Chapter 13 - 13. Library.

'But if Mia's favorability increased by 10%, then it means her initial favorability was 20%.'

'20% huh, that's very low.'

Unlike everyone else in the palace, Mia's impression of him was supposed to be the highest because of how close he was with her, but it seemed even her impression of him hadn't exceeded 20% until now and that wasn't something to be proud of.

'If Mia's favorable impression of me was originally 20%, I wonder what Lucretia and Lilith's favorability would be,' Orion thought about his stepmother and maid's favorable impression of him but decided not to dwell too much on it.

For now, there were other things he needed to focus on if he wished to enjoy a new life with his family.

Aside from Mia falling ill from the strange disease, his stepmother was also ill and in her bedroom as well.

At first, he wanted to visit Lucretia's bedroom the moment he was done talking to Mia, but he thought against doing this, thinking that it would be better to focus on brewing a cure for their illness rather than visiting them both on the same night.

Although, he was satisfied with what he saw when he checked up on Mia.

His initial objective for visiting Mia had been to find out what stage her sickness had gotten into and he had taken a mental note of the stage of her sickness after the little chat they had in her bedroom.

'There are three different stages of the illness. '

'At first, it subtly begins with a fever, then those afflicted will begin to hallucinate before losing their abilities, and finally, a gradual corruption will occur in their mana core.'

'But once a person's core becomes corrupted, it will be too late to save them.'

Luckily for Mia, her sickness hadn't advanced to the second stage yet, which meant he still had a bit of time to brew a cure for her, but since her temperature had been dangerously high when he touched her forehead, Orion knew it wouldn't be long before her sickness advanced to the second stage.

'Aria?' Orion called out to the system.

[Yes? How may I be of assistance to you?]

'How long do you think Mia has before her sickness advances to the second stage?'

[She has less than forty-eight hours.]

'Very good. That's more than enough time for me to brew a cure.'

'I'll be heading to the library to find out more about the ingredients I'll need, and once I'm finally done brewing a cure, I will focus on awakening my mana core,' Orion laid out his plans in his head as he strode along the corridor on his way to the library.

[Is there anything else you would like to do?]

"Of course, there are a lot of things I wanna do, but I intend on focusing on these two for now before doing anything else."

[I understand.]

Orion knew time wasn't on his side. He had to hurry to the library as fast as he could before it became too late to save his sister and stepmother.

He hastened his steps and after walking for about three minutes, Orion finally arrived at the library.

He opened the door and slowly walked into the room. The wooden floor creaked under his feet as his steps echoed in the stillness of the night.

The library was dark but as he walked further into the room, the magical orbs, suspended in the ceiling of the library began to glow as though they had awakened from their slumber, allowing Orion to view several large shelves with countless dusty books arranged on each shelf.

Before her death, Orion's mother had a passionate interest in books. She frequently visited the library and read a lot of books.

Her intellect and wisdom enabled her to be recognized as the smartest woman in the kingdom.

She was also the sole reason why the library had a large collection of books. But no one had visited the library ever since she passed away.

Orion noticed a table with three magical glowing orbs on it. He grabbed one of the orbs and used it to illuminate the room so he could find what he was looking for.

He navigated through the aisle of the dusty library while his fingers continued to brush against the spines of the tomes in search of any book relating to potion brewing and herbs.

In addition to the orbs brightening up the library, the moonlight filtered in through some stained-glass windows, casting a faint light on the shelves.

The air also had the scent of old books as his eyes scanned through the faded gold-lettered titles of the books.

"Found them," After a few moments of searching, his gaze fell upon a collection of books dedicated to potion brewing and herbs, and Orion's heart quickened as he swiftly pulled them out.