Demon's Virtue

Eiro landed in front of his manor, stepping through the front door without listening to the words of the spirits beside him.

"Eiro, what are you doing? You aren't usually like this!" Nelli exclaimed, "You're usually so calm and collected, so why are you so angry right now?"

The Demon stopped walking immediately and stared at the Naiad, "Because I'm sick and tired of everything messing up somehow. Relationships are a pretty weird thing for me, if you didn't notice. I just..." Eiro groaned, "I just don't want Jura's brother to turn out being an enemy, alright? Just... If I need to ignore a bit of weirdness from him, I'm fine with that. I really, really am. Now, can we move on, and get started with practicing Arcana?" Eiro suggested, and none of the three spirits really knew exactly what to say. So, they just stayed silent as Eiro walked through the manor and climbed up into the infusion-chamber.

"What are you doing now..?" Nelli asked nervously, "Do you want to infuse yourself with pure mana?"

"Of course I do. What else? I'll do this, combine and overlay all my senses with each other, and analyze that element as much as I possibly can to grow my understanding of it immediately. Alright? Good." Eiro threw his clothes onto the ground next to the ladder leading up to the infusion chamber, while Bavet finally split off of him fully as well.

"Eiro, I'm not sure if that's a great idea... This is pure mana, it's basically just... nothingness. Do you really want to infuse yourself with 'nothing'? Shouldn't you try it out normally beforehand?" Bavet suggested, but Eiro didn't pay any attention to him. He simply continued unclothing as he started climbing up the ladder.

"Just leave me be. Stay out there, and leave me to think. Alone. Alright?" Eiro told them with a deep stare, and the four of them quickly understood. The Demon closed the hatch-like door the moment he stepped inside, and laid down on the ground in this room that was barely large enough to do this.

"Why can't they just listen to me? In the end, with my judgement, everything always worked out..." Eiro grumbled to himself. He knew that he wasn't usually like this, though, and that his anger was most likely strengthened by the Mark of Wrath that was placed on him. Or so he hoped, at least. He didn't like being this angry, especially not at people that he cared about as much as the spirits that he was contracted to.

They were his partners, and the beings that Eiro spent most of his time with. Sure, they weren't there all the time, but throughout most of the day, they would end up floating next to or nearby Eiro so that he was able to at the very least sense them. He felt closer to them than most, for obvious reasons.

The demon pushed his fingernails into the ground, feeling them slightly crack the wood. The moment that Eiro took notice of this fact, however, he immediately stopped and tried to calm himself down.

"Let's just do this..." He muttered quietly as he closed his eyes. Eiro tried to concentrated on a very specific spot within his body and manipulated his magic circuits so that he could create a very condensed bit of mana there while heavily controlling the flow of mana that went on around it. He didn't want any sort of interference when it came to this.

Eiro felt the concentrated lump of mana within his chest, and then looked deeper into it. Eiro felt his own being, the aspect that made his mana his own, and that which made his own tree the force that he was. Luckily, Eiro had a relatively strong grasp on the individual differences in one's mana, simply because he ended up studying the process of creating individualised trees like his own.

The Demon took a deep breath as he searched for his essence within this lump of mana. Slowly but surely, Eiro tried to pull it out of the mana. And the more he did, the more he could sense an actual difference. Soon enough, Eiro was able to actually get a grasp on what his essence truly felt like to him.

It was... a sludge-like mass. Muddy and disgusting, the kind of thing that would make you flinch the moment just a little of it got on your skin.

Eiro manipulated his magic circuits to try and push that muddy sludge toward his hands, where he quickly expelled it out into a small glass bottle. He was making use of an artificer technique used to store mana for other creations, in order to contain his own essence within this bottle, so that he could get a closer look at it later on. The Demon took a deep breath as he forced this substance through his skin. It was uncomfortable, even making Eiro cringe in response to feeling it on him.

The Demon groaned to himself as he filled the bottle with the sludge. Once Eiro accumulated a mass of pure mana, or rather mana that was as pure as he was able to get it, he closed the bottle up and placed it into his treasury for safe-keeping.

The mass of 'pure' mana wasn't actually perfectly pure, since there were still residues of his own essence left within it. At the very least, Eiro must have managed to extract about 95% of his own essence out of the mana, but the rest was practically clinging to it. That was probably something that Eiro would end up growing to learn to do better sooner or later as well.

For now, Eiro simply concentrated on this comparatively pure mass of mana within his chest, and continued to observe it. As he did so, he could feel the mana practically latching onto the concept of the Ancient Language. This mass that seemed to want to dissipate the moment Eiro ceased his control over it now seemed like it was relatively st able.

And so, Eiro started to move it around within his body. It was surprisingly hard to move, it was nearly as if Eiro was learning how to control his mana anew. But sooner or later, it started moving around more quickly than before, and Eiro's ability to manipulate it grew more and more overall.

And it didn't take long until Eiro was able to move it to the center of his back, since that spot was currently directly above the part that Eiro had to infuse with magic to let it flow through the whole room. Eiro pressed it against his skin, and felt it nearly rip it apart. Of course, it didn't really, that was simply what it felt like. And so, Eiro pressed this pure mana through his skin like a rock through a fine sieve. The pain was an unusual one, and yet it was nearly the kind that was satisfying once Eiro actually managed to press it out of his body. The feeling lingered for a while longer, as Eiro immediately infused the element into the runic inscriptions in this room before the pure mana had been able to dissipate.

And the next moment, Eiro felt the room change. The runic letters around the room lit up and nearly blinded Eiro. It felt like he was laying in nothingness. All of his senses were both overwhelmed and left with nothing to sense at all. As if Eiro was both experiencing everything and nothing at once.

It seemed like the walls were fading away and coming closer, while Eiro himself was just laying there unable to do anything.

The moment that Eiro felt this, he jolted up and let go of his control of the mana inside of the inscriptions. The room returned to normal, as the rest of the pure mana was basically sucked back into Eiro's body in a painful manner.

"Shit..." Eiro groaned as he grasped his chest, gasping for air. But that wasn't even the worst part. A metallic scent filled the air, as Eiro felt something wet touch his hand and lower back. He turned around, and spotted a puddle of blood on the ground.

Immediately, Eiro twisted his hand around his body and touched the spot that he pushed the pure mana out of. And what he found there was a gashing wound, as if his skin in that place had been literally ripped apart.

"What the fuck..?" Eiro muttered. How was this happening? The Demon jumped up and opened the hatch to get back out, climbing down the ladder again.

"So..? Did it work?" Gondos soon asked curiously, and Eiro looked at him with a deep frown, "What do you think? Of course it didn't work. I've barely been in there at all."

"Erm... What'd you mean?" Sarius asked, and Eiro let out an annoyed sigh, "Nelli, just help me, please. My back is injured."

"No..." Nelli replied, "I think we should talk about this. How long do you think you've been in there?"

"I don't know, maybe 50 minutes or something? Really not that long." Eiro replied, and Nelli, Gondos and Sarius looked at each other for a moment.

"Dude, you've been in there for a few hours, it's midnight right now..." The Salamander pointed out. Eiro stood there confused, "What do you mean?" He asked, confusedly stretching out his perception. And Sarius was right, it's been a few hours.

"Are you kidding me? That single instant lasted a couple of hours..?" Eiro muttered confusedly. Maybe learning how to use Arcane Magic would end up being a bit harder than Eiro thought at first.