Beauty and the Python

57.

"Magic is kindling. In the beginning, the god descended from the sky and lowered six magic towers, so the kindling spread across the continent."

He picked up a pitch-black chess piece with his slender fingers, and slowly dropped it on the black and white staggered chessboard. The last ring was filled, and the six chess pieces on the chessboard just formed a circle.

"So..." Elaine stared at the chessboard and said, "There was no magic on the mainland?"

"You can't say that." Edgar rubbed his chin, and said, "It has always existed, it exists as usual between breaths and breaths, but it is too thin, it is a rare resource, and it is difficult to regenerate. At that time, everyone had to fight and grab, and the mages regarded a spell or spell as a life-and-death talisman, which could not be easily cast, and followed the law of the jungle where the weak preyed on the strong."

"Later, this situation finally changed..." Edgar raised a finger and pointed to the top of his head, "The gods have come, and this time there are six."

"Well... only one less than the seven archangels in front of God in the Book of Revelation."

"They lowered six magic towers and named them one by one. The names are extremely vulgar, such as "peace", "benevolence", "eternity", "hope", "faith", "dream"...the six towers are located in each of the mainland. Afterwards, the gods passed away without revealing the mystery, but in fact, anyone with a discerning eye can see that if these six towers are connected together..." Edgar said as he swiped his quill , a silver thread emerged on the chessboard, stretched from one chess piece to the next, and penetrated through it to continue down... There was a line between the six chess pieces, and the silver thread continued on to the next level. One layer advances toward the middle, swimming out of a complex trajectory.

"Is it a magic circle?" Elaine vaguely saw it.

"That's right, they used these six towers to create an exquisite and incomparable magic circle." Edgar seemed excited, his eyes sparkled, he glanced down at the chessboard, but curled his lips wearily, "Of course Well, this is just a clumsy imitation. That magic circle contains thousands of changes, all kinds of complicated evolutions and even advanced magic calculations. My arithmetic is a mess, and it is impossible to repeat this magic circle. I really failed the teacher's entrustment..."

He was a little distracted for a moment, not knowing what to think of.

And Elaine also thought secretly: It sounds like this magic circle is extremely man-made, and it doesn't look like the handwriting of "God".

"In short, this magic circle is unique. It includes all corners of the mainland, every gap, every corner, and the magic energy circulates in it, endlessly. From then on, people on the mainland no longer have to worry about Barely worried that magic is not enough..."

"Successful mages lived in the magic tower. Most of them were the top magicians at that time, and they had many followers. Later, they began to recruit apprentices one after another. As a result, there were more and more mages on the mainland, and the momentum of magic was very good. The mages mixed among the people and skillfully used all kinds of magic, ranging from helping humans to build cities and towns, to cleaning the fields and shepherding sheep...that is an inspiring and beautiful history." Edgar bent his eyes and smiled.

Elaine asked: "So the demise of the six towers has something to do with the seventh tower?"

Edgar stared at him with wide eyes, "You really hit the nail on the head."

Elaine added: "I think, since the gods have left, the only ones who can build the seventh tower are the humans on the mainland."

"That's right." Edgar nodded.

"It turns out that it's not the difficult environment that creates sinister and greedy people, but this is the inherent evil nature of human beings?"

"The peace was maintained for a very short time, and then it was on the verge of collapse. The great magician lived at the top of the magic tower, high above, and no one could figure out their minds. I don't know when a few of them conspired in private and planned to build the first tower. The seven towers, right in the center of the continent, were the most prosperous kingdom of mankind at that time, the imperial capital of the Atlas Empire." Edgar picked up a white "King", raised his wrist and landed steadily on the chessboard Go down - right in the heart.

As if an invisible air flow swept past, the miniature magic circle burst into light for a moment, and it was shattered in a blink of an eye.

Edgar frowned slightly, his tone showing a bit of coldness, "They destroyed everything...but they were pretentious, so they arrogantly looked down on all the creatures below like ants."

"Probably from that time on, humans began to hate mages."

Edgar was silent, so Elaine could only remain silent. After a while, he finally spoke again: "Dylan..." He mentioned the name abruptly, "What role does he play in this period of history?"

Edgar showed a slightly surprised expression when he heard this question, and he smiled with the corners of his lips, "You really... didn't believe the story of the Frog Prince."

"I wanted to believe it at first," Elaine gave him a deep look. "Didn't you intend to reveal the truth to me?" He had already noticed it, and Edgar desperately wanted him to play the role of a curious student. Role.

"Heh, then this is another question I left for you today."

"Ok?"

"How old is Dylan today? I hope you can tell me the answer next time."

*****

she left.

What was left was a light red lip print on the rim of the white porcelain teacup, which Xiao felt was extremely glaring.

Edgar reminded him aloud: "Don't throw it away, he will come again."

Xiao couldn't bear it anymore, and stared at him with burning eyes, "Who is she?"

"Hmm..." Edgar pondered, "The duke's fiancée."

"what?!"

"Boyfriends count too."

Xiao was even more confused: Why can he be a fiancée and a boyfriend at the same time?

58.

Sure enough, Elaine came again the next day with an answer.

"120 four years old.

According to Dylan, the curse lasted 21 years, 54 days, eight hours and [-] minutes. "

Edgar raised his eyebrows slightly, "He remembers clearly."

"Time is meaningless to him," he said.

Elaine retorted: "But that's the most meaningful, because it's so long."

Edgar chuckled, "Are you sympathizing with him?"

Elaine did not agree to this question, but asked instead: "Is Dylan a mage in the tower?"

"How do you think he's from the Tower?"

"I heard it from someone in the castle by chance."

"Are they defenseless against you, or do they completely regard you as a rabbit in a cage?"

Elaine puffed up her cheeks and glanced over with a bit of anger, as if she couldn't help but want to glare at him.

"Dylan is the Great Magician of the Tower of Hope." Edgar gave an affirmative answer.

"The Tower of Hope, as the name suggests, is a gathering place for those young people who believe that magic can bring hope and warmth to the world, with such innocent and pure thoughts."

"There are more and more mages in the magic tower. In order to facilitate management, they have formulated a system and rules, which are somewhat similar to magic schools, and they will select the strongest mage from the crowd to lead the tower. , he lives on the top floor of the magic tower, which symbolizes supremacy. In the era when human beings believed in and relied on magicians, the human king gave them the title and glory of "Duke", so Dylan became a veritable Lord Duke, and that That's when he was, the youngest of the six Magical Dukes, a truly remarkable genius."

Elaine's amber eyes were shining, revealing a longing look.

"Actually, the six dukes at that time were very young. They were the second-generation dukes. In the year when the seventh tower was built, the six first-generation dukes couldn't wait to rush into that tower."

"They gave that tower a name, Titan."

"Perhaps Dylan's outstanding talent caught their attention. One day when Dylan was 20 years old, he received an invitation letter from the Titan Tower, signed by six mages."

"So the young man who yearned for magic entered that tower."

"He never came out again."

Silence is like a monster lurking in the dark, it suddenly jumped out and devoured everything, and grabbed their throats.

They fell silent together tacitly.

After leaving Edgar's tent, Elaine returned to the castle in Adrian's carriage.

He got off the car at the door, and then looked up at the old castle in front of him, silent, tall, majestic, and gloomy.Looking at it like this, there is a sense of crisis that is about to overturn in the next moment.

So he asked, "Does this castle have a name?"

"Yes," Adrian said without any concealment, "Titan."