Foundations (2)

I stood there a moment then let my creation magic do it's work, using a massive amount of magic to change an object inside of someone else's aura. The change was minor but it took nearly half of my mana to accomplish it before the chair suddenly slumped forward about a few centimeters throwing off his balance and making the old man's face tumble into the desk.

Standing there patiently the old man started to curse and rub his nose, ink spilled all over his face covering part of the clothes he was wearing. His glasses had tumbled to the side and he looked a decade younger now that his beard was a deep black color from the ink.

With a look of worry on my face, I offered the elder a rag that was on the counter to clean the books, "Are you alright senior? I was waiting for you and you suddenly fell forward in your sleep!"

"Sleep? On duty? Never! I was merely meditating and needed to clear my head!" The elder wiped off his face showing a stoic expression as if every word was gospel.

I sneered at this clearly remembering his snoring, but quickly smiled, "I am just here to update my library card. Sadly I haven't used it in such a long time I have misplaced it."

"Hmph, kids these days always losing your stuff! I don't understand how you kids don't ever seem to lose your swords but always lose your library cards." Placing the cloth to the side he suddenly looked at me, "And you must be a slacker since I haven't seen you in here before."

"You might have heard of me senior, my name is Nikolai, I just recently came out of a coma." I watched with humor as the man's face went white, then green, and finally a bit red.

"Ah, the general's son! You just woke up and you visit our humble library, you are indeed a king among men. Studying so hard puts your peers to shame." His praises were sung as quickly as his face changed color, making me chuckle for a moment.

"You praise me too much, I merely need to catch up to those ahead of me." I turned to the artifact that would show my affinities, "I'm sure you will revise my card accordingly."

Placing my hand on the orb I felt a chill run through my body as magic invaded it, the blue screen appearing again.

'Would you like to allow foreign mana to scope your powers?'

Mentally saying yes another box appeared in front of me.

'Due to the strength of mana, it can only read each ability up to B grade'

"Ah, so the artifact isn't one of the better ones? It makes sense since it's sitting here in the library, the special ones cost far too much to leave unprotected.

The librarian received the results and absent-mindedly started to write things down onto the card in front of him. After writing down the third affinity he started to frown, "Wait... Creation.. wind.. shadow.. LIFE AND DEATH‽" The librarian let out a hiss of air as he almost shouted at the monster in front of him.

"Are you even human anymore kid‽" The librarian whispered over to me as he threw the card to me.

"I wonder.." Looking over the card I was surprised by the B ranked shadow magic, pulling my status it had indeed been added as part of my affinities. Wind had increased to B as well after my increases from Apollo, though I was scared to even touch any more quests from him before all of my hair fell out naturally.

"I have a question, it is said that you can bring out only three books but can I grab one for each affinity?" Smiling sweetly at the old man he slowly shook his head.

"Even if I wanted to I can't allow you to, there are no books here relating to life and death. As compensation I'll allow you to take three books for each of the others. You are one of the only creation wizards so a few extra books missing from there won't be missed." The old man thought a bit before finally adding in, "There are already rules in place for people with two affinities if you allow me to disclose your information I'm sure the higher ups would agree to let you take more books."

"No, I have just been woken up. I don't want to deal with the fallout of becoming too famous just yet." He knew that this elder was under a blood oath to not let the information leak, and the card's information could only be seen by the two of them. The old man could only tell others if he was told by the card holder that it was alright otherwise he would die.

Learning ones elemental affinities was a great weakness that people could exploit by planning against you with items and armors that would protect against your element. Since he couldn't research life and death in this library, he would learn the three that he did have.

Wind was primarily used for enhancement, increasing speed, getting rid of the wind resistance of the blade, and other things. It however had a lot of offensive uses, these offensive ones were the ones I wanted but I could only take one offensive book. Since I had shadow now the speed of my attacks were more important than the power.

Creation was an all rounder that didn't specialize in anything specific, though as the saying goes, 'Jack of all trades, master of none. Better than master of one.' Its usefulness relied completely on its utility.

Shadow was however highly lethal, stealth and nearly unblockable attacks. It wasn't infallible by any means, but it would make anyone three times more deadly under the right circumstances.

Walking over to the shadow section of the bookcases my face went blank, "How the hell am I supposed to figure out what abilities do with these names?"

The first book I took and opened was named, 'Gods Left Hand When It Crashes Through the Blackness to Eat You'. The technique itself was a punch that utilized light and shadow to play tricks on your eyes to make it look like you were striking from a different angle.

"This is going to take some time..."