"It can't be."
His eyes widened and his mouth slowly curved into a light smile, a memory resurfaced, one that the exchange of blades and magic had etched into his mind.
A statue of the human he fought when Minastoma was but a handful of strange ruins. It was of white marble and it stood atop of a beautiful fountain. He held onto a great sword resting on the flat surface and had a stylish ceremonial armour.
In front of it was an elevated stand with a concrete opened book attached to it.
Tiagon walked to it and saw the writings on it, one dedicated to the hero.
'Hero Zan bravely defeated the Demon Lord…'
"What?" Tiagon muttered in disbelief.
He continued.
'sending him wounded into his castle and hopefully his demise as he had not appeared for ages. Zan fought for peace and established a new harmonious abode for every creature. His victory paved the way to our existence today.'
That was the end and it was utter bullshit, at least Tiagon thought so.
"What a bunch of liars."
Not only did they lie, they made him seem like a weakling and a coward all to glorify a hero wannabe he chose to spare. Totally unacceptable, but Tiagon chose not to think hard about it, he hated hearing about people using his name wrongly and in vain but he thought the city was quite nice, buildings and cultures had changed greatly since he disappeared and he was going to experience it all.
"They must have some libraries here, they had it back when I was just a lad."
He walked passed the square for a couple of meters and then he spotted a large building with a large board attached to its top that read "Ehn's Toothy Library".
He approached it and went in. Rows of shelves and books were displayed beautifully in front of him and members of the public walked to and fro grabbing books and returning them while some simply glued to their tables to read.
He went to a human by the counter.
"I'd like to have a grimoire for shapeshifting please. Preferably one that has everything or maybe the most things"
The librarian lady simply slowly nodded.
"Unfortunately, here at Ehn's Toothy library , we don't keep grimoires. The law of the country prevents libraries from having any. You would have to go to the grimoire office by the church."
"Ohh?"
'Why is that?'
"Why is that?" He said aloud.
"We don't want to help potential enemies with learning new magic so there's a designated place for that, where you'll have your background checked and all that. We can't do that here, got enough work as it is."
"I see."
Tiagon turned away and left. He had seen where the Church was from a distance and he could very much see the towering brilliant structure at his current spot.
He passed through streets and people, and momentarily saw fights, people having fun and other normal activities.
He reached the open large space where the Church was located. Around it were buildings at a distance, and he spotted the grimoire office.
It was medium-sized and was tucked between two large beautiful houses.
Tiagon opened its door and spotted a middle-aged elf woman reading a grimoire by herself. She was totally lost in it or maybe not.
"Welcome." She promptly spoke and closed the grimoire.
She looked at him.
"For a grimoire I take it."
"Yes" Tiagon replied, his tone indifferent and maybe cold. The elf cared not about it however.
"Are you from Minastoma?" She asked as she looked at him below observing him and his unique features.
"Is that a problem?" Tiagon asked.
"Grimoires may only be sold to people from the city, town or whatever settlement the store exists in, article 11 of the grimoire pact." She announced feeling quite proud of her witty response.
Tiagon had many questions but the one that bothered him the most was how she was going to confirm if he was from Minastoma or not.
"I'll need you to put your hand on the orb of truth for some questions." She continued. She stopped reading and placed the grimoire back in its spot.
She walked to her table where also many grimoires lay but most importantly, the orb of truth. A blue orb that could see through lies from the very specific and tiny detection of people's mana when they lie, unfortunately the artefact can only be used by people who have enough Mana to channel outwards and this usually are mages. Only mages could get grimoires.
He wasn't going to have his way.
"What if I refuse?"
"You can't simply refuse. I can tell you're a very experienced mage seeing your mana and I'll be extra tight with you. It's against the rules to skip these procedures and I'm not going to break the them for some stranger. I may have to call the city knights on you."
She looked at the window where a large black bird stood, she nodded and it flew understanding her intention.
At just a few flaps of its wings, it suddenly went aflame and burnt to death on the spot, its owner unaware of its demise.
Tiagon walked up to the table and placed his large right hand on the orb, he channelled some Mana at it.
"It will display two different colors in reaction to your response, red is a lie and green is for the truth. Now, are you a mage aware of the mage's rulebook of ethics of Minastoma?"
Tiagon wanted to see if he could bypass the ability of the artefact and to truly test its veracity. He had no idea of the rulebook but he knew it had to be some set of laws that restricted mages from doing certain things, he also recalled that there was also a push for it back before he conquered the continent.
'The mage's rulebook of ethics of Minastoma. What nonsense, mages should never be held back by morality, some ethics shouldn't stand in the way of peering into the way of magic, certainly not.'
His face creased, he was dissatisfied and he answered.
"No."