Demon's Virtue

Chapter 624: First Floor’s Test (2)

The duplicates inside of the mental library worked in a hurry. They were doing their best to completely analyze the test that they were given. They had already extracted about a third of the instructions. There was a single duplicate in charge of completing each of these instructions, as well as narrowing things down to a single book.

The pyronian language, the language spoken in this realm, relied heavily on metaphors and certain trends in language, meaning that there were plenty of times where rather complex and usually unique sentences were carried over dozens and dozens of books as sayings. And the tower’s overseer had chosen exactly such a saying as the test’s solution. Since there were so many books that had this saying in them, it would be tough to narrow things down just based on this in order to bring the correct book to the overseer.

However, luckily, there were a few things that did help Eiro in narrowing things down at least a little. Dialects existed everywhere, not just on the central elemental plane; as such, it was possible to slightly differentiate between certain words based on the specific way that the letters were written, or how the words were spelled. Rather than being able to narrow things down onto a single book right away, this mental duplicate was collecting all of the books that the current version fit to, and then excluded certain books depending on the analysis of the other mental duplicates.

It was still easy enough, though. It was a task that others would find more challenging, but since Eiro had an ability that gave him quite literally impeccable, perfect memory, there was nothing he had to worry about. It was only a matter of time for him. Or at least, that was the case until the analysis had been finished. Because even though that was the case, in the end, there were three books that fit the final phrase perfectly.

Eiro made sure to double and triple check, but in the end, the solution was still the same. Three books with the exact same phrase, written in the exact same dialect, as if they were written by next-door-neighbours. Sure, they were all on completely different topics, but it was still surprising to see that this was the case.

One of the books was about botany, one was about health and simple diseases, while the last was about architecture. None of them were particularly high-level either. They were rather mediocre in their contents, and didn’t give any particularly unique insights that Eiro wasn’t able to find in a better, more detailed way in other books. That being the case, there was probably more to this task than just finding the right book based on the raw instructions. It wasn’t just a mere test of memory.

“This is actually sort of fun,” Eiro grinned lightly as he took a seat on a nearby chair, closing his eyes to indulge himself in an attempt to figure this whole thing out. He looked at the three books that the mental duplicate had sorted out.

Siro Katria, Malek Harth, and Relestria Irus. Those were the names of the authors of each of these books. They each tended to stick to their expertise in their writing, but they each wrote multiple books on very specific topics. Right now, Eiro had a rough understanding of this realm, as well as certain habits of certain people at certain times. And of course, he also had a large amount of knowledge on architecture, botany, and medicine. The plantlife described in Siro Katria’s books didn’t exist in places that had the medical habits described by Malek Harth, and neither coincided with the architecture described by Relestria Irus. But their dialect was so similar, their habits of writing were so eerily the same, that Eiro could only come to a single conclusion.

Siro Katria, Malek Harth, and Relestria Irus were the same author, simply using different pen-names for different topics. Or, rather than different topics, it was more a person was traveling through this world, settling down in an area for a while, before picking out a very specific part of that area to write a couple of books about, before dropping the pen-name and moving on.

Three books, each containing the same exact phrase in the same exact dialect, written about different topics by the same author under different names. Obviously, that could never be a coincidence in this situation. So, Eiro’s focus moved over to the phrase itself.

Basically, the phrase meant something like ‘don’t overthink things’, even if that was incredibly simplified. Even if the people of this realm didn’t tend to bother too much with literature, their language was still rather complex in some ways. So, while it wasn’t possible to perfectly translate this language to the common language, it literally meant something like ‘if you feel a surging heat at night, think of arson, not that the moon turned into the sun’. It was certainly a phrase that fit into the pyronian language quite well.

Eiro let the phrase run through his mind. There was most certainly a reason why this was the phrase that the overseer chose to have him look for. Maybe he shouldn’t overthink it, and simply give all three of the books to the overseer. Although, it was specifically said that he should only give one book to the overseer.

Maybe the phrase was the opposite of what he was supposed to do, and he should try to come up with the most ridiculous, insane possibility that he could ever come up with. Right then, it clicked in Eiro’s mind.

“Fuckin’…” Eiro groaned. It was a task given to him specifically, probably for a pretty unique reason. The mental duplicates immediately started to work on comparing certain habits in handwriting to other books that Eiro read so far, not only limited to the ones in this realm. And quickly, he was able to find the specific combination of habits. Diagonally elongated circles, slightly curved lines that were supposed to be straight; symbols that were supposed to be half-circles looked more like three-quarter circles. Those sorts of things. Handwriting that overlapped even over different languages. And in the themes of the books as well; they were pretty common themes, and the things written in the books wasn’t anything special. They were basically the same as the books that Eiro had found here in the elemental plane of fire, just that they were in the elemental plane of water.

The more that Eiro found, the more the idea was solidified – the same author wrote certain books in each of the towers. There were few ways that this was possible; only a handful of people could be said to have travelled to each plane. And of course, the tower’s overseer wouldn’t just try to have Eiro find a random author’s writing. This was a test of the tower. The overseer was the owner’s proxy, so there was only one conclusion that Eiro could come to.

The author of these books was the tower’s owner. The Librarian. A force of arcane nature, just as the hero, the sage, and the priestess were. But again, Eiro had to bring a single book to the overseer. Looking back at the instructions, it was clear that he might have misunderstood it initially. Instead of having to find the book that the phrase belonged to, he was supposed to find the book that the phrase led him to. And at this point, the phrase’s meaning came into play.

Eiro shouldn’t overthink it. He stood back up and walked over to the overseer’s desk. The overseer was once again reading another book compared to the last time that the demon looked at them. But that didn’t matter right now. Eiro placed his hand on the large compendium, the huge, thick book laying on the overseer’s desk. He closed it and picked it up, holding it toward the overseer.

“Here it is, the book you’re looking for,” Eiro said bluntly. Sarius looked at the demon’s back confused, “Did you give up or something?” The Salamander asked, but Eiro didn’t mind him and simply looked at the overseer, who looked at the book and then glanced at Eiro, before closing the book that he was reading. Before Eiro knew it, it seemed to have simply disappeared without a trace, sorting itself back into the tower’s shelves.

“Very well. I knew that it wasn’t something that would hold you off for particularly long, though I had hoped you would take longer than you did. Nevertheless, congratulations on passing the test; you may now enter the tower’s second floor,” the overseer explained, starting to walk up the stairs to the top area of this floor, to the large double-doors that would lead Eiro into the next floor. The overseer placed their hand onto the door and pushed it open as if it was never locked in the first place.

With a slight grin on his face, Eiro followed the overseer to the next floor. And while he wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to expect, he had hoped for something a little more… exciting. This floor looked the exact same as the first floor, even if a bit smaller. Eiro would say that there were at most a fifth as many books as on the first floor. The layout was identical, and so was the furniture. There was even a desk standing next to the door that was completely identical to the one that the overseer had been sitting at below, together with a compendium of all the books on this floor. As if bothered by the fact that they had to walk this far, the overseer dropped down onto the chair at the desk, as a book appeared in their hand, “Have fun. The same rules apply here as below. The books you will find here are a bit more useful than below. Very specific knowledge that has been gathered over decades or centuries by the best of their fields. There are a few spellbooks around as well, though not too many. There are also a lot of books that are simply incredibly rare, even if their content isn’t anything special.”

“What about my reward for completing that special test?” Eiro asked, and the overseer shrugged, “I never said when you would get it. Everyone that reaches the top of this tower is rewarded somehow. But the ones that reach the top of the tower through special means will receive a better reward.”

“Well, at least there’s that,” Eiro said with a light smile, looking at the spirit standing next to him with a face of disbelief, “Come on, let’s get started. I want to finish this floor in a couple of days.”

“Uuurgh…” Sarius groaned loudly, following behind his contractor, already bored out of his mind.

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