016 Windel General Library

Nico walked down the quiet corridor. The majority of the students were in the courtyard and there were only three staff working during orientation week.

Nico found the section on manabeast and looked up Manabeast Terrors.

"Manabeast Terrors are further evolved manabeasts on par with Knight stage practitioners. If a person is unfortunate enough to run into a Manabeast terror, it is recommended that they pray as there is little hope to escape."

F***! How am I supposed to defeat five of them? Thought Nico. Where can I even find one?

Nico closed the book and returned it on the shelf. He browsed through the books on Sigillogy, the study of symbols. After flipping through a few books, Nico realized that they were littered with flaws. Despite its flaws, the Constantine's 108 Fundamental Shadow Symbols looked the most accurate.

Nico took the book and sat in a nearby carrel. Nico flipped through the pages of the book, and opened to a page that shows the persona symbol for red flame. It was the same symbol he would draw on the talisman paper, but it had more resemblances to the ones sold in Fenrir Shop.

"This symbol is a red flame persona?" asked Nico.

"The Fireball persona was discovered 10,000 years ago," the book explained. "It was only 6,000 years ago when magician scholars identified the shadow symbols of Ro, Pa, Ri, Zu, and Li within the Fireball."

The discrepancy between how he translated the flame symbols to Kelseran and how it was generally known was unfortunate, but there was nothing he could do. He was sure his translation was more accurate and fireball was merely a physical description of the talisman. He couldn't go to the authors and tell them that they named the talisman incorrectly. Nico had to be mindful that not everything presented to him were as accurate as the system.

Nico also saw the ugly looking shadow symbols of Ro, Pa, Ri, Zu and Li. It resembled the shadow symbols, but they were also different from the shadow symbols he had seen. If the shadow symbols he saw through Minko's vision were a printed version of the Arial font, the shadow symbols drawn in the book were like the characters written by a kindergarten student practicing to write for the first time.

Ro, Pa, Ri, Zu and Li were Kelseran alphabets used as placeholders to represent the symbols. Oddly enough, Nico didn't know how to pronounce the symbols.

Nico had been keeping track of the shadow symbols that existed in nature. So far, he had counted 94. He wanted to compare them to the periodic table, but there were so many differences that he didn't want to call them chemical elements. He charted them out based on his understanding of it, and it was very neat and orderly.

"The fireball spell was developed using the five main shadow symbols," Nico continued to read. "The use of body aura is required to protect the caster."

"Oh, I see," Nico said to himself. "I should start researching on aura."

Nico had a difficult time understanding the concept of auras. According to Instructor Lingo, auras controlled mana, but he was unable to find it in his system. There were two possible explanations. First, he had not unlocked it yet. Second, there was no such thing as aura.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of books on auras.

He saw an elderly staff in a corner scanning through the bookshelf.

"Excuse me mister, are there more books on aura?" Nico inquired.

The old staff with wrinkled face and long white hair slowly turned to Nico.

"Most books on auras are in the Windel Magic Library," the old staff replied.

"Mister, how about books on level 2 flames?"

"They are advanced symbols. You won't be able to find them in the general library."

"Ah, I see."

Nico returned to studying the lightning symbols in the book. Out of all the elements, Nico was least familiar with lightning. There were only a handful of occasions when there were thunderstorms in Rinlin. Even then, they were too far away for Nico to see clearly.

Nico unfolded a parchment paper from his pocket, took out a fountain pen and a jar of ink. He began copying the section from Constantine's book. There were six main lightning symbols listed as shadow symbols and Nico recognized one.

However, there was one shadow symbol that should technically be fire. He scribbled down his notes.

"Hello student," asked the elderly staff. "May I ask what book you are reading?"

Nico looked at the staff. "Sir, it's the Constantine's 108 Fundamental Shadow Symbols," Nico replied.

The elderly man nodded his head. "May I take your book after you're done?"

"Um, sure… Is the library closing?"

The elderly man shook his head. "No, I would like to loan out the book," he responded.

Nico realized the man wasn't a staff, only patrons would request to loan out a book. "Ah, not a problem," Nico responded.

The elderly man noticed Nico's notes, raised his left brows and lowered his round glasses.