DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked at the ten flaming hands that were floating around him, and then looked at the ten hands of water that were right to them. Eiro hadn't figured out enough words to create the 'Earth' version of this spell yet, but he was still able to create a water and an ice version respectively.

With a smile on his face, Eiro made the hands move around near him in different patterns. At the very least, Eiro should be able to use these to fight at least a little bit, although he would still need to test this out the next time he got the chance to hunt.

But more than that, Eiro wanted to move on and create new spells altogether. He had already basically figured out all different elemental versions of most spells that he knew of, at least if he had the vocabulary in the ancient language to do so. And that was when Eiro remembered something that Merlin said.

He said that he was looking for the Grimoire not just because it was able to fill itself out with the knowledge of its owner, but also because it was able to go beyond that. It was able to help the owner figure out things that were usually beyond their ability. So maybe this applied now as well.

Eiro stretched his hand forward and pressed his fingers onto the grimoire within his treasury, before pulling it out. He poured a little bit of mana inside, and it was quickly 'updated' with all the new knowledge that Eiro had. He hadn't been using this grimoire for a while.

The quality of the book's leather increased immediately. The pages became straighter and a bit thicker, and the weight of the book seemed more comfortable as it sat in Eiro's hand. The metallic decorations seemed to increase in quality, as if an alchemist had turned them from iron to a more noble version of itself.

It was truly interesting to the Demon to see this all happen, but the process was soon over. He really wondered what kind of object this grimoire was. It was no artifact, since Eiro was able to recognize the vibe of artifacts, whether they were of 'arcane' nature, created by the Arcane Dealer, or of any other nature, such as Ariella's artifact.

But this was no object that just anyone could create. This grimoire... it was an object of power innately different to artifacts, and it wasn't just a simple magic tool either, if Merlin was to be believed.

There were certain creatures in this world that were 'special', that stuck out. Creatures that reserved certain rights. For example, the Monster King, the Hero, or the Holy Priestess. Creatures with splinters.

And there was another one, a being that was often believed to be kind of different from these. Someone that rose to their position through knowledge and power instead of it being a birthright. The Sage. The greatest mage in the world. Merlin said that the Monster King killed him some years ago, and that Merlin could take his place if he just had this grimoire that Eiro now had with him.

"Is this... the Sage's Grimoire?" Eiro muttered quietly. It was certainly possible. It had to have some kind of connection to him, at least, "If it's the Sage's Grimoire, then maybe it's possible... If the greatest mage in this world created it, then something like this could exist."

Eiro thought about what this book really might be. He still didn't know, and he might not figure it out anytime soon, but he felt like he was on the right path at least. Eiro slowly flipped open the grimoire and looked at the page that appeared to him. It was the compendium in the very front.

"This wasn't here before..." Eiro muttered, "Or was it?"

The book usually brought him to wherever he wanted to go immediately, knowing his thoughts sometimes even before he did. If he wanted to cast a flame-based spell, then he would reach the flame section. If he wanted to cast an earth-based spell, it would bring him to that chapter.

But now, it didn't. It brought Eiro to the compendium, a section of the book that didn't even exist earlier. It noted down all the different elemental chapters, although the length of each chapter was far, far shorter than it used to be. Eiro quickly flipped through the book, and reached the first page of an elemental-based chapter.

It told Eiro all that he knew of the element, like its properties, the ways it was best used. It even described the Elementals of the respective element, in this case being Salamanders for the Fire Element. And on the next page, it listed all the words of the ancient language related to the fire element, and after that came specific runic patterns that were particularly useful while casting this element.

And it even listed things that Eiro knew were a thing, but he never tested out with a particular focus. Different 'higher beings' to call upon while chanting. The next page was a map of a place that Eiro had never been to, nor had ever seen. He was still in the flame section, and something similar to this didn't seem to be in any other place. And then it dawned on the Demon.

"Is this a map of... the plane of fire?" Eiro asked perplexed, and Sarius immediately looked over his shoulder to get a glance at it. He thought for a moment, and quickly nodded his head, "Yup, it is. But how the fuck did this get here..?"

"It might be that something specific changed in the grimoire... That it's now able to analyze my connection to the plane of fire through the gateway within me. If I ever get the chance to go there... This will definitely be useful." Eiro muttered to himself quietly, although Sarius simply scoffed.

"Hah, right! If you ever wanna go there, you'll have me, so you don't need a boring ass map." Sarius pointed out, and Eiro raised his brows curiously, "Oh, so you know everything there is to know of the plane of fire? I heard you would do nothing but laze around in the royal castle all day, every day."

"Don't judge me, dude." Sarius replied with a wry smile, "It's different over there, aight? It's like... Our version of your world here or something. We can't move around as freely over there as we do here. But I can still show you around a good bit of the plane of fire, I just won't know about every detail."

"...speaking of, I never asked what the elemental planes are like." Eiro pointed out, but before he was able to change his attention to something else, Nelli appeared in front of his face, "Keep flipping through the grimoire, don't you dare stop now. I'm curious as well, so keep going, demon boy."

"...Right, right." Eiro replied, and continued looking through the pages. He returned to the compendium and looked at the section that had already caught his eye earlier. Generally, the grimoire had already been split up into three sections. 'Elemental', 'Arcane', and 'General'. The Arcane section was mostly empty, holding nothing but the knowledge that Eiro knew of Arcane Magic right now. But it seemed like this section was going to be much larger, seeing how it gained its own overarching section. Eiro kept flipping through it, and soon saw something in the Arcane Section that rather surprised him.

It was knowledge of the Arcane Dealer, Arcane Mage, Arcane Hunter, and Arcane Warrior that Eiro had met, as well as the concepts of the 'Shards', 'Pieces', and 'Splinters'. There were even pages related to the cards, those that Eiro had collected himself, as well as those that Eiro simply knew of. And then, at the very back of the section that related to the cards, the motifs of all the cards had been drawn out. The ones that Eiro himself possessed were actually colored in properly, while the others were grayed out.

"The 'goal' really is to collect all of them, huh?" The Demon muttered quietly, letting out a deep sigh as he moved on to the next pages. Rather, he moved on to the whole next section, and that was the 'General' section.

It seemed to hold the actual spells that Eiro knew of. Each page contained another magic circle that Eiro knew, together with the chant. But more than that, the magic circles were actually animated like they should be in reality. The magic circles were just so slightly shifting, some parts were twisting and turning when it was necessary for the spell. Most importantly, Eiro could manipulate the way each page's content showed itself with nothing but a mere thought.

If he knew the right words and runes in the ancient language, then he could alter the chant and the magic circle to be of that particular element. When he thought about the result of the spell, then the ink used to draw the magic circle onto the page would disappear or shift, to be replaced by an image showing what exactly the spell looked like when actually activated.

This was even the case for spells that Eiro knew, but never used before. The different example spells for arcane magic, for example. The only one that Eiro had tested out was the 'Mage Hand' spell, and now he could even see what exactly would happen when just looking at the spell and chant on the paper, without actually casting it. At the very front of this section, there was even the 'Ancient Language' dictionary that Eiro had been working on himself, all the words telling Eiro all the meanings that he figured out.

And then, there was the last page of the spell section. This section was the most important to Eiro in the first place, the one that he would end up using the most. And there were some blank pages with the title 'spell creation' at the top.

With the help of the grimoire, Eiro would be able to more easily create new spells himself.. Eiro grinned broadly, ready to test this out immediately.