'what the hell is happening here?'
Ashoka felt like his head would burst not being able to process all the information flooding onto his head.
Firstly, it was very hard for him to believe that someone would want to kill his own son just because he had the same mana attributes as the person they hate.
Secondly, the whole sh*t about the battle for the throne or whatever, Ashoka didn't know why Sage Chanakya was considering him as a potential heir.
Ashoka never wanted to be the king or the emperor.
All he ever wished was for a normal life where he could laze off and spend the rest of his life like a degenerate.
But somehow the situation has turned into something where his head was now on the line.
"We don't have to worry about anything for now, since the emperor wouldn't try anything within the tempest manor"
However much the emperor wanted to kill Ashoka, he wouldn't be foolish enough to go against the hall of elders who created the tempest manor in order to protect the princes.
The secret guards placed by the elders were always protecting the princes from the shadows of external threats.
More than that, if any of the princes were to die in the tempest manor which is believed to be the most secure place in the empire, the citizen would start to feel unsafe, which would deal more harm than good to the Emperor.
"Leaving that matter aside, The reason we all visited the tempest manor is for another reason"
Now that Ashoka thought about it, he was curious as to why all these important figures had gathered in the tempest manor.
Sage Chanakya looked at the Royal physician, Pingala and nodded his head messaging something.
Right after that, Pingala took out an old book covered in a mysterious aura.
The book was a bit more special than anything Ashoka had seen.
The pages of the book were not made of paper but were made of palm tree leafs.
And instead of ink, there were engravings on the book which made it look even more mysterious.
"We wanted to give this to you two"
Pingala presented the book in front of Ashoka and Sudhatta.
Now that Ashoka took a closer look, he could feel the warm aura covering the book.
"Is this.....!"
Sudhatta was the first to react.
His expression indicated that he was aware of what the book was.
But his demeanor showed that he was finding it hard to believe that the item in front of him is exactly what he thought of.
But Ashoka who was clueless looked at the Sage Chanakya with eyes filled with anticipation.
"That's why I told you to work hard when reading in the royal library, you brat"
-Ouch!
Sage Vyasa smacked Ashoka's head as he remembered the times when Ashoka ran off from the library to escape reading books.
"That is a dragon grimoire"
Sage Vyasa said pointing at the book.
"A dragon grimoire!"
Ashoka repeated after sage Chanakya as his attention was drawn towards the grimoire.
Grimoires are special books made of mana that greatly enhance the owners' magical capabilities, enabling them to use more complex magic than what they are capable of.
These books also serve as written records of the owners' spells. All the spells that a magician uses in his lifetime would be recorded in the grimoire.
And to create a grimoire one has to be at least a 5th-circle mage who has immense knowledge about the magic.
Most of a Grimoire's pages are empty at first, but as a grimoire owner grows and develops as a person, the grimoire grows and develops with them, and new magic spells are inscribed into the book, filling the blank pages.
And even among the grimoires, the Dragon grimoire. It was something that was enough to be considered a national treasure.
Dragons.
They were the beings who are at the pinnacle of all life forms being close to invincible.
Be it in magic or combat, it was hard to find a match for a dragon in the world, and only when one of such dragons dies will the dragon grimoire appear.
Even at death, most of the dragons would decide to transfer their grimoire to their children or combine it with their grimoires, but only in rare cases where the Dragon is incredibly greedy and selfish that it didn't want any other to obtain its knowledge would it create a dungeon close to Impossible difficulty and leave its grimoire there.
Finding a dragon grimoire was so rare that it is hard to even see one in a person's lifetime. And even if you find one the dragon will which remained in the grimoire wouldn't submit to others.
It was so difficult to obtain the dragon will's acknowledgment that only three in the entire history of Mauryan were known to hold the dragon grimoires.
And each of them became powerful beyond all common sense.
Ashoka who remembered details about the Dragon grimoire felt mad admiration for the object in front of him.
Looking at his twinkling eyes, Sage Chanakya took out his own grimoire.
Unlike the Dragon grimoire, it looked like a book covered in incredible majestic design.
The grimoire was hovering in front of Sage Chanakya.
"We recently discovered this Dragon grimoire in an old mine while excavating the cave"
When in use, a grimoire levitates either in front of or beside its owner and follows the mage wherever they go, like now when the grimoire was levitating and following Sage Chankaya as he walked back and forth.
"I am already contracted to the grimoire here, so I wanted you younglings to try establishing a contract with this dragon grimoire"
Because a grimoire is connected to its owner's soul, a mage cannot use another person's grimoire or other grimoires.
And since all the important figures of the empire would have already surpassed the 5th circle, the dragon grimoire resulted in as an offering to the young generation.
The Emperor was also aware of this fact.
And he made a demand in exchange for allowing all of them to converse with the twins.
'If the Grimoire doesn't choose the twins, offer the grimoire to the crown prince'
That was the Emperor's demand.
"I hope one of you can make contact with the dragon grimoire"
Sage Chanakya sincerely hoped as he didn't want to give wings to the crown prince with his own hands.
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