Hmm, I really couldn’t teleport at all in the castle, kinda sucky but what can you do, I just worry about everyone back at home, I trust them and yet, I feel like they’re probably capable of doing something stupid if they feel like I’m in danger. I should write them a letter if I’m not done with this by today or tomorrow.

  For now I used the bath connected to the room I was lended, and while the maids wished to accompany me to probably bathe me, I told them I wanted privacy. Seriously, I appreciate the gesture, but I couldn’t even sleep at all st night! I need moments for myself too you know, let’s just be done with this. After the bath, I headed back to the throne room.

  Or so was my pn, he’s not there. Funnily enough I can tell exactly at what part of the castle he’s currently in, given his overbearing aura, it caught me off guard yesterday but I think I grew accustomed to it overnight, I don’t particurly feel threatened anymore at least. I still have to keep my guard up at all times however.

  “Morning baby, woke up early?”

  “Don’t call me that! And yeah, the faster I leave this pce, the better”

  “I figured as much, here!”

  Maldi got up from the chair in what seemed to be a study, and tossed a book towards me, I quickly caught it without batting an eye.

  “This is?”

  “Everything I know. Or rather almost everything, from simple things like materials and uses, all the way to my most complex spells, this much would help you get stronger as you wished no?”

  “Hmm, Let me see”

  I opened the book and was immediately blown away by the quality. The writing is impeccable, almost like it was made by a machine, although it feels very slim for ‘all knowledge’.

  “Do you like it? I wrote it entirely st night”

  “A bit slim, I doubt you put everything in it”

  “Well, I did make a bunch of stuff to be just summaries, but it’s still pretty extensive, over six thousand pages worth of things”

  “...this-”

  “Just flip the pages”

  I did as he mentioned and after the first two pages that are just indexes, I realized the back of the cover glowed, and even though I jumped 2 pages, there’s only one turned. And when I returned a page, both the backend and cover of the book glowed again, making the first page appear once again.

  “It will always show only 50 pages at a time, the rest appear or disappear as needed”

  “This is ridiculously useful”

  “If you want it, the ‘curse’ for endless books is also written within the book itself, I recommend you go through spatial magic, and basic magical theory sections first, lest you make a mess trying to create one”

  “Are you seriously giving me this much knowledge just because?”

  “Yes, we have an agreement, no?”

  “Sigh... thanks I guess, I’ll check its entirety ter”

  “Just a heads up, that book is for your eyes only, if someone else tries to read it, they’ll die”

  “Are you serious!?”

  “Not entirely, it’s bound to our bloodline, so only you and me, and offspring we may have can read it, keep that in mind”

  “Why is everything working with bloodlines here!?”

  “It’s an old spell, VERY old, it was used to make things private, but it had the after effect of working for your bloodline as well. At least until certain amount of generations, I also wrote it down in the book”

  “Wow, are you not afraid I’ll use the knowledge of this book against you?”

  “Hmm... in terms you could understand, if you gave a baby the blueprints to build a castle, could they do it? Maybe eventually, so try it when you’re much older ok?”

  “I’m not a child, weren't I several millennia old or something?”

  “If you weren’t sealed then yes. But as it stands right now, your actual biological age probably lingers between 16 at the youngest and 24 at the oldest. Still very young”

  “Well, that’s just peachy, I racked my brains st night, and I decided that taking more from you would only bring me more troubles in the long run, besides this and the pendants, if I get you the ring you promise to never interfere or even come close to anything I’m doing?”

  “If my pns pan out, then I promise you that. As well as not hurting those near you, just remember that life can make many turns, I just hope things never get to that point”

  “For saying things like that is the reason people don’t trust you, myself included”

  “I’ll do my best to keep myself away”

  “Good, then that should be all, tell me where the ring is so we can get this over with”

  “Already!? Ok then, I’m not compining! Alyssa!”

  Maldi screamed at the maid stationed at the door, she simply bowed down with a ‘yes master’ sentence, I must admit the maids are useful.

  “Call Hope and Aaron to the throne room, I’ll be there in a minute”

  “Right away sir!”

  And she left...

  “Homunculus are useful, no? Did you enjoy them st night? I know you did”

  “Q-quiet, what do you know!?”

  “The castle is special, I know everything that happens in it, not even a bug could enter it without me realizing it. So an orgy is easy to tell apart, I almost felt like joining!”

  “No thank you! I knew I shouldn’t have done that st night!”

  “It’s ok, libido is in our blood, just like having both male and female genitals”

  “Too much info! Wait, you too!?”

  “Yep, but I’m male so I don’t have breasts, whatever, let us go to the throne room, I’ll give instructions there with your siblings”

  And like that, I walked with Maldi towards the throne room. It's a bit awkward but I don’t really feel like talking to him that much, although he broke the silence with idle chat.

  “You’re not wearing the tiara, would you not want to funt your royal status?”

  “That sounds tacky, so no thanks”

  “Haha, I dislike wearing crowns as well, besides everyone already know who I am”

  “A king of an empty castle?”

  I mentioned with all the intent to insult him in a passive aggressive way.

  “At the moment, believe it or not I used to rule the world, and even before that I was the rightful king of the demonfolk, but it’s been ages since then”

  Could this be my chance to finally get some information on him? Honestly I feel like he won’t slip anything important, or that he deems dangerous for me to have, given the book in my hands.

  “So a king then? What happened to the demofolk?”

  “They moved to the northwest side of the continent, as for me, no one knows that I’m alive, no one but you and Celestial, as well as anyone you told this fact to”

  “Err... should that be a secret?”

  “No, not anymore, the cat’s out of the bag, but enough about me, we’re finally here”

  We walked along the corridors, and now in front of a random door.

  “What? Weren’t we going to the throne room?”

  “We are, look”

  Maldi said, opening the door and lo and behold, the throne room, this wasn’t the room I was taken to yesterday, what gives!?

  “Surprised? The rooms in the castle change every week, or whenever I wish them to”

  “And why!?”

  “Obfuscation. the castle is gigantic, and there’s pces that shouldn’t be accessed by anyone but me, just some extra protection”

  “...what are you keeping secret?”

  “My research, a secret for now but if you’re interested, I’ll happily share once I’m done~”

  “I feel it’s gonna be too te by then”

  “No baby, it will only be the beginning! Aaron and Hope are... not here yet, which means they’re probably busy outside, we have some free time it seems”

  “What are those two doing?”

  “Beats me, whatever they want”

  ...this... is the first lie I’ve caught him telling a lie, I looked at him with a suspicious gaze. Did he send his ckeys to create more chaos in the world?

  “See, we share our senses and ability to read people~ I do know where they are, west of the empire holding a meeting most likely, they’ll come back eventually”

  “A meeting?”

  “They run a cult in my name, or maybe theirs? they are technically demon lords as well”

  “I thought that was your doing”

  I mean I learnt of the cult, and I thought the siblings worked for it, and since they also worked for him, I simply connected the dots.

  “Nah, they created it out of necessity to carry out some of my orders, but outside of that, they’re completely unaffiliated to me. I can’t say the same of the church of light, who at least half of it is under my control”

  “‘You’ control the church?”

  “I just whisper telepathically to some of the bishops and they carry my will like I was their god, oh how low has it fallen to what it originally was”

  I cross my arms and wonder, weren’t the three main powers of this new world the church and local governments? While the cult was the wildcard of this pce. If two thirds end up being ruled by Maldi even if indirectly, would that not mean he’s technically still the king of the world? Just in the shadows this time.

  Could be more depending on how involved in politics he is, which I feel is a lot given the cult’s actions.

  “Enough about boring stuff, since we’re already here let’s use this opportunity to train perhaps, while we wait for those two”

  “Hmm something tells me this was your pn from the beginning”

  “We don’t have to train if you don’t want to, we can have sex instead if you want”

  “...what is wrong with you, we’re blood reted no?”

  “And? I don’t see a problem, I have had sex with both Aaron and Hope before, as they have with each other”

  “...No, I’m gonna pass on that offer, the training is better thanks”

  Just the concept is enough to turn me off, and while Hope is quite pretty, her attitude and our interactions would probably be a boner killer, so I don’t see myself with any of them.

  “As you wish, anything you’re interested in to begin with?”

  “Anything that can kill you?”

  “That doesn’t exist and we’ve been through this yesterday. let’s start with something you will catch fairly quickly, since it’s our family speciality”

  Oh yeah, Celestial did mention something about certain magics that are faster to learn that run in genetics or something.

  “The ‘curse’ of corruption, I’m sure you’ve seen it a couple of times, it was called anathema by the church folks many eons ago, it’s real shape looks like this”

  Maldi mentioned, and after lifting his hand, dark mist began swirling in his palm, it looks viscous to a degree and yet it freely flows in an unpredictable pattern, still contained within his palm. The peculiar properties are not what picked my attention, but it was my senses, call it a way to perceive mana, which then turns weird, because I don’t feel anything from the mass. And that’s the problem, it’s like a bck hole, where there’s nothing in there, not even the mana that flows freely in the world.

  “You probably already realized what it does”

  “Yeah...”

  “It erodes all magic to nothingness, only the caster can control it, and as far as I know, I’m the only one capable of using its pure form as far as I’m aware, you probably seen the one mixed with water, this one”

  The mist swirled and formed into the bck goo I’ve seen a couple of times already.

  “So the bck goo was your little trick! You know how much trouble that has given me!?”

  “Sorry? Although I doubt it was me, both Aaron and Hope can cast it as well, and they have handed vials of this as favors or trades for certain work, maybe it was just poor luck?”

  “Hmm, it’s still not very convincing, even if it doesn’t feel like a lie”

  “Well, more reason to learn it, no? You’ll be able to dispel it at will”

  “Fine I’ll bite, teach me how to do it”

  “The pure form would be difficult, the four main variants are mixed with the elements, those would be easier, but water is the easiest, and the only one that Aaron and Hope can cast”

  “What does it even do in water form? It just seems like a way to annoy people”

  “Mixed with water it creates an ailment that unless your mana is strong enough to dispel, will always consume the mana around it at a snail’s pace, but will never perish, and it clings to mana sources with ease”

  Sounds about in line with what I’ve seen so far, it’s still only a way to mess with people though.

  “Mixed with wind, it remains some of the original potency, capable of corroding mana, it’s the second slowest to degrade, and while it doesn’t have as much power as the true form it can spread at incredibly accelerated rates, depending on how strong you make it, a good gust would be enough to kill towns worth of sick and elderly, depends on a few factors to be honest”

  “That is still something to mess with people, again”

  “It is useful to poison the competition, next up is fire, this one holds the exact power of the true form, but it’s votile and peters out quickly unless you supply it constantly with mana, probably the closest you can get of the true thing”

  “I still don’t see the use to be honest”

  “It can corrode mana, and everything in the world is made of mana to some degree, no metal will withstand it for long, no spell can be able to fight it or protect you from it, I think it’s useful. a truly unstoppable attack”

  “Hmm, and the earth one?”

  “The weakest of them all, it can’t poison or corrode anything, but it has two uses, storing your own mana to some degree, and be able to use it as extension for casting other spells, it’s a bit complicated, but if you ever learn it, you’ll know what I’m talking about”

  Man what a dull expnation, I’m more of a show don’t tell, but I guess the expnation works to some extent, there’s only something that collides with what I already know.

  “Weren’t curses meant to be done with the mana of the world? These doesn’t sound as curses to me by that definition”

  “True, the only one that would somewhat cssify as one is the water one, and even that is technically not a curse, since it consumes Mana not from the world, but from everything it touches, it was just called a curse by the people, they throw that term left and right, more so in days of old”

  “So not curses?”

  “It’s not a curse, it just has ‘curse’ in the name, you can argue semantics, personally I hate the term. What they refer to were called blessings at one point in time as well, and that is much more pleasant, they are usually imparted via an object, your backpack and dress, the book I gave you and even Hestia’s rings are what modern people would call a ‘curse’, it can still be casted into the world without any object attached, but that is much more difficult”

  “So this ‘curse’ is not a curse, and the curses that are not really curses are common enchantments or the like? Then what even is a true curse?”

  What bunch of nonsense, why have the same name for three different things? Between this and the garbage way to cast magic is, No wonder magic casters are somewhat rare.

  “They do exist, The true curses of the world are exceedingly rare, so much so I’ve seen only one in my lifetime, something so abhorrent and cking of rationality, expining them would be honestly impossible”

  ...this is the first time I felt anger from him, I think I shouldn’t push the topic any further, more so since his anger is literally making my legs tremble from the pressure in the aura he’s exuding.

  “Anyways, why don’t you try it baby?”

  “Just like this? All that talk and not even a piece of advice!?”

  “Would it help you? There’s no magical construct or runes or symbols for it, since it was never standardize, all I can do is tell you how close or far away you are from pulling it off”

  “Sigh... Well, here goes nothing”

  It’s just like the yucky liquid, but even yuckier, probably the most nasty liquid I’ve ever seen, it should be easy to do, no? One bck goo coming right up.

  “See, it wasn’t that hard, was it?”

  “What are you talking about, that’s just painted goo, not even close to what it’s meant to be”

  “Really?”

  “Yep, allow me”

  Maldi gathered his hands and as light began to shine in his palms, a ridiculous amount of mana gathered near him, so strong I could not only feel it, I’m sure it’s literally visible to the naked eye...

  After a minute, two white rabbits appeared in thin air, simply falling to the ground and standing there doing nothing but breathing.

  “Did you just create life?”

  “Not real life, homunculus once again, fear not, they feel no pain or have much in the way of brain, now look”

  Maldi created a blob, and hurled it at one of the rabbits, the bck goo adhered to it and the bunny writhed for a second, before colpsing into the ground. Poor rabbit, even I feel bad it died so unceremoniously 15 seconds after it came into existence...

  “See, it died instantly, now try with the goo in your hands”

  “No thanks, I don’t want to just kill another poor bunny”

  “Hmm, well it’s fine, you weren’t even slightly close, Aaron and Hope had better first attempts, and even they took hundreds of years to be able to cast it. We should train something else, like the fact your mana use is absurdly costly, no grace or skill whatsoever, just brute force magic”

  “...hearing that from you just makes me hate your guts even more”

  “You heard this from someone before?”

  “Yeah, Celestial mentioned the same”

  “Haha, makes sense, I was the one who taught Celestial magic. Along with Hestia of course”

  “Seriously what have you ‘NOT’ done?”

  “I’m sure the list is very extensive, I have the perfect thing to help you train, something the elves use for training, maybe it will help you more given that you’re closer to your mother in this regard it seems”

  Maldi then swung his hand once again, and this time a little device appeared from nothingness, it looks like a very rge tube that swirls and turns, with a red ball inside, and what looks to be 2 gemstones one on each side.

  “What is this?”

  “A toy”

  “...Why does it feel like something naughty?”

  “It’s not, funnily enough it’s given to elven childrens as gifts, pour mana into one of the gemstones to try it”

  “Ok?”

  I did as asked, and the small ball inside the tube just went ballistic across the inside of the tube. it almost came out from the other side, but Maldi pced his palm on the end of the tube, and the ball just crashed into his hand.

  “See, it’s too much, try to make it flow like this”

  Pcing his hand on the other gemstone, the ball is now going backwards, but not shooting towards the end I’m facing, just gently passing through the tube.

  “This you see, is a toy for elven children to test their mana skills, kinda like a tug of war between two kids, if you use the other gemstone, and put more strength that I do, the ball will roll to my side”

  “So a ‘pull of war’”

  “A more fitting name, our mana is monstrous however, so it’s good practice for the opposite. Make it roll slow, and your control would probably improve ‘A lot‘”

  “And what if I want us to test our might?”

  “Us two? The toy will probably break. I can make a much more sturdy one that would no longer qualify as a toy, but I’m most likely winning, there’s no other way around that, and you know it”

  “Humble aren’t we?”

  “A toddler cannot defeat an adult in strength”

  This again? My gut instinct was to retort by calling him petty since, what kind of adult would just not hold back against a child. But then again I feel like he’ll treat me like a literal toddler if I say that, so I simply grumbled.

  A few seconds after, the ball was now at the exit of the tube towards my side, it didn’t come out however, stopping at the very end.

  “Try again”

  “Ok then”

  So it’s just pouring mana, but slowly, that must be easy right, instead of visualizing it as a flow, I picture a trickle of it into the gemstone, and yet the result was the same.

  “A much better attempt, but still nowhere close”

  Maldi pushed the ball towards my side again, this one at breakneck speeds like I did, but it slowed down to a halt at the end of my tube.

  “Try as much as needed, it seems like a good first approach to training if you ask me”

  “I was expecting wild magic circles and things of the sort, not a ball in a tube”

  “That’s for ter, you never had a proper approach to magic, so toys like this are a good first approach”

  And so I tried to make the ball move slowly again, and again, and again.

  I can feel a vein popping in my head, why is it always shooting at the speed of a bullet everytime! This guy must be mocking me right!? Simply pcing his hand at the end of the tube to stop the ball and returning it!

  “You rigged it!”

  “No I didn’t, but if that’s how you feel, how about we swap sides?”

  He then swings the ‘toy’ around, where what used to be his side, is now mine.

  “Keep trying, believe it or not, you’re improving at an incredible pace, even I’m a little perturbed by it”

  “You say that, the result is the same”

  “Funnily enough it isn’t, I keep repairing the toy in between tries from the strain your putting on it, and the damage is less and less every time”

  I cross my arms and think carefully about the task in hand, when brute force doesn’t work I need to think of something, and this is the one case where the opposite is true yet the answer is the same. I can’t be delicate enough to make it and smarts are the solution, mana feels like a liquid, at least I see that in my mind, probably because the word ‘pour’ is usually attributed to it, but what if instead of water is an electric wave or signal?

  Growing in all directions, what if instead of pouring mana I radiate it in a radius? It’s just a matter of imagining and this is where my otherworldly knowledge comes in, so let’s try that!

  “Oh! It works!”

  The ball is rolling to the other side slowly!

  “Hmm, that’s a clever answer to the problem but it won’t let you grow, your not increasing your skill, but purposely wasting the excess as trash”

  “And? If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, a solution to a problem matters little if it’s resolved”

  “Well, I’m just trying to help, the end result depends on you after all, if you think that brute force will get you through everything, only reality will be able to make you open your eyes”

  “Your cheap fortune cookie philosophy means nothing, to me at least!”

  “...fortune cookie?”

  Magic is nonsensical when you stop to think about it, and it’s been like this ever since I came to this world, yet when I felt I was stuck and was ter confused by terminology and other things, was when my growth started to slow down. Magic is imagination! All I have to do is think about it, and it should work!

  “Let’s try something”

  “Hmm?”

  I put my hand in front of me, as if I were holding something in my palm, the so-called ‘curse’ that is not a curse and felt like a bck hole, so let’s just imagine a bck hole! Just compressing matter but instead of physical objects, it’s mana, in a single point, smaller and smaller. All I can muster into a single point, smaller than a speck of dust, the smallest I can think of!

  I am not so sure what happened next, I saw Maldi’s eyes open like ptes in astonishment, then a light so bright, I had to avert my gaze, followed by me opening them while in Maldi’s arms.

  “Get off me you freak!”

  I get down from his princess carry, and the throne room is kind of a mess, it looks like it blew up! The moment I took a step my legs gave up and I fell to the ground, only for Maldi to once again hold me by the arm to not hit the ground.

  “Are you ok!?”

  “I am, get off I said!”

  “If you say so...”

  “...”

  “...”

  “Ok, what’s up?”

  He’s... acting weird, he was always treating me like a child, almost feeling derogatory and now he has an ear to ear smile, and a gleam in his eyes like he just discovered something.

  “Say Marisa, how DID you do that just now?”

  “Oh, do you not know what I did?”

  “I do know, but I feel like you don’t understand what you accomplished!”

  “Eh!?”

  The next moment Maldi was hugging me and jumping up and down holding me for some reason!

  “What did I tell you about getting off of me!!”

  “Sorry, sorry, I was just excited! I... It’s nothing important, you’re a real prodigy Marisa, I am so, so proud of you!”

  “Don’t rub my head, what are you hiding!”

  “Well-”

  ““Milord! You called?””

  Oh look, it’s thing 1 and thing 2, they looked concerned about the mess the throne room is in, whatever, you two siblings sure took your time to find this pce! Was it the explosion that gave it away?

  “Hey, we’re all gathered again~ Let me give instructions now”

  Said Maldi, swaying his hands and making the room tidy, returning it to how it was. If you can do that, why do you have maids? Also that grin of genuine happiness angers me even more than his general smug or condescending attitude, I’m the only one that should be smug in this world!

  Joanne_carper