Demon's Virtue

Eiro looked down at the book that he was holding and let his mana flow through it. He had heard about the beneficial effects of Grimoires, but since they were rather hard to come by, the Demon had never been able to really confirm them for himself.

But one thing was for sure, this Grimoire did really seem to boost the flow of his mana quite a bit. Even just holding it slightly improved upon his mana's flow and versatility. It was just a miniscule amount, but every little bit counted in the end.

And then, Eiro tried out the part that really was most important to him directly. Usually, a Grimoire's main purpose was to help a spellcaster remember their spells. A lot of the time, considering the mental strain that any spell put on the caster, especially after a few years, many had a hard time concentrating or even remembering specific bits of spells. A Grimoire helped those individuals figure out what kinds of spells they were supposed to use.

But of course, a book that was just meant to remind them of specific parts of spells didn't need to be a magical item like most Grimoires were in the end, and due to Eiro's superior mental capacity when it came to memories, he would most likely never face any sort of issue like suddenly forgetting about spells.

Especially considering that he didn't have any issues simply drawing certain conclusions and re-learning the system of spellcasting after seeing a little bit of it if he just needed to.

So, why exactly was a Grimoire really so special? What was it that made it one of the most important tools that high-leveled spellcaster had in their arsenal? It was quite simple. It allowed you to take shortcuts when spellcasting.

Eiro flipped the Grimoire open in a specific page and held the book in his left hand while holding his right hand forward. He let his consciousness connect with the Grimoire, trying to focus on it to an extent, and then attempted to cast a rather simple spell.

Usually, even Eiro had a hard time creating a full spell out of nowhere. Even Eiro ended up drawing different lines to make it easier for him. At a quicker pace than others, which made it seem like he was instantly creating a spell to some that didn't have particularly great perception, but in the end, he still didn't create every part of a spell simultaneously.

But now, also due to the simplicity of the spell that he was testing this with, Eiro was able to create the whole spell at once, in a single instance. It was a slightly weird feeling, since this was quite different to the way that Eiro had been casting spells usually until now, but this would certainly help him properly figure out certain things for himself.

And after activating the spell, Eiro noticed that there seemed to even be a bit more force behind it than usual. Although, that might have just been his imagination, considering that he didn't really

Eiro flipped through the Grimoire and looked for one of the more complicated spells. Luckily, when Eiro infused more of a specific sort of magic into this magical book, he was able to slightly influence what parts specifically would be improved upon. So, he could basically take a complex Air spell that he had 'saved' inside of his mind that then appeared inside of the Grimoire.

By fusing more Air Magic into the book, he could break that spell down into its most important parts, as if he was analyzing it. And while Eiro wasn't able to instantaneously create the large, complex spell with the help of the Grimoire, he was able to do so with some of the smaller parts, which meant that he was still able to increase the speed at which he was able to cast the spell considerably.

Eiro was sure of it, with the help of this Grimoire, if nothing else, he would be able to improve upon his understanding of different spells. He would be able to make connections more easily, since even subconscious connections that Eiro made between different things were picked up by the Grimoire, but it took him a little while of thinking to figure some of them out. And even then, he wouldn't even be able to properly pull all of his subconscious thoughts to the front of his mind.

At this point, the Grimoire already took on quite a bit of information, although Armodeus asked a question that Eiro hadn't really thought about that much yet. Somehow, he didn't seem to think that it was all that important, since he may have already subtly figured out the solution and figured that it wasn't a big deal.

"If that Grimoire is automatically improving itself by absorbing magic, why doesn't it have anything in it that was related to the spell that was fused with the storm you spoke of? Didn't you say that the book absorbed a lot of that magic?"

Eiro looked back at the Elder Dwarf and slowly nodded his head, "That's a good question. Hmm... I think it might be because it wasn't bonded with anyone? It notes things down inside of itself through the understanding of the person bonded with it, I think. Without anybody to process the magic, it couldn't note anything down. And the Grimoire was already a special case when it comes to magic, so it makes sense if it would be able to copy it immediately."

"That makes sense, but does that mean that you'll just be able to steal the contents and powers of any Grimoire you may come in contact with?" Armodeus asked with a wry smile. That seemed like it might turn out to be rather chaotic if Eiro wasn't careful about it.

"Maybe so, but it shouldn't be an issue. Grimoires are incredibly rare to begin with." Eiro pointed out bluntly. But for now, as he was thinking about all that he had to do to fill out this special Grimoire some more, Eiro realized something important.

"I'm being messy." Eiro sighed out deeply, and the Elder Dwarf next to him looked over a bit surprised, "What do you mean?"

"...It's simple. In my pursuit of strength, I have spent quite a lot of time increasing the range of my abilities. To be prepared for all that is to come. But all that I have done is amass a large number of weak skills instead of improving upon them and properly honing them like the weapons and tools that I want them to be. I think I should spend some more time training."

"Well, you have plenty of time, right? Even after coming back from the trip to the Dragon of Truth, there's not much that you have to get done immediately." Armodeus added. Eiro closed his eyes in thought as he let his fingers rub over the surface of his Grimoire. And then, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Swiftly, three spirits appeared floating in front of the Demon.

"Sarius, you and I will train together to improve our control on high-power magical abilities with the help of Nelli, who is arguably the being with some of the highest fine-tune control of magic that I have ever seen. Then, I will spend some time training with the Wooden Puppet to improve upon my physical combat abilities some more. I should be able to clear a few more of its challenges at this point... I may not be able to do so right now, but after I am back in town, I will re-read all of the books in this manor that I haven't yet, and if possible will even try to gain access to the Academy's Library again to further improve my knowledge. This way, I hope that I will be able to improve upon my most important abilities." Eiro explained to Nelli, Sarius and Gondos, and then turned over toward Armodeus.

"I might need a bit of help from you as well."

The Elder Dwarf raised his brows curiously, "Is that so? What would that entail?"

"Creating items and materials to increase some of my resistance skills. An item that continuously pushed pulses of magic into me as a form of torture, an item to inject a small amount of poison into my body, or an item to make me constantly feel physically nauseous in a way. These sorts of things." Eiro replied bluntly, and Armodeus looked back at him with a wry smile, "You want me to make items for you that are not only morally questionable, but also possibly lethal and illegal?"

"Yes, please."

"You are quite a weird man, you know?" Armodeus sighed deeply, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "I do, yes." And with those words, the Demon stood up and slowly turned around.

"Let us speak about our trip to meet Lognir later on, alright? For now, I think I should spend my time trying to improve upon my currently nonexistent necromancy." The Demon explained. He stepped through the library, quickly followed by Armodeus again. They made their way through their manor, and Eiro chose to get back into the tower so that he could properly infuse himself with Death Magic in there. It would be quite uncomfortable, but at the very least it was effective.

And at the same time, Eiro hoped to add some Death-Magic sections to the Grimoire that might be able to help him out in trying to speak to the spirits of those two dead adventurers.

From that point on, for the next few days, Eiro tried the best that he could in order to improve himself and properly prepare for everything that was to come. He made sure to get provisions ordered, worked together with Armodeus to improve upon to carriage, spent some quality-time with the children, and of course, he also spent quite a lot of time with his body infused with Death Magic. At some point, he was infused with so much of it for so long that he actually started to lose Health all of a sudden...

Even after stopping his infusion immediately, it kept going for a few more minutes, but then luckily stopped. It wasn't a lot of damage, it didn't even take a tenth of the Demon's total health, but it was still quite considerable and scary in the moment.

But at some point, although Eiro still hadn't been able to get the Death Magic skill, as long as he was infused with Death Magic, he seemed to be able to use necromancy to an extent as long as he truly made use of the Grimoire, which had been a lot of help in trying to figure out how to approach the spirits in the first place.