CHAPTER 217
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The Book of Cagliostro was not enough, I figured that much soon enough, after all, it was easy to see, that the knowledge within the book was incomplete, a part of something else, a single piece of the puzzle, meaning, Alice was going to use what she thought was a complete spell to absorb a Celestial being or try to, possibly dooming us all, because by my calculations, if she failed, the cosmic energy within her plus that of the Celestial would implode causing a cataclysmic event that would erase the entire milky way, perhaps even more.
I sighed, I knew what I had to do, I had to find what was missing from this spell, and for that, I had to visit the past.
"Well, now or never," I nodded, equipping the Time Stone, to travel to the age of Cagliostro, or rather, to a time where his library was still intact, there, I was sure to find the answers to my problems.
Taking a deep breath, I moved my hands forward channeling the power of the stone, concentrating on the time I wanted to visit as little by little, a green aura started to envelop me whole, soon after, the time around me come to a halt before going backward.
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By the time, I stopped forcing the flow of time to move at my whim, I found myself in a forest, surrounded by wildlife and trees, and the sounds of nature.
"Well, that was easy," I muttered, looking around.
"Who are you?"
I blinked in surprise, turning around to see who had asked that, to find a man a few meters away staring at me stoically.
[Cagliostro - O'Bengh LV 265]
"Alex," I replied, waving at him.
"What are you doing here?" Cagliostro asked, his eyes never leaving mine.
"You want the long version or the short one?" I asked, tilting my head to the side.
Cagliostro said nothing.
"I came here to learn how to… eat other creatures," I replied, resolving to tell him the truth, after all, honesty was the best policy anyway.
"That's a new one," Cagliostro said for a moment seemingly befuddled at my answer, "Follow me," he added.
I smiled, doing just that.
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I followed Cagliostro through the forest for an hour or so, without talking or anything, the man simply walked, and I simply followed, eventually, however, this led to me finding myself face to face with his library, the building in question was fucking massive, like twenty stories tall, at least, and was covered in protecting eldritch runes.
"So, this is…" He was gone, apparently, the moment we had reached the library, the legendary sorcerer had decided to ditch me. "Rude," I sighed, before jumping to the door, quite literally, the entrance was at the last level, and the building had no stairs, so it was either jumping, or teleporting, and well, I picked jumping.
Landing on the last level, I looked around the entrance, finding it a bit… suspicious, for one, it was… a bit too dark, like, I wasn't able to see shit, and two, there were at least three thousand runes around, most of them traps.
I sighed, sending a pulse of magic to temporarily deactivate the runes.
"So you are a sorcerer," I heard someone speak behind me, that someone being Cagliostro.
"Well… kind of," I nodded, in terms of knowledge, the Ancient One was leagues above me, I learned the basics, and stopped, heck, Emily knew more spells than me, but when it came to raw power, I was unmatched, then again, I learned tons of spells thanks to the roots of Yggdrasil, so… maybe I do know more than the Ancient One now.
"Follow me," Cagliostro said once again.
"Are you gonna ditch me again?" I asked with a chuckle.
"Not this time," Cagliostro replied, at least he admitted his shit, I liked the guy.
"So, what's your name?" I asked because while it was true I knew his name, I found it was best to ask anyway.
"You already know the answer to that question, but if you must address me, please call me, O'Bengh," Cagliostro replied.
"Will do," I nodded.
"By the way, do the sorcerers of your time, used those clothes?" Cagliostro asked.
"Ha! No, my friend, and teacher, uses clothes much like yours," I replied with a small smile, imagine the Ancient One wearing what I was wearing, sweatpants, and a sweater.
"Good, you dress weird," Cagliostro replied with a chuckle.
"Hey! I dress for comfort," Nothing beats the sweatpants and sweater wombo combo!
"Not for the eyes," Cagliostro chuckled.
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I followed Cagliostro once again, this time, however, having a pleasant conversation with him about various topics, eventually, though, our pleasant conversation came to an end, the moment Cagliostro opened the doors to his library.
Revealing thousands upon thousands of books, books I had never seen, books the Ancient One had never seen.
I grinned, for I knew what I had to do, besides learning how to eat a Celestial, I would copy every book in this library, and give them to the Ancient One, effectively reviving the Library of Cagliostro.
Bringing back the lost books.
"So, how long will you be staying here?" Cagliostro asked.
"Hm," I paused, pondering over that, "I don't know, time is relative when you can travel through it."
"Fair enough," Cagliostro shrugged, walking away, "If you need me, don't call me."
"Haha!" I snorted, I liked the guy, too bad he was super dead in the future. With Cagliostro gone, I snapped my fingers, sending a wave of magic around the library, drawing dozens of books off the shelves, making them orbit around me, as I perused the titles.
"Those books better be back in their place!" Cagliostro shouted from the shadows.
"They will be!" They would, I mean, I'm not organized, but having the time stone fixes that.
Now, enough talk, it's time to learn, after all, time is on my hands. Quite literally.
I wonder how The Ancient One will react when I give her the books?