Leige snapped the last book shut, collapsing onto the hard, wooden floor that had once been scrubbed clean enough for him to see his reflection, now littered with dust.
Besides him, Angelica was equally as knocked out, way past the stage of putting a false front to make herself seem more likeable to what would probably be one of her only friends this whole year.
The sun was rising from the other side of the library, meaning that their little corner was dark and gloomy in the face of the early morning, giving Leige negative points of motivation to get back up again.
The last candle of the night had long melted away, leaving only a puddle of hard wax on the brass candlestick, with a drop of now hardened wax looking as though it had frozen in time.
He snapped off the piece of wax, fiddling with it mindlessly, going back over the information he had now stored safely in his brain.
After they had finished making the life-sized catalogue, Leige had chosen the books he found relevant - books of lectures, essay books, textbooks and the like, sorting them to the side as Angelica refused to leave but also didn't volunteer any particular help, simply lying down and giving Leige silent company as she played with lit candles.
So Leige and Angelica had spent the whole night in the library, with Angelica doing whatever she did, and with Leige carefully reading through all of the books he had selected.
In the end, he had gathered some vital information, and knew that he and Angelica's stay had been worthwhile.
In fact, Angelica had helped him quite a lot, although she most likely didn't know, giving him simple explanations of basic magic, religion and beliefs that existed in this world without asking why he didn't already know these things - most likely because she was either too sleepy or just didn't care.
Therefore, he know had a structure on which he could work on.
In this world, there was little to no belief in a higher power, such as a God. This, of course, was to be expected, considering they could be said to have already developed past the need for such a thing.
After all, he personally believed that there was no such thing as a God, and while he had nothing against people who were religious, to him, God was nothing more than fiction dreamt up by the inadequate who wanted to abnegate all worries and responsibility onto an imaginary friend.
Here, where there was already an overarching hierarchy based on ranks of magic, why would there need to be a higher power they all looked up to?
Although a lot of magic in games and such on Earth had been reliant on a higher power to grant them such powers, such as healing, a power closely linked to angels and a God, or curses which called upon evil higher powers to do what humans could not, Leige was already certain in his theory that the magic in this world was internal and was closely linked to the structure of the body, not in faith or belief in something else.
However, this had contradicted the term that had been bothering him - magic from the Orcus, clearly calling upon something seen as a higher power.
Therefore, he had asked Angelica about any beliefs widespread amongst villages and rural areas away from the highest class of society.
Of course those with high ranks would not believe in any higher powers, they had no need to.
They were plenty strong enough by themselves, and this world was largely based on science and theory - there was no room to think of a God with no proof of existence to aid their needs.
On the other hand, in villages and rural areas, the main population would be 'rank 5's, and the lack of money would result in a lack of education about theory and science, hence it would be much more likely for beliefs in higher powers to exist, one of them being magic from the Orcus.
Angelica didn't even need to think twice to agree to his question, because again, Leige was always right and Leige was smart and Leige was cool.
As someone raised with people who could not perform magic in her little village, she had, as a result, been exposed to many superstitions and beliefs that called upon other powers to gain magic.
Leige had decided not to mention 'magic from the Orcus' to her, simply because he needed an unbiased explanation, and it would raise unnecessary suspicion which he would rather avoid.
Nevertheless, he did probe her as to what kind of beliefs, and whether they seemed to point to the 'underworld', 'oaths', or anything that could further his investigation.
In the end, he now essentially had an answer to the question of, in general, what was his current, updated understanding of magic, and to what extent could his situation be related to the 'magic from the Orcus' specifically?
Before, he had a theory that experimented humans had evolved by natural selection - first, select humans had been experimented on, most likely prisoners due to the ethical issues of human experimentation.
When the experiments finally became successful, or if it had happened by accident, humans became modified with what could be called 'magic'.
Enhanced features, new powers that allowed the once weak experiments, lab rats, to breathe fire, control wind - whatever magic did (Leige didn't play video games and had only experienced two situations where he had seen magic in this world, so he was still slightly clueless as to the extents of what it could do).
Emotions are innate, to certain challenges and opportunities, sculpted by evolution to help humans survive. Therefore, these experimented on humans, no matter how many generations it took, broke free of their confinements and had some sort of revolution, revenge against those who had experimented on them.
This could be reinforced by the books he had read last time - 'the origins of their race', 'the hero mage who had stood upon crumbling ashes of the past'.
From then on, it was simple.
Natural selection.
No, of course those who had been experimented on had not wiped out all of the population, it was simply unreasonable, no matter how strong they were.
However, individuals with characteristics best suited to their environment were more likely to survive and therefore reproduce. Then, their genes would be most likely to pass onto the next generation.
In a world with a massive power imbalance between the people and the experiments, of course the experiments would prosper.
However, there were many more people than experiments - in the billions. They would also continue to reproduce, thus creating what were known as the 'rank 5's.
This eventually created a classist and capitalist society, with those with magic at the top of the food chain, and those without at the very bottom.
As to why Leige hadn't got any magic even though he was in an important family - it was either a careless plot device for the authors, or there was real significance.
After reading all night, he found some more concrete evidence for his theory, and a little more about how magic worked.
Again, magic was all internal, due to generations upon generations of evolution of the fittest.
However, just like people could become rich in a capitalist society, people could become stronger and 'rank up' in this magic society, even if, like a capitalist society, the most privileged and powerful would be the most powerful because of family history.
The fact that people, with the exception of those who were born with no magic at all, could rise ranks, was a key point that Leige needed to research more about.
'If people could rise ranks, then why was the hierarchy that defined how you would live in this world based on ranks? Wouldn't everyone just be at rank 1 except for the rank 5s?' the simple answer was because, like in a capitalist society it was near impossible to go from homeless to the highest class, it was incredibly hard to rank up from rank 4 to rank 1.
However, Leige wasn't too concerned with the factor of difficulty yet compared to the prospect that people were able to 'upgrade' their magic to become stronger or better.
This was a breakthrough to him, because it indicated that, whatever magic was internally, it was able to evolve. It was not stagnant like he previously thought because of genetic modification.
To put it simply, he had assumed that the magic inside one's body would stay the same throughout their lives, much like how someone would have brown eyes throughout their lives.
However, now he knew that they were like extra hard muscles - he wasn't a biologist, bear with him, the more they were trained, the more they would grow, except it was super extra duper hard.
Even just by thinking about it... There must be something that those who possessed the ability to use magic had in common, and if Leige could just take an tiny little peek at it then he could attempt to gain or create what it was made out of and attempt to replicate it or improve it or just make a new one and then experiment with it to manipulate it to always be powerful enough to be rank 1 just for kicks and fu-
....He got a little excited.
Anyway, now he knew that magic could evolve, it therefore wasn't simply inherited, and things were getting just a little bit more exciting.
Well, his science brain finally began to get up again.
As for the Orcus magic, like he had thought before, even though this library had a large collection of books, there was no specific information about 'magic from the Orcus', and he more so believed now that it was, rather than a formal, written theory, more of a belief spread in rural areas lacking proper education.
Therefore, 'magic from the Orcus', was most likely something the whoever it was who came to see him - the class president? Leige wasn't very sure, heard in passing, and used it when he saw Leige's temperament had changed immensely.
Was Leige satisfied with this conclusion?
No, not really.
Even though he knew that a link to Roman mythology and this world existed, he was unable to explore it due to the limitations of the library and his current area of high class.
Therefore, he was restrained into a vague conclusion that the class president had heard it in passing and used it against him, even though he had no more extra information as to what 'magic from the Orcus' included, or why even though the rest of the class hadn't noticed, he had.
Slightly annoyed by this, he threw away the drop of hardened wax and sulked a little, evident by his slightly down-turned lips and furrowed eyebrows. Leaning over to pick up the wax drop again to entertain himself, he suddenly paused.
He looked at the wax drop, and then at the snoring Angelica.
Then he looked at the snoring Angelica.
The snoring Angelica, who happened to come from a village.
The snoring Angelica, who happened to come from a village which had widespread beliefs about higher powers.
He overcame his sulking immediately, as if it were an act he had put on for himself considering no one else was watching, and even grinned a little, revealing a sharp canine tooth.
This was the most excited he had felt since he had came here.
It was about time for the little homebody called Leige to have an adventure.
...And also skip school.
He was a studious student who studied hard every lesson, but for today, he regretfully had no choice but not to attend. Priorities.