Chapter 611: I want everything
“Based on magic, but advances like classes? I see. Could you expand on that?” Eiro asked, and the frog nodded his head smugly, happy to be able to show off his own knowledge, “Right, of course. Magic beasts will receive new, additional magic to complement themselves. But for us, our base magic itself transforms. Of course, we still retain abilities related to former states of magic. In this sense, our magic is the same as a class, as far as I understand. The magic I had in the beginning was simple water magic. It’s the state that most people in this plane start out with. Then, it turned into ‘Clear Water’ magic. As I proceeded on, it turned into ‘True Water’.”
Eiro listened to the frog’s words, slowly understanding how this worked, “I see. So you take base elemental magic, and then make it ‘advance’ by practically fusing it with conceptual magic?”
“…I think that’s a pretty good way to describe it, yes.” The frog nodded, thinking about it for a moment, before Eiro lightly smiled, “I’m not sure why I didn’t find any books about this yet, but I think I get it.”
“Well, there are quite a few books about it in here, but they aren’t here at the bottom. I don’t know where you passed the first test, but libraries in smaller towns wouldn’t hold books of that sort. Since we, the magical people, understand our magic innately, we have no need for books to expand on it further.” The frog explained. That did make sense. But more importantly, Eiro was curious about the idea of combining elemental magic with conceptual magic. And luckily, he did have ultimate control over two specific concepts. Among the arcane cards, the Suit of Pentacles related to concepts. The Knight of Pentacles held the concept of Truth, and the Five of Pentacles held the concept of Perception. At the end of the day, a being’s stats were nothing but certain concepts based in the physical body that were given a numerical value through the system.
But that also meant that Eiro should be able to imbue these concepts into his magic. But why stop at magic? As ‘The World’, Eiro could take everything into his body and make it his own, and he could control everything that was his own however he wanted. He already knew that he could fuse the effects of certain skills together, so maybe fusing concepts that he has control over with his skills would be possible as well.
Well, he already did something like that when he created those ‘Contracts’ using the concept of truth, “What’s your current magic?” the Demon asked, and immediately, the frog’s face lit up smugly, “Heh… it’s ‘Source of Knowledge’.”
“…That sounds quite impressive.” Eiro pointed out, even though he did so with a rather bored tone of voice, and the frog’s smile immediately disappeared, “Quite impressive..? It’s a unique magic that belongs only to me! It’s more than just impressive! Here, let me show you the wonderful sight of my magic.” The frog exclaimed, pushing himself off of the ground until he found himself in the center of the room. He slowly moved his hands around in swift but smooth motions, and the water surrounding him was following along that path further. Slowly, the water started to change. It became so clear that it was easy to think that it simply disappeared, before starting to radiate with distinct power.
Soon, the water shifted and changed, solidifying without having to freeze, taking the shape of a book. The radiance soon disappeared from the water and it became sort of opaque. Not translucent like water normally was, but as if the outsides had turned into shells and the insides into paper, just like the books in this world. Proudly, the frog held onto this object that was created through his magic, “Beautiful, isn’t it? This book holds all the raw knowledge of not only I myself, but dozens, hundreds of other beings that have gracefully… given me their knowledge.”
Eiro looked at the book and heard the frog’s explanation, before starting to smile lightly, “I see… so it’s not something that creates knowledge, but something that holds it for you? It takes it from a deeper place where you can’t use it, the minds of others, and brings it to the surface in the form of that book… like a water source…”
The Demon wasn’t even able to pretend like he wasn’t excited. A magic like this was just perfect. It was akin to reading others’ minds. If he had this magic, then he could gather numerous flavors of knowledge. Especially considering that the original had been planning on meeting the Masters that Jura was acquainted with in the not-so-far-away future, this was just perfect. He could immediately take in the knowledge of those who have honed their skills for their whole lives, and take that knowledge for himself. There was no way for him not to get excited at that idea.
“You… what sort of expression are you making right now?” the frog asked confused, as he stared at Eiro. It seemed like he had been able to glance at the demon’s face, but it had mostly been hidden by the books still floating all around him. But that stopped soon, as the books stopped moving, just floating stationary in one spot now. Eiro stretched out his legs, and pushed himself off the ground to move toward the frog.
“Hey, frog. How about you make a deal with me?” Eiro asked, a broad, ecstatic grin on his face. The frog flinched nearly the instant he saw that smile, unable to react in time before Eiro reached him. Even though he wanted to move back, by the time even one of his limbs managed to move, the Demon had already grabbed onto him. Eiro placed two of his arms onto the frog’s wrists, and the two others onto his shoulders, his large wings practically turning into walls that enclosed the two of them in their own small space. The frog obviously wanted to escape, and being fairly confident in his own physical abilities, tried to push Eiro away. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t even able to budge. It was as if his upper body was trapped in a block of solid rock.
Until now, while talking to this man, the frog didn’t really understand what was written about ‘monstrosity’ in all those books he read here, but staring into those eyes that could only be described as the deepest abyss trying to swallow up anything and everything around it, he slowly understood. It was pure greed, hunger for anything one could ever want, and not letting anyone stand in the way of achieving what you wanted, no matter what it was. Even though Eiro called it a ‘deal’, it was clear that it was nothing of the sort. There was only one option here. If he wanted to get out of this situation, then the frog had to say yes to whatever Eiro wanted.
“What… what sort of deal..?” The frog slowly forced out.
“You’re like me.” Eiro said suddenly, confusing Eiro even more, “If that is truly magic unique to you, then you got it because you’re greedy for knowledge, just as I am. And I like that. So, I’m going to give you that knowledge you want. I will make sure that you reach the top of this tower. And not only that, but there is another version of myself already in the tower of books in the elemental plane of fire. Sooner or later, I will make my way to other elemental planes to search out the towers there too. Of course, that includes the central material plane.”
The frog was confused. Why was Eiro saying this? Was he trying to brag about it? But then, it dawned on the frog. He started to understand what he was going to get out of it, “That… that means, you will…”
“That’s right. I’ll give you all the knowledge of every tower of books.” Eiro said immediately. The frog’s heart seemed to skip a beat. He already felt fulfilled having just seen this place, and there was nothing more that he could ask for. He was prepared to die the moment he read the first letter of the first book on this floor. But now, he was being offered to gain the knowledge of every single book in every realm?
“How unfair… how could I ever turn that down? What is it you want from me in return?” The frog asked, he himself barely able to hold back his excitement anymore. And then, Eiro replied, “I want everything.”
—
“Tsk…” In the elemental plane of fire, Eiro clicked his tongue annoyed. He had just entered the first floor of the tower himself after making sure that the kid and piglet would be properly taken care of while he was in here. He built a small hut for them, and made sure to give them enough food for a few days. Every couple of days, Sarius would head outside to give them more food before coming back. But while he was doing all of that, the Eiro in the other elemental plane was being troublesome. He just went ahead and collected someone to become a servant, as if he wanted to one-up him like that as well.
“Admit it, you only did that because you know that I can’t turn the kid into a servant anytime soon.” Eiro groaned in an annoyed tone, approaching the first bookshelf by the entrance, but he only got an internal snicker as a response from the other side, “Annoying bastard…” He muttered, pulling the first book out of the shelf. But for a few moments, he just held onto it without flipping it open. The fact that he was thinking like this was… troublesome. At first, he still fully thought of the other Eiro as himself, but slowly, that’s been changing. It was as if there was a clear distinction between himself and the Eiro in the elemental plane of water now. He still thought of himself as the same being as the original, of course, but it was tough for him to consider the other duplicate to be the same as himself. Maybe that would change again in the future, but for now, Eiro was certainly quite troubled by it, and he was sure that the other Eiro felt the same, even if he didn’t care as much. Since they were duplicates and didn’t have souls on their own, their minds seemed to be more closely linked to their bodies than normal. Considering that they were fused with raw elemental magic, that would of course affect their minds at some point too. It was why this Eiro felt so annoyed at everything, being easily agitated, while the other went with the flow, but still seemed to be an unstoppable force when he needed to be. It was troublesome, but… somehow Eiro was becoming attached to this duplicate body.
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