Zagan and the Imperial family ate breakfast quietly and calmly. Although it was difficult to tell, Zagan could see how the Emperor still loathed Zagan, his own son.
Zagan paid it no mind, as he has already gotten over all of that childhood trauma.
"I'm done eating. I have work to do, so I'm leaving.", said Zagan as he got up from the chair while wiping his mouth with the silk handkerchief placed below his white plate.
He looked at his mother, Evangeline and said, "Goodbye, dear mother.".
Evangeline was shocked to hear this from Zagan all of a sudden. But quickly regained her composure and replied, "Goodbye, dear Zagan."
Zagan didn't look back to receive the farewell, he walked over to the huge door and opened it himself, seeing Arnold standing by the side.
"Lets go, Arnold. I will visit the Crimson Library today.", he commanded Arnold without even looking at him.
"As you wish, your highness.", Arnold replied with a slight bow.
'There's a rare spell inside a secret room in the library. Originally, the main character was supposed to get it, or give it to one of his NPC party members. Well, now, I'm gonna take it.', thought Leon.
After walking for 15 minutes through the extravagant corridors of the palace, they finally reached the entrance of the Crimson library.
The doors were even bigger than the doors on the dining room. Made out of Dark oak, with patterns of books, leaves and magic circles made out of gold were decorating the massive 14ft tall doors.
"I'll be going in now. You can wait here.", Zagan commanded Arnold, who complied immediately.
Zagan walked up to the colossal doors and put his right palm on it. Then he uttered the words, "Asherion Stands for Fire's destructive power.".
'What a cringe password.', Leon thought.
As soon as he said those words, the doors made a loud creaking noise and opened completely.
Zagan walked inside the library non-chalantly and immediately started walking towards the far right side of the library.
He didn't even care about the vastness and the sheer intricacy of the artwork inside the library. The size of the room was big enough to be a city square, and the hundreds of bookshelves with thousands of books on each of them were placed in the library in such a way that even if one of the bookshelves were to topple, it wouldn't affect the other bookshelves.
There were millions of books in the crimson library. Books of all kinds and genres, starting from arithmetic and magic, to romance poem books, it had it all.
Zagan walked for a good minute and then suddenly stopped. He turned towards one of the bookshelves. It was a completely normal-looking bookshelf, but Zagan knew better from Leon's memories. He pushed an old, but maintained looking book and said, "Mage's Honor.", and suddenly the bookshelf shifted from its position, revealing a hole in the ground, with a ladder going down it.
"Luminos", chanted Zagan, and a little ball of light appeared in Zagan's right hand.
He sent the ball of light down the hole and he also started to climb down the ladder.
As soon as he was completely inside the hole, the bookshelf shifted back in place and sealed the hole again.
After climbing down for 2 minutes, the ladder finally ended and revealed a small and very old chamber.
There was a table in the middle of it, and a skeleton wearing some robes was sitting on a chair behind the table. The table was covered in dust and so was the skeleton. But one could see a book on top of the table. It was also covered in dust.
Zagan walked up to the table, and wore white gloves he had in his pocket. After that, he picked up the book and slowly started to wipe all of the dust from it. It revealed a beautiful crimson-red book with hundreds of intricate designs on the hard cover page.
'That was so easy. In the game, this was the quest reward of raiding the Imperial palace, which was one of the most difficult quests in the game...', Leon recalled having to restart that quest multiple times and raging at the developers for it.
'This is the best buff-type magic spell book in the game...', Leon thought.
The spell was called 'Caster's Blessing' and it was the most powerful buff spell in the game. It was a spell that increased it's effectiveness as the mage grew stronger. At 4th circle (Zagan's current strength) the spell increases magic damage by 40% and decreases mana cost by 10%. At 9th circle, the spell will increase magic damage by 90% and decrease mana cost by 20%! This was huge! And it was an especially broken spell, because it could stack on top of other buffs.
'And this is not all...', Leon said as he looked at the skeleton.
He walked over to the skeleton and slowly took off the robe is was wearing. After dusting is off, it revealed a beautiful dark blue color and runes written along its arms. The back of the robe had some magic circles and more runes. The robe almost looked like a modified version of a trench coat. It looked very elegant.
'This isn't the best mage armor in the game, but its still pretty damn good...', Leon said to himself.
Indeed, there were better robes out there, but this robe was the best for the time being, as the others were either deep inside dungeons or were belonging to enemy countries. The robe originally belonged to an 8th circle mage who worked for the imperial family some 200 years ago. He was obsessed with attaining more power and become as strong as a 9th circle, because his body wasn't good enough to host 9 circles of mana. He obsessively researched and tried to find a way to get stronger, and finally at the end of his life, he had invented the spell 'Caster's Blessing'. Although, he was too old to try it out, and had died inside his laboratory, under the library.
"I'll put your life's work to good use, nameless mage...", This was Zagan's ego and personality talking.
Zagan felt a sense of kinship with this dead, nameless mage. The mage too desperately wanted to get stronger and beat the people who looked down at him, but he couldn't do it in time.
"Rest In Peace.", Zagan said while clasping both hands together.
After that, he started climbing up the ladder and pressed a button on the side, which made the bookshelf move from it's position, which enabled Zagan to get out of the place.