"Where are the four books?"
Jay stood up, his voice cutting through the tranquil atmosphere of the garden like a blade.
Solomon, who was still visibly surprised by the presence of Ars Goetia in Jay's hand, slowly drifted his eyes away from the book to look into Jay's dark hazel eyes.
He fell silent, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the marble surface of the table as he contemplated his next words.
"If I may ask… why are you so eager to find those books, the Divine Revelations?" Solomon asked, his voice gentle yet probing.
Jay stopped, the intensity in his gaze flickering for a moment. He then sent a brief look toward Lavinia, searching for silent consensus between them.
She gave a small, firm nod as her sapphire eyes met his.
"Before that, let's not call me by the name Ayin... My name is Zayyn Illya Kovalenko. And she is Lavinia Reni," Jay said, gesturing toward the blonde girl beside him. Lavinia offered a polite, respectful bow to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
"Nya! Introduce me too!" Kuroka chirped from the edge of her seat, waving a hand energetically.
"Tsk, and this noisy cat is Kuroka."
Solomon nodded, a faint smile returning to his lips.
"Very well, I shall call you Zayyn."
"Alright... Let me be direct, the reason we are searching for the other four books of Solomon, or the divine revelations as you said is the condition of our... me and Lavinia's teacher," Jay said, his voice dropping to a more somber tone.
"And what condition is that, for it to require the divine revelations?" Solomon asked, leaning forward with genuine interest.
Jay thought about how to describe the complex merging of Glenda's soul.
"Her soul... she has this strange condition where her soul is merging with a spirit's soul to the point where both of their souls are already considered as one... It has reached a state of singularity, making it impossible even for my black flame to only annihilate one of them separately without destroying her entirely."
"Oh my... A merging of souls..."
The sudden interruption from the Queen of Sheba caught both Jay and Lavinia's attention. Bilqis no longer wore her mischievous smirk. Her expression turned thoughtful, her jackal ears twitching as she tried to understand the details of the ailment.
"You know about it, Bilqis-san?" Lavinia asked, her voice tinged with hope.
Bilqis nodded slowly.
"Umu, it's a very rare side effect that can be caused by an imperfect contract with a spirit... Usually the more evil ones, as they try to consume the host's ego to take over the body," she explained, her jade eyes shimmering with a faint inner light.
She then looked at the two of them.
"Does your teacher perhaps have some sort of contract with an evil spirit?"
Lavinia turned her head toward Jay, her brow furrowed in thought. Jay rested his hand on his chin and closed his eyes, recalling the faint, shimmering water spirit he had fought during his final lesson with Glenda.
"No... I do not think so. Though, maybe I'm wrong because that's also the first time I saw a spirit, but..."
Jay didn't finish his sentence.
Instead, he suddenly disappeared in a violent flicker of purple flame.
His sudden departure caused the cedar leaves above to rustle. Bilqis and Solomon watched in surprise, but before they could even comment on his disappearance, Jay reappeared in a burst of violet sparks.
In his arms, he carried the unconscious body of a purple-haired woman.
Glenda looked frail, her skin pale and almost translucent as Jay held her with a protective, princess-style grip, his expression hardening as he looked at her.
"It's better for you to check it yourself," Jay said.
Solomon stood up immediately.
With a fluid flick of his wrist, he commanded the nature around them. One of the massive branches from the ancient cedar tree near them slowly descended, its wood twisting and weaving together between him and Jay until it formed a natural, moss-covered bed.
Jay, Lavinia, and Kuroka widened their eyes at the effortless display of strange magic.
"Don't be surprised, it's just another form of spirit magic..." Solomon said, his focus already shifting to the unconscious body of the Witch of the South.
His brown eyes swept over Glenda's thin frame. She looked malnourished, her breathing shallow, surviving only on the infusion that Jay and Lavinia had been keeping her supplied with.
"My love... this is..." Solomon muttered.
Bilqis stood beside him, her jade eyes glowing with an intense spirit energy as she performed a deep scan of Glenda's internal composition. Jay watched the way the energy moved, noted the way the Queen's tail stilled in concentration.
"Umu, it's definitely a case of a spirit trying to take over the host body... but I've never seen souls merged almost perfectly like this. Is there probably something that triggered it?" Bilqis asked, her voice low and troubled.
Jay's clenched his hand into a fist as the mocking, arrogant face of Rizevim Livan Lucifer flashed through his mind.
Solomon caught the shift in Jay's eyes.
He can feel a faint but cynical killing intent seeping out, that even a man of Solomon's vast experience found unsettling.
"I see now why you would ask me for the Divine Revelations... This condition your teacher is in is indeed very complicated, even for me and my wife as spirit magic users," Solomon said.
"Wait, so this condition can't be solved even if you are able to use spirit magic?" Jay asked, his heart sinking.
Solomon nodded gravely.
"No."
Jay's brow furrowed. The frustration he had been suppressing for weeks began to boil.
"So even if I learn to use Spirit Magic with the help of Ars Theurgia, which has authority over spirits, I still won't be able to cure her condition?… Then what am I even doing here?"
"Well, if you use Ars Theurgia, then it is possible to cure her," Solomon said, which left Jay and Lavinia confused.
"Wait… didn't you just say that Spirit Magic wouldn't be able to cure her?"
"Haha… it seems you have misunderstood something about spirit magic," Solomon laughed warmly, the sound cutting through Jay's cold voice.
Jay raised his eyebrows in confusion.
"A spirit is a consciousness that represents something in this universe," Solomon began, gesturing to the garden around them. "It could be something from nature... fire, wind, water, trees... or something celestial, like time and space. Just like us, humans, there are good spirits, neutral spirits, and also evil spirits."
Jay looked down at Glenda's face, remembering the Water Spirit she had used.
"And for one to be able to wield Spirit Magic is to form a contract with said spirit. A spirit magic user is basically a catalyst or vessel for them," Solomon explained. A smirk touched his lips.
"Though, there is an exception... One is my wife, because she is the daughter of a human father and a spirit mother. Hence, she is capable of using spirit magic on her own, as it is part of her very being... A half-human half-spirit."
Jay, Lavinia, and Kuroka turned to look at the Queen of Sheba. She flashed a charming smile and held up a peace sign. Jay wasn't surprised, but for Lavinia and Kuroka, it was unexpected.
"And also... the Heavenly Father. Yesh can also be considered as a spirit of existence, or the term that might be more familiar to you as a... Holy Spirit."
The trio fell silent, stunned by Solomon's words.
Jay narrowed his eyes and steered the conversation back to a way to cure Glenda's condition.
"Then, what is Ars Theurgia?"
Solomon smiled, clearly enjoying the role of a teacher.
"Ars Theurgia, just like the other Divine Revelations, is both a catalyst and an instruction to summon or construct a certain being. That's why I prefer to call them as a Book of Summons."
Solomon pointed toward the ordinary, unassuming book in Jay's hand.
"The book in your hand, Ars Goetia for example, is a catalyst to summon the original sin, the Goetia... the Origin of Evil, a combination of the seventy-two pillars in one being. But then, before I died, Lucifer stole the book from the Heavenly Father. He then used it to create the current seventy-two pillars of the Devils by separating Goetia and using those seventy-two souls with his own method to create the first generation of the pillars."
Solomon's expression turned slightly pitying as he looked at the book.
"As a catalyst, you can use the Divine Revelations to summon a being, and if you have control over it... For example, through Goetia, you can harness its power or command it. However, from what it appears, Ars Goetia has been damaged, and the summoned being has been separated. It seems now to be little more than an ordinary book."
Jay looked down at the unasumming black book in his hand.
Jay then looked at the book in his hands. The torn section must be the part now known as the Book of Lucifer, which currently in Rizevim's possession.
"Then, what about the other books?"
"Hm... let's see. The first is Ars Almadel... It's called the Divine Revelations of Angels. This one is unique because it allows you to summon an altar that acts as a beacon. It draws in an absurd amount of Holy Energy depending on how many angels answer your call. It is basically a mass-destruction weapon of light and pure holy energy."
Solomon paused, his eyes glowing with a distant memory.
"And then, the second is Ars Paulina... the Divine Revelation of Celestials. With this, you can summon a celestial spirit and create a separate dimension where time flows according to your will, as it rules over the stars and the passage of time. But I believe that in order for you to use this, you actually need to submit that celestial spirit... though, I personally don't know."
Solomon shrugged casually, a gesture that caught Jay off guard.
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Jay asked, his brow twitching.
"Isn't it called the Books of Solomon because you used them in the past to summon these creatures and use their power? You must have beaten them into submission to do that, right?"
"Well... no. The Heavenly Father actually gave me ten rings that I could use to automatically exert control over them all... and now, the rings are gone," Solomon said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
Jay, Lavinia, and Kuroka collectively let their jaws drop.
"Nya! A Nepo baby!" Kuroka pointed a finger accusingly at the ancient king.
"A Nepo?" Solomon tilted his head, the modern slang entirely lost on him.
Jay just shook his head, sighing.
"Then, the other books?"
"Ars Theurgia is pretty straightforward," Solomon continued, regaining his dignity. "It is a Divine Revelations of Natural Spirits, and just like it's name, it summons a King of Nature Spirit that governs any natural element... fire, water, wind, earth, trees, and so on. That nature spirit, the Theurgia, is a being formed of the four directional emperors."
Jay began to piece the information together.
"So, the reason why Ars Theurgia can be useful to heal Glenda is because I can summon this Spirit of Nature, the Theurgia?"
"Precisely," Solomon said.
"Because from my observation, the spirit residing in your teacher is a spirit of water. You can simply ask Theurgia, or use his authority, to absorb the merging souls. He should be able to separate the two souls back to their original states, as all spirits of nature are originated from him."
A heavy silence fell over the group as the path to Glenda's recovery finally became clear.
However, the catch was already apparent to Jay.
"But from what you said earlier, we need to beat this Theurgia guy first, right?" Jay asked.
"Well, not really beat him in the sense that you should kill him," Solomon explained.
"Because with your power, the power of the end... you would be able to easily kill him. So, instead of killing him, you must beat him into submission and force him to obey and to form a contract with you."
'So, no black flame,' Jay thought.
"But here is the tricky part," Solomon added, a smirk appeared on the King's face.
Jay raised his eyebrows, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Theurgia, just like any other spirit, can only be touched or damaged by a spirit magic," Solomon said.
Lavinia, who had been silent while absorbing the information, finally spoke up.
"Then how are we supposed to fight him? If ordinary magic and physical attacks just pass through him, we're at a total disadvantage."
Solomon touched his chin thoughtfully.
"Well, I could lend you my spirits to help you, but I have a better idea." As he suddenly turned his gaze toward Kuroka.
"Nya?" the cat-girl squeaked, pointing to herself.
"The lady there... earlier, you used nature energy... No, you used Senjutsu, right?" Solomon asked.
Kuroka nodded tentatively. "And what about it-nya?"
"Well, why don't the two of you also learn that first before you try to subdue Theurgia?" Solomon suggested.
"Senjutsu uses the power that flows within one's spirit called Chakra... While Touki, one of the forms of Senjutsu, can be considered a physical manifestation of spirit magic as it allows the user to interact with spirits."
Solomon then looked at Jay and Lavinia with an encouraging smile.
"And after all of you are ready, I can unseal the Ars Theurgia and you can use it to summon the spirit of nature yourself."
Jay and Lavinia then turned their gazes toward Kuroka. The black-haired cat-girl recoiled slightly, her tails twitching.
"Don't look at me with such passion-Nya!?" she joked, playfully covering her body as if they were undressing her with their eyes.
"Very well," Jay just ignored her as he said, his voice firm.
"But in the meantime... I will also learn about my power. This black flame, or what you call Ayin."
Solomon's smile was one of pure satisfaction.
"No problem. We have plenty of time, and plenty of rooms in this temple for the three of you."
A faint flare of aura emanated from him as he smiled.
"So, shall we begin our training?"