The Duke in the Spire of Thorns

Latio, the castle of Ulysses.

The young Duke sat in the soft and large velvet armchair in the reception room, closed his eyes and looked at the guests sitting on the edge of the table, and was listening politely.

"Thank you for your generosity, the Lord will bless you."

Bishop Kenneth said excitedly, his fat cheeks were stained red with emotion, and the saggy fat collapsed around his chin, looking like two ugly bags of meat.

"I don't know how to express my gratitude."

Kenneth is good at flattering people, and he never gives up showing his "strengths". Therefore, in his hype thanks, Celeste seems to be an existence that can stand shoulder to shoulder with a saint.

"You're too high." Celeste couldn't help coughing, "I just made some insignificant efforts to renovate the church, and I can't deserve your praise."

Not long after Celeste arrived at Latiu, he paid for the renovation of all the churches in this area, so it is not surprising that the bishop followed the money to the church.

Latiou is one of Celeste's territories. There are not many materials produced here, and the city is not prosperous. It is a simple southern county.Among the many territories owned by Celeste, Ratiu is extremely ordinary.But the Duke chose to live here first.

Because although Latiou is ordinary, it is a warm southern county with an unparalleled mild weather in the northern county, and this mild weather just meets the Duke's requirements for a place of residence.

Celeste was born with a weak body, and although the Great Lord gave him an appearance capable of competing with the sun (Noyce - the words of his unreliable cousin), he also took away his health.

Celeste has brilliant light-blond hair, blue eyes, and rose-petal lips—well, the evaluation still comes from his cousin.

In fact, if given a choice, Celeste would rather trade his appearance for health. He is not a lady, and looks are not that important to him.

He sighed, Bishop Kenneth on the opposite side was still eloquent, and Celeste's gaze began to wander involuntarily, and he was already a little impatient.

"I thought maybe you would like to hear about an interesting incident that happened recently."

Bishop Kenneth is an expert in reading people's faces. He immediately stopped talking and restarted the topic, hoping to use this interesting incident to refresh His Excellency the Duke.

"Well, I'd love to."

Celeste raised his eyelids and responded. He picked up the black tea on the table and took a sip. The warm black tea just soothed the slight itching in his throat.

"Three days ago, an alchemist was imprisoned in the parish prison for stealing."

The bishop said cheerfully: "He tried to steal a poor farmer's precious rations, so, by the will of the Lord, we have to put him in prison and let him repent of his mistakes."

Bishop Kenneth looked at the furnishings in the reception room. This magnificent reception room seemed to only appear in his dreams, with expensive and beautiful Persian tapestries, a long brown hardwood table, and various exquisitely carved gadgets.All of this demonstrates Celeste's distinguished status.

In order to please Celeste, Kenneth continued: "Don't you think it's funny? Don't they claim to study the touch into gold? Why are they going to steal bread to survive now?"

After finishing speaking, he himself laughed a few times, and Celeste also bent the corners of his lips in cooperation.

Although he didn't think it was that funny.

His thoughts moved: Alchemists don't just pursue turning stones into gold, they also have a more difficult pursuit: immortality.

In order to make his body healthier, Celeste has invested a lot in religion over the years, but he has not achieved any results.

He tried to pray devoutly, he also tried to give food to the poor, and he spent a lot of money to renovate the church and build statues of gods, but all these efforts he made failed.

The gods didn't give him any response, and his body was still deteriorating day by day.

So, maybe it's time for him to try something new.

Celeste knocked on the table rhythmically, "Well, alchemist?"

He raised his eyebrows and made a somewhat curious but still reserved look of nobility: "What is that?"

Kenneth consciously found a way to please the noble duke, he began to introduce the alchemist at length, and finally, he concluded: "This is a weird group who only daydream all day long, but it is undeniable that they It's also quite interesting."

Celeste was naturally attracted by the "interesting" in Kenneth's mouth, and readily agreed to Kenneth's proposal to bring the alchemist to relieve Celeste's boredom, and gave Kenneth a gold Vigil in return. Nas Statue.

"It's too precious, I appreciate your generosity, but I can't..."

Kenneth waved his hands again and again, but his eyes lingered on the statue from time to time.

"This is just a small gift, it is not precious, so please accept it."

After some hypocritical politeness, Kenneth put the gold figurine in his pocket contentedly, and left cheerfully.

After Bishop Kenneth left, there was another knock on the door of the reception room.

Celeste picked up the bell on the table and shook it, signaling the people outside the door to come in.

The door was pushed open silently, and a slender and handsome man walked in, "Did you have a good meeting with Bishop Kenneth?"

"Maybe." Celeste didn't say much, he covered his lips and coughed a few times, "Lunch."

"The butler has already prepared lunch. Today's staple food is venison. It is cooked quite deliciously. It must be very suitable for your appetite."

Eswell has been with Celeste since he was a child, and the tacit understanding he has developed over the years made it easy for him to understand what Celeste meant.He reached out to lift Celeste from the soft seat, and walked out.

Celeste's body is already very weak, and even walking a few more steps will make him out of breath. Because of this, his excellent knight commander had to assume the responsibility of Celeste's means of transportation.

As Eswell said, lunch was carefully cooked venison, but Celeste still had no appetite. He raised his knife and fork and forced himself to take a few bites before deciding to end the meal.

"You really should eat more." Eswell said with concern, "Even if it's for your body."

"Huh." Celeste snorted lightly, and said with a little sarcasm: "You said it as if you had a good appetite. What was the name of the person who ate and vomited? I forgot a bit, please help me recall , is his name Eswell?"

Eswell shook his head helplessly: "Well, I admit, I'm really not a good role model."

The knight commander bent down and wiped the corners of Celeste's mouth, and leaned over to hug him again. Celeste used to take a nap after lunch.

As the knight commander, Eswell didn't need to do these trivial things at all, but he did it extremely well. He was quite skilled in changing clothes for Celeste.After placing Celeste well on the bed, Eswell drew the thick curtains, checked the fireplaces in the bedroom, and decided to leave after confirming that they could still burn for a long time.

"and many more."

Celeste said casually: "Eswell, go tidy up the underground library, I plan to go there after I get up."

"Yes."

Elsevier nodded, and he left.

Ulysses Castle once belonged to a long-established noble family, but that family has long since ceased to exist.There are a large number of precious books in the castle. The more common books are stored in the library on the right wing of the castle, while the books related to occultism are sealed underground.Celeste had been to the underground library, and he remembered that there were some books on alchemy there.

The underground library is gloomy and damp. The empty walls are covered with old wooden bookshelves, and every shelf is full of books. Under the candlelight, these books show a mysterious and terrifying appearance.

Eswell moved a huge oak table, and the soft and warm thick carpet blocked the damp air. Celeste asked him to wait outside and stayed alone in the underground library.

He struggled to identify the characters on the spine of the book, and took out a book from time to time to check. The collection of books here is indeed extremely rich, including books on mysterious herbal medicine, witchcraft, divination, and alchemy. The owner is really obsessed with these things.

Celeste took a book related to alchemy, blew off the thick dust on the cover, and opened it.

This book is written in Latin, and it looks like a handbook of an alchemist. It mentions some weird ideas, such as combining frogs and dogs to produce something called dog frogs, Combining cats with lime powder will produce stone monster cats... In addition, there are many ways to make potions recorded on it, but Celeste doesn't recognize any of the raw materials mentioned above.

Apart from these, there are some contents in the book that are similar to the diary of an alchemist. The level of this alchemist is obviously not high. Every few pages, Celeste will see him cursing the discipline of alchemy, saying that it " It’s so profound that I want to force people to die.”

There are many other complaints like this, he resents that he was born at the wrong time, and that alchemy has weakened.In the line of complaints, he mentioned a place called "The Spire of Thorns" from time to time.

It is said that it is the holy city that alchemists dream of, and it is a treasure land where countless alchemists can give full play to their talents.It's a pity that it has long since declined, and even the wreckage can't be found.

Celeste frowned again and again. The alchemist wrote nonsense and never mentioned the research on "immortality".

So he went to change another book. This book is obviously more valuable because it mentions what Celeste cares about:

[...Master Ulisuta is nearly two hundred years old, but he still looks very young, but he claims that he has not cracked the secret of immortality, he just used knowledge to make his body "healthy" a little... …]

"Maybe I'm wrong."

Celeste rubbed the words with her fingertips, and said to herself: "However, there is no harm in trying, anyway, it won't be worse than it is now."