Demon's Virtue

The duplicate Eiro stepped up to the bedroom door, carefully placing his palm onto the door. There was a specific link placed here that allowed the original body's soul to be fully accessed from here, at least through the duplicates. It was basically just a relay point for Eiro's mana, like a lightning rod that the demon could specifically point his mana toward.

Like that, objects could be taken out from the treasury, the duplicates' bodies could be altered, new duplicates could be created, and like right now, the duplicates could receive new mana from the original.

Since they were just duplicates, they weren't able to fully produce their own mana or access things like the spirit gateways through their own bodies, but the passive consciousness of the original could be triggered in ways that allowed the duplicates to access it this way at the very least.

And so, the dagger mastery duplicate quickly pulled out some water magic from the elemental plane of water, quickly storing it inside of his body and concentrating it into a large magic stone near where his heart should be. He was basically recreating a smaller version of the mana crystal that formed in Eiro's body after his mana reached seven digits.

It didn't take Eiro too long to grab enough magic before turning back around. He made his way through the manor and stepped back outside, where Orion was waiting for him. The master was taking the time to clean his dagger that had the demon's blood on it just earlier, and then quickly raised his head when Eiro returned.

"Did you grab that essence you mentioned?" Orion asked curiously, and the demon quickly nodded his head.
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"Yes, I have," he responded, carefully holding his hand forward. He let the water magic's essence flow into his wooden prosthetic as he dragged his hand across the air, as if he was trying to scratch it. The magic flowed out of the wooden hand, leaving thin streams of water behind that kept floating in the air.

Once he was done, Eiro formed a fist, and the water spread out around him and Orion, creating a thin barrier made with the essence of another plane, "Obviously it's not comparable to that realm at all, but it's a good attempt at an imitation, I would say."

Orion's gaze widened as he looked around. It was like the two were underwater in a dense, magical ocean, "If this is a mere imitation, then I don't think my old heart could take the real deal."

"Do you like water that much?" Eiro asked curiously, and Orion carefully nodded his head.

"My father was a sailor. I got my sea-legs before I even walked on land, and the first time I held a knife was to cut through some ropes on my father's ship.

Calling it a mere 'liking' of water might be an understatement," with a laugh, Orion held his hand out to the magical barrier, letting his fingers run through the flowing essence, "Seeing the infinite ocean of that elemental plane was always a dream of mine."

The demon silently looked at Orion. For a moment, he focused on the duplicate currently in that plane, still sitting at Nelly's bedside as she tried to recover in the Naiad Queen's castle.

Once Nelly woke up again and Eiro made sure that she was healthy enough to either travel or be left alone for the time being, that duplicate would head back to the tower of books and continue reading to reach the top. Eiro was sure that there would be some books related to the nature of the planes at the top of the towers.

There certainly wasn't anything particularly helpful in any of the books that Eiro had read in the second-to-last layer of the plane of fire's tower. It seemed like the kind of knowledge that was dangerous for many types of people to have, so it being locked away at the top made sense.

The thing that Eiro was most curious about were the methods that others had used to travel to those planes in the past. Of course, there were stories of those that had done so, and even some theories written by magical scholars about how interplanar travel could be possible for non-magical beings, but none of it described the actual methods in any particularly helpful way.

But if anywhere, then those books would be at the peak of the towers. Maybe Eiro would end up finding something there, but that wasn't something he could even really predict at this point. Not to mention, even if he did find something, the probability of it being something that Orion could take advantage of wasn't really... high.

Meshi was one thing; it seemed like he had the ability to move between physical spaces quite easily already, to the point of something like a semi-teleportation. So expanding that into the realm of interplanar travel was, while still an incredible task, at least a lot more feasible than trying to let Orion travel between realms.

It would be one thing if Orion was a mage, but he didn't seem to even have particularly refined mana, instead having focused all of his attention onto refining and using his life force.

That was why, even if Orion did somehow manage to make it to the elemental plane of water, the sheer concentration of water magic was going to be highly toxic to him, ignoring the fact that he wouldn't be able to even breathe in the first place. But, of course, Orion also hadn't asked Eiro about his opinion on that. He surely already knew that it wasn't something feasible.

On the other hand, Eiro did wonder if maybe reaching that plane could allow Orion to awaken his life force to a whole new level, considering that the master's life force had clearly taken on qualities similar to this essence around them. Even being masters, that didn't actually mean that they fully completed or reached the limits of their abilities.

Even if they couldn't use their current abilities to the fullest extent already due to the limits of causality, that didn't mean they had nothing left to learn.

"That is a wonderful dream," Eiro replied to the old man, who just let out a long laugh.

"Now, now, ignore that," Orion smiled, "For now, just try to do that thing you mentioned. Fusing your life force with this essence."

Eiro quickly nodded his head. He pulled the magic away from the barrier that he had formed around himself and the master, and then quickly gathered the magic in one spot again, right over his wooden palm. Now, he basically had to do the same thing that he did when creating pure mana, though the actual concept was a little different.

The elemental magic that was infused into mana was already very similar to an essence, especially the magic that came from the elemental planes. However, there were still some aspects that Eiro needed to isolate and pull out, as if he was refining or distilling the magic into something more deliberate. It was somewhat like stripping the 'concept' of water off its physical representation.

It was a bit hard to grasp at first, even for Eiro, but that was why he had spent quite a long time trying to figure out exactly how to do it, so even if it took a while, he was able to isolate the conceptual aspect of the magic from the rest of it, though he hadn't really done it in practice before.

And so, Eiro soon had two different things. The conceptual essence of water, as well as a mass of pure magic. Not pure mana, but pure magic. Like a mass of non-elemental magic. For the time being, Eiro stored this non-elemental magic inside of his body, creating a non-elemental magic stone inside of himself.

But beside that, Eiro now had a lump of the conceptual essence of water. He carefully pulled it inside of his body, slowly intertwining it with his life force. The two mixed together relatively quickly, and Eiro could feel the life force inside of him distinctly change. It made him feel completely different, like his whole existence was now a few steps closer to the concept of 'water'.

It was a curious feeling, one that Eiro certainly wanted to explore a lot more. He carefully placed his hand onto the handle of his dagger.