DEMON'S VIRTUE

Letting out a loud sigh, Eiro closed the book in front of him, "Those two, they're really annoying..." He grumbled, as the spirit next to him moved into sight, "Who is?" Gondos asked. The Demon turned toward the Golem and quickly explained, "The versions of me in the elemental planes. I don't know why exactly, but the magic seems to be affecting their personalities to an extent. We share the same mind though, so each of their mood-swings still gets to me."

He had already gotten quite tired of the discussions those two were leading inside of the collective hive-mind of all the versions of Eiro that currently existed. The one in the elemental plane of fire was especially troublesome. He was just an angrier, more easily annoyed version of the original, something that he seemed to try and show off as much as he possibly could. And while the other one was a lot easier to deal with, he was still annoying for Eiro to look at.

The duplicate in the elemental plane of water was sort of calmer than Eiro for most of the time, to the point where he could actually be called sort of lazy. At least when it came down to it, he hit hard, but even that was bothersome to an extent. That version of Eiro just let the world around him do whatever it wanted, and then he pushed through without caring what was around him. Sure, that was a quality that the original Eiro also had to an extent, but with this duplicate, it was just so much worse.

Of course, if the other duplicates acknowledged that this was what he was thinking, this situation would become even more annoying. But for now, each version of Eiro with their own physical body, so not including the ones that existed only within the mental library, mostly concentrated on what it was that they were doing. They thought for themselves, and only relied on the shared mind when it came down to it, or when they needed something. After all, it was a bit weird having a dozen opinions on everything that you were doing. Eiro already thought far too much about everything that he was doing anyway, and he didn't need that times a dozen. Luckily, this did create a bit of privacy between the different duplicates.

"I wonder... maybe I can create some kind of wall so that I can think in peace sometimes?" Eiro wondered for a few moments, although he quickly abandoned that thought. He was the original, so he was the only one that was fully in control of what was happening. Each of the duplicates was already starting to form their own personalities. Right now, that only affected some surface-level behaviour, but if Eiro wasn't careful, they might become far too different. And he didn't want to let that happen, so he had to make sure he knew what the others were doing and thinking at all times so that he could intervene if it came down to it.

Since they were connected like this, Eiro could manipulate all of his duplicates as much as he wanted using the mirror of duplication. When they strayed too far from the original personality, he would simply have to completely reset them.

Eiro turned his head toward Gondos again, "By the way, what's the elemental plane of earth like?"

"I apologize, but I really do not know." The Golem replied instantly, "Immature spirits only have a limited amount of control over where they can be. We are usually locked to either plane of existence for most of our life. And even then, it is tough to remember what our lives were like then, because we simply never formed memories of anything we were doing. So even if I was in the plane of earth for a while, I could not describe it to you. And ever since I matured, I have been by your side."

The Demon smiled a bit, "Thanks for that. But if you want to figure out what it's like over there, you can go ahead and explore a bit. You don't have to stay with me all the time."

"...I have no desire to travel the elemental plane. At least not more than I desire accompanying you further."

"A real charmer, huh?" Eiro smirked, "Don't worry, if I come across a gateway to the plane of earth, I will make it mine and then we can explore it together."

Gondos looked back at Eiro, as the Demon picked up another book from in front of him, "Right. But... are those truly you? You share a mind, but you just said it yourself, did you not? 'Those two'. You already consider them different from yourself, so when traveling with another version of you, then how can it truly be the same as traveling with the man in front of me right now?"

Eiro raised a brow as he started to think, "You have a point, certainly. But well, right now, these duplicates have barely existed for a week. It is a new experience for me as well. By the time a situation where I could become the guardian of another gateway arises, we will have figured this whole thing out some more." Eiro explained, continuing to flip through the book page by page, barely just glancing at them so that the doubles in the mental library could then actually consume the contents, "Either way, it's nice to have some alone-time with you. We entered this contract a fair while ago now, but we never really spoke to each other without at least Nelli nearby."

Gondos floated by in front of Eiro, and soon nodded his head, while glancing all over the space around them, "You're right. I didn't even think about this. It does feel sort of... weird. To be alone, without Nelli nearby. But not in an uncomfortable way, of course. Simply weird."

"Don't worry, I understand what you mean." Eiro replied, as he pushed the book in his hands back into the shelf. Turning around, he saw the connected constructs of mage-hands and floating eyes flying through the library. It took him a few days to come up with these. Basically what he did was quite simple, though. He created duplicates of himself, limiting them only to one eye and the specific section of the brain they needed to collect and share knowledge with the mental library, and then added a flow of mana within them in the form of a magic circle that would create a bubble around the eye itself to keep it afloat, as well as a pair of mage hands so that each of them could pick up and flip through a book.

This way, since none of them were actually thinking, and were just consuming this knowledge in the books, Eiro was able to have two dozen of these flying around on top of the duplicates that already existed of himself.

It was the easiest way to read all the books in the Academy's library in a short period of time. And either way, something else stuck out as well as he started to look around this space. There were some familiar patterns within the decorations on the walls and shelves. He had already seen through these twice, so he would of course recognize them, coming across them a third time. The patterns were the same as the ones in the two libraries that Eiro had overcome in the elemental planes. That meant that this library as well was influenced by the owner of the Tower of Books.

But well, it made sense to an extent. There was something called the 'Library Association', after all. They were the group credited with increasing the literacy rate in this world to a never seen-before degree, and they were the major distributor of books themselves. They constructed numerous libraries in most towns, and even if they didn't create them themselves, the library association was usually in charge of any library you came across. There were rumors that the library association was a subsidiary of the Tower of Books, but nobody had been able to confirm this thus far. That also meant that, even if he was asked to take the same test here, the librarian wouldn't know that the coin was going to lead whoever had it to the Tower of Books. With everyone and everything running around on the central material plane, it made sense to be more careful than on the elemental planes.

But at the same time, this library was much, much larger than any other library he had seen thus far. It was really quite ridiculous how large this place was. That made him just the more curious about what exactly the Tower of Books was going to be like. Every single book, scroll, or note written in the world can be found in there. Of course, that included novels, research papers, martial art tomes, grimoires, and even the secret books kept by every single country in this world. The owner of the Tower of Books was a powerful being, keeping all of this information safe. And even if Eiro managed to find the Tower of Books, he was sure that those secret books were kept in a whole separate section that he would never be able to access.

Letting out a slight sigh, Eiro flipped open the next book, quickly glancing at every page before moving on.

"Ah, Lord Daemonherz." Someone suddenly said, pulling Eiro's attention toward them. It was one of his students of the magic course, "Good evening. What are you doing here so late? You should try and get some rest." Eiro pointed out, and the student smiled wrily, "I'm actually just here to study a bit. You see, I've been having a lot of trouble leveling up my magic skill recently... I was hoping to find something that could help me break through."

"Hm... I will let you know if I find a text that could be useful to you." Eiro pointed out, "But remember, you can always come to me if you need help with such matters. Even if I am busy with my own research at the moment, I will try to make time for you as soon as I can."

The student nodded his head, smiling at Eiro, "Thank you, Lord Daemonherz. I'll let you know if there is anything you can help me with." He said, "I will leave you alone to your own reading now." The student walked past Eiro, who couldn't help but keep looking at the boy's back. He was one of the best students the magic course had ever seen, and even he was struggling leveling his magic skill up?

"Hm... I wonder which one he's talking about." Eiro muttered. There was the earth element, which the student so proudly used all the time flowing through him. But there was something else as well. It was a branch of another special type of elemental magic. More specifically, flesh magic, a branch of necromancy. With a light grin, Eiro curiously made sure to keep an eye on this student from now on.