Grabbing his dagger, Lucien cautiously approached the pile of ash.

The shiny item was actually a carved silver ring, inlaid with a small blue gem on top.

"It belonged to the zombie?" Lucien was surprised. He picked the ring up and started scrutinizing it carefully.

There was a line of letters on its surface, which was written in the common tongue.

"Human nature can be colder than snow."

The ring was just plain-looking, but when Lucien rubbed it gently he felt a mysterious and amazing power coming from the gem. After a few minutes, when Lucien's power started slowly recovering from the magic backfire, he carefully examined the ring again using his spiritual power.

Lucien's injured soul was slightly shocked as soon as his spirit entered into the ring. He felt inside the gem what seemed to be the power of blizzard, but its structure was way more complicated than that of the apprentice-level magic.

"It's a magic ring! Maybe that's why the zombie seemed much stronger than the others." Lucien was excited, "It seems that the ring's even superior to Benjamin's Truth Badge. I wonder which power level the ring belongs to…"

With his remaining spiritual power, Lucien couldn't even understand the magic structure in the ring, not to mention how to leave his own spiritual imprint on the structure, in order to use the power.

A sorcerer with the first circle spell called Identify could directly understand the magic properties of all level one magic items, without having to analyze their inner structures. One's ability in using Identify would grow along with their accumulated knowledge, and thus the person could progress and start using the items of higher level.

Sometimes there was extra information in some of them, including their makers, for what purposes they were made, and so on.

According to the witch's notes, all of the magic items could be divided into different standards: apprentice level, level one to nine, and legend level.

The evaluation criteria was based on the power of the magic item: if the power was equal to a first circle magic or to the ability of a level one knight, it was, correspondingly, a level one magic item. Nevertheless, there were four ranks within each level — low, medium, high and perfect.

Taking a ring enchanted with the third circle spell Lightning for example, if the ring could be used once a day, it was a low-rank level three magic ring; if it could be used three times a day, it would instead be considered a medium-rank level three one; if the ring had some extra benefits like increasing the magic resistance of the user, it would be a high-rank level three item.

If a magic item had some kind of permanent augmentation effect, it would be a level higher than the other common ones. For example, Mind Blank was an eight circle spell, and a magic item with the immunity towards this ring-eight magic would be recognized as a precious level nine magic artifact.

Furthermore, the grading was also applied to magic weapons and armors.

Lucien did not know the ring very well, so he dare not wear it casually in case there was any curse on it. After putting the ring in his pocket he was in a pretty good mood.

However, when he noticed all the bodies and blood around him, he knew that he had more work to do. Most importantly, he needed to learn how to preserve the aquatic zombie's brain tissue.

Lucien did not know how to use the apprentice spell called Organ Preservation yet, but the zombie's brain tissue should be able to last from three to five days, which should be enough time for Lucien to master the spell.

According to the notes, Organ Preservation was a spell that could actually be used for keeping many other things fresh, besides organs. Twenty four hours duration each time. No magic reagent required.

After opening the zombie's skull with the dagger, Lucien saw its black brain, which looked like countless disgusting worms entangling each other. Carefully, Lucien put the brain into a bag together with his icestones.

Knowing lots of money would be needed for learning magic in the future, Lucien plundered all the money from the bodies, including the two hollow-headed ones in the river. He got thirty-three Nars and fifty-two Fells in total.

Looking at his bulging money bag, a smile appeared on Lucien's face.

However, when Lucien was collecting the money he noticed he couldn't see things clearly and his head was buzzing sometimes. Finally he realized that these were the sequelae from his spirit damage. There was no magic potion mentioned in the notes that could be used for this kind of injury. Therefore, the recovery might take a while.

Then, Lucien started doing the labor. Holding his breath, he wrapped up the guts scattered on the ground and threw them away into the river, along with the bodies. Gradually he started getting used to the scene and even took a closer look at Skar's kidney. Lucien believed that soon all of them would become fish food in the Belem River.

After rinsing away the blood on the ground, it was about time he left this place.

"It seems like the heresy has nothing to do with the aquatic zombie." Lucien thought to himself while he was walking, "Then what about the red-eyed rats…?"

Lucien decided that tomorrow morning he would go to Lord Venn's manor to find John before going to the Musicians' Association. He had to talk to John about the heresy, but, of course, without telling him what actually happened down here.

…………

Several pastors in training would come down to the sewers once every three days to clean up the trash in the river using spells.

But the person stepping out of a shadow after Lucien left was definitely not a new pastor.

"The Lord of Argent, the forever lasting silence…" The person giggled in a mix of disgust and amusement, continuously talking to himself, "A different name, a different identity? Interesting… That person must have been bewitched by him. I can't wait to see his shadow coming upon the land. A battle between him and the Cardinal of Aalto will be very interesting…

"Umm… Probably there is some kind of legacy left by the previous ancient magic empire that he could utilize.

"But the church would interrupt his plan, I bet."

The person looked around. A cunning smile appeared upon his face.

"The pretty smart young guy just created the new apprentice magic, Sulphuric Fire Wall, by himself. Impressive… He can be very useful to me..."

Then his figure split into countless small shadow pieces and he suddenly disappeared.

Only his giggles were left there, echoing in the pipes.