Demon's Virtue

Eiro stepped out of the tower, feeling the flaming air of nature in his lungs. He turned his head toward the flaming boar that was sleeping near the hut that had been constructed not too far away. A few trees had sprouted out from the ground, surrounding the hut, in order to keep the place a bit more protected.

Stepping past the boar, Eiro rubbed the magic beast's snout. It had grown considerably since Eiro brought it here along with Jyoti. It was just a piglet before, but after Eiro gave it a bit of 'inspiration' in regard to different fire magics, it seemed to have grown quite a bit to the point where it gaint new magic.

And as magic beasts changed along with the magic they possessed, the 'piglet' had turned into a full-on beast.

The Demon knocked on the door of the cabin that he had built for Jyoti. In the beginning, he was just staying in a tent, but Eiro felt bad about just leaving him in there. Jyoti had come here to follow Eiro, after all, so he had some level of responsibility until Jyoti managed to get the qualifications for the tower.

So, instead of just leaving the boy in a tent, Eiro headed out and found himself some seeds for good trees of this plane, planted them in a good nearby spot, and then used some of those trees to build a nice, small hut for Jyoti and the pig.

Knocking on the door, Eiro's foot tapped on the ground in thought, as he was trying to decide on which piece of information to go with as a starting point for what he had to hand in to the overseer. From inside of the cabin, footsteps quickly scurried to the door, as Jyoti came over and opened it up.

"Sirs! Please come in!" he exclaimed nervously, stepping to the side to let both Eiro and Sarius into the cabin. The floor was covered in a large number of books that Eiro had either fetched or transcribed for Jyoti so that he could prepare for the tower's test properly.

"How's your progress looking?" the demon asked as he squatted down, starting to pick up some of the books that Jyoti didn't seem to be actively using or referencing, carefully bringing them over to the bookshelf.

"I think it's pretty good... my language comprehension skill is almost at intermediate!"

"Good. Have you managed to transcribe a bit of my test?"

Jyoti quickly scurried over to the desk that Eiro had made for him, looking for the right piece of paper that he quickly handed over to the demon.

"Hm..." he hummed lightly as he looked over the short paragraph, "You're actually starting to get the 'concept' to some degree. The compressed sentences I told you were about the Anarchic Revolution, but the moment you understood that, you filled in the rest with the knowledge in your head. For the test, you need to properly transcribe exactly what is told to you, aight?"

Jyoti nervously looked down at the ground, "B-But... how am I supposed to do that? The words just don't make sense, I..."

"It's not actually about the specific words. You are on the right track since you can already understand the overall topic. But what's important is that you only transcribe the ideas that are actually told to you.

If the purpose of each sentence and word is there, which words you actually use or how you order them really doesn't matter all too much," Eiro explained, and Jyoti slowly looked down at the piece of paper that Eiro handed back to him.

"So... I just have to try and understand what it is you're saying, but not focus on the words you're saying?"

"Yes, exactly that. Do you need me to tell you again? As a refresher?"

Jyoti thought about it for a moment, and then carefully nodded his head, "Yeah, I think so. I'm ready to try again."

"Alright. Then listen closely," Eiro said, clearing his throat as Jyoti's eyes got stuck on the Demon's lips, waiting for him to speak. And then, the Demon carefully opened his mouth, releasing a brief sound of overlapping words and ideas all mashed into one. Jyoti almost flinched as he heard it, but tried to concentrate on the word as much as he could.

Without a word, Jyoti rushed back to his desk and started trying to take notes of everything that he could retain before the memory of the 'word' faded from his mind. Sarius scoffed lightly, leaning against the wall.

"He's pretty serious about this, ain't he?"

"I guess so. I mean, I explained to him the importance of this place, and he seemed pretty excited about it. And I took responsibility for him, so I'd like to make sure he gets inside before we leave, so this is more than just welcome," the Demon explained, stepping back out of the cabin with the spirit still following behind.

"So, what now?"

"Now, I'll get to work," Eiro cracked his knuckles, holding forward his hand. He quickly manipulated the fire magic around him, pulling up the ground and flattening it smooth to make a seat for himself. After sitting down on it cross-legged, Eiro created a place for the book to sit on, and quickly got out the ink and quill that the overseer had given to him.

Sarius looked at him curiously, "What're you gonna write about?"

"Hm... I'm thinking I'll write something that even the tower shouldn't know about. The tower only has information that has actually been recorded in some way. Written or painted. Even scribbled notes with significant enough information," the Demon pointed out, "And there is one piece of information that I've made sure has never been written down anywhere, in any way at all."

"What would that be?"

"What I am. What my purpose is in this world, and the fact that I have this massive splinter of the arcane inside of my soul," Eiro explained with a grin on his face, "The implications this has on the world, its future, and of course to the realms beyond. Why was I given this?

I know what I'm supposed to do with the splinter, but why does that god beyond the gods want to gather up all those large splinters?"

Sarius thought about it for a moment, "And you're sure the tower doesn't have the information already?"

"I'm certain. The only way I figured it out was because I was told it by the the world itself," the Demon replied immediately. He watched as the quill pulled up the fire-elemental ink, carefully placing the nib onto the paper.

---

The sound of a pen scratching over parchment could be heard, filling the silence of the hidden library of Eiro's home. Here, there was currently one duplicate working. It was the duplicate infused with the aspect of the Artificing skill, and he was currently transcribing some arrays into a book.

The ink itself was a special liquid that was particularly conductive to mana, while the pages of the book were made by interweaving metallic fibers in a flexible way.

In certain parts of the pages, Eiro would pierce through the metallic fibers to connect the arrays to the ones on the adjacent page. This was a particular project that Partax had suggested that could allow Eiro to get in a lot of practice with relatively few ressources.

Considering that scribing was something that Eiro was already particularly good at in the first place, having gotten quite a lot of practice in by copying down and writing dozens of books by hand, he was able to finish the planned-out project pretty well.

The this magic item that he was trying to create right now was actually just a simple barrier that would envelop the individual that poured mana into the item. That being the case, for such a relatively simple result, the amount of work he was putting into it was quite a lot.

Eiro was specifically working on breaking down the barrier into the smallest parts possible, trying to strengthen it in a number of adaptive ways.

If a magical attack came in, the barrier would strengthen itself against the specific elements the magic consisted of; if it was a physical attack, the barrier would be strengthened against physical force, whether it was cutting, blunt, or pierced damage. And over the course of the next few months, this Eiro had a single goal.

Filling a bookshelf with different, unique magic items in the form of books.