Chapter 76: Arc 2: Chapter 31: God’s Possession?

"Shalala"

The weather in London was terrible when it was rainy, the atmosphere was gloomy like hell, and it was depressing.

Young Hermione walks out of the post office while carrying a black umbrella, she looks at the heavy rain in front of her disdainfully, and looks around, thinking of drying her west shoes using magic.

But after deep consideration, Hermione gives up on this alluring idea.

Magic was convenient to use, but young wizards are prohibited from using magic during their holidays. If the Ministry of Magic catches her, the school she's in would receive mark deductions, which was bad.

So Hermione could only head home in the rain while holding an umbrella, thankfully, the post office was not that far from her home.

But what Hermione could not figure out was...

"Why was Mr. Merlin in such a hurry to get a magic map? Is he in trouble? Or is he lost?"

Merlin wasn't lost, but he was in trouble.

He tried to mark out the location of the North European treasure on the World Map, but it was, after all, a map that was crudely drawn by someone a few hundred years ago.

Even after secretly using the supercomputer in Paris' base for a terrain check, Merlin was fruitless to even after searching for a few days.

A few hundred years is enough for some major changes in terrain, plus, the drawer of the map may not have been a wise naturalist, since the deviations on this map are massive.

If he had no other leads, he would end up disappointed if he followed what was on the parchment.

So without a choice, Merlin asked for some help from magic.

Wizards may be a part of human civilization, they have their separate inheritance, they began drawing their maps about a thousand years ago.

Wizards knew the Earth was spheric several hundred years before Magellan did, some adventurous wizards even made a World Map of their own.

What's best is that every variant of those maps had been carefully kept by the wizards.

And this was what Merlin needed.

To understand a map from several hundred years ago, one needed to cross-examine them not with modern maps, but with maps from the same era. So Merlin requested young Hermione to purchase <The World from Wizard's View> from Diagon Alley, it was a boring history book, but it had a complete record of all the maps.

2 months later.

In his hotel room in Paris, Merlin held the parchment in one hand and cross-examined with the map on the sizable thick history book.

He had spent the rest of his time aside from working and learning magic on looking for traces on the map ever since he received the book 2 months ago. But there were too many details on the map drawn by wizards.

It was very inefficient tracing by the image, but Merlin had no other options.

It was the Spring Festival of 1993, Satellite Map Technology had been well developed.

Even the base in pairs had such technology, but it wasn't one that a low-level agent like Merlin could use, nor did he wish to expose his secret.

But the good news is, after 2 months of cross-examination, his efforts have fruited on this night.

On the magic map that's been zoomed in to the extreme, he finally found some similarities with the parchment map.

"So it's Northern Europe 500 years ago..."

Merlin takes a pen and draws a circle on the magic map; he grabs his wand and gently flicks it, on the white paper in front of him, a black signing pen begins to write on the paper as if it's being controlled by an invisible hand.

Transcripto*, a simple yet practical spell, as long as the caster has enough mana, the casted pen will transcribe all images and words like a printer. 

A few minutes later, Transcripto* finishes up.

Merlin stretches his body, stacks the parchment map and the magic textbook on each other, and places them back into the wooden box; he himself takes the transcripted map and walks to the wall behind him, where he had strung up a World Map.

Merlin's finger searches on the Northern region of Europe, and a few seconds later, he finds his treasure spot.

"Norway!"

Merlin squints his eyes and looks at the circle on the map, he picks up his brick phone and dials a number.

"John, I'm feeling unwell again...I started nose-bleeding again this morning."

Merlin coughs and reaches for his already packed traveling backpack, and as he spoke, he puts Lola and the magic box into the worn-out spatial pocket and places the sealed-up spatial pocket into his shirt pocket.

He says:

"I might need some time off, never mind, I'll take my yearly leave early on...I'm going to Brighton to find the mysterious doctor, may need half a month...mmm, I'll fill in the procedures when I get back, thanks."

"Right, I'll bring some of that cigar you've been wanting, I'll bring it to you when I come back this time...10 years worth? That's too much!"

---

5 days later, Norway, Trillemarka National Park.

Merlin's figure appears out of thin air, he carries his backpack and wears his sunglasses, looking like a regular backpacker.

He holds a modern map in his hand, occasionally climbing high spots to cross-examine the terrain. He had been searching here for a day now, and he was getting closer to the location of the treasure.

Yet he was also going deeper into the forest, just last night, he had a brawl with a brown bear.

A half Super Soldier with magic like himself struggled in this wildland, did people actually live here 500 years ago?

More importantly, who would bury a magic artifact in this god-forsaken corner of the world? Why did he leave a map?

And the 'a gift from gods' from the poetry puzzle, what is it exactly?

Is it really a weapon left there by the gods?

Do gods really exist in this world?

Questions appear one after the other in Merlin's mind, yet he could not find an answer. Merlin had become increasingly curious about the hidden ancient secrets ever since he became a wizard.

Agents and wizards, both occupations that deal with secrets, Merlin had a whim that he would discover plenty of secrets in the future.

Like this adventure driven by secrets. Merlin did not care that much about what he would find, maybe what he cared about was the secret itself.

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"I'm here!"

At dawn, Merlin arrives at a normal-looking rugged mountain, he stands next to a ring-shaped rock and looks at the trees around him. In front of him was a massive tree, a Cupressaceae.

Merlin puts the map back into his pocket, he knows he has reached his destination.

Of course, not by guessing.

In his spread-out dark senses, Merlin could sense something that did not belong to the tree, something is hidden 30 feet in the air, inside the tree.

It was metal!

Something completely different than wood.

That should be what Merlin is looking for.

"Swish"

A red wand appears in Merlin's hands, and as he chanted the Reducto spell he had just learned, a large clump of mana heavily crashes into the Cupressaceae tree in front of him, like an invisible heavy punch, like an ax that had struck downwards, it sends shards of tree bark flying.

"Reducto!"

"Let me see..."

Merlin waves his wand, and sends another Reducto towards the tree, tearing up a bigger hole

"The answer to this riddle!"

"Boom Boom Boom"

After 3 consecutive Reducto spells, Merlin's spirit grows tired, he takes his water bottle and takes a sip to relieve his spirit.

The dark mana in his body was still growing, and its capacity was much larger than that of a young wizard.

But there was a problem with Merlin's self-learning, he lacked the guidance of an experienced wizard, so he learned new magic very slowly, the higher the tier of magic, the more complex the mana models are, and the more strict the mana control needs to be.

A simple magic trick only needs a few syllables and a simple mana model.

But Merlin's Reducto was far from a magic trick, a normal Reducto only needs 11 syllables, and its mana model was as complex as a 3d composition; it took Merlin 20 days to learn the said spell.

But Reducto was just an elementary spell in the magic textbook, it was one of the simpler ones too.

Complex spells, such as Protego, and the higher tier Transfiguration spell, are even more complex than Reducto, thus Merlin is very sadistic about his learning progress.

He could only hold onto the magic textbooks for 3 years, Merlin probably couldn't even learn a third of the Standard Spells at the time he returns the textbooks.

SO Merlin made an important decision a few days back, he would only choose to learn spells that were important to him. As well as the practical Potions and Alchemy, he could only give up Divination.

"Boom"

Yet another Reducto on the tree in front of him, following the crackling sound of the wood breaking apart, a silver glow appears under the night sky before Merlin.

Merlin keeps his wand, turns into black fog, and levitates in the air. He examines what was in front of him, it looked like a rod, there were unnatural cracks on both ends of the rod, which meant that this thing was incomplete.

It seemed to be a part of something, maybe the three sentences behind the parchment represent three parts, that when put together, form the real magic artifact.

Merlin contemplates as he solidifies his hand to grab the silver rod that had practically assimilated with the tree,

But as his fingers touch the silver baton, a violent and bloodthirsty urge for destruction flows into Merlin's body.

At that moment, the black fog he had transformed into rolls up and forcibly retracts his hand, then, he lands back onto the ground unscathed.

Merlin gasps for air and forcibly suppresses the screaming urge for destruction inside his body.

As his soul grows stronger, it becomes easier for him to suppress the urge of destruction left inside his mind. He looks at his trembling fingers, there was a red scar on his fingertip that was like a brand. In Merlin's second sight, he could even see the remnants of the red glow on his finger.

Like radiating blood.

That thing, that weird thing, was instinctively wanting blood and slaughter. Talia had not lied to him, the secret of the parchment does include a powerful, offensive magic artifact.

But the problem was that he did not dare to take the risk, because the thing in front of him was wicked.

He tosses his finger that felt as if it had been burnt, he transforms into black fog, levitates in the air, and carefully examines the silver baton that was stuck into the tree. He could see even more details under his second sight.

It was a baton made of metal, on it were strange symbols. Probably because of Merlin's touch just now, there were faint magic glows on the symbols; Merlin did not understand the symbols, but he does remember seeing something similar before on a magic textbook.

Merlin solidifies his upper torso, takes out a magic textbook, and cross-examines the symbols on the baton. A few minutes later, he discovers the origin of the symbols.

"It's runic symbols...let me see what these symbols mean?"

Merlin flips through the symbol word groups in the textbook, these things are very ancient, supposedly existing even before the time of wizards, and about a thousand years ago, these runes were widely spread in the Northern region of Europe, used by Germanic people as a religious symbol.

Merlin looks at the symbols on the rod and cross-examines them with the ones in the textbook, he found some symbols he could understand, but he could not understand them after linking them together.

"This one is...Realm Eternal."

"Then...Asgard."

"Lastly...Berserker Army?"

Merlin closes the book and looks at the wicked object in front of him, and says:

"Asgard...one of the Nine Realms where gods live according to Norse mythology, which means that you're related to Norse Mythology, right?"

Light flashes in Merlin's eyes as he looks at the artifact in front of him, he then says:

"Are you..."

"Really a creation of the gods?"

 

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