After finish merging with the new, superior body of the first-ranked sorcerer, Forus felt overwhelmed and uncomfortable within her new body. The weak soul of the third-ranked sorcerer apprentice wouldn't be able to control the strong physical shell of the first-ranked sorcerer freely.
In reality, if not for the fact that Ocelia's soul got heavily injured and got restained by the mysterious string of fate, coupled with the illusion of the Ring of Recollection, whose origin was untraceable even by the second-ranked sorcerer, Ocelia could still retrieve her body back and instantly enslaved Forus' frail soul.
Now, since Forus had overtaken the body, she got assaulted by the overwhelming memory of the previous owner, Ocelia Coruscare. In the vision, Forus received about various miscellaneous facts and pieces of information about the traditional path of sorcery.
If not for the enigmatic grey light that fused with his soul, Forus would have gotten overwhelmed by a large amount of the clustered information and scattered memory that got crammed into his soul. The soul of the sorcerer apprentices wouldn't be able to process the memory of the sorcerers.
After finishing the process of transmigration, Forus slowly felt the flow of pure flaming element inside of her body. She was trying her best to adjust the coordination between her soul and newly acquired physical shell. This process also helped her to gain experience of how the power of the first-ranked sorcerer operated.
However, before Forus could control her new body, the seals that Ocelia had created also began his activation. Many tiny lines were crawling onto her body, preventing Forus to move. If Forus wanted to completely took control over her new body and integrated herself into the Coruscare Family, she needed to break the last line of defence that was the seals.
Fortunately, the seals got set up poorly, as Ocelia didn't have time to set a strong seal carefully. After an instant, Forus had already gained control over the majority of her body. Before long, she would have become the new Ocelia Coruscare, the eldest mistress of the Coruscare Family.
If it was the previous Forus who was still a measly sorcerer apprentice, he might be able to break the seals after going all out, but after she used the power of the first-ranked sorcerer, the seals got torn apart like a wet paper. It couldn't stand in the presence of such might.
After she could move her body freely without any obstruction from the seals, Forus began to look at her beautiful figure and alluring features. The not too short nor too long red hair that danced with the gentle wind and the orange eyes that shone brightly like the sun could steal the attention and heart of any men that had their sight onto her.
The feeling that the flow of pure elemental energy gave off was intoxicating, almost making Forus felt addicted to it. However, she still remembered her objective. She looked into the energy field, penetrating the space and saw the struggling former body of Forus.
It was only a moment that Ocelia got caught inside the illusion of the Ring of Recollection. After all, a spell cast by a sorcerer apprentice couldn't do anything lethal to the first-ranked sorcerer. Even then, numerous wounds had already emerged on Ocelia's new body when she got out of the illusion.
After Ocelia got pulled into Forus' body, her soul also got the memory of the Forus. Because of her soul that was the soul of a first-ranked sorcerer, she had no difficulty in receiving the vision of a sorcerer apprentice.
Watching the past of Forus, she discovered that she could only see into so little of his life, as everything before his mysterious awaken in the hideout of the blue-robed sorcerer never got transmitted into her soul. However, in her situation, she had no time to ponder over such useless thing when she needed to find a way to survive the scheme.
Fortunately, Ocelia could still see the various spells that Forus had learnt during his stay in the hideout of the blue-robed sorcerer. Ocelia also saw the moment where Forus struggled at the doorstep of the death when he almost killed the righteous female sorcerer apprentice, forcing the mentor of said sorcerer apprentice to act, nearly killing him with one of her casual spells.
However, Ocelia couldn't see anything related to the Death Aura and the mysterious entity, as all information about it got blurred by the interference of the unknown power.
Facing the death threat of the Death Aura weapons, Ocelia gritted his teeth decisively cut a chunk of his flesh and threw it outwards at a random direction. The Death Aura weapons quickly sensed the meat and moved towards it, aiming to annihilate it.
However, inside of the chunk of flesh, various roots of the spiritual seed began to penetrate out of the meat, defending against the Death Aura weapons and trying to find its way back to the main body. The movement of the agitated roots caused a chain-reaction that made other roots in action, rampaging inside Ocelia's current figure.
In the face of death, Ocelia only let out a low grown before repeating the process, sending out more and more chunks of flesh. The flesh then became the target practice of the Death Aura weapons, getting destroyed by them regularly.
However, before Ocelia could catch a breath, he sensed a sudden looming feeling of danger appeared out of nowhere, causing Ocelia to become alert. He used his new-found spells of ice and light to protect himself.
Suddenly, the faint silhouette of an old man appeared behind Ocelia. Lord Phasma snapped his finger, creating many rays of light. The rays of light then shot towards Ocelia, binding him in place and restaining his sorcery energy.
If Ocelia still had the previous body of the first-ranked sorcerer, she could easily defeat this fragmented soul, but alas, the body Ocelia had now was at the rank of sorcerer apprentice, which was fragile compared to the first-ranked sorcerer.
Without anyone to obstruct his path, Lord Phasma released attacks after attacks, targetting her soul to ensure that the defence of her soul to get weakened as much as possible. After all, after he decisively destroyed his Decaying Dawn Ring, Lord Phasma had lost his hideout. If he couldn't succeed in this takeover, he would disappear for good.
However, to his surprise, Ocelia could still hold on even after suffering from various mental attacks. Lord Phasma had no mean to know that Forus had used the extraordinary mean to capture the soul of the first-ranked sorcerer.
"Why are you still idling? Go and save that child!" Outside of the energy field, the higher-ups of the Steel Cauldron had already begun their rescue mission. After all, they couldn't bear to pass with such a great talent alchemist.
"That man, Falsus Nomen, is currently under my protection. How could I stand and watch as someone I promised to protect dies?" A firm and gentle voice softly echoed the testing ground. Accompanied by the graceful speech, an old man swiftly rushed into the energy field.
Ocelia Coruscare, or her body which got controlled by Forus, expressed her motive to rescue Falsus Nomen, trying to rope him to join her Coruscare Family. However, her goal naturally crashed against the Steel Cauldron, which also wanted to recruit Falsus Nomen.
If Falsus didn't exhibit such a grand talent in both alchemy and sorcery, the Steel Cauldron would back down and gave this successor of the sorcerer family some face. However, now that Falsus had exhibited a sign of an unparallel talent, the Steel Cauldron could potentially have a next grandmaster alchemist.
After Forus got the memory of Ocelia, she knew that the Coruscare Family couldn't contend against the actual might of the Steel Cauldron. Naturally, after staying stubborn for a while to retain the dignity of the sorcerer family, she finally retreated after she got the offer of compensations.
The sole reason why Ocelia in Forus could still survive was the fact that she managed to guess the absurd intention that Forus carefully hid beneath his suicidal surface.
If Ocelia didn't dissipate the elemental energy that used to suppress Forus' body at the last moment, she would have died by the detonation caused by Forus. However, due to her keen sense that allowed her to guess Forus' intention vaguely, she had immediately destroyed all of her back-up measures as they could threaten herself.
Although with the help of the Steel Cauldron, Ocelia-in-Forus had narrowly avoided the calamity, Forus-in-Ocelia also had much more time to plan her scheme thoroughly, and there would be no way to stop her.
In theory, Ocelia could expose the fact that she and Forus had swapped body and soul, that would cause Forus' plan to fall apart, but, if anyone knew about this secret of soul transferring and the string of fate, at best, she and Forus would have gotten locked in the laboratory and experienced the endless experiment. At worst, both of them would get their souls extracted and dissected, forever suffered in the hands of the powerful sorcerers.
After weighing the pros and cons, Forus Ander and Ocelia Coruscare had tactically promised each other not to reveal the dark secret that they shared or their life would get ruined, and their soul got trapped forever.
Forus, in her captivating body, watched as the Steel Cauldron carefully treated the dizzy and barely conscious Ocelia, who was in Forus' frame. She was showing to the surrounding that she got her interest fixed at the alchemy genius, Falsus Nomen.
"Although both Abicel and Falsus didn't manage to finish their recipe, their superb talents had already won over the judges' attention. However, please let us have a moment to discuss before announcing the winner." After seeing that both Abicel and Falsus were safe, the Steel Cauldron quickly ordered their judges to review the potions and pills as well as examining the procedures.
Even if no one said it, everyone in the testing ground silently agreed that the top of the test should be Abicel and Falsus. They had already given up on obtaining the first and second place.
After a short while of heat discussion and speculation, the judges came out of their meeting room and slowly announced the scores of the test. At this point, there were many rounds of crying and rejoicing. Some were even trying to hear the reasons why their scores were as such.
Naturally, the third place belonged to Mabilis Sagunien. Although he was the rare genius of the Sagunien Family, he didn't solely practice the art of alchemy. He, who wished to become the next head of the family, only practice alchemy to widen his circle of influence further.
In contrast to Forus Ander, who had the personal diary and research papers of the second-ranked sorcerer, and Abicel Pingre, who didn't have any political scene and had better talents than him, Mabilis stood only a low chance in getting the first place.
"The first place of the test goes to Falsus Nomen!" Various acclaims and encouragement sounded the entire testing ground as the last result got announced.
Hearing that Falsus Nomen had won the competition, Ocelia Coruscare, whose body got controlled by Forus, smiled faintly before channelling her sorcery power, sending a minute speck of pure sorcery energy towards Falsus.
Although the real Ocelia didn't want to take the tampered sphere of energy, he nevertheless absorbed it casually, seemingly without any concern.
"As I have promised, this pure sorcery energy will unquestionably help you progress in your cultivation. Not only that, I shall personally help you recovered from your injury and try my best to restore your unusable eye." Her voice gentled and her gesture beautiful, Ocelia gave a declare in front of everyone that she had taken her full interest in Falsus.
However, while everyone busily envied him, Falsus Nomen, whose body contained the soul of actual Ocelia Coruscare, paled at the sentence of her real body.
"Mistress Ocelia, your grace and magnanimity are as bright as the sun that dispels all the darkness and evilness of the world. However, to go to your Coruscare Family with this dirty and tattered attire is nothing short of insulting your dignity. Please let this one prepares himself." Falsus struggled to kneel and bowed, trying his best not to offend Ocelia Coruscare.
