After his fallout with River, Arya was sitting on his desk, a fountain pen in his hand and the other holding a glass of water. The desk was a mess of different books, some on the features of animals and one magic manipulation, "Maybe Anastasia had taken those."
He jotted down the questions he needed answers to and wrote their answers from the books.
"I will prove to River that his stupid research is a waste." His search was fueled by anger rather than curiosity.
There always are answers to questions of history, the right book will lead the way and the wrong book will make you lost.
Arya visited the book of Salazar Avis, the greatest magus of all time to answer his first question written on his pages of questions. "How does illusionary magic work?"
He turned the 987 pages of the book trying to find the section with the answer, but there was no index to the book. Arya was not inept at reading the book when he was a librarian, but this has changed.
After turning the pages for a while on the clock, Arya finally reached the paragraphs about the illusion magic and began to read and write the words.
"As mentioned earlier, magic is derived from 'Aura' inside the human body. Aura is a special form of energy which is capable of bending into different forms of elements and forms, without any significant losses. " Aura stopped writing and took a sip of water, the text was quite heavy.
"Aura of different beings is decided at birth just like body features and for example- a human is born with a that easily bends into natural elements while a dwarf's body transforms his aura into physical strength. The first nature of aura is highly dependent on birth."
"However, Aura is more than that, one can train their aura and bend it to different forms. The first nature is just the easiest way one can bend his aura. given enough time, a human can bend his aura to things only the dragon cultists or the flame priest can do."
"So, it comes as no surprise that God creates the people equal. Every human being at birth to death is born with the same amount of Aura, it can neither be created nor destroyed by a human. Thus, if one trains and works his mind and body enough, maybe everything is possible."
Arya leaned back on the chair, "I knew that much already, so many words and the explanation of illusionary magic hadn't even begun yet."
Even then, the aura was a different concept from an energy a warlord uses for his abilities. It was pulled away from an imaginary star, while this already existed in the human body.
He cracked his fingers and wrists, took a sip from his glass looked carefully to skip a few paragraphs and reached the actual explanation,
"Illusionary magic is one of best ways to learn the powers of aura, unlike bending its form into some element or object, an illusionary spell user tries to mix his aura into another person in a certain way and amount. Altering the reality of the person while playing with his head ." Arya raised his eyebrows in surprise, it was more complex than he anticipated.
He was satisfied with the answer and closed down the book, " Mercy is a master at using Aura and knows how much to mix so that the other doesn't get alerted, but he is so young. Maybe he even hides his age from us?" Arya brought out another array of questions that he jotted down.
"Characteristics of a serpent in human form?" When River mentioned that Sera was qualified for the required characteristics, Arya didn't understand it all. So, he wanted to know more.
He went to the small shelf of books he had. Most are filled with stories of authors of the past, but none of what Arya wanted. He went back to search for anything inside Salazar's book.
"Shit, what am I doing? Transformation magic was invented by Magus Lavilana, who was Salazar's student. Salazar was already dead before his student finished his masterpiece."
Arya had no information to extract about the features of the snake turned human, which he pushed onto the next question, 'The Silver Eyes'
"During the forest, Reva had a silver glow on her head more than I think there was a symbol on her head. What was that?" Arya was asking Reva for now, but he doubted Reva wouldn't answer even if asked.
He turned the pages of the book and searched for answers, there were no answers to this question in the standard section. He skimmed through the pages and there was no answer.
He crossed the elemental, snow, and flame magic sections, but there was no answer in them; he was hiding somewhere else, and then he finally reached the dragon section.
The section was given a sigil of a dragon sleeping on the rock, and the words 'Dreams' written below it. Arya turned the page to see another symbol, a twisted flame on the top of the next page and realised it was the end of the book with some text.
"The Dragons are a mysterious, strong and enormous beast capable of flying and taking down the most formidable structures with their screams and breath of flame."
"Dragons to humans are the same as humans to chicken, burn them and eat them. There are unknown ways to ride a dragon and ride into the sky..."
"Those are some of the myths the world says, but sadly the world has yet to see a alive, or in fact a dead dragon, there has been no evidence of their existence. There are large carcasses of bones found in the mountains of the snow lords, but those carcasses don't show any bones that could help them in flight. So, in truth, I believe that dragons did not exist." Arya stopped reading there.
His lips curled in doubt, there was ample evidence for the non-existence of dragons in this book from the mightiest Magus who ever lived. But the only problem was that dragonsteel existed in this world which could emit fire from the blade if required.
"Dragonstell was found later, this man had no knowledge about that." With a sense of pity of some sort, Arya moved on to the next question. He wasn't getting the answer we needed, there was a lack of sources to read from.
Arya got his last question for the day, "How did the Orbs of Power change the power of the warlord?"
Arya had gained his second orb of power, but he did not feel anything special so he wanted to learn more.
He had already found the section when searching for the dragon magic, it was at the start of the book. The start of the section was, " The Orbs of Power."
He skimmed through the starting words related to the birth of the warlord and their uniqueness and began writing the orbs section. Although there was an interesting point which mentions that two different warlords can have the same abilities, but at different generations.
"The growth of a warlord can easily be studied into four parts. I write about them as follows-
The one who has 1 to 8 orbs of power-"
Arya realised that was the number of orbs that a warlord would remain a low born or not have any direct authority, "It was derived from this book. They set the standard in this book." but he kept his thoughts aside for now.
"The warlords in this section have two special abilities, a 'Natural ability' and 'Power'. We haven't met anyone born with less than 4 orbs of power, so we will be using them as a standard."
"These warlords have low strength and magic power. Moreover, they have a gradual growth even if they consume more orbs, the strength of a warlord with 8 orbs can be matched by a seasoned warrior in strength and a high wizard in magic." Arya didn't know the standard for a high wizard.
" Unlike higher warlords, they do not feel a connection to their orbs, searching orbs for themselves is very hard." Arya finished writing the first part and he already wanted to close the book.
"Mercy found one…maybe, maybe he will find more.." Arya grabbed his heart to control his breathing.
His heart felt heavy and he couldn't force himself to smile,
Lies, there were lies in his life. It was the higher warlords who had ideas about where their orbs were and they used him to bring them to them. His expeditions were never random, he wasn't a great treasure explorer, just a carry bag.
'The lower warlords other than him were living their lives thinking that their orbs would be found in a random expedition. How funny, such a sweet fantasy…" Arya closed down the book and set his head down on the table.
The bitter guilt of knowing the truth hit him, what advantage was learning about higher warlords when you'll never become one?
"Maybe that's why Ina threw me away? I will be a cog, weak and trash. Never be able to protect her, never face another warlord in battle, nothing to protect my kingdom, no authority. Just a dog, which barks…"
Arya needed salvation, he was confused. Somewhere between his enemy's emotions he saw reasoning, and weakness in his flesh and resolve.
"You don't work hard. Just a butterfly." He told himself in River's style, Arya was soft and weak, easy to anger and without thought. He needed to be stronger, and more powerful if not through someone else,
Arya didn't shed a tear, he blocked those who tried to come out. He rubbed against his hands and felt they were soft and he felt an urge to change that.
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