A Grimoire that could force the learning of Magic and increase the number of Magic spells, that was the gift Riveria had been preparing for Leo all along.
She valued Leo's potential highly, and thought very highly of his talent for Magic, so when she learned that Leo had only one magic slot and could learn only one Magic, she had already set her mind on helping him prepare a Grimoire to increase the number of Magic he could use.
For this, Riveria had drawn on the connections she had as a High Elf and as the city's strongest Mage, and asked someone to find this Grimoire.
Now she was preparing to give this Grimoire to Leo, which was why she'd appeared here.
"No." Leo shook his head, refusing. "This is too precious. I can't accept it."
This was a Grimoire whose value rivaled First-Class equipment, and was even more precious and steeper in price than that!
Even though it was a single-use consumable, its asking price had to be calculated at least in units of 100 million, and there was a price but no market; even with money you might not be able to buy one.
There were far too few people who could make Grimoires, which made this kind of item extremely precious, and many people couldn't even find a channel to buy one even if they wanted to.
On the market, the moment a trace of a Grimoire appeared, it was sure to draw countless people scrambling for it, and in the end it would generally be traded off by auction, going to the highest bidder, so sometimes a single Grimoire would even fetch an astronomical price at auction, leaving countless people speechless.
For something this precious, even if Riveria dared to give it, Leo didn't dare accept it.
"Take it." Riveria didn't seem surprised, as if she'd guessed long ago that this would be Leo's reaction, and urged him. "With your conditions, having only one Magic to use really is a bit of a waste; the more Magic you can use, the more you'll be able to cash in on your abilities."
Not only could he train his Magic figure to SSS at every level, he also possessed the very rare Skill used to strengthen Magic and a total of three Development Abilities that assisted in using Magic. Such superior conditions, and only a single Magic got to enjoy them, if that wasn't a waste, what was?
The more Magic he had, the more Leo's conditions could be brought into play, making his strength all the more powerful.
Riveria really couldn't bear to see such fine Magic talent wasted, which was why she'd gone to such lengths.
"But this really is too precious."
It wasn't that Leo wasn't tempted, only that a Grimoire wasn't some ordinary trinket after all, and he couldn't accept it with an easy conscience.
This was different from accepting the Giant's Battle Garb Loki had given him; that battle garb had at least used the drop item he'd brought back after subjugating Goliath as material, and it was given to him by Loki, his patron deity and his guardian, so even if he accepted it, he could repay it through his future performance and his contributions to the Familia.
But this Grimoire was different; it was a personal gift from Riveria, drawing most likely on her own personal assets and connections, and Leo really couldn't just accept it outright.
Mainly it was still too precious; if it were like Raul and the other Familia seniors casually giving him some cast-off weapon or a low-value potion or the like, he could have accepted that.
But a Grimoire... accepting something like this came with a lot of pressure.
Riveria, however, had made up her mind.
"You count, for the moment, as my student, and a teacher giving a student a gift isn't going too far, is it?" Riveria stood up and spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. "It's settled. If you don't want to use it, then sell it."
Leaving these words, Riveria left the library, giving Leo not the slightest chance to refuse again.
"This..."
Leo couldn't even react in time, and could only stare blankly at Riveria's departing figure, falling into silence.
The library went extremely quiet.
Leo gazed at the Grimoire in front of him, and only after a long while let out a breath.
"This time, I owe a big favor."
With a wry chuckle, Leo finally reached out after all and opened the pure-white book before him.
On the book, line after line of text began to print itself into Leo's eyes, read by him.
The text wasn't profound, you could even call it plain and easy to understand, written in this world's common language, and the content was roughly an introduction to what Magic was, along with some shallow knowledge related to Magic.
Only, between these common-language characters were also scattered line after line of strange, tiny characters.
These tiny characters were rather baffling; they were neither the common language, nor the Hieroglyphs the gods used, nor even the writing of any race in this world, and at a glance they looked like a string of complex, odd symbols.
But when he saw these characters, Leo felt an inexplicable concern, his attention drawn to focus on them.
And as Leo's attention focused on these letters, his spirit suddenly grew somewhat hazy.
That feeling was like being pulled into a strange spirit world, where even the content of the book in front of him seemed to be changing, gradually composing itself into a face.
That face, woven and outlined in all-black strokes, was clearly Leo's own face.
The three-dimensional visage, empty above the brow, abruptly opened its eyes just like that, and met Leo's gaze.
"Ask if you would seek, be answered if you would seek, watch closely if you would seek. The bright mirror that suffers no falsehood and ugliness is already here."
The face didn't open its mouth to speak, but Leo could hear its voice all the same.
The eyes formed from strung-together characters looked at him as if they could see through to his essence, and spat out words.
"To 'me,' what is Magic?"
This was an interrogation, and a self-questioning too.
In his hazy state of mind, Leo answered almost without thinking.
"Magic is the manifestation of supernatural power, the miracle that the living who walk the lower world are able to wield."
This was a very standard answer, and also the understanding Leo had formed from studying Magic knowledge these past days.
"To 'me,' what is Magic?"
The face didn't tell Leo whether he'd answered correctly, but went on to ask a question that seemed the same as the last yet wasn't.
It plainly seemed the same yet wasn't, and this time Leo's answer was completely different.
"Magic is knowledge, a way of recognizing the world, perceiving the world, analyzing the world."
This was also a very standard answer, only it wasn't learned from a book, but the most direct realization Leo had formed after thoroughly studying all kinds of Magic knowledge.
"To 'me,' what sort of thing is Magic?"
The face still didn't say whether this answer was right or wrong, but asked the next question expressionlessly.
The scene of himself using Magic immediately surfaced in Leo's mind.
Gorgeous starlight dancing through the air.
Brilliant meteors streaking across the sky.
No matter what kind of predicament, dead end, or death-trap he was in, that starlight would always accompany him, helping him break through obstacles, open a path, and defeat every powerful enemy that his current level couldn't handle.
And so, Leo answered without any hesitation.
"It's stars."
As if hung high in the night sky, as if drifting through the boundless universe, seemingly tiny yet in truth great.
"To 'me,' what do you seek from Magic?"
The face asked the fourth question.
To this question, Leo still answered without any hesitation.
"I want it to make me stronger.
"I want it to make me safer.
"And I want it to carry me through every predicament, to fly up out of the underground, straight to the clouds."
This was the greatest hope Leo held for Magic.
Hearing this answer, the face's expression finally showed some change.
"How practical."
True, this answer was very practical.
If it were Riveria, she would surely have answered with more depth.
If it were Lefiya, she would surely have answered with more of a dreamlike quality.
Some people learn Magic to add to their store of knowledge, to add to their learning, to add to their foundation, rather than using it as a weapon; Riveria was like that.
Some people learn Magic to realize a dream, to realize an ambition, to let themselves mature as fast as possible so they no longer need to rely on others; Lefiya was like that.
The two of them, whichever one answered this question, would come off as far greater than Leo.
But it couldn't be helped, Leo was just this kind of person.
He learned Magic precisely to become strong, to let himself find his footing as fast as possible in this strange yet familiar world, rather than trembling like a little beast the way he had when he first came here, unable even to guarantee his own safety.
To become strong.
To become safe.
To become someone who no longer needed to fear any danger, able to break through every obstacle.
Leo's need from Magic was just this practical, just this direct.
He couldn't deceive himself.
And this face on the book was, without question, his very self.
So his answer was destined to be the truest, the most practical.
At this, the face's expression seemed both disdainful and scornful.
But still...
"So this is 'me' (you)."
In the end, it broke into a smile.
In that instant, on the pure-white Grimoire, all the text dissolved.
The magic power lodged in the book scattered like smoke, enveloping Leo's spirit.
Leo felt his already-hazy spirit suddenly loosen, making him lose consciousness outright.
When Leo came to, he found that at some point he'd ended up slumped over the desk, fallen into a deep sleep.
"What was I...?"
Leo propped up his upper body, raised his head, was muddled for a while at first, and only then remembered what he'd been doing earlier.
"Right, I was reading the Grimoire."
Leo quickly looked toward the pure-white book on the desk.
This book lay spread open on the desk just as it had before he'd lost consciousness, but when Leo looked at it again, he could no longer sense that mysterious magic power.
Clearly, this Grimoire had already lost its effect.
It had been used by Leo, and now no longer had the effect of making a person learn Magic, but was just a strange book written with baffling content.
"Did I succeed? Or did I fail?"
Leo closed the Grimoire, starting to mutter a little.
Yes, using a Grimoire didn't guarantee learning Magic.
Sometimes, even after using it, it was possible nothing at all would happen, and such a precious magic book would be wasted for nothing.
As for whether one could successfully learn new Magic after using it, that came down not to probability but to factors on many fronts.
For instance, someone who had a magic slot but hadn't learned any Magic had the highest chance of success using a Grimoire when learning their first Magic, nearly a hundred percent, but the difficulty of learning a second Magic doubled, and the difficulty of learning a third was only higher still. This wasn't only the case when using a Grimoire; under ordinary circumstances a person's third Magic also tended to be very hard to manifest.
For this reason, people who could possess Magic in all three magic slots were especially few in Orario; even within the Loki Familia and the Freya Familia, there were only a handful of Mages who could learn all three Magic.
Furthermore, Magic that appeared through the medium of Falna was in essence a realization of the self, and was affected by factors on every front such as the person's interests, experiences, and individual particularity, which was to say it was affected by "excelia."
What things one held an interest in, and what one came to feel identification, hatred, longing, lament, reverence, vows, craving, and various other emotions toward, these would all become factors that triggered Magic, and the moment one received Falna they would be laid bare at once.
Without special experiences, special encounters, special changes of mindset, neither Magic nor Skills would appear.
This situation especially tended to arise in adventurers who subjugated powerful monsters together with a team, accumulating high-grade excelia this way to complete great deeds and thereby level up.
Because they took down powerful enemies together with a team, they lacked a certain degree of crisis and stimulation, so such adventurers' mindsets were hard to change to a relatively large extent, and they couldn't have the special experiences sufficient to become the inducement for Magic or a Skill.
The most typical example was Raul, who had all along fought on the battlefield together with the Familia's seniors and the team; because he'd been protected to no small degree and found it hard to undergo a relatively large change of mind, he still had no Magic or Skill at all to this day, a pure blank-slate soldier who could only fight by relying on his level and ability figures.
Already Lv.4, and the result was he didn't even have a single Magic or Skill; even looking across all the story characters who appeared in the original work, Raul was probably the only one with this kind of treatment, though it was a pity it wasn't any kind of good treatment.
Leo, by contrast, had at one point craved firepower to an extreme degree when fighting the Floor Boss Goliath, craving more powerful output, and so this craving turned into the inducement for a Skill, finally, seemingly under the interference of Stranger from Another Star, budding into a possibility, and successfully appearing on Leo's Status in the form of the Skill Star Soul Eternal.
Of course, this also involved factors like individual potential and the individual's growth environment, and couldn't be generalized, but on the whole, it was a certainty that a person without special experiences and without special excelia would find it hard to learn Magic even after using a Grimoire.
In sum, Leo didn't know either whether he'd successfully learned a second Magic after using the Grimoire.
"Let's go find Loki."
Closing the Grimoire, Leo stood right up, and after putting this book onto a nearby shelf, walked straight out of the library.
Destination: the top floor of the Central Tower, Loki's God's Chamber.
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