Demon's Virtue

Eiro placed the book down. It was just the second book of the 36, and it has taken him an annoyingly long time to actually read it. The duplicates in the tower of books of water and fire were each getting through book after book within a matter of minutes, while Eiro barely managed to get through a handful of pages then. It was like he was reading at a regular person's pace. It was simply something that he had to do in order to take in all of the books' information. There really was no other way.

"Are you done?" Partax asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. The Demon walked over toward the halfling's side, who had already prepared something that Eiro could test his newly acquired knowledge out with. The first book he read was about inscriptions, and the second about drawing out properties from objects. That included things like pulling magic from magic stones, as well as taking properties from one object and applying it to another, with the assistance of a level of alchemy.

Eiro placed his hand onto the piece of wood. It was wood from an Arctic Mangrove, a tree that was known for absorbing ice magic into itself due to the climates that it grew in. Due to this, the wood itself was always cold to a point where any water touching it would soon freeze, even not to an extremely low degree. That being the case, according to Partax's book, Eiro should be able to take that frost property and transfer it to another object.

First, he had to prepare the base object, and the receptor. This was quite easy really, he simply carved the small block of arctic mangrove wood into an orb and placed some basic inscriptions onto its surface. Then he took the receptor for the frost aspect, a small piece of steel. While metal has low conductivity for mana compared to wood, with enough mana to make up for it during the transfer process that wouldn't cause any issues.

Eiro scratched the other half of the inscriptions onto the piece of metal, and then placed the wood orb onto an imprint on the metal to keep it in place. That being the case, Eiro filled the inscriptions with his mana. Since he placed the wood perfectly onto the metal with the right parts of the inscriptions meeting and overlapping, he could create a flow from one object to the other. Once this flow was created, Eiro got to the last step. Artificing often required something like a special sort of magic; it was similar to 'Mental Magic' which Eiro had some bad experiences with in the past. Instead of being a magic that had a specific element imbued into it, it was magic that was imbued with a concept. And in this case, the concept was artificing, with specific information about precise applications within it. And now, Eiro simply pulled that artificing magic from the wooden orb into the piece of metal and watched as the cold air that used to flow through the grains of wood now seeped deep into the thin scratches on the metal surface. He pulled the two objects away from each other and smiled lightly.

It was an interesting and more than just unique process, and something that would most certainly come in useful in a plethora of ways. Whether it was in the creation of traps, or in the modification of wood that he wanted to work with for different projects. He should be able to come up with a few interesting uses here.

"Good. Now we should be able to get started on the security of the academy," Partax pointed out after touching the surface of the metal. He actually seemed a little surprised at the quality of this attempt, considering that it was Eiro's first time doing this. The halfling looked to the side and saw Eiro's widened eyes, "Is it that surprising to you? It's a simple process, really. Well, with my methods at least, usually it would be an advanced technique you wouldn't even hear of for another decade or two."

"That's not it," Eiro shook his head as a grin started to form on his face. He placed his palm onto his mouth to try and hide it, "Partax... in the book it said it was only possible on certain types of aspects... things that are accessible at the surface..."

The halfling raised a brow, unsure what Eiro was trying to get at, "That is the case. Things hidden deeper simply cannot be pulled out; they are part of the very soul, or the equivalent that objects have at least."

"Then what if there was a way to pull aspects hidden deep inside the soul to the forefront? Enough to even grasp them with your own hand?"

Partax frowned, "What are you saying?"

"The key... it's another card, a key to every single lock in the world. It can even be used to open a door into one's soul. The Devil once used it take my love for my children from me momentarily. I was planning on using it to make the aspect of the hero my own; of course I doubted that it would work just as I imagined. I figured I would have to gather many more artifacts that work in synergy with the key, but with this... with this, I may just be able to do it once I have just the key."

Armodeus overheard what Eiro said, "Didn't you say your plans for that were still far off in the future?"

Eiro looked at the Elder Dwarf and nodded, "Of course. There was actually something else I was thinking of using this method for... if it can remove a splinter from a soul, then shouldn't it be able to remove that sludge inside us?"

It took him a moment, but the dwarf soon understood, "You don't mean..."

Partax was puzzled and looked at the two men curiously, "What are you two muttering about? Explain!"

Eiro grinned but couldn't say the words himself. So, Armodeus simply did it for him.

"Eiro is going to use that method to completely and permanently get rid of the monsters' monstrosity, instead of simply suppressing it."

Later that night, Eiro stepped out into the gardens. He walked along the path that had been here before he even moved in, and made his way over to the stables. Or rather, the old stables; he had new ones built for the horses and aria that were actually needed for official uses, and repaired the old ones just for a specific being to use. And there he laid, his antlers slightly glimmering under the moonlight.

Lugo raised his head and looked at the Demon. Tiredly, he pushed his body off the ground and walked over toward Eiro, nuzzling his face onto his neck, "What's gotten into you? Smelling that I have an extra large portion for you today?"

The stag stopped what it was doing and slowly averted its gaze, and Eiro scoffed, "You know you can't lie to me, you were never able to even before I could see truth itself."

Figuring that there was no need to pretend anymore, Lugo pushed his snout into Eiro's bag and quickly bit down on the gemstone that was hidden inside, his teeth destroying the magic stone with ease. Eiro held the bag steadily in front of the stag and waited for him to finish eating, and tried to manipulate the flow of magic in Lugo's body so as to make sure that he absorbed it all properly.

Slowly but surely, his body was changing too. Shifting steadily, but dissimilarly to how magic beasts were supposed to change over time. It was a unique way to say the least, always confirming to the Demon that Lugo was nothing like anything he had seen before.

His body grew larger than it was, and the already enormous stag truly towered over him now. Lugo's fur became softer, but had a slightly translucent nature to it, and when he walked out into the light he seemed to glow, though this was only the case when he stepped into moonlight and not light of any other kind. His antlers too, Lugo shed them every few weeks, though this should only happen yearly for healthy stags. But no matter what, within a few hours, new antlers had sprouted, more grand than the ones before.

"Want to go on a trip, bud?"