Demon's Virtue

Eiro closed the book in front of him. It was the last book in this library within the elemental plane of fire. The doubles in the mental library had taken all the raw information in and had continued exploring different aspects of it. By now, Eiro understood everything that he read here in the library completely. There had only been few words that he didn't know going into the last half of reading the books in here, but even then, Sarius quickly told him their meaning, letting Eiro skip past the greatest hurdle of learning this sort of language.

Slowly, the Demon turned his head to the side, looking at the notification windows that were floating near him.

[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]

[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]

[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]

...

...

[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]

This had been continuing for a while now. Learning a new language skill like this usually made this happen. Of course, to Eiro, it was a simple task to learn a new language. Rather, he didn't expect himself to need to go through these stages again, considering his superior skill 'Universal Monster Language Comprehension'. The old languages that used to be spoken on the central material plane had been all but forgotten, and only a few researchers still held skills related to them. They had all been made useless with the introduction of 'Common', the language spoken by all people. That meant that, considering that his common language comprehension was amongst his highest grade skills, it was generally unlikely for him to need to learn new languages unless he wanted to go out of his way to learn those forgotten languages. He did plan on that, but there was no need to do so just yet.

Eiro slowly opened his mouth, and soon made it split in two. He didn't care if the people of this plane saw him like this. They didn't seem to care either, anyway. And then, Eiro started to speak out of both his mouths, whispering to himself to try and get used to the way that he had to use his mouth to improve his general comprehension that way, to try and push this skill to intermediate as soon as possible. After all, once you reached the intermediate grade with a language based skill, you would attain deeper knowledge based on that language. At that point, Eiro would be able to speak, read, write, and understand this language without worries.

Currently, the Pirock Language Comprehension skill was at Apprentice grade, level 58.

[Apprentice Pirock Language Comprehension Skill leveled up!]

Correction, it was at Apprentice grade, level 59. Eiro's understanding of the language continued to increase with every passing minute. He would probably be able to speak to others outside, but he didn't see a need for that right now. He would ask around later to try and find out where exactly this place was, and where they would be able to find the Spirit Monarchs of this elemental plane. Of course, Sarius knew where they usually were, but it seemed as if he never really left the castle town that he had grown up in. Eiro understood why the Salamander King found it necessary for Sarius to finally stay in the central material plane for a while. He wouldn't want Leon or Avalin to spend their whole lives locked inside the manor either.

The Demon placed the book that was still laying in his hand down, and then approached the door. He pulled on the handle, but before he left, a man approached him, "Excuse me?" He asked, not in Common, but in Pirock. Eiro turned his head. Out of both mouths, already having forgotten that he had been whispering to increase his language proficiency, he replied, "Yes?" He said in overlapping voices, clearly startling the man a bit.

"You... you spent a whole day and night in this library. I was watching you... did you... really read all the books in here?" The librarian asked. Eiro replied with a quick nod instead of speaking. Although, the cracking and popping of his lower jaw as Eiro turned his two mouths into one again quickly filled the momentary silence.

The Librarian raised his brows, opening his eyes wide, "I see... could I quickly verify this, just to be sure?" He asked. Eiro was a bit confused. Why did this librarian care so much about whether or not he read all these books. But still, he wanted to entertain this a little. Maybe it would lead somewhere interesting. Walking over to the desk standing behind him, the librarian pulled out a small box. Eiro noticed it, of course, but it didn't seem special. It only had some small coin-like token inside of it, as well as a note written on this crystal-like paper that was used for these books.

The Librarian pulled out the note, and started to read, "In 'The Completely Comprehensive Compendium of the Plane of Fire', which writing trait sticks out to an obnoxious degree?"

"...The author uses words that start with 'comp' a lot for some reason. It sounded sort of weird, but I only just learned Pirock, so I can't really judge."

"Oh, you only just learned it? Considering that, your common accent is really hard to notice, though. You might be the one they are looking for. Ah, the answer is correct, by the way." The Librarian replied, and Eiro shrugged, "Give it a few hours, it'll be gone by then." He said instantly. Eiro was incredibly curious about who 'they' were supposed to be, and why they were looking for someone that would read all the books in a library. Was it some sort of book club?

Either way, Eiro could see the "Come on, that can't be the only question, right?"

"Right, of course." The Librarian nodded, glad that Eiro already understood what was going on. After this, he continued to ask more and more questions. Twenty different questions, each about completely different books. It was clearly just a way to make sure that Eiro really read all the books. Even if he wasn't sure if a test like this was going to be really effective at keeping liars away. It only tested obscure knowledge about not even two dozen of these books. If the knowledge about which books were tested was revealed to someone, they could just read only those twenty books and ignore all the rest. It didn't seem like the librarian noticed, however. With every question, he became more excited and perplexed at the fact that Eiro read all the books in the library in just a single day and night.

Once Eiro answered all twenty questions correctly, the librarian quickly glanced into the box. With a broad grin, Eiro saw what he pulled out. It was the small coin, which the librarian quickly pushed into the Demon's hands.

"Here, bring this to the tower of books. You will be able to take the Librarian's challenge." He said, and Eiro raised his brow, "What's so good about the challenge from a librarian?"

"No, no, not 'a' librarian, 'The' Librarian." He said immediately, "The one who governs over every book ever written."

Eiro raised his brow, and looked at the coin in his hand, "That Librarian, huh? Interesting." Eiro grinned, and turned around, "Then I will be on my way to the tower of books, I guess." He said. He knew that this librarian wouldn't be able to point him to it, its location was hidden on every plane, after all. The tower of books was an, as far as Eiro was concerned, incredibly important structure that the world couldn't be without. Every single book, whether published or not, is in this library. While its space is limited on the outside, the inside was supposedly infinitely large, growing as more and more books are placed into it every single day. And its protector was the Librarian. As far as Eiro could tell, they were a being similar to the Sage or Hero. So, meeting them should have some upsides. Eiro would be able to potentially create a relationship of trust with the librarian, so that he could contact them whenever he needed to. Once he got back the key from The Devil, Eiro would be able to easily take over the position of Librarian. He didn't particularly know the benefits of doing this, but it should certainly be something that can make Eiro a lot more powerful.

"S-Sir, I think you should really stay inside here... Maybe thinking amongst books could help you... find the Tower of Books?" The librarian said, and was far too obvious about it. Of course, hidden amongst these books and the library's decoration, were pieces that he had to place the coin onto, which would obscure certain parts of the patterns, but make other parts more than clear. That way, he could create a map out of these patterns.

But since Eiro spent a whole day in here, he had already sensed every aspect of this library throughout. He had already created a model section within the mental library that a mental double was currently searching through together with a replica of the coin to see if he could figure it out. Eiro was pretty sure that certain patterns hidden in this library were going to create a map together that would then lead to the tower of books, or at least to a location where Eiro could find out where the tower of books was.