Demon's Virtue

Chapter 440 - Information Gathering

Eiro flipped through the books in front of him, finally a bit more relaxed. Now that he found out that, while not particularly natural or normal, what was happening to Leon's body was absolutely fine. He wouldn't end up damaged by this long-term. All that Eiro had to do was make sure that he found out what tribe Leon was from, since their maturity-phase was often quite different depending on the tribe.

This mostly had to do with whether or not their 'guardian spirit', the animal that their tribe was based off, was a herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore. Of course, since they weren't animals, beastmen didn't have to worry about having a one-sided diet.

A carnivorous beastman could eat fruit and vegetables perfectly fine, but they still required a lot more meat in their diet while their bodies were changing during their maturity phase, or else they could fall sick as well.

So Eiro really just had to figure out which of those three categories Leon fit into. He would either need to reduce the amount of meat he ate, increase the amount of meat he ate, or he could leave his diet as is in case he would end up being from an omnivorous tribe.

In his mind, Eiro had already gone through all the information that he knew about the different tribes, but luckily there were other books here that he hadn't read yet that could fill in any sort of information that he might be lacking.

In particular, the book about tribe-specific behavior during a beastman's maturity phase was helpful, for obvious reasons. Through it, Eiro would be able to figure out what tribe Leon was from simply from the way that he would act soon. He hoped, at least.

Once Eiro was done going through about half the information that he had gathered on beastmen here in the library, he turned his head over toward Nelli, "You don't perchance know any way to definitively tell what tribe Leon is from, right? One that you somehow completely forgot about until now?"

"Nope, sorry. Beastmen are rare around here, we've only come across a handful of them at this point. However, if you had the time, you could just travel to the southern continents. Beastmen are as plenty there as humans are here." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "I know, I know. But sadly, I don't have the time right now. Actually, maybe I will in half a year once the hero tournament is over, but until then, not at all. Hmm... Although..." The Demon muttered quietly, slowly getting an idea for what he could possibly do.

"There aren't any tests that you can do to find out one's tribe... however, what I can do is turn over a grave." The Demon pointed out, and Nelli raised her brows confused, "What do you mean, exactly?"

"Yeah, how's that gonna help you?" Sarius asked, just as confused as the Naiad. Eiro crossed his arms as he looked at them.

"Seven years ago, when I first met the kids, I killed the guy that was hired to bring them to the holy capital. I... stripped him off his flesh, for obvious reasons, considering my nature back then, and I just got rid of the clothes and bags that he had with him. I know there wasn't any information on the kids in the carriage we used at the time, but there might have been something in those guys' bags that could tell me more..." Eiro pointed out, "I'm heading to that area relatively soon anyway, depending on the party's growth until then. It does seem like they're doing pretty well, but we'll have to see."

"So you're not freaking out anymore?" Nelli asked, and Eiro smiled back at her, "Not as much at least, no. Now that I know that Leon is going to be fine, I'm really, really quite relaxed."

"Just that you have to give Avalin a lot more sweets than you wanted to." Gondos added, and Eiro quietly chuckled, "I don't want to give her any sweets at all. They're bad for her, and she's just going to end up acting super hyper, which in turn means I won't be able to leave her alone. At least she's going to sleep well after the inevitable crash she'll feel." Eiro replied. The Demon slowly stood up and stretched. He brought the rest of the books that he had in front of him back to the place they were before, and then slowly made his way out of the library. His first class was going to start soon, after all.

Eiro made his way out of the library, while the guards standing in front were clearly confused. They didn't see Eiro come in, and it wasn't like he was the kind of person that they could simply not notice, with his rather unique appearance. But since Eiro was allowed in the library whenever he wanted in the first place, there wasn't any issue, even if they somehow forgot that he was in there.

They greeted Eiro as if nothing happened, while Eiro made his way through the academy in a somewhat relaxed manner. He freaked out so much just now, so he slumped down into relaxation rather quickly once he figured out there was no reason to freak out.

The Demon soon stepped into the room that his first class was going to be in, and sat down at the desk in the front. It would be another twenty or so minutes until the first students arrived, so that meant Eiro had enough time to fill out the Ancient Language dictionary with the words that he managed to figure out last night.

He basically just had to copy the information from the dictionary in his mind into the real one. And as Eiro was doing so, he took particular notice of a few words that he figured out. 'Information', 'Status', and 'System'. These were certainly not words that Eiro expected to find, but they were here. Eiro lightly grinned as he came up with an idea. It didn't seem like the kind that Eiro would be able to cast with just any of his elements.

Instead, he would most likely need to use an element that was based on 'concepts' and 'knowledge'. He would need to use Arcane Magic. Especially since there seemed to be an eery similarity between what the system's messages were made of and arcane magic. By no means were they the same thing, but it was close. Arcane Magic was a step away from Mana, and what the system messages were made up of were another step or two away. Eiro was sure of it.

That meant that maybe Eiro could create a spell to access another's system, a spell that he could use to find out information that even they weren't directly aware of, if he fine-tuned it enough. If Eiro was lucky, he might find a way to find out what tribe Leon was from.

So, Eiro figured out a priority-list for things that he had to try out in regards to finding out what tribe Leon was from.

One, simply try and analyze Leon's changes to come to the conclusion. Two, find information on Leon among the items that Eiro buried near the holy empire's capital. Three, create a spell that could tell Eiro what tribe Leon was from. Four, travel to the continent in the south, and compare Leon's scent to that of other beastmen. And at last, five. Simply wait it out and hope Eiro would be able to figure it out as Leon's maturity-phase proceeded.

And so, since it was one of the few things that he could do for now, Eiro began to create the potential chant and magic circle for the information-gathering spell. It didn't take long until he finished it, though. And when he did... He wanted to try it out. Eiro held his hand forward and spoke the spell, using an element that would cause relatively little harm and replaced all of the parts that defined the element and replaced it with that of air.

It didn't take long until Eiro finished changing the spell and chant, and held his hand forward as he started to draw it while speaking the chant.

A gust of wind pushed out from behind Eiro, as the Demon directed the wind at one of the objects laid out along the wall. This one in particular was a vase. And a few moments later, something entered Eiro's mind. Something like whispering information given to him without words. It was similar to when a skill gave Eiro information that he had no way of actually getting yet. He supposed that's where the spell's 'system' aspect came in for this particular version.

Maybe it wasn't all that useless, although this spell only gace Eiro rough information on the appearance and material used for the vase and the paint on it. He even somewhat got an idea of how old the vase was, but that was it. It might be a good tool for Eiro to expand his perception beyond what he was usually capable of, but that was it. It didn't do exactly what Eiro wanted. Maybe even the Arcane Magic version wouldn't do that, but it was worth a try at least. Eiro had other things to fall back on if that didn't work, after all.

And as Eiro was thinking, the first few students came into the room. Eiro greeted them and put away his things as he waited for the other students to come in as well.. And just like that, it was time for Eiro's first class of the day to start.