Chapter 152 Five Ritual Magic Lumian was not in a hurry to hold the ceremony right away. First, he had been busy all day and was not in a very good condition. He needed to rest or wait until six in the morning to reset his condition. Second, the ceremony involved two secret beings and pollution that could cause a village to circulate. If something went wrong during the process, not to mention the "Golden Rooster Hotel", the entire street might not be able to be saved, and who knows how many people would die. Therefore, Lumian planned to go underground after dawn and find a quarry cave deep inside as the site for the ceremony. As for materials, he brought with him those he had used in the village of Koldu. The nights on the chaotic streets are never quiet enough, but Lumian slept well, almost without dreaming, until the early morning, when he heard the clanging of church bells. He got up slowly, washed up, and went to a cafe on White Coat Street to have plum pie, Savarin muffins, and café au lait with plenty of milk for breakfast. Delicious food always makes people happy. The "Golden Rooster Inn" is no longer controlled by the Sting Gang, and Lumian's condition has gradually adjusted to the best. So he returned to room 207, intending to take the relevant materials and calcium carbide lamp to the underground Trier. Lumian had just finished getting ready and before he could go out, he heard a gentle knock on the door. He opened the door with some confusion, and found Anthony Reid standing outside, dressed in army green clothes and laceless leather boots. The forty-something intelligence dealer stroked his short blond hair and said to Lumian: "I've gained something."

The parish priest, or Mrs. Puaris and her staff? Lumian turned aside and let Anthony Reed enter the room. Anthony looked around, and saw Lumian reflected in his deep brown eyes. Almost immediately, Lumian felt that familiar, slight uneasiness. He controlled himself from thinking about it and asked: "What's the catch?" Anthony Reid nodded slightly and said: "Someone met someone who looked like Louis Lund on Market Avenue. He was the housekeeper of Mrs. Pualis you mentioned." Right on the Market Avenue? Lumian suddenly became excited. How could it be that Louis Lund, Mrs. Pualis, and I were so close? "Are you sure?" he asked quickly. Anthony Reid shook his head: "I'm not sure. I just came to tell you that I haven't forgotten about you. Once I'm sure it's really Louis Lund, I'll ask you for the balance." "My money can't wait to leave me." Lumian did not hide his eagerness at all. After seeing Anthony Reid off, his determination to obtain the gift of the "mendicant monk" became even stronger. ………… The carbide lamp with a hint of blue light pushed away the surrounding darkness, allowing the street sandwiched between the stone pillars to appear before Lumian's eyes. A slightly cold wind blew in from somewhere, and the stone wall above was faintly wet. Lumian traveled through these tunnels that corresponded to the streets on the ground and found the entrance leading deeper. Relying on the hunter's memory of the environment, he continued to descend and finally arrived at a quarry cave that was as big as two or three "Golden Rooster Hotels". There are some white mushrooms growing in the cracks of the rocks here, sparsely and in small numbers. According to Charlie, many people in Luanjie and surrounding areas find similar hollows in the ground to grow mushrooms to fill their household needs and increase food intake. Many years ago, "Trier mushrooms" became synonymous with this type of plant, but the mushrooms here are obviously naturally grown.

Lumian walked around the hole twice and examined it carefully. After confirming that there was no problem, he found a half-meter-high stone and placed the musk candle mixed with his own blood on it, and placed another one closer to him. After cleaning up the environment, Lumian lit the two gray-white candles in the order of first the gods and then the humans, using the spiritual method of friction. Then he drew out the ritual silver dagger and quickly sanctified it, creating a "spiritual wall". Unlike the last time he prayed for the Dancer's power, after Lumian completed these things, his spirituality was still abundant, and he easily entered a more ethereal state where he could perform rituals without the help of incense. He exhaled slowly, picked up the gray amber perfume on the "altar", and dripped it into the candle representing the gods. Amid the sound of "sizzling", a light, sweet fragrance wafted into his nose, making him feel even calmer. After the gray amber perfume came the tulip powder. When the strange fragrance filled the "Spiritual Wall", Lumian took two steps back, looked at the burning candle, and shouted in a low voice and ancient Hermetic language: "The power of fate!" The wind blew with a humming sound, and the orange candlelight representing the gods was blown to the ground, leaving only a tiny bit, as if it would go out at any time. In the dimming light, Lumian's left chest began to feel hot and he began to feel a little dizzy. He once again heard the familiar mysterious voice that seemed to come from infinitely far away yet so close to him, but it was not yet clear enough and had not yet consumed him with pain. Lumian continued to chant the following spell in ancient Hermetic language: “You are the past, the present, and the future; “You are the cause, the effect, and the process.” Inside the "Wall of Spirituality", the invisible wind was all dyed black, and a light gray mist filled the air. Those stones and bottles seemed to have turned into flexible objects and twisted one after another. Silently, the candle flame representing the god expanded to the size of a fist, silver-white with black. On the surface of Lumian's skin, above the stones, particles emerged one after another, squirming and extending, ready to burst out at any time. His ears were completely filled with that horrible sound and he could no longer detect any other movement. His head was so dizzy that he almost vomited. His thoughts were sometimes scattered and sometimes confused, and he barely finished reciting the subsequent spells. As soon as Lumian finished speaking, the silver-white and black candlelight instantly condensed into a beam of light and fell on his left chest. A lot of silver-black illusory liquid quickly flowed out from there, wrapping up Lumian's body as if it had its own life and will. Lumian was already prepared. In his uncontrollable irritability, he waited for the pain like needles all over his body, waited for the clear muttering of someone sawing his head, and waited for the burning sensation that erupted from his body. He fell down, curled up, and entered the state of endurance with familiarity. The only thing he could do was to struggle to maintain the "small boat" that represented his own sanity in the "waves" caused by the storm. During this process, he wanted to let go of himself several times, allowing the evil thoughts in his heart to take over, merge with the pain, and no longer suffer such torture, but the elegant and sweet fragrance always lingered in his nose, making his violence and irritability surge up and recede again and again. In the end, Lumian even felt as if his body and brain no longer existed, and only a spiritual being with rationality was floating up and down. The pain began to subside, the mumbling died down, and he knew he had survived.

Lumian lay quietly on the cold ground, unwilling to move for a long time. After dozens of seconds, he managed to regain some strength, quickly ended the ceremony, and cleaned the altar to avoid any accidents. After dealing with these things, Lumian sat down on the stone that had served as an altar and carefully examined the changes in himself. Soon, he muttered to himself silently: “My tolerance for more extreme environments has improved a bit… "Haha, the advantage of this is that I don't have to buy winter and summer clothes?" In addition to this, Lumian found that he had another intuition. That's the intuition about fortune! Now he can roughly sense other people's recent fortunes, such as good luck, bad luck, bloody disasters, romantic luck, etc., but he cannot see the specific situation. In other words, Lumian can find out when someone is in bad luck, but he cannot know how unlucky he will be or how long he will be unlucky. "As expected of a monk who worships the power of destiny..." Lumian couldn't help but sigh, and felt that he could completely replace Osta Trull to tell fortunes for others. Although he knows nothing about divination, since he can see the rough fortune, can't he just make up the corresponding words? In addition, Lumian also had a lot of sacrificial knowledge and five ritual magics in his mind. The former made up for his many deficiencies in the field of occultism, while the latter enhanced his occult means. The five ritual magics are "the art of creating animals", "the art of prophecy", "the art of changing luck", "the art of substitution" and "the art of exorcism". The "Art of Creating Animals" is a ritual magic that uses animal skins such as sheepskin and cowhide to turn the target in the altar into a corresponding animal. This can also be used on oneself. As long as one masters the pre-set cancellation spell or waits until the ritual effect is over, one can change back into a human body. When turned into an animal, one is basically unable to speak and cannot use most of the extraordinary abilities. The "art of prophecy" was completely different from what Lumian had imagined. The whole process was to collect materials such as snake venom sacs and stones from eagle nests, use ritual magic to create a strange potion, and then find a corpse that had been dead for less than seven days and had not been burned to ashes or purified, and pour the potion into his mouth. After thirty seconds, the corpse would be briefly resurrected and answer the caster's three questions about the future. The "art of changing luck" is to use ritual magic to create an object that is associated with one's own bad luck, and then send that object away, with the help of others opening, eating, stepping on, or wearing the object, the bad luck is transferred to him, thus achieving one's own change of luck. The "Substitution Technique" is more complicated. Lumian suspects that this is a reflection of the "Life Hunter" ability at a low sequence. Just like if he wants to escape the threat of Susanna Mathis, he must first find a homeless person and let him live in the name of Charles for a period of time. During this period, he must live in Room 207, use the money of Lumian's security department, and get the approval of acquaintances such as Charlie, establish enough mystical connections, and then hold a ceremony to complete the substitution. When the ceremony is over, Susanna Matisse will take revenge on the homeless man instead of Lumian. Of course, using the "Substitution Technique" at the level of Sequence 8, Lumian was not sure if he could hide it from Susanna Mathis, who was close to being a demigod. He even suspected that the ritual magic would fail directly. (End of this chapter)