Gluttonous Book

With the Jester gone, Iono though it was about time for him to head home. He had been gone all day; it was now the middle of the night.

He got up, dusted himself off, and was about to leave, when something caught his eye. Something that would normally pass by unnoticed.

He walked over, and stared at the unconscious bunny laying on the grass.

"The Jester DID say that there was something weird about it...", he pondered.

He picked up the bunny and placed it on his shoulder. Then, using his movement-oriented dagger arts, he disappeared from the prairie, like a ghost...

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Dagger arts were versatile in the sense that they dealt not only with the weapon itself, but with all aspects of the user. Since the weapon itself was small in size, the versatility of the user's body had to make up for it.

Two of the most important aspects of fighting with daggers, was movement speed and dexterity.

Therefore, many dagger arts had whole chapters specifically depicting energy flows that enhance the body's reflexes and muscle movement.

This gave Iono the ability to jump from branch to branch with unbelievable velocity.

He had transversed almost 50 km in an hour.

He had just arrived outside a small wooden cottage.

There was nothing fancy about it, but it stood out simply because of its welcome mat.

On it, in cursive, were the words,

Rosenblood

He opened the door and entered the house.

"I'm home!", he yelled.

A worried Anna came rushing from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Where the hell have you been, mister?", she asked.

Her hands were on her waist and her foot was nervously tapping on the floor. She was clearly upset.

"Sorry, I lost track of time...Hehe...", Iono replied, scratching his head.

*Sigh*

"Seriously, what am I going to do with you? I'm your mother but it's like you completely ignore me!", she said, her eyes filled with worry.

She sat down and hugged him tightly.

He did the same.

"Sorry, mom. I promise, I'll stop being so careless."

"That's all I ask for. You're just in time for dinner. Come on, Rosette and Clarissa are already here.", she said.

"Also, is that game? Did you go hunting?", she asked pointing at the little bunny on his shoulder.

"Ah... No. This just a bunny I found in the forest. I thought I would keep it as a pet. Is that alright?", he asked, trying to avoid further questions.

"A bunny...? I mean... sure. If that's what you want.", Anna said, a bit unsure of her son's actions.

Iono took the unconscious bunny is his room and placed it on the floor.

With swift hand movement, Iono drew characters in the air.

After completing the last character, a purple circle appeared and engraved itself on the ground.

From inside the purple circle, consisting of weird-looking characters, black chains appeared and restrained the bunny.

After making sure that the bunny won't be going anywhere, he moved to the kitchen, to enjoy dinner with his family.

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After a lovely dinner, Iono returned to his room for his daily mediation.

He showered first, to get rid of the dirt covering him. He cleaned himself up and the weirdly still unconscious bunny.

The bunny, as a creature of the forest was rather dirty, and a shower would save him of his mother's nagging, for leaving dirt around the house.

After washing and drying both himself and the white-furred creature, he placed the bunny on his bed and sat on the floor in a lotus position.

"Alright, let's see now...", he said, as he pulled out his Pouch of Avarice.

He put his hand in it, and ruffled around for a bit, until he found what he was looking for.

From inside, he pulled out a book. A book with a pitch-black cover, that looked rather ordinary but nonetheless mysterious.

On the cover, written in Goblin Tongue,

Sacrilegious God Art

"No matter how many times I see this book, I always get goosebumps. It's like my being is rejecting it's existence.

There is one weird more weird thing about it...

The title is written in Goblin Tongue.

Does that mean the writer is someone who knew a goblin would find it?

Or is the writer a goblin?

A weak, scrawny goblin?

Or does the language of the book change depending on its reader, making it possible for anyone to read it?

That's most likely the case. Every great legacy has runes engraved on it, that change the language the book is written to match a language the reader should be familiar with.

Most God-class weapon arts are like that.

I've only seen a handful but still..."

Carefully, he opened the book, to once again be met by empty pages.

He let Prana flow through his eyes, activating his [Quantum Eyes], and managed to see the blobs that the book consisted of.

No matter how many times he saw this it was still unbelievable.

It seemed as if the book would disperse from his hands at any moment, and the blobs would scatter.

But somehow, it was held together.

"Let's try running some Prana through it.", he thought.

His core started rotating, creating prana.

"Status. Goreva.", he said out loud and a blue screen appeared next to him.

"Unknown Rune located inside user's Energy Core.

Analyzing...

Analyzing...

Unable to come up with a result.

The rune has not been identified.

Analyzing properties... ...

Analysis complete.

Aurae of Randell, Demon God of Trickery and Darkness, has been identified.

The rune changes the property of Ether.

Ether can now be used.

User has acquired a new skill!

[Ether manipulation(Level 1)]

The skill level will increase either by constant use, or use of skill points.

User has unlocked new feature!

[Runes: Randell's Mark]"

Iono was surprised by the sudden notification.

"It seems like I can use Randell's Ether from now on. Illusion and deceit... Seems rather useful... Also, this is new. What does the [Runes] feature do? I already got so much on my plate, can't be worried about more things."

On the screen, his mana stat and aura stat rapidly decreased, while his Prana stat rapidly increased.

Invisible Prana, travelled from his core to his heart; from there, through the channels, it reached his fingertips, through which it entered the book.

The moment his Prana entered the book, something amazing happened.

Each blob that the book consisted of started shining.

They greedily and gluttonously devoured the energy that they came into contact with.

After a few second the shining stopped. The energy Iono provided was already devoured.

"What the...", seeing this Iono, was left with his mouth hanging open.

"The book ate my energy!

Since when can books eat energy? There's literally no trace of it anywhere!"

He fondled the book, looking at it from every angle, humourously trying to find where the energy went.

"But... there's no change in the book even after devouring the energy... Does it need more?", he pondered.

Therefore, he let more Prana run through the book.

His core was rotating at high speeds, and inside it, mana and aura continuously clashed, like tidal waves, and by merging with a thin purple mist that was hovering over them, they created a colourless, dense energy, that escaped the core.

After leaving the core, the Prana travelled through Iono's body, until it reached his fingertips that were holding the book, which devoured said Prana to no end.

The consumption rate was insane.

Iono was forced to use the spikes on his back to forcefully increase the amount of energy in his body.

After all, he was only in Cell Reverberation. His body contained limited amounts of energy.

He closed his eyes to maximise his focus, as using the spikes was a double-edged sword.

The small spikes on his spine started glowing a red light, as they greedily absorbed the energy of the surrounding atmosphere.

Tiny vortices appeared around each spike, signaling the crazy amount of energy each one absorbed.

That energy would travel to the core, in which it would become Prana, and then enter the book.

Iono was stuck in this cycle for one hour.

Of course, he could only use the spikes for a very small period of time, given the great mental strain, so he would stop every few seconds.

It was incredible how well-fitted these spikes were for Iono. If it wasn't for his high IQ, his speed at processing information wouldn't be able to keep up with the speed at which the spikes absorbed energy.

If anyone else possessed these spikes, they would explode before even being able to use them.

After the hour passed, the book finally stopped absorbing the prana.

Iono fell on his back, breathing heavily.

This whole process had taken quite the toll on him.

But before he could catch his breath, the first page of the book started shining very brightly.

As if someone was writing on it, letters appeared on the page.

Colourless letters.

And if they were colourless, how were they visible?

That was because, there were small black dots mixed in the colourless letters.

Dots dark and void.

But because of these dots, a rough outline of the letters appeared.

Written on the page were the words,

"Torso Mo Koralle Arvani"