Demon's Virtue

623 First Floor's Test

"What the hell was that just now?!" James asked with wide open eyes, staring at the two daggers that Eiro was holding in his hands. Since James made use of the same sort of weapon, he was obviously incredibly curious. Well, as was everyone else, including all of the monsters living in the manor as housekeepers. They generally kept out of most business that was going on here and diligently did their work, but now even they didn't have much of a choice but to stop and stare off in awe.

But before Eiro could reply to James, he could feel his left arm go limp. He nearly dropped the dagger he was holding, but quickly placed it into his treasury. The muscles in his whole arm had been ripped to pieces, and Bavet was struggling to keep staying combined to the demon in that area. Not only that, but Eiro's right arm had received quite some damage as well. His muscles were already starting to heal with the help of magic, but his prosthetic would need some work done on it to be properly fixed. Sure, it was fully part of him now, so healing magic actually did work on it, but it only helped with surface-level damages. Eiro didn't have to worry about cuts to the wood of his prosthetic anymore, but he still couldn't just regenerate full pieces of the prosthetic, and he sadly couldn't fix it if certain connections between the pieces cracked, which was the case right now.

"Bavet, are you alright?" Eiro asked immediately. Of course he himself was fine, but he didn't know how the feedback of the mountainbreaker that the daggers were made with potentially affected the slime's body, as well as his life force.

"I'm fine... but be more careful next time, alright? It's like a whole portion of my body went numb..." the slime explained, and Eiro quickly apologized, helping him with healing magic as well. He looked over at his party, "Armodeus upgraded my weapons, and combined them with the mountainbreaker."

"Huh? He combined the daggers with an artifact?" Krog let out immediately, surprised that something like that was even possible. The elder dwarf quickly stepped in, still excited about the power that his creations displayed, "They're made using duplicates of the real mountainbreaker, so it's not really the same thing. But even so, they're quite impressive, are they not?"

"Duplicates? So if they're ever too far away from you, they'll just... break?" James asked, putting something out there that Armodeus hadn't even considered yet. The main thing that made duplicates break apart, besides excessive amounts of force, was physical distance from the mirror of duplication. That now meant that these daggers were forever linked to Eiro. If he ever left them somewhere, for whatever reason, then they would fall apart, and it would probably be tough to salvage even the base material from the daggers at that point.

Eiro looked at the dagger still laying in his right hand, "That might be the case, but it's nothing to worry about. Ever since I got these, I was never that far away from them. And that obviously won't be starting anytime soon."

With a relieved expression, Armodeus sighed quietly, knowing that the daggers were in good hands with Eiro. But that wasn't all. With this, it was doubly clear that Eiro was the only one that would ever be able to wield these daggers. Masterpieces that were made just for him. If they were stolen, which was more than just unlikely in the first place, they would soon fall apart and become useless. It was a sort of calming thought, that a complete stranger wouldn't be able to use weapons as powerful as those.

Weeks have passed. In the central elemental plane, Eiro continued his preparations, trying to grow ever stronger before the new semester at the academy was set to start and his ability to move freely and spend long periods of time developing his body would be reduced. Part of what helped Eiro in his development was the incredible amount of knowledge that he had amassed.

Through the duplicates of Eiro that spent the past few weeks doing nothing but read all the literature on the first floor of their respective realms' tower, the Demon had gathered some useful information. Of course, for the most part, it was just random s or certain research papers, but the basic insights that existed in regard to water and fire magic respectively was obviously quite valuable. There were numerous descriptions of the different ways that magic was applied by the Magic People in those realms, and what different types of magics they had developed. Sure, it was mostly just basic accounts from onlookers, or rough descriptions in s, but it was still enough for Eiro's insight to rise a little. The true information that would help him was on the higher floors, however.

And luckily, it just so happened that both of the duplicates managed to finish the first floor's literature around the same time as each other. While there was far less to read in the elemental plane of fire's tower, that duplicate of Eiro still had to take care of, Jyoti, the magic person that he had taken along with him to turn into a servant later on once his body was able to take the transformation, while the Eiro in the elemental plane of water was able to spend all of his time simply reading. And coincidentally, they both finished their work within a day of each other.

The first to finish was the Eiro on the plane of fire. With a smug expression, happy that he was ahead of the other duplicate this time around after losing out on getting to the tower first, Eiro walked up to the tower's overseer. Despite the fact that the duplicates had spent so much time near them, they barely knew anything about them. The only thing they ever did was read. For days on end without making a sound, barely even moving. However, every time that Eiro looked at them, they seemed to be holding a different book, and Eiro was never able to catch them actually switch out the book they were currently reading.

It was similar to the effect of the powers of Chaos, but if that was the case, then Eiro should be able to look through those by now. After all, he was bestowed a certain amount of control over chaos. This was different. In the first place, their scent was completely identical to the tower. So the conclusion that Eiro came to was simple; instead of being a living being that was given the position of overseer of the tower of books, they were a physical representation of the tower's will. It made sense, to an extent. The tower was an incredible existence. Books would simply appear here the moment they fulfilled the right conditions, and the tower apparently grew in size automatically to account for all new books. That alone seemed just impossible, so the idea that the library might have some sort of ego connected to it wasn't too far-fetched either.

"I want to take the test to enter the next floor," Eiro said, slamming his hand on the table in front of the overseer. They raised their eyes from their book and sighed, "Right, of course. You've already fulfilled most conditions, receiving the passing grade that you need to move on, so all you need to show is your comprehension of the things that you've read on this floor."

"Passing grade?" Eiro asked, raising his brow. The overseer quickly nodded, "Of course. It's nothing much, simply about your behaviour while in the tower. You and your... companion," the overseer said, looking over at Sarius who stood right behind Eiro, "...well, you might be a little crude in your exchanges most of your time, but you always treated the books with utmost care, as if you were scared to break them with the slightest touch. You brought the books back to their exact right positions, and always seemed to earnestly read their contents. You never even appeared bored or show any sort of intention at giving up. Most that venture into the tower tend to take breaks that are longer than the time they actually spend inside the tower. Meanwhile, your only reason for leaving this space was that young man and his pet are currently staying outside of the tower. Clearly, you are devoted to the tower and the knowledge you can gain through it, and understand the responsibilities that come with it."

After that, somewhat lengthy, explanation, Eiro couldn't help but grin a bit, "That so? Well, whatever the case, can we get started with the test now? I've sort of got a little bit of a race to the top of the tower going on with the version of me in the other plane."

"I'm quite aware, don't you worry. Anyway, since you seem to be in a rush, let me present to you a rather unique test. All the information will be presented to you through a single word, and you must scour that unique memory of yours for exactly what it is you need to find. Of course, since your test is a bit more special than others, you will get something out of it as well, if you're worried about that."

"Oh? Well, I figured there was more to the tower than the regular procedure, but I didn't expect something like that. Alright, hit me," Eiro said, looking at the overseer excitedly. They smirked and opened their mouth, before a flood of information came into Eiro's mind through a single word, just like during the test to enter the tower in the first place.

The duplicates in the mental library immediately stopped putting together their own texts based on the information learned in the towers, and started deciphering the word spoken by the tower's overseer. It didn't take long until Eiro understood exactly why this was a special sort of test.

Instead of being something like questions about the themes of certain books on this floor, it was a large number of instructions. An enormous number of instructions, actually. Each of them seemed to lead to a single word from a seemingly random book on this floor. Eiro would have to chain them together, and then bring the physical book that the passage could be found in to the overseer.

"What a ridiculous test," Eiro let out, staring into the overseer's eyes. Of course, they seemed to have fun with this, "I expect that this might take even you a short while."

Eiro raised a brow and leaned onto the table between him and the overseer, "Are you sure about that?"