The library was as easy to find as Lord Parron’s office room. Sera just had to follow the stairs as it was located in the highest room of the mansion, inside of the castle-like tower. Just choosing to go upwards whenever it was possible was enough for Sera to end up right in front of a large, double-winged door much like the one that led to Parron’s office.
Just as any other door in the mansion these two, too, lacked any description or symbols on it that could reveal what was hidden behind them. They were just plain, wooden doors which sole outstanding feature was that they had been crafted using far too expensive wood.
After preparing herself to meet yet another stranger, Sera pushed down the doorhandle and entered the room. There was nobody awaiting her, neither the man that would teach them nor Marcis, who, at least according to his father, would never miss these lessons.
«I’m too early...»
Even without the two, the library was by no means empty, but rather cramped instead. There were hundreds if not thousands of books stored on dozens of shelves. Some were as big as Sera’s hand, others, however, she wouldn’t be able to lift using one hand alone.
The room had rather long walls, making it almost feel like hall instead. On three sides stood two large bookshelves each that were separated by windows and benches, the fourth wall, however, had nothing to it but the double-winged door Sera had just entered through.
The benches were well-padded and looked just right for a little nap, especially when it meant having warm sunlight caress your skin, but Sera didn’t waste a single thought on trying it out. Her whole attention was focused on the countless books and especially their titles, which would reveal what they could teach her.
Most of the titles could be found on the back of the book’s binding, others had this information added to them with the use of crude writing and white ink.
Even though there were too many of these descriptions surrounding Sera as if she could grasp them even with a day’s worth of free time, it seemed like there were only about a dozen books she would really be able to read. All of them were stored under the bookshelf standing next to the door, almost hidden from view.
These few books seemed to be the only ones in the whole library that didn’t greet her with the roundish writing style the humans used, but familiar runes instead.
«Demon language!?»
Sera couldn’t help but let herself sink to the ground in front of the bookshelf so she could examine the books a little better.
«It really is!»
A few of the books were rather uninteresting. They were about politics, history or the family trees of influential demons, but the majority of them had far more practical uses.
‘Tokin’s Book of Magic’ one was titled, ‘Regeneration and Rejunivation’ another. There were books about alchemy and poisons, about magical warfare and even about mind magic, which was nearly impossible to learn and use for anyone but a few selected demon races.
Sera naturally decided on reading the magic book, as it could possibly teach her how to control the flow of magic residing inside of her body. If there was any chance of this preventing her from fainting again, it was worth the hours and days she would need to work through it.
Sadly, she wasn’t that lucky. ‘Tokin’s Book of Magic’ didn’t even touch the issues novices like her might face. It was more of a collection of breathtakingly powerful spells the author was able to use.
The book described how to perform each one of the spells, but Sera obviously had no reason to learn how to summon giant explosions capable of destroying entire castles, especially if it meant wasting time that could have been spent in learning something useful instead.
The book about mind magic wasn’t exactly helpful either. Thanks to her mother’s blood, Sera had a strong affinity towards spells that could affect her opponent’s mind or even her own, but that alone wouldn’t do anything.
Stolen novel; please report.
It was as if she had both the best fertilizer and good seeds, in the form of her affinity and her magic potential that grew with each passing day, but there was no dirt to plant it into. If she couldn’t control her mana, how could she even dream about harvesting power and longevity?
Alchemy on the other side required a vast amount of money and fitting tools before you could even start, and even then it was questionable if it was of any real use. And then there was poison, which couldn’t be more useless to Sera.
The most useful book seemed to be the one about healing, as it had hundreds of carefully drawn pictures of wounds, anatomy and various ailments in it. It described the best treatment methods step by step and even taught some basic healing magic. Of course these, too, required the foundations Sera lacked.
Just as Sera had decided to give up and put the books back under the shelf, the door right next to her was suddenly opened and an old, beardless man accompanied by her master’s son stepped in.
Taken by surprise, Sera couldn’t even think of putting back the books. She just stared at the two, dazzled.
“What are you doing here,” Marcis immediately asked upon finding her sitting next to the door.
“Lord Parron has tasked me with accompanying you to all your studies. He wants me to learn together with you.”
“And I tell you to leave!”
“...”
Sera didn’t know how to answer. It was certainly true that Lord Parron’s wishes carried more weight than those of his son, but she couldn’t just ignore his demands either. Each time she did so, he would end up hating her a little more, which wasn’t exactly a good scenario as she would probably need to serve him for days to come.
“Master, I-”
“Go clean the stables or something!”
“The stables...”
“Just leave!”
Just as Sera was about to give up and leave the room as her young master had demanded, a sigh could be heard coming from the old man. She looked at him as if pleading for him to help her, but it was clear that he had no interest in participating in their quarrel.
“Let her stay, Marcis,” he told him. “She won’t get in the way.”
“If you say so...”
Sera couldn’t believe her ears. The boy was practically eating out of his hands! With his gray hair and his facial wrinkles he appeared to be a plain old man, and his blood-red robes didn’t seem like much either. There had to be something Marcis was interested in, something that made him listen.
Sera was hooked. She would listen to this man, watch his every move and hopefully learn how he was able to handle her young master that well. If only he would stop hating her, that was enough! It would allow her to serve him without fear that she would end up cleaning stables or toilettes!
“So you are serving Marcis from now on?”
“Yes. My name is Sera.”
His eyes remained on her for mere seconds before he found the books she had read. The expression in his face changed from a slight smile to disbelief and surprise instead.
“What are you doing with those books? Were you reading them?!”
A cold shiver went over Sera’s skin. “No- no! I wasn’t!”
“You know demon language?”
“No,” she somehow managed to lie right into his face. “I don’t know how to read!”
“You can’t read?”
“Yes! The books looked different. I was interested in them! One of them has pictures!”
She hurriedly grabbed the book about healing, opened it and held it high up, so the stranger would see the colorful drawings. She didn’t realize she was shoving an elaborately drawn illustration of a woman’s lower body into his face. Both him and Marcis went dead silent.
“...”
“...”
“...what?”