DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro was seated on one of the library's chairs, while the librarian brought something over to him. It looked like a cup of tea, even if the liquid inside was anything but tea. Or rather, it was tea unlike any that Eiro had seen before in his life. After all, it was completely made of fire magic that had taken different forms.

In this realm, the magic had transformed and taken on the form of different plants, as well as other parts of nature like mountains or even rivers. Given the fact that they had 'water' of flowing fire, as well as plants that seemed quite similar to different herbs that tea could be made out of, it sort of made sense that tea itself could be replicated.

The Demon grabbed the cup, and took a sip of the unique liquid. The taste was unlike anything he had ever tasted before. Of course, it had a natural spiciness to it. Spice in itself was simply a feeling of pain akin to burning in the first place, so Eiro had also expected that. Although, compared to everything else around him, this tea might have been rather mellow. However, the taste itself was quite interesting too. It was something like a mixture between chamomile, cinnamon, and mint, although in its whole, it was distinctly different. A taste he never experienced before, he could only compare it to things that he knew.

"This is wonderful. Sorry, do you have any of the tea leaves left over?" Eiro asked, and the librarian rasied his brows surprised, "Oh, you like it? It's an acquired taste. Although, nobody here usually wishes to acquire it in the first place. Most rather enjoy more... fiery things, as silly as that may sound."

"No, no, I get what you mean. It has a sort of chilling aspect to it, actually." Eiro pointed out with a smile. Sarius took a quick sniff of the tea and immediately grimaced, "Urgh... that stuff. Yeah, I've had it a few times. It's... not quite to my liking."

"I can imagine." Eiro replied, watching as the librarian made his way out of the room to go get the tea leaves. The Demon then looked at the spirit next to him again, "I've got part of a map drawn up in my mind. I'll sketch it down for you in a bit. You should be able to recognize the map, right?"

Sarius looked at him with a brow raised, "Depends. How old is the map?"

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"...What do you mean? Why would that matter?"

Sarius let out a deep sigh as he started to explain, "You ever seen a static flame? No, didn't think so. Flames are... pure energy, whether they're made of mana or not. Expecting a realm made of that to be static is like... expecting Arc to cry. It's possible, just very unlikely. Especially the more time passes." He explained, "If the map is literally built into the walls and shelves, I doubt it's new enough. I might be able to recognize spots here and there, but I don't know about that."

Eiro crossed his arms in thought, "But you do have maps here usually, right?"

"Well duh, of course. They become useless every, like, ten years, but we have them."

"Are they usually stored somewhere?" Eiro inquired next, and Sarius thought about it for a while, "The only place I personally know of that keeps all of the maps is the King's castle. But I wouldn't be surprised if they're kept somewhere else too. We've got a lot of eccentric collectors here."

"...You don't say." Eiro replied, letting out a sigh, before remembering something, "Wait, if everything changes all the time, how were you hoping to recognize where we were?"

"I also said the maps become useless once every ten years, you can somewhat recognize a place even a few years after you've last seen it." Sarius sighed, turning his head toward the door that the librarian was stepping back through, carrying a small box filled with different types of tea leaves. More kinds than just the one that Eiro just tried. He was actually quite excited about trying those.

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He had already prepared a special section within his treasury for this as well. Basically, he simply fused part of the ability with his magic to create a special storage-case for things from this realm, as well as the elemental plane of water. There wasn't much space for a lot of things, but it was enough for him to put that tea in there. The way he had to do that was a little weird as well, however.

"Ah, by the way, I don't have any money." Eiro pointed out immediately, looking at the librarian, who awkwardly smiled back, "O-Oh, erm... don't worry about that, I guess... you can have it for free? Simply make sure to tell you who guided you once you reach the tower of books?" The librarian suggested, and the Demon grinned, quickly grabbing the box, "Deal." He said, before the box simply blinked out of existence.

Since nearly everything here was made of magic, including the box and tea, Eiro could easily pull it through the gateway to the central material plane, where the original Eiro would simply instantly place it into the treasury before it even formed over there. This double couldn't actually access that space, after all. The mental library was nothing but an image created through Eiro's mind, so the doubles could access it freely, since all doubles shared their mind with the original. The treasury was different, however. It was like a direct storage space within Eiro's soul. And these doubles didn't have their own souls, only the original did, so they had no way of accessing the treasury on their own. Since the gateway existed that connected the two duplicates on the elemental planes to the original, there functionally was no difference for things like this, though.

The only issue was that the doubles could only receive things made from pure magic, since that was the only substance that could travel through the spirit gateways. But if they needed something specific, the original Eiro could simply create some sort of item out of magic and then give it to them through the spirit gateway, like the pure-magic greatsword that Eiro made, for example.

"Huh? How did you-" The librarian let out, and Eiro simply smiled at him, "So, do you perchance know where I can find a bunch of old maps?"

"Maps? Erm... not particularly, sorry. I have one of the current landscape, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're looking for."

Eiro closed his eyes in thought, finding himself in his mental library, so that he could take the time to figure something out. The other doubles were busy still trying to figure out Aquarian, after all. While he was standing there, in front of the map that he had recreated from the inside of the library, the original's form suddenly appeared beside him.

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"You probably weren't paying attention to what I was doing, but I'm in the academy's library right now. They have some books of the elemental planes. There might be some maps in there, so just be patient. We don't have to find the tower of books right away." The original pointed out, and the fire-double immediately nodded, "Of course. You and I both know that I'm being patient."

"We have the same mind, of course I know. It's just tough to find the words for this sort of situation. Doesn't happen every day, after all. You know what I mean either way, even without us actually having to speak."

"Not that this is speech anyway. It's just thought that- I think we're derailing here. You would think that with how much this space is sped-up, our mind wouldn't be rushing fast enough for us to get side-tracked."

"Hearing it like that, we really do sound incredibly cocky, don't we?" The original Eiro said with a deep sigh, "Either way, it's more important that you get used to being over there for now. Mingle amongst the people, practice your martial arts and magic in that environment, and so on. There are threats potentially more dangerous over there. Not that it matters too much, since I can simply repair any damage done to your body rather quickly, but we should make sure that nothing happens anyway."

The flame-double nodded his head, "Right, I was planning on that anyway. I was planning on heading to some sort of temple where they apparently practice some interesting martial art. Might be fun to pick up. Having some people to spar with over here should be useful as well."

"Good. Then that's that. The mental doubles are going to keep analyzing everything we do, so the moment they figured out the location of the tower of books, they'll let you know."

"And then, we can spend all the time we want reading as many books as we want." The double said with a grin, "What do you think is going to happen when our mind is filled with that many books?"

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"No idea. But it can't be bad for us, really." The original replied, before turning back around, his body slowly fading away as he was leaving the mental library, "Either way, just take it slow. We're not in a rush right now."

Having been reassured a little after that conversation with himself, Eiro stood up and walked over toward the library's door, "Sarius, come on. We'll go explore the city for a bit."