Ophelia (2)

Merry Christmas, Happy Yuletide!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Leaving Ophelia in the area of the counter, Cernn began his exploration. Most of the books on the first floor were about ethics, etiquette, politics, philosophy, and geography. What was a big contradiction since the king didn't have displayed any of these knowledges in Cernn's view.

The second floor was reserved for magic books, job books (like alchemist, priest, merchant), and there were some other books like rituals, medicine, and history.

He got some books for himself, at least he pretended to keep them for himself.

There was a book he got interested in, 'The three saint heroes, faith and the church.' By the looks, it was a book about how the church of three worked.

Religion played a big role in the show until the Calrmira event opened. So he must at least get to know where he'll be put in this whole mess.

Besides, his weapon was a religious symbol, so maybe he could use the concept of faith to get stronger and get to know this will certainly not be detrimental.

The next thing Cernn did was to look for books about magic. There were different kinds of magic according to the newest book of magic concepts 'A compendium of magic and magic concepts by Madon Scherm'.

The Elemental magic, the magic to control the elements of nature. It works by chanting a specif chant to 'call upon the nature forces and bend reality as we see to our will'.

Only people with their elemental affinities could use magic of that specific element. So if you don't have fire element affinity, you'll only be able to use the most basic fire element spell, the 'finger flame spell'.

Most of the basic element spells were only useful for daily purposes, but when a mage has an affinity with the element, they will grow their power with knowledge, practice, levels, and time.

So a fire mage with enough mana and affinity could, in theory, be a walking fire thrower or even summon mini suns.

Cernn didn't really buy all the affinity thing, there must have another way to grow your non affinities. The book only tell that affinities were born with the baby and usually were the same of the parents, occasionally with a baby having a different affinity than the parents.

The brown-haired guy had the theory about it being genetic related, but will do experiments later.

The other kind of magic in the books was about support and healing magic. This kind of magic used neutral mana or elemental affinities to empower the self or allies.

Neutral mana and healing abilities used pure mana, and could only heal and physically empower the spell targets.

Support magic with elemental mana could empower the specific element and counter element defense. This way, if you used a water shield spell, your water resistance will be empowered, the same happens to the counter element. If you used the water shield spell, a fire-based spell will give less damage.

This kind of counterbalance in the supportive magic could save lives. If the magic used was proficient in multiple affinities, he would be a powerhouse in defense.

Ritualistic magic was a branch of magic that used Alchemy and support magic to create rituals for a specific purpose, most of them were to create powerful spells that could defy their magic logic, by summoning people, summoning corpses, teleportation, and major alchemy.

Cernn was selecting a few books of history, magic, or something that might be interesting for later like a book of monsters which has the description of the working and processes of monster materials and alchemy

He knew the weapons had some functions to help the holders, like inventory, weapon copy, etc. So every book the guy touched was scanned by the thurible and turned into an archive in the weapon system for later reading.

It didn't take long for Cernn to scan a bunch of useful books. He was finishing the last book about the recent history of the kingdom and its religion.

'Should I at least tell Naofumi about the weapon functions, right? It'll save a lot of trouble for the guy, and it wouldn't hinder his growth, I guess' Cernn picked one book while thinking hard if he should help the shield hero.

Cernn couldn't take any longer. The feeling of being observed took Cernn's whole body since he began his exploration in the library, but now it was becoming annoying for the guy.

"Come out!" Cernn has his arms crossed in front of his chest as his eyes followed the figure out of the darkness. It was the maid that brought him to the library.

"You've been spying on me for quite a long time. I could say you're in the direct control of the king... However, I'm certain you're the Queen's pawn. After all, she is the highest level authority in this kingdom." He said as he leaned in one of the bookshelves.

"How do you know that?" the maid kept her face straight, not revealing any emotion.

"That's not difficult to guess, you've been keeping an eye on me and the other guys since we arrived at the throne room, the same for the time I've been in the library. Oh! There's also this book. I hadn't time to read much, but it was certainly helpful." Cernn said as he lifted a book showing his title to the maid 'Melromarc-The journeys of the great Queens (a hundred years history compendium)'.

"Well... Books can tell a lot of things, after all." The guy smiled at the maid, who just nodded her head. "Now, care to explain for me the situation? I don't think you're going to spy on us just for fun." Said as he put the book inside his inventory and got up from the chair.

"I'm sorry, but that's not something I can tell you..." Said the maid with a smile.

"Tsk... They're not fun at all...why don't you come out too, Ophelia?" the guy said, shrugging as he locked his eyes in a dark corner of the library.

"You're more than I expected, young hero. Good manners and good survival instinct, really a surprise." The old lady kept a small smile as she got out of the shadows, nodding her head in approval.

"The guest room to the heroes were assigned, and there's a banquet tonight." Cernn nodded to the new information and the resourcefulness of the old woman.

Cernn took a peek at his clothes then at Ophelia. The old lady readily understood what the guy meant and spoke to the maid next to her.

"Amalia, get good clothes for our hero, you should serve him for a while." The maid approved the order with a little curtsy, then disappeared in the dark.

"She'll be back with proper clothes and help you in the guest room assigned for the heroes. Valec, guide Cernn to his accommodations." A guy in butler's outfit entered the library and stood next to the brow-haired guy.

"Later I'll talk to you Ophelia, I have something important to ask permission for." The old lady agreed to Cernns statement, then disappeared leaving the guy with the blond butler.