Standing in front of the door with his hand outstretched, almost touching it, Edart had a dilemma in his head. If this room was really a laboratory, wouldn't it be possible to have some kind of defense spell? Since the room had a cleaning spell.
Eris assured him that there was nothing dangerous there, however, Edart couldn't help but think that the spell was so advanced that it could hide from them.
— "Whatever it is, I can't spend the whole day standing here like a plant." With his club in hand, he slowly pushed the door. Slowly, it opened and revealed its interior. To his delight, there were no defense spells in the room.
— "You were right and it's a good thing you were." Edart commented as he observed the room.
The room wasn't very big, but there were a lot of things in it. In the center, there was a black stone bench with many things on top. On the walls, there were more benches and cabinets with wooden and glass doors, which gave a view of the inside of the cabinet.
The room was well lit, with large windows on the three walls that were not connected to the rest of the house. Looking at the ceiling, one could see the roof, which although had a sloping part, the top of the roof was flat, with a glass skylight to illuminate the laboratory.
— ["After cleaning the dust and spider webs, we can make use of this place."]
— "Yes, with a little work, perhaps we can make health and mana potions, no longer needing to make those rustic 'Life Balls'."
Wasting no more time, Edart made his way through the sea of spider webs and entered the laboratory that seemed to be for chemistry or alchemy.
Searching the place, Edart found many glass bottles similar to those used in laboratories in the modern era. There were beakers, test tubes, Erlenmeyer flasks, kitasato flasks, test tubes, flat-bottomed and round-bottomed balloons, among other things that Edart imagined would be used in some chemical process that he was unaware of.
Some of the bottles were broken, but there were only a few. There were also bottles with liquids inside. When he used 'Identify', all he got was: —["Strange liquid, not safe to ingest."] Edart wasn't going to take any chances and would throw it away later. Over time, whatever was inside the bottle had spoiled, leaving only a strange liquid.
As he searched, he found ceramic jars with alchemy ingredients, unfortunately, they were all spoiled. The entire room was prepared and set up for working with alchemy. If Edart wanted to delve into this area, he would have all the equipment at his disposal, which would be a great help.
—"That sounds good, I can't wait to create a health potion, however, let's pay attention to these two."
In every laboratory, there were two pieces of furniture that didn't seem to be directly related to alchemy. The first was a bookshelf, which contained books and scrolls, the other was a chest, which Edart didn't know what was inside it.
—"Let's start with the most valuable. Eris, do you see anything of value among this pile of books and scrolls?"
Looking at the bookshelf, Edart's eyes shone as if before him was the most valuable treasure in the world. What for him was knowledge and information about this world he had appeared in, if he could find out something about it, it would be the best thing at the moment.
All knowledge is valuable and can help one live in this new world.
Eris took a few seconds, then she said what he expected.
—["In the books, I don't see anything special, but there is a scroll that seems special. When observed with 'Mana Perception', a small reddish glow can be seen around it."]
Edart had stopped using 'Mana Perception' all the time. If he kept it active for a whole day, by the end of the day he would have a severe headache and the next day he would feel very tired, even after sleeping well.
Eris no longer suffered from this and, since she could use his abilities, she was in charge of using the perception and he would only use it when necessary.
Activating the ability, he quickly identified which was the parchment and took it from the shelf. Edart did not know how this 'paper' was made, which looked like a sheet of paper, it was white, without stains, it was also thin and seemed quite resistant. Around the parchment, there was a golden ribbon with some writing that he did not understand, there was a red seal on the ribbon that kept the parchment closed.
— "How fascinating" Edart said observing the intricate emblem printed on the wax. The emblem consisted of a triangle, where at each end there was a circle with a symbol inside. From these circles, lines came out towards the center of the triangle, where there was another circle with another symbol inside.
Edart did not know what the inner symbol meant, however, the three outer ones seemed to represent earth, water and fire. It was a speculation that could not be confirmed.
There was writing all over the seal that he did not understand and did not even bother to try to understand. This writing looked like Nordic runes, only more complex.
Since this parchment contained mana, Edart did not know what to expect and was afraid to open it. After gathering courage, he began to open it and said:
—"Wish me luck."
After breaking the seal, he unrolled the parchment. When he was halfway through, an orange glow appeared in an instant and a wave of heat passed through him. Edart closed his eyes and waited for the worst. After a minute, nothing happened, he opened his right eye, seeing the parchment open in his hands without anything wrong.
Examining the parchment from top to bottom, he came to a conclusion.
—"I don't understand anything that's written here." He said dejectedly, almost crying with frustration. This was his hope of acquiring some knowledge, but since he was illiterate in this world, all the knowledge contained in this shelf would be useless.
—"Eris, tell me you can understand this!"
—["I'm sorry Edart, I understand it as much as you do. Don't be discouraged, with some time we can understand this or we can find someone who does."]
—"Yes, we can do that, I just hope it doesn't take too long. Well, let's see if we can interpret any of this." Taking a second look, Edart started with what appeared to be the title. There was writing he called 'runic writing' in the center, and on each side was a symbol.
On the left, there was what looked like a flame drawn, and on the other side was a ball that looked like it was on fire.
Below that, there was some runic writing, unfortunately Edart didn't get anything useful out of it. After that, geometric shapes were drawn one on top of the other with more runic writing around it. There was something about it that should have been important, but to Edart it just looked like a jumble of geometric shapes.
Having nothing else, he went back to the only thing he understood.
—"Fire and a flaming ball, what could that be? A spell on how to set things on fire?"
Edart didn't want to give up on this yet, this could be a spell that could help him in his upcoming battles. For the next few minutes, he tried several things.
— "If this is a spell scroll, shouldn't I learn it just by holding it in my hand? Maybe…" With a new idea, Edart closed his eyes and began to think about learning the spell. As time passed, the scroll got closer to his head. By the end, he was rubbing the scroll on his head in an attempt to learn whatever was written on it, unfortunately nothing worked.
— "Good thing there's no one to see me doing this." He said in a low voice, feeling ashamed of what he had just done.
— "Maybe if I recite something, something like a summoning chant, like in those animes and books I read," he said to himself.
Edart didn't expect to succeed, but he always imagined himself casting spells when he was on Earth. So, he couldn't help but try with the possibility of success. So, he started saying anything.
— "Fire appears. Burn in my hands. Release a flame. Fire flies out." As he said phrases similar to these, he pointed his hand forward in an attempt to see the fire coming out of it. After saying many of these phrases and failing, he stopped and tried to think about what he was doing wrong.
— "Maybe if I create a story with something related to fire that will be strong…"
As soon as he thought of something, while holding the scroll with his left hand, he pointed his right hand forward. Edart was sure he would fail, however, he wanted to try because it looked cool and he wanted to forget what had happened in the past few days. So he began to speak.
— "Oh, great world, the power of powers. Grant me the power to summon fire from within volcanoes, concentrated…" At that moment, he tried to think of a form for the fire. After thinking for a while, he remembered the scroll and the form contained within it. It didn't take even a second, so he continued.
— "… into a ball of fire, so I can throw it at my enemies and reduce them to ash…" When he got to the last part, he remembered the fire mages from the games in his world, where their first spell was usually a fireball. Keeping the image of a ball of fire flying towards his enemies in his mind, he shouted the final part.
— "… Fireball!!!!"
At first, nothing happened, as Edart had expected. However, just as he was about to lower his hand, a warm sensation took over his body. All of his limbs became hot, especially his chest. Soon, all of the heat accumulated in his right arm.
In less than a second, only the palm of his hand felt hot and it began to become unbearable for him. The next second, a small ball of fire the size of a tennis ball hovered in front of his hand.
Fascinated by everything that happened, Edart watched everything with utmost attention along with his 'Mana Perception', not wanting to miss anything. Another second passed. Suddenly, the sphere of fire he was observing disappeared from his vision.
"Where did it go?" Just as he finished his question, a sound of breaking glass rang in his ears, catching his attention.
Looking in the direction of the noise, Edart saw the small ball of fire breaking through and breaking the glass window in front of him.
The sphere flew through the window to the back of the building for about 20 meters. After traveling that distance, it hit the ground and burst into flames, opening a small crater at the impact site.
Edart watched all this with his mouth open. A minute after everything happened, he came to his senses.
— "I did it, I really did it," he said in disbelief, feeling very happy for being able to do it. However, he realized something that diminished his happiness.
— "I almost exploded and set fire to the house I just found."
Realizing this, he decided to go outside and take a look at the impact site. Not wanting to take the scroll outside, he raised his left hand towards the closet to leave it there. Unfortunately, his hand was empty.
— "Don't tell me it was single-use?" Edart said, starting to panic at wasting something so valuable.
— ["When you managed to activate the spell, the scroll turned into a wisp of light and entered your body. You were so focused that you didn't notice that."] Eris stepped forward and spoke. Hearing that calmed him down.
— "Did you get any skill messages?" He asked curiously, to know if he had managed to acquire a new skill.
— ["Yes, so as not to disturb your concentration, I prevented the notifications from appearing in your vision. I can show them to you now if you want."]
— "Thank you, you can reproduce them now." Edart was happy that Eris had thought of that, so nothing disturbed his concentration, which gave him the chance to learn more about the spells.
Soon the messages began to appear in his vision.