Chapter 61

Peter was prepared for a lot of things but not for that reaction. A lot of other students had more impressive weapons, not to mention his own precious lamp. If something deserved to be hidden it would be something like the Asteri. Thankfully Mr. Smith quickly elaborated on his reaction, although he was a lot quieter than before.

"Look kid, no matter how I look at it this is an assassin's weapon. It isn't supposed to be used for combat but to kill someone without them noticing. And it is the best at it when no one even knows about its existence."

"Thank you for the advice!"

Without saying anything else he unsummoned his dagger and rushed back to the others.

The conversation came as a great revelation to Peter who had been trying to make sense of the weapon for the past few weeks. It was nice to know what he had, even if he didn't plan on using it now that he knew what it was.

[Hostia]

[Level: 2]

[Divinity required for next level: 0.50]

[Recommended strength: 2.00]

[Piercing: 5.00]

[Durability: 2.00]

[Abilities: Regicide, Outcast (Light)]

[Reconstruction time: 48 hours]

[Regicide: Against opponents that perceive themselves to be above the wielder, Piercing is tripled.]

[Outcast (Light): The wielder of this weapon is despised by creatures of light.]

There were no more official programmes for the rest of the day so Peter chose to accompany Drake to the library. The boy still couldn't write properly so he asked Peter for help and the library had plenty of blank papers.

Peter didn't really have to do much. All he really did was show his friend how certain letters are written and find him some text to practice with, most of his time was spent just sitting in one place and waiting. During a longer period of waiting he got up to find something to read.

The contents of the library were all over the place. Those responsible for compiling the books were told to grab anything that could conceivably be useful to anyone for anything. The results of this selection process were then arranged alphabetically disregarding the subject of any individual book.

As a consequence it was incredibly hard to find anything and the "T" section was occupying almost as much space as everything else combined.

While looking for nothing in particular Peter stumbled upon another user of the library.

It was a strange sight to see. A girl sitting alone at a table surrounded by towers of books and glowing circles with various patterns inside of them floating in the air. As soon as she flipped a page in the book she was holding another circle with a unique pattern appeared in front of her. 

Upon closer inspection the paper towers consisted almost entirely of fantasy books with some religious texts mixed in.

Even with Peter's limited knowledge he quickly figured out what was happening. It was magic. Not what the interface called magic in his case but actual magic like runes, spellcasting and everything else. The chance to learn it was quite tempting.

So tempting in fact that Peter couldn't resist it.

He was about to ask her for guidance when he was suddenly hit in the face with a sizable ball of ice. He could barely move enough to not have his nose broken.

[Health: 92%]

All of a sudden he was lying on the floor with a bloody nose, bruised cheeks and a moderately severe headache. The situation gave Peter an opportunity to question some recent life choices.

His thought process was interrupted by a surprisingly gentle voice.

"Sorry about that, but you should really watch out for who you sneak up on."

"Sneak?! I…"

Still only half conscious about what was happening Peter was about to argue his innocence but quickly realized that it wasn't wise to do so. Saying something wrong could have resulted in something else being thrown at him and he also didn't really have a case to argue.

Though unconsciously, he was in the habit of moving as stealthily as possible just to practice it. Unfortunately for him strangers didn't appreciate that habit of his.

"Sorry. I just wanted to ask you to teach me magic."

"I've never taught this to anyone before but feel free to watch, as long as you stay quiet."

After that the two of them sat next to each other in silence. The girl would continue reading and summoning more and more circles, sometimes even using them to cast spells and then writing something in a notebook.

Peter had to leave sometimes to check on Drake but otherwise he just continued to pay attention and try to learn something from the experience. After a few hours he started to recognize some repeating patterns inside the circles.

He didn't actually understand the purpose of most of them because his mentor only used a few of them, with seemingly no consistency.

Around sunset when Drake finally got his achievement Peter reluctantly left his new teacher without saying a word.

[Shared message:]

[Achievement unlocked: Learn to write.]

[Reward: AGI +0.1, INT +0.05]

Peter himself was satisfied with how he spent their time in the library. At night when he was standing guard outside the princess' room he had plenty of time to make sense of what he saw.

His thought process was interrupted by the familiar messages of the interface.

[Achievement unlocked: Basic magic (Glyph).]

[Reward: MGC +0.05, INT +0.05, Glyph sense]

[Note: Only one kind of magic sense can be active at a time.]

He was about to ask the interface about his unique reward but had to postpone that because of the panicked shadow of Rose signaling him that he had to do his job.