At night in the Karl Stream shopping street, the moonlight illuminates the wooden sign of a grocery store, and the words on it have long been blurred by the years, and only the words groceries can be faintly seen.

A few candlesticks and moonlight from the windows illuminate the interior of the store, and the shelves are dazzling, leaving aside the dust that fills the room.

From fish hooks to horse-drawn carriage wheels, potted plants, armor, blankets, and a host of useless objects, the mess is like walking into a terrible second-hand market.

The owner of the shop here is called Henry, and he is a large middle-aged man. He has a beard, a face full of horizontal flesh with a few scars, a headscarf wrapped around his head, and the flesh on his body is fat and strong, and the fat can't even see his neck. His big ass sat behind the counter, and he undoubtedly became the most conspicuous presence in the entire store.

Suddenly, the bell on the door of the store jingled, and a man dressed in a distinctly noble position walked into the store. He was dressed in a tight-fitting wide-sleeved nobleman dress with red stripes and a black background, which matched his red hair, and he wore long black boots and loose black pants on the lower half of his body, and a black coat of fine fabric on the outside, which looked extraordinary.

Henry, who heard the doorbell ringing, first raised his eyelids lazily, and immediately squeezed out of the chair after confirming the identity of the other party, and the wrinkles on his face also relaxed with a polite smile.

"Count Laurean? It's been a long time since I've seen you! Belch... I didn't expect you to come in person, I knew how nice it would be for me to greet you at the door. Henry rubbed his hands together complimentally, his eyes almost slit.

"It's okay, I'm here to see my daughter this time, just to stop by to see you old fellow." Count Laurion waved his hand and fanned the dust in front of him, and then continued: "How are my things, how are they repaired?" ”

"Oh, of course! Wait a minute. Henry shook the bell on the counter and said to the ceiling overhead. Is Mr. Laurien's stuff finished? ”

"Which Laurien?" A teenager's voice came from the attic overhead.

"That's the one I gave you priority! Don't forget, Mr. Laurien is our guest, remember next time! After saying that, Henry didn't forget to smile awkwardly at Count Laurien, and Laurien nodded to indicate that he didn't mind.

It didn't take long for a dark-haired boy to appear on the stairs connecting to the attic next to it. The boy was only fourteen years old, his dark and deep eyes, glowing with a charming color, the black hair tied up in a strand at the back of his head, and his smooth and fair face revealed a handsomeness and elegance that surpassed that of his peers, and he was only wearing a neat white shirt.

The temperament he presents is far inferior to that of the richly dressed adult nobleman. As he walked down the stairs, he wiped a delicately carved pocket watch with a handkerchief.

"The internal structure of this pocket watch is not damaged, but the escapement is broken, and I have replaced you with a new one, sir." The boy's voice was crisp and hearty, and Laurien raised an eyebrow as he looked at him, his attention no longer on the pocket watch.

"Henry, you didn't tell me you had another son." The Count quipped casually.

"Son? Ah, no, he's a student at St. Karlliu's College, just like your daughter, and he's just coming to me for a job. ”

"And that kind of thing?" After hearing this, the Earl put the ten fingers of his hands together and looked at the young man in front of him with great interest. "St. Karliu is a noble college, and you don't look like those merchant children who take money to go to school, what is your name? Brat. ”

"Cesare." The boy responded faintly.

"And what about your parents, Mr. Cesare?" The Count asked.

"My father is not here, my mother... Died a long time ago. ”

Hearing the Earl say apologetically. "Oh... I'm sorry, kid, but you always have a last name, right, what's your last name? ”

As this question was raised, even Henry, the store manager on the side, frowned nervously. Cesare was silent, as if he didn't really want to answer the question, and after hesitating for a while, he lowered his head and replied in a low voice, "Hunyadi... My name is Cesare Hunyati. ”

As soon as he heard Hunyadi's surname, the Count immediately lowered his hand, the corners of his eyes twitched inadvertently, and his gaze also looked elsewhere intentionally or unintentionally. It was as if he had touched some switch on his body, so that the old Earl Ryan was no longer curious about any of Cesare's secrets.

"Hunyati... Oh yes, no wonder. There was a slight embarrassment in his words, and he took the repaired clock and simply fiddled with it twice before putting it into his arms, as if the topic he had brought up ended up making him very uncomfortable.

And this reaction was not surprising to Cesare, as if his surname was a witch's spell, something the world avoided talking about. Compared to his classmates at school, Count Laurean's behavior of stopping the topic is enough to be called a mature and steady gentleman.

Although Cesare did nothing wrong, he was still sorry for the awkward atmosphere, he instinctively lowered his head and avoided the other party's vision, but the chaotic and crowded environment of the store caused him to accidentally bump into the shelf, seeing a bottle of perfume fall from the shelf, Cesare's eyes were quick, and in an instant he grabbed the perfume that had fallen into the air in his hand, and then breathed a long sigh of relief.

But when he realized that no one was happy for him, especially when he saw Henry's flushed face, the corners of Cesare's mouth slowly lowered, and he swallowed.

Go back to your upstairs. Although Henry didn't say it directly, Cesare immediately understood the sharp gaze. After saluting the Earl respectfully, he walked back up the stairs, and behind him came the voice of Henry speaking to the Earl.

"I think the rumors are all mixed true... Forget it, I have a few boxes of new spices from the Sun Peninsula, and I've been looking forward to sending you a box for a long time, just in time for you to come in person......" It was all flattering stammering, and Cesare was not interested and no longer listened.

If the downstairs is a dirty and messy second-hand market, then the attic can be described as a garbage dump for waste hoarding. As soon as you walk up the stairs, you can smell the pungent musty smell coming from nowhere, and when you look at the crowded boxes, you can wonder where the smell comes from.

It's not that Cesare is lazy, it's that space is already limited, and it's full of hoarding goods, except for a workbench, a simple bookshelf, and a bed made of two low wooden boxes.

Many of the chests stacked to the edge might not be able to be picked up in their lifetime unless the roof of the shed was lifted, and if it weren't for the airy windows that brought in some fresh air, it would have been worse than the dungeon.

Sitting back at the workbench, the delicate little pincers swirling in Cesare's hands. His mind kept thinking about Count Laurean's expression, and as if he had secretly made a decision in his mind, he lowered his pliers and pushed aside the pocket watch or music box on the countertop.

"Sorry it's closed today." After whispering to the objects to be repaired, he took out a half-palm-sized, mediocre-looking storage box from his school bag, opened the box, and quietly placed a silver family ring inside.

Unlike most aristocratic rings inlaid with gorgeous and colorful gemstones, the surface of this ring is generally white with complex and changeable lines, and the family badge pattern is delicately depicted above the ring, which is a pitch-black crow, and the scarlet eyes embellishment emit a strange light in the candlelight, which is the symbol of the raven family - the Hunyadi family, a family with many scandals and criticized by the world.

Cesare carefully removed the ring and placed it on the thumb of his left hand. Then he pulled out a notebook, most of which consisted of words and drawings of the ring, each page of which Cesare himself recorded, recording daily research and new discoveries.

He took a deep breath, praying silently in his heart, and then focused his attention on the ring, trying with all his strength to summon the thin magical elements in the attic, which was extremely unstable and risky without the aid of a cane, but Cesare had already found a pattern of magic in his constant experimentation and extensive reading, even if the folk magic books were not rigorous and as reliable as fairy tales.

"Spit out your secrets," Cesare asked the ring through gritted teeth, and the ring seemed to respond as the magic gathered on his thumb. The raven's eyes were as strange as oozing blood, and the radiance that radiated seemed to have the power to deceive people, blurring everything around them and making it unreal.

Cesare only felt that the world suddenly swirled, and when he suddenly closed his eyes and opened them again, all the lines in his vision began to distort and deform, and he seemed to be in a vortex that was constantly compressing towards the center, as if he had eaten a poisonous mushroom, and he couldn't distinguish between reality and illusion, and felt that his brain was also deformed with the distorted lines, which made people feel disgusting and want to vomit.

Cesare fought back to the urge to gag and struggled to keep himself awake, as if he had persevered to this extent more than once. He stared at the center of the swirl of lines, and saw that a figure was gradually converging, vaguely like a woman, unable to see her face, as if standing in front of her and keeping a distance beyond reach.

Cesare braced his eyelids, trying to escape the dizziness, and raised his hand to reach for the familiar figure. "Mom..." felt so close, I could already feel the reassuring temperature of the woman's body.

But at the moment when it was about to touch, an even stronger feeling of dizziness was like a blow to the back of Cesare's neck, which directly made him fall to his knees with a thud, and the figure in front of him instantly disappeared, and the lines around him also returned to their original state, and it was still the familiar attic, as if nothing had happened.

With a strong will, Cesare covered his mouth and did not vomit, but collapsed to the ground and breathed in the foul air. He looked around, and there was a dead silence in the dark attic. It seems that Count Laurean has left early, and the store manager Henry has also left the store.

It seemed to Cesare that it had only been ten minutes since he had returned to the attic, but it seemed that hours had passed, and there was still so much more to him than he could understand about the secrets of the family ring.

Cesare struggled to get up, carefully removed the ring, and scribbled the date of the day, along with the word failure, in his notebook. At this time, he felt as if he had just run around the city of Karlliu, his heart was beating rapidly, he was breathless, he was physically and mentally exhausted, and who knew what kind of damage this mysterious power would cause to his body.

He shook his head to keep himself awake, then packed up his things and left the shop locking the door. Cesare carried his bag in his right hand and his coat on his shoulder in his right hand, the bustling shopping street seemed so lonely at night, and the crows hovered in the night with a sinister grin, and he had to rush back to the school dormitory before midnight, so he walked alone along the road until the figure disappeared into the night.