Chapter III - Daedalus Astula

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Waking up with a pained groan, Leonardo found himself back in the demesne library. Crawling back on his feet, he observed his surroundings with renewed curiosity. Now that Muchen was gone and he was alone, he felt liberated to explore as he wills.

Trailing his fingers alongside the numerous bookshelves, he noticed something peculiar. Some of the areas that were previously smothered by dark clouds had started to form new books!

‘Hm. Something to do with the trial I just passed?’

After giving it some thought, Leonardo figured it had something to do with his recent ascension up the ladder. After undergoing the Quaestio, his soul was strengthened significantly. That was merely one of the side benefits of an increase in Virtus, though. With this bottleneck behind him, he could now employ tier 2 magic!

Without wasting too much time on rejoicing his accomplishment, Leonardo turned back to exploring the library. Venturing to the newly revealed section, he snagged a thick tome curiously - and regretted it instantly.

As soon as he opened the book, his mind blanked in agony as a stream of information imprinted itself directly into his brain. He found this dreadful feeling strangely familiar once the pain subsided.

‘Oh hello, misery, I missed you too, friend…’ he bemoaned with a grunt as he waited for the migraine to ease.

After a few seconds lapsed, the pain eased and he could freely absorb the newly received memories. Unlike his childhood inheritance, this one was much faster, and thus more condensed.

Even as he lamented the pains he had to endure, he didn’t wish to give up on the knowledge there. It was the only thing he had as a crutch in this world. He would be beyond foolish to relinquish this blessing, even if the info was random and disordered. It had greatly enriched his life, and would continue to give him an edge in the future.

As soon as he stopped sweating and his breathing normalized, he sat down to meditate and reorganize the latest lore he obtained.

“Oh, vampires? They’re real!?” he skipped to his feet with relish.

For some reason, rather than find the prospect horrifying, he was inherently excited by the prospect. The adventurous spirit in him called him to find at least one. It was an odd calling, almost instinctual. He felt like he definitely had to look into it - when he grows up, that is. He could barely handle a teenager by himself presently.

Setting the odd feeling aside, he briefly went over the trickle of information and discovered that vampires were quite different from their mythological depictions. As it turned out, few of them lived in secluded castles or in the depths of mountain ranges. Most blended in with human nobility and guided the course of history from the shadows.

The vampires originated from biblical Cain supposedly. Son of the first men, and the first murderer. Out of jealousy, he slew his own brother after unable to gain God’s favor. Earning the angels’ ire instead, he was cursed to roam the earth forever in exile.

Henceforth known as Caine, he grew lonely over the ages as he wandered about with no purpose. After an encounter with a demon, however, he unlocked the secrets of his accursed blood. Harnessing his mark, he learned to pass it down to progeny, granting eternal life to a handful of mortals through the so-called embrace.

His progeny in turn passed their mark to the third generation, who later created a fourth. With each cycle, however, their progeny’s power dwindled and their weaknesses became more glaring. At some point, the third generation rebelled against the second, and they cannibalized their sire’s heart-blood to get stronger by assimilating a more potent version of the mark.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

This appalled Caine, who had not foreseen this betrayal. Angered, he cursed them and their lineages with various weaknesses, then disappeared from history.

The vampires experienced a schism at that point. Without Caine to hold them together, and wary of each other’s lust for their blood, they split up. Each bloodline carrying an individual curse, they followed their primogenitors to scatter across the world, forming dozens of individual vampiric clans.

After their split, their infighting only grew worse over the centuries. As humanity prospered and their numbers multiplied, they became a valuable resource. The clans waged a war in the shadows for control over mankind, each steering mortals as if they were cattle, all in accordance to their whims.

The holy crusades became the bloodiest culmination of this war. Even as they invoked their God’s will and millions bled across the middle east, none knew they were playing to the tune of vampires. The whole slaughter — senseless. Merely a prelude to Western clans expanding in the East — all lies.

‘Curious. So the Roman papacy is likely muddied by them too... Does that mean that the crown of Aragon is under this so called clan of shadows?’

Placing the book back, he wondered how much of that was conspiracy theories and how much of it was true. If vampires truly held such a tight reign over society, then he was fucked.

Unwilling to sour his mood too much, he took a moment to examine the new entries in the library. His face paled as he counted hundreds, and Leo couldn’t help but bemoan his fate and the headaches he’s going to have to endure.

‘Oh wait, Muchen said my time here is limited. I had better order this mess and prioritize what I need.’

Despite absorbing numerous pieces of information in his childhood, he’d forgotten some of them by now. Eidetic memory wasn’t perfect, and sometimes he only remembered the core details. Some stuff he would remember but could not understand, like the so called LIFENG reactor diagram.

‘The heck is that? A sun in a box?’

The whole library gave him a headache even without having to assimilate it. It was a chaotic mess of over a hundred thousand entries, some containing a single episode of Muchen’s life, others entire months’ worth of research. Even the most useless tidbits made it in, and there were a lot of those, entire decades of it.

Unwilling to endure so much torture just to absorb memories of Muchen taking a shit, he first had to sort through the library. Fortunately, he was now the master of this dream domain. A single thought sufficed to instinctively move stuff around.

First, he isolated all of Muchen’s personal life memories. Despite the old man claiming ‘they are one’ or whatever, he would rather not be influenced by that geezer’s memories too much. Perhaps he might peruse them later and recover interesting tidbits, but for now he deemed access unnecessary.

Secondly, he created a technology and crafts section, wherein he dumped all of the engineering blueprints and universities worth of theoretical knowledge.

Third, a sector for secondary knowledges catered to medicine, alchemy or the so called chemistry, and other various sciences.

Fourth, Magic and Mortal Transcendence. This library area was the smallest, but it contained condensed truths of the world that he might not comprehend even after an entire life. He knew he had to digest this section first, as growing stronger was the most important thing to him. Physically he would be limited at least until he was 15, and only magic could serve as a temporary crutch.

Lastly, in the final section he dumped all other miscellaneous knowledge tied to history and organizations that appeared and vanished through the centuries. As an Oriental organization of magi, they didn’t have all that much detailed information about the happenings in medieval Europe, but it was better than nothing. If he didn’t stir the butterfly effect too much, he would be able to have some foresight on what might happen and pocket some side benefits.

Another major advantage was knowing who was secretly in charge of what organization. For example, it became known later that Spain was the domain of a specific bloodline of vampires. In Italy, one bloodline back stabbed another for control and cannibalized their elders. This was set to happen decades or centuries later, but he might be able to exploit it at some point.

While most of the information would be redundant or out of reach, it’s better to have it than be oblivious. Even though knew the names of high ranked traitors, there were huge risks tied to unveiling this kind of information, no less trying to use it. Another factor to consider was the butterfly effect. He had to try and benefit from these situations without greatly affecting the others, lest the ‘known’ history spiral entirely out of prediction.

As he reshuffled the library, he discovered the limits of his authority over the domain. He could use his mind to control the demesne, but it was really exhausting. He had no idea how Muchen created an entire mountain, because he could only move around the preexistent stuff.

At least it saved him some time, as with a single clap and willful intent, he recolored the book covers according to each category. Also, even as new books appeared, they would immediately attach themselves to their respective area, even if he didn’t assimilate their contents yet.