cage of the Holy Church is very difficult to deal with."

Being able to refine such a high-level alchemical item with such precious materials, Mu En guessed that the Unbelievers organization should have spent a lot of money.

And now this alchemical item is already in Mu En's hands.

Although Mu En hasn't figured out how to use it yet, it doesn't prevent him from studying this alchemical item first.

In addition to the things related to the key, Mu En also learned from the letter that the Unbelievers organization plans to seize the Oreum Islands from the spellcasters of the Federation next.

It's just that the letter didn't mention how the Unbelievers would do it, which made Mu En slightly disappointed.

The Oreum Islands are not very far from Xingdao,

It is very close to both the spellcasters and the Unbelievers' sphere of influence.

Mu En naturally didn't want to be involved in the war between the two sides, so after learning this news, he immediately changed his original route.

He would rather take a detour for half a day than have any more involvement with the Unbelievers organization.

"No wonder there are only three Unbelievers on Solman Island. It turns out that they had already been preparing to seize new territory six months ago."

The leader of the Unbelievers organization in the Vina Islands is named Guy Cooper.

He has been preparing for the island seizure on Oreum Island recently, and most of the Unbelievers wizards have also been sent there.

It was precisely because of this that Mu En did not see more Unbelievers wizards when dealing with Montoya.

In addition to the information in the letters, Mu En also learned from Montoya's magic manual about the other party's magic experiments and the spells they were good at.

In addition to the Bone Shattering Curse and the Stone Skin Curse, Montoya also mastered a spell called the Blood Boiling Curse.

This is an extremely evil and destructive black magic.

This magic can inject a corrosive and irritating magic energy into the blood of the cursed person.

So that the various components in the blood produce abnormal reactions, as if a liquid has been thrown into a raging fire.

Then the cursed person will feel as if a fire has been lit inside the body, dying in extreme pain.

"It seems that Montoya didn't die unjustly."

By reading the other party's magic manual, Mu En knew that these spells that Montoya was good at had been extensively tested on ordinary people.

This is also the reason why he can cast ordinary spells with greater power,

As for the human transformation magic he mastered, it was even perfected by using the bodies of ordinary people.

Mu En burned all the letters, leaving only the magic manual.

He doesn't know if anyone within the Unbelievers will study the same thing.

However, Muen felt that by leaving these behind for research, he might later have the ability to rescue those who had been transformed.

Besides the magic manual, Muen left behind everything related to transformation magic.

Including those three bottles of blood-colored potion.

Montoya's magic manual recorded the detailed refining method of this potion.

One very important ingredient in the recipe was called 'Beast Blood'.

This 'Beast' did not specifically refer to a certain creature, but rather the five transformed people Montoya had imprisoned in the cabin.

"No wonder those five people were so weak. It turns out that besides being transformed, they also had to be bled."

Adding different kinds of Beast Blood would also change the potion's grade.

Montoya could only refine transformation potions with three kinds of Beast Blood added.

This potion actually had considerable side effects. After taking it multiple times, the wizard's mind would be damaged due to transforming into animals.

This would cause them to become increasingly manic and bloodthirsty.

"It's best to seal it up first. This kind of thing is best kept out of sight."

After sealing the potion, Muen looked at the other items.

Montoya's spell-assisting ring was of a much higher grade than the captured wizard's.

Muen tried using it to cast [Mirror Light Reversal], and found that the casting speed was reduced by another three seconds.

The only pity was that wearing two rings on the hand at the same time would not increase the effect.

"It seems that assistance is still just assistance. If I want to increase the spell speed, I still need to modify the spell."

Among all the captured items, Muen valued the Fire Serpent's body the most.

After this strange snake was brought back, Muen put on gloves and carefully extracted the little remaining snake venom from its fangs.

Although the Fire Serpent was dead, the snake venom was still filled with a large amount of fire-elemental magical energy.

In order to preserve this venom, Muen had to use [Cutting Curse] to specially make two stone bottles.

After taking out the snake venom, Muen then skillfully skinned the snake, pulled out its fangs, and removed its gallbladder.

Based on the potion-related knowledge he learned at Hogwarts, Muen knew that these parts of a snake's body,

could mostly be used to make potions.

However, after reading Montoya's magic manual, Muen threw away all the snake meat and also took out the entire spine.

"Flame Spine Serpent, so the flames didn't come from the snake skin, but from the snake bones."

Flame Spine Serpent was the Fire Serpent's name in the magic record manual.

After taking out the snake bones, Muen found that they were covered with some never-before-seen flame-like runes.

Muen had borrowed a book called "Detailed Explanation of Ancient Alchemy" from the Hogwarts library.

It recorded that the origin of ancient wizards' research into alchemy was precisely these kinds of natural magic runes.

Compared to the runes created by wizards, naturally formed magic runes are often simpler, but possess powerful and pure natural power.

Besides ancient alchemy, the origin of ancient magic also came from similar magic runes.

"Although there are only two kinds of flame runes, perhaps I can try to modify and integrate them into my alchemy and flame spells."

Muen searched through the entire spine of the Flame Spine Serpent and found that although there were many runes on it, they could only be divided into two types in total.

One represented fire magic, and the other should be related to poison.

Muen couldn't distinguish the specific meaning yet, but this didn't affect his subsequent research on them. After copying the runes on the snake bones into his magic record manual, Muen checked the changes in his own strength.

After yesterday's great battle, Muen's wizard bar had risen to two bars.

If he held the Old Willow Wand in his hand again, the length of the wizard bar would increase to two and a half bars.

The increase in strength often meant that the power of Muen's spells had also changed.

When he used [Cutting Curse] to make the stone bottle just now, Muen noticed that the power of this spell had increased a lot.

The material of the stone bottle was very similar to the wall bricks of Hogwarts Castle, and should be a kind of granite.

Originally, when facing materials with such high hardness, Muen had to use [Softening Charm] to cooperate.

But just now, he was able to easily cut this stone into various shapes with just [Cutting Curse].

In addition to [Cutting Curse], the change in Muen's [Levitation Charm] was also very obvious. Now his [Levitation Charm] can lift fifty kilograms of objects into the air.

It's just that the persistence time is not long.

The change in [Summoning Charm] was a complete surprise to Muen.

He originally just wanted to use seawater to wake up Montoya, but he didn't expect that after such a cast, this spell would change so much.

After the Scarlet Moon left Meyerzu Castle, Muen had tried this spell on the ship.

Muen learned this spell from Cedric.

As far as he knew, Cedric could only use this spell to summon some small pieces of wood, and couldn't even summon larger stones.

Not to mention separating such a small waterspout from the sea.

Although Muen had now escaped from the mental state of facing Montoya.

But he could also use [Seawater Fly], but the power was not as great as when he poured it on Montoya's head.

"It seems that the effect of the spell has a lot to do with the wizard's mental state."

In addition to the power of the waterspout decreasing, Muen found that controlling the direction and strength of the water flow with this spell still required practice.

When Muen was testing the spells on the Scarlet Moon.

A black crow landed on the rocky beach where Montoya's sailboat was docked.

The crow's leg was also tied with a small wooden bucket containing a letter, and the contents of the letter inside the bucket were unknown.

All the slaves on the rocky beach at this time had already left.

The crow searched for a while and did not find the target. First, it found a charred corpse in the ruins and had a big meal, and then flew towards the northeast.

Also at the same time on Xingdao.

The Great Witch of the Xingmang tribe asked people to find the tribe leader, "Great Witch, is there news about Ben?"

The leader of the Xingmang tribe, "Lu," is Ben's father.

Originally, Xinglu was very happy when he learned that his son would complete their branch's ultimate mission.

However, Ben had been out for half a year without any news, which still made him a little anxious.

Even Ben's mother had quarreled with him several times.

"That's right, not only has Ben returned, but he has also brought back the heir of the High Priest."

Since Ben left the tribe, the Xingmang Great Witch had been performing divination more than a dozen times a day.

This morning, he tried divination five times in a row, and the results all showed that the heir was about to return.

"Great Witch, is this true?"

Xinglu was still a little incredulous.

The High Priest who had disappeared for three thousand years was really coming back.

Seeing the tribe leader's surprised expression, the Xingmang Great Witch was actually even more excited.

Even when he was divining this morning, he almost threw the animal bones out.

"First, let the tribesmen prepare, and then go and notify the tribesmen of the other two tribes."

"Tell them that the stars have given me a response, and the Scarlet Moon is about to return to Xingjin Island."