Ooooookay, I’m going to stop with the bullshit now.

When I arrived at the library, in the situation that I was in, I didn’t even had to get the librarian’s attention, not wanting to lose any more time I said in a rushed tone:

I’m sorry for being rude but I need every book about mana that you can get me.

Librarian – Be patience child, books are never going to run away from you, at least not in this library. Now tell me, what exactly do you want to know about mana?

Emily – The basics, like how it feels like, how can I detect it, how can I manipulate it and everything else that you might found useful for someone that wants to use mana in crafting.

Librarian – Mana in crafting? Never heard of it, usually crafters focus on their jobs and don’t even bother to learn magic, but I can think of some utilities for it, find a seat and I'll take the books to you.

Emily – Thank you ma’am!

With that she left and I could hear her talking to herself as she walked away, something about crazy young ones and how would I manage to get any clients with all to prejudice against demons in this kingdom.

Anyway, after she left I finally paid attention to the place I was. The library was huge, it had 5 floors and spiraling stairs that would take you to them, at the back of the building there was a huge religious vitral that seemed to be the climax of a story being told by the windows ( that were also vitrals but much smaller ) that started next to the door and kept going through the walls of each floor. Actually the building looked more like a theater, with the upper floors not actually taking the whole of the building but being only at the sides.

I started walking through the maze of bookcases, marveled by the cheer amount of books there. While walking I found a book about the race that I chose, demons, apparently there was some kind of prejudice against them and I was curious why, so I just started reading it there in the spot I found it, and this is what it said.

Demons where no different than any other sentient race, like Elfs that had their constitution changed with time by the mana of the place where they lived, in the Elfs’ case it was the forests, making they have an affinity with nature. Demons, by living in small caves and hunting only at night got an affinity with dark magic.

Everything was fine until the churches started to acquire more power and influence. The major churches started doing crusades to find more sentient races to convert them, but when they found the demons it wasn’t exactly in an advantageous situation. They first encountered the demons at night, in a wasteland while they were hunting and the missionaries got caught. The missionaries that encountered the demons stayed a long time in captivation, they couldn’t understand the demons at the time because of a language barrier and stayed there, observing the demons. They confused the demon’s ancestral hunting ritual, that thanked the land for the food with demonic rituals (well, it was in fact a dark ritual that communicated with the spirits, so you can’t really blame the religious people) and when the missionaries finally escaped they spread rumors of the demons inclination to evil and dark gods.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

That assumption stayed until a hundred years ago when the magic guild told everyone about the properties of dark magic, that it wasn’t really and evil practice, and that demons simply had an affinity to it. The churches contested that information, but were proven that every magic had the potential to do evil, even light. They didn’t said it explicitly, but the magical guild was blaming the churches for being ignorant and causing years of wars for nothing.

In those hundred years after the revelation, a lot of minor races, together with the demons, slowly came in touch with the actual society. And that is the reason why demons suffer with prejudice, but more and more people is letting go of it, like the librarian that didn’t even gave a shit about my race. Also some magics that were considered dark, like reviving the dead as zombies and shit, were classified as forbidden magic and banned.

Apparently I spent a lot of time of time there reading that book, when I was done with it the librarian approached me laughing and said that she had taken the books I asked for and left them in a table. She took me there and left, when I sat I noticed two pop-ups saying:

Your satiation has reached a low level, if you don’t eat anything you’ll start to slowly lose health

You’ve gained the fast reader ability

After I dismissed those windows a realization hit me. It was time for the bread. The-Hideous-So-Talked-Bread.

As I ate it, crying from the pain in my teeth I thought:

After I’m done with my research, the first thing I’ll do is learn the cooking ability.

Mark my words. I’m never eating this shit again!