DEMON'S VIRTUE

As the small, white golden sphere disappeared, Eiro's mind started to race. Why did he have an affinity for the Holy Element? Was it because of how much time he spent with Avalin? Or maybe even when the Holy Flames ate him up?

What would happen if this kept growing over time, and Eiro just awakened Holy Magic that would rip him into pieces the moment that it awakened within him?

Eiro was starting to panic, his heart was racing and his breathing sped up. Luckily, Bavet noticed this, "Calm down. All of us know that you're abnormal. We'll find a way around this." The slime that had fused with Eiro's body whispered into his ear, and the Demon was able to slowly calm down.

Bavet was right, there was no reason to worry about this yet. The way that affinities worked for Eiro was weird enough already, there was no reason to freak out about a little bit of an affinity for Holy Energy.

Except that everybody else in this room was currently freaking out. Talking amongst each other, rushing up to Eiro to try and ask him questions. Merlin nearly fell unconscious due to shock.

"How do you have so many affinities, and how are they so strong?!"

"Can you show us some of those spells?"

"Are you even human?!"

Eiro smiled wrily as he took a step back due to all of these children, while Clementine just had an amazed expression on her face while sitting in her seat.

Quietly, she whispered something that only Eiro would be able to hear, "Dad, you're so awesome!"

Seeing that Eiro was obviously a bit overwhelmed right now as well, Merlin made the children sit back down in their seats, "Now, now, it may not be common to see a person with e-eleven elemental affinities, out of which five are too strong for this complex device to measure, however there is no need to bother Eiro about this."

Merlin looked at Eiro with a deep frown and whispered, "I will have you explain this to me later, however."

The frown didn't seem particularly angry, more like a weirdly excited expression in this case. As if Merlin wanted to experiment on Eiro to figure out how he had this many affinities.

"But for real, I knew you were insane, but I never thought you'd be... Well, quite this fucking insane, man." Sarius grinned broadly, floating up right next to Eiro's head. The Demon turned his head to the side and muttered, "Shut it."

Merlin widened his eyes after overhearing Eiro's words, and the Demon immediately realized that there was going to be a misunderstanding, "No, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to him."

Eiro pointed to the side and snapped his finger, making Sarius appear next to him, "He's a pretty annoying one."

"A-Ah... I'm s-sure he is..." Merlin muttered confused, while Sarius complained, "What do you mean, annoying? I'm the future Salamander King, how can I ever be annoying?"

"Nelli." Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose and snapped his finger again, making Nelli appear together with a sphere of water large enough to completely cover Sarius in it. And of course, that happened, momentarily extinguishing Sarius' flames.

"...Why do I always create these bothersome situations for myself..?" Eiro grumbled quietly, realizing that the room became even louder as they saw the two elemental spirits appear in front of them.

"Eiro, if you find this awkward, wait until they find out that you're ble-"

"Nelli, I swear on our contract that I'll-" Eiro groaned, stopping himself before he finished. The Demon turned toward the class, and started to speak in a loud voice, "Now, I guess it is time for my introduction. My name is Eiro. The same one that performed during the festival, as you may have guessed. And as you can see, I am quite magically gifted. This is why I'm not only going to be teaching many different practical magic classes this year, but also a few theoretical ones. If you have any questions about magic, I'm confident that I will be able to answer them, so please come to me if you have any issues in that regard."

"Th-Thank you for your introduction, Eiro. Now, let's continue with the regular schedule, please." Merlin added, taking some weight off of Eiro's shoulders and calming the room down a bit more. The Demon approached the wall, as he snapped his finger and made Nelli and Sarius disappear from everyone's sight again.

The rest of the class proceeded relatively normally, just that Eiro was completely defeated toward the end of it. He really should have been more careful.

If he had somehow manipulated his mana in some specific way, he could have possibly tricked the system that the Orb functioned over. Now this turned into a bit of a bother.

"Actually..." Eiro muttered, "This might actually be quite helpful."

The fact that a teacher with eleven elemental affinities appeared would probably be shared quite quickly. His name would spread within the school, and would as such even reach the parents of the students eventually, establishing Eiro as an extraordinary individual. That was actually exactly what he wanted in the long run, so this wasn't that big a deal.

And it would help Eiro learn to deal with this much attention all at once. As the class was over for Eiro himself, he quickly went to speak to Merlin, promising that they would speak later. The Demon walked by Clementine and rubbed his hand through her hair as he left to go to the other divisions of the school, just to get a rough tour at least.

He was especially interested in the Arts and the Craftsmanship divisions, for obvious reasons. Since the nearest place was the Craftsmanship Division's building, Eiro quickly made his way there.

The introductory meeting for this division was already reaching its end so that the students could head to their first classes of the day. And since Eiro fully knew Rudy's schedule, he got here at the perfect timing, since his first class was 'Introduction to Woodworking'.

Eiro waited in front of the room for the teacher to arrive. A middle-aged, dwarven craftswoman. This sort of division was clearly not filled with Nobles, since no noble would send their child to become a craftsman even if it was the child's dream, and the same was the case with the teachers. So Eiro was able to get along with her pretty quickly, especially because she was interested in the craftsmanship behind Eiro's hand.

"So, who made this wonderful piece?" She asked curiously, and Eiro smiled smugly, "I did, actually. I'm a learned and practiced Prosthetist. My teacher made sure to drill how to work with any sort of wood in the best way possible into my head, so I think I'm pretty good at woodcarving and woodworking in general."

"Intriguing! But I must ask, what is this wood? It nearly gives off a chill, but is quite warm to the touch."

"Ah, it's a special magical wood. It's the reason why I can do this." Eiro explained, drawing a small magic circle into the air with his fingers.

The teacher looked back at Eiro's hand, and then at the Demon's face, "How can you move a wooden hand like that..?"

Eiro winked at her with a smile on his face, "Trade secret. Now, come on, let's not keep the students waiting. I'm sure you're fine if I watch for a while?"

"Of course! Come on in!" The teacher exclaimed, although she was still obviously curious about Eiro's hand. The two of them entered the room, and Eiro immediately spotted Rudy at one of the workstations with a 10-inch cube of wood placed in front of them.

"Welcome to 'Introduction to Woodworking'! My name is Hermia Viatella, I'm the lead of the Woodworking specialization." The teacher introduced herself, "And this here is Eiro, another teacher at our school who is quite interested in the art of woodworking. He will be observing our class today, since he's new at our school."

Eiro smiled at the students and slightly waved at them.

"Now, who can tell me what the most important thing is when it comes to working with wood?" Hermia asked, and there was one student that immediately raised his hand, the one sitting next to Rudy, actually.

"The wood itself! If you pick low-quality wood, you won't be able to do anything with it no matter how skilled you are." He exclaimed, thinking that his answer was obvious.

While he didn't seem like a noble, it did seem like his family was rather rich, so he was most likely only used to the best materials. Luckily, Hermia didn't particularly agree.

"You see, that answer is actually completely false. It may seem logical, but... Yes, you there? Rudy, wasn't that right?"

"Yes, it's Rudy... Well, the quality of the wood is important, sure. But a true artisan can make something amazing out of scraps, even. High-quality wood might make for a better base, and it would make it easier to make something great, but your own ability to pull the best out of what you're given is the most important."

Hermia looked back at Rudy and slowly nodded her head, "That's exactly right, young man. You said it perfectly. 'Your own ability to pull the best out of what you are given'. Basically, creative thinking, and the skill to put that creative thinking into practice. What one person may see as trash can be treasure to someone else. You might be able to see this fact more clearly after our first practice. You have some pencils and paper right next to you. Look at the wood that you have been given, and think about what you want to do with it.. It can be anything you want at all, as long as the only material used in its creation is that single block of wood."