It was a rather plain building from the outside, more like a warehouse than a house.
In fact, this is Lars Graham's sculpture studio.
He was hunched over, holding a bone-white crutch, and stood intently in front of a two-meter-five-meter-tall stone sculpture with an upper body that was almost fully formed, and struggled to raise his head to look at it.
White translucent chisels and hammers continued to appear in the air, making crisp knocking sounds. The dense knocking sounds were reminiscent of the sound of heavy rain. Without any movement from the old man, the sculpture was carved out at an extremely fast speed.
, as if the video has been fast forwarded.
——Lars Graham is 74 years old this year.
The old man's eye sockets are deeply sunken, his eyelids are purple and dry, and his dark face is full of wrinkles. His slender and lusterless white curly hair has almost no hair left, leaving only a thin ring. Maybe it's the light.
Because of this, the shadows in his cloudy brown pupils were a little yellow. For Master Graham, just raising his head or even just opening his eyes was already very laborious.
Today, the art master of the past has aged and become as thin as a thin shadow.
It's the kind of feeling that once you fall asleep, you may not wake up again at any time.
The silk robe he was wearing had such complicated patterns that it looked like it was wrapped in a Persian carpet - it was mainly made of dark yellow, black and red, with a large number of complicated and detailed patterns that would make people dazzled at a glance.
Very few people can control this style of clothing. It is so gorgeous that it will definitely overwhelm the host no matter how beautiful and handsome the owner is.
But that's just fine for Lars Graham.
His whole body was like a withered flower, and his whole body was constantly collapsing inwards. His back was hunched, his shoulders were hunched, his head was lowered and his legs were bent... And his legs were even thinner than the girl's arms.
What was wrapped in that gorgeous robe seemed not to be a real body, but just an empty shell wrapping the soul.
That posture reminds people of a dead leaf butterfly trembling its wings slightly in a heavy rain.
Suddenly, the carving sound suddenly stopped.
The sound of the chisel hitting the stone statue still vaguely echoed in my ears like an hallucination.
The old man didn't look back or turn around, he just hissed slowly in a low voice: "What are you doing here...Chloe."
As his voice fell, a beautiful girl with an artistic temperament suddenly emerged from the shadow behind him.
Chloe's body was covered with scars and dust. Her whole body was almost bloody, and the surface of some of her flesh was even burnt and black.
But in fact, these injuries only looked terrible. Only the appearance was so terrible that it looked like she had rolled a few times on an iron plate. In fact, the inner parts were almost healed, at least they had stopped deteriorating. Together with her right arm, which was almost cut off before.
, has also been restored and has almost healed.
"Dean Graham, I came to get some herbs from you."
Chloe's voice was dry and hoarse: "It would be better if there was something to drink... It's close to the city's martial law outside, and I don't dare to go to their herbal shop to buy herbal medicine. But there is still a long way to go before it can be cured."
She called him dean because Graham is the current associate dean of the College of Art at Cité University. Although he was invited to Avalon to carve a statue of the Queen, his position as dean has not been removed.
"The herbs are in the cabinet on your left."
The old man sighed, leaned on his crutches with difficulty, and turned around step by step.
A cold and ruthless third eye appeared on his forehead, and the jasper pupils glanced at Chloe indifferently.
"The injury is not serious, Miss Caramel."
The old man smiled hoarsely, and it was hard to tell whether he was being angry or gloating: "Compared with the troubles you caused, your injuries are too minor."
"That's because I have used all the props I need to save my life!"
She gritted her teeth and said with resentment: "I still don't understand...how did that Moriarty guess that I was there?"
As Chloe spoke, she searched the herb cabinet that was taller than herself, pulled out the needed herb drawers, and poured all the herbs inside on the table.
That is definitely not a "one dose" amount, but a huge amount that is absolutely harmful to normal people and can be consumed for at least ten days. Even if it is made into a dish, it may not be eaten in one day.
But Chloe just gobbled up all the herbs.
No need to boil or extract, the "medicine power" contained in the herbs was extracted and purified according to the path. Soon, the wounds all over her body were emitting a hazy green light, and the injuries slowly healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Just like under normal circumstances, the effects of continuous use of these herbs for more than ten days are concentrated into just a few minutes.
This is the art of "herbal therapy" that works only for you.
The wounds on Chloe's body healed faster than when she consumed the herbs. After she consumed all the herbs, the horrific injuries on her body were almost completely healed.
Then, she began to vomit violently. She vomited out balls of black mud mixed with minced meat and rancid.
It was a mixture of herbs that had been drained of their potency, and waste products produced when the body was accelerating healing. After vomiting, Chloe's spirit improved significantly.
"...Ah, I'm alive."
Chloe breathed a sigh of relief and quickly said to Graham behind her: "Dean Graham, I will help clean up these later!"
The old man ignored her, just glanced at her expressionlessly, and walked to his table with a bone-white crutch.
Chloe quickly went over and poured Graham a glass of water.
Old Graham glanced at her and said slowly: "Is there anything else?"
"I just want to take revenge and vent my anger before I leave...so I want to seek some advice from you."
Chloe snorted. She was obviously still a little unconvinced... mainly because the assets she had lost made her a little heartbroken.
"Let me remind you that the mission given to you by the association has been completed, Chloe."
Graham held the water glass and said in a long voice in Iris: "If I were you, I would hide in the countryside immediately. I will return home as soon as the situation calms down a bit."
"They can't catch me."
After being hunted for several days, Chloe obviously gained full confidence: "Inspectors on the path of authoritarianism are much stupider than extraordinary people on the path of love and beauty. This time I planned more carefully and ambush Ai in advance.
If you squat in the place where Wen Si sleeps for a day or two without eating or drinking, you will definitely succeed."
"To me, this looks more like a trap."
The old man took a sip of water and said quietly: "You are too proud, Miss Chloe. Although you entered the fourth level at the age of twenty-four, you have not officially entered the fifth level after all. It is not completed.
If you go through the advanced ritual, there are still many people in Avalon who can deal with you.
"The Grand Arbiter, the Grand Inquisitor, the Grand Guardian, the Grand Justice, plus Master Yanis of the Theocracy. Just the extraordinary beings who have been confirmed to have reached the fifth energy level and are willing to serve the royal family.
There are at least five of them. If you meet any of them, you will definitely not be able to escape.
"Not only that, even the Arbitration Hall has not been dispatched. With the power of arbitration, they can exert the full power of the authoritarian path in Avalon... Knights without power and only honor cannot exert much threat.
You would take such a reckless action, and I think you have deviated from the path of adaptation. I will report this to the leader when I return."
Who would have known that this stupid student who he had taught for a semester but could not understand the path of beauty would now become like a fish in water after switching to the path of beauty?
But her advancement was too smooth and her assassination had never failed, which made her mentality a little unbalanced now.
Being so high-profile is not the principle advocated by Adaptation to the Road. This is also the reason why her strength began to stagnate.
"...What the dean means is that you don't object to my actions now?"
Chloe was a little surprised to see that her old superior did not object to this matter.
She showed a sweet and obedient smile and flattered: "You are also a 'master'. You are also an extraordinary person at the fifth level of the art path. It took Master Yanis more than two hundred years to become a master.
And it only took you less than forty years to become a 'master'..."
"Ho ho... it's useless. I won't accept this."
But the old man just smiled in a low voice: "Let me state it in advance, no matter how close you are to success, I will not take action. I have taken over a more important task and cannot be exposed. And Yanis is spying on me, so it is difficult for me to take action.
.”
"Just in case, let me ask...where do you plan to ambush?"
"I haven't thought about it yet. How is his family?" Chloe said casually.
"——Don't go there."
Old Graham denied it without hesitation: "His butler Oswald is dangerous."
"Does he have a fifth level?"
"It's hard to say, but it is very likely. Oswald does not have a 'career', but has inherited the old system used by the immortal species in the old era before the emergence of 'career'. His path is completely mixed and incomprehensible.
Systematically, all the power is mixed in multiple paths, and the trajectory of its manifestation is not clear. No one knows which paths he is adaptable to, and what power he has mastered.
"But based on the abilities he has shown so far, he has at least the fourth level of ability to adapt to the path. And the elf is well-informed, so he probably knows the information about shadow sneaking. You will definitely die if you go there."
The old man looked at Chloe with his ruthless and mean eyes, like a critic of art works examining other people's works, and made a cadence in a strange sentence: "If there is a chance that you will be captured alive... I will
will kill you.
"Now, say it again. Where are you going to ambush?"
"……Well."
She didn't expect the Elf Butler to be so powerful, which surprised her.
"That means he must be outside. Although I haven't read the Avalonian newspaper, I am sure that he must be famous. If he is assassinated by me, it will definitely become big news."
Chloe replied briskly: "In order to leave me time to escape, this matter must be hidden from other people's eyes and ears. So I can only kill him quickly where no one can find him, and also leave him behind."
Enough time to escape..."
"Then my suggestion is that you go to the White Shoes Club now to see his commendation ceremony." The old man replied.
"...but it's almost five o'clock now?"
"It doesn't matter. He will attend the commendation meeting of the Supervisory Bureau this afternoon. Even if there is no dinner, he will not be back until at least 5:30. Considering the long distance, the earliest he can get to the dormitory will be 6 or 7 o'clock. If there is a dinner,
, he might have to go back two or three hours later... maybe even drink some wine.
"According to my information, someone wanted to take action against him this afternoon... Just two hours ago, two demonologists from the Noble Red Society had sneaked into Wangli University of Law. The statue of the great man placed at the entrance of the school has been
They told me this. They are not weak, but I think their assassination will definitely fail. The means used to prevent you can be used by the people of Noble Red, because he must also know that you are still alive.
"On the other hand, you can also observe Aiwass' methods and trump cards."
Although he disapproved of the contemptuous plan given by the young assassin codenamed "Caramel", the old man still gave the correct advice based on his rich assassination experience when he was young: "There is no better assassination opportunity than this.
"He has solved the enemy who wanted to kill him and accepted an honor that is almost impossible to obtain at his age. He must be relaxed and proud. After that, you go directly to his dormitory to ambush.
"And he will be tired after socializing, full food will also make people sleepy, and alcohol will make people depressed. You can even apply poisonous ointment directly on his lips without using the 'eagle feather', and he will fall asleep
He died of poisoning. In that case, no one would realize that the cause of his death was poison at the first time... You would have enough time to escape from the glass island."
