Demon's Virtue

"Aargh, fuck, not this time you little-" Eiro practically growled as he pressed his teeth together angrily. He was once more attempting to break the arcane lock on the journal that the first incarnation of Morgan la Fey left behind in this relam.

He had tried it a few dozen times but the further he got in the process, the more complex the lock grew and he would have to start not only the process but the analysis all over again.

"How can Morgan la Fey's standard, non-competitive state be this gods-damned annoying?" the demon groaned, twisting the mana that he was manipulating around clockwise by 73°, then anti-clockwise 13° just an inch below the first twisting point, letting everything flow deeply into the last small gap of the arcane lock.

It was the last step, and either the lock was going to open now, or it would once more reveal another unnecessary step to the whole ordeal. If it was the latter, Eiro truly intended to just leave this tower and not come back before the main body's evolution was over so that he had the time to cool down a bit.

However, he was lucky. Because the moment the mana settled into place, the lock unravelled. The arcane magic opened up and allowed Eiro to open the book, and the demon let out a triumphant yell, "Yes! Finally! Go fuck yourself, Morgan la-"

"Calm down, man," Sarius scoffed, looking at his contractor judgementally. With a deep glare, Eiro looked back at him.

"Shut the hell up," Eiro barked back, and Sarius just laughed as he looked back down at the novel he was reading.

After taking a deep breath, Eiro looked back down at the book. If he still had a heart, it would be jumping out of his chest. He flipped the cover open, and quickly read the introduction, which was written in the ancient language. Though it wasn't just the ancient language, but an even older, very specific dialect. Luckily, Eiro was able to translate it pretty easily.

Since the elemental languages were branches of the ancient language, and there were many extremely old books written in more archaic versions of the languages of both this realm and the elemental plane of water that Eiro had gotten to read already, he could fill in the gaps pretty easily.

"To whomever may find this: Either, you have broken your way through the Tower that I have lovingly created with my very hands, or you are me. Whether it is myself in this life, seeking to remember my earlier journeys, or another version of myself of a latter incarnation, shall my experiments succeed. If the latter is the case, then I welcome thee to refresh yourself on your past life.

If the former is the case, then you have truly earned the right to read my thoughts."

Eiro closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a long sigh as he mentally acknowledged the cockiness of his former life. Though of course, he did have to admit that it wasn't unwarranted cockiness. Morgan la Fey was an unparalleled figure, and that was obvious even without having direct accounts of their precise actions.

The fact they could reincarnate again and again and again without their soul deteriorating was proof enough for that. And the few instances of proof that Eiro already had of their might... the fact they could create the tower, and seemed to have expertise in numerous different fields that rivalled that of a master...

if they didn't directly master those fields and skills in the first place, was all the proof that he needed at this point. The demon continued to read.

"The stories that you are about to read are records of my journey throughout the Elemental Plane of Fire, a wild, untamed realm of heat and destruction and birth. I have done what I can to record the stories of those that I encountered; the most curious myths and legends, and unique abilities and skills and perspectives.

The young beings called 'Spirits' that had recently been borne from both this realm and my own will soon make their home in this plane, and I wish to record the state of this realm before the world's own influence spreads throughout it."

"Hold on..." Eiro muttered, quickly flipping through the pages. He could see sketches of buildings, people, tools, weapons, animals, and even food... there were far more pages than would appear when glancing at the outside, but that was something that Eiro expected at this point in time.

It was obvious that Eiro's grimoire, with similar qualities to this, also once belonged to Morgan la Fey, and was more than likely created by them.

These thousands of pages filled in extreme detail weren't just filled with something like diary-entries. This was a scientific journal. Whether Morgan la Fey would call themsef that, they were a scholar. Whether this was something that would continue on throughout the subsequent incarnations was unclear, but at the very least the first incarnation was a scholar in the truest sense of the word.

Just glancing at the pages, Eiro was overwhelmed by what he was reading. It was as though he could delve into the book and see the lives that these people were living in an almost untouched realm.

The recipes, the mechanics of craftsmanship, the language and social hierarchy; it was something so completely foreign to Eiro, something that he didn't expect to ever read about. This was a pre-historic record of what this realm was like before any other information had ever been recorded here. It was a discovery that Eiro expected to be almost impossible in the first place.

Immediately, Eiro returned to the first page, continuing to read. Word after word, line after line, page after page; Eiro read through everything as closely as he could. He was silent the whole way through, never lifting his eyes from the book or even acknowledging Sarius whenever he pointed out how weird Eiro was acting.

Frankly, compared to this, the books at the tower's top floor were nothing. Yes, sure, he got some knowledge that would be extremely useful to him in the long run, especially if he had to act against certain higher beings like gods, and he even got some dirt on the current and some former Salamander Kings and Queens, but it was nothing he truly cared about.

Knowledge from the central material plane's tower would definitely be different, but here? Something like what he was reading now was insanely more important to Eiro.

And this wasn't just from the perspective of a scholar, something that he did consider himself. His first evolution did make him a literal Scholar Imp, after all, and he still carried that sentiment on to this day, especially in recent times where he was busy creating nuermous new theses to publish to the scientific world.

It was just that this not only gave Eiro an insight into a world that no longer existed, and that maybe nobody but the gods could still remember, but it also allowed him to see into the mind of Morgan la Fey like nobody had ever done. Hell, nobody could even remember anything about them beyond the fact they existed.

Just within the first few pages, Eiro was the world's greatest expert on the Elemental Plane of Fire from before this realm developed the concept of recording information, but on a mythical individaul that most considered a figment of collective imagination.

The demon was excited about this not just in concept; he had nobody to brag about this to in the first place. Everyone that he could tell would probably just pass it off as another random thing he did and not care all too much. Maybe if he could find some scholars in the central material plane that specialized in this realm, they would find it interesting...

there were some planar scholars at the academy, so maybe he could talk to them.

Of course, it wasn't just to brag. There was information here that deserved to be shared. While he had pledged not to openly share the information from the tower, he felt like this was a different situation. After all, the tower acknowledged that Eiro was Morgan la Fey's incarnation, so this probably counted as Eiro's own information. Something that he could pass on without issue.

And frankly, as a scholar, he felt like he shouldn't keep some of this information to himself.