Demon's Virtue
chapter-594-30041322

While Eiro was continuing his discussions with Solomon, and his double in the elemental plane of water was continuin his quest to read everything in the Aquarian library, even without understanding what most of the words were supposed to mean, another version of Eiro finally arrived at his first destination.

Flying through the skies of the elemental plane of fire certainly was a unique experience, to say the least. It was similar, but also distinctly different, to flying through the skies in the central material plane. With every slight movement that he took, it seemed as if the subtle layers of fire magic that simply weren't lighting up right now, were reacting to Eiro and his magic. As if he was always surrounded in a shell of invisible flames. And as he was flying, that shell lit up even more, creating waves of flames that rippled outward once pushed to the side by his wings. And that was not only what happened with himself. It seemed as if the magic beasts that were flying through the skies here naturally were experiencing things similar to this. At the very least, similar waves were moving outward from them with every flap of their wings. The bright flames in different colors moved into each other, spiking up or down, and were turning the flaming skies into an ocean of fire instead.

And at some point, when looking out of that ocean of fire, Eiro was able to see towering structures in the distance. They were buildings created out of crystalized fire magic, practically always giving off subtle flames on the outside. The whole area surrounding this place was so much hotter than normal. If this was the central material plane, the very air would light on fire the moment that it came in contact with something this hot. And if Eiro undid his fusion with fire magic on himself right now, he would definitely burn up and die himself, even with his extreme fire resistance due to his magical affinity and natural demonic resistances that had continued to increase within Eiro more and more with every single evolution.

But even then, he wanted to go into that city. It would definitely be a place that could offer him more chances to become powerful. He landed in front of the entrance to the city. Thick walls of solid flames surrounded the city, created to stop even the most aggressive of magic beasts. Creatures associated with the flames were often on the more aggressive, or generally 'passionate' side of things. Of course, this could also be found in magic beasts. So while, in the plane of water, most beings were calm, relaxed and inviting, here, they were going to give Eiro a lot of trouble while he was over here. That was clear the moment that he approached the guards standing in front of this gate. They were humanoid people of flames. One of them had light orange, and the other dark red skin, which they kept quite exposed. They looked pretty similar to salamanders for the most part, leave for the natural armor growing on parts of their skin, the hair made of literal fire, and the lizard-like tails. And of course, these people weren't made of pure magic.

They were somewhere inbetween magic beasts and people, the same as the merpeople that the other double had seen in the plane of water. Seeing them, Eiro quickly asked, "Do you speak common?"

"...Of course we do." One of the guards replied, albeit somewhat hesitant. With a smile, Eiro looked through the half open gate, "Perfect. Because I'm not sure I speak the language usually spoken in these parts." Eiro replied quickly, and the guards looked at each other, and then back at Eiro.

"For what reason do you seek entry into this town?" The other of them asked, and of course, Eiro quickly replied, "I'm on... vacation here in this plane. Just traveling through this realm, trying to see what it is like here."

"You're on vacation? Where are you from, then?" One of the guards asked, clearly suspicious to some extent, "The central material plane, of course."

"...Yeah, right, and I'm from the elemental plane of water." One of the guards scoffed, shaking his head, "Seriously, where are you from? If you don't want to respond, just turn the fuck around."

Eiro raised his brow, "Excuse me? What did you just say?"

"I told you to turn the fuck around." The guard replied immediately. Rolling his eyes, Eiro waved his hand around. He pushed aside the fire magic, practically turning the space directly in front of him into a vacuum, which he then instead filled with water, which he direclty pulled from the elemental plane of water. Meanwhile, the double in the plane of water felt a current being created around him, knowing that a flow of this magic water around him was entering the gateway within himself to get back into the original Eiro, to then flow down the entrance to the plane of fire. It was interesting to see it happen on this end, for once.

Either way, the Eiro in the plane of fire soon moved around a steady flow of water, making the fire move around it at all times so that it wouldn't disappear all of a sudden, or start boiling.

"Do you believe me now? I'm not from around here." The Demon pointed out, while the two guards jumped backward. They had no idea what was going on right now. They had never seen this... substance that was floating through the air in front of them. Rather, they knew of it, but they had never been able to connect the name to an image before.

"Is that... water?" One of them asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "That it is. Through the same way that I got into this realm, I am able to pull something like this over here. Neat, huh?" He asked, and the two guards looked at each other.

"J-Just... put that away, alright?"

"Right, don't worry. I'm not here to bother anyone. Just want to head to the library. I assume you have one?" Eiro said with a smile on his face. The left guard immediately nodded, "Of course we do... As long as you don't cause trouble, you can come in... but really, don't pull out that water in the middle of town, or else you'll get in a lot of trouble, you hear?"

"Right, of course." Eiro replied, and started to walk past the two guards. They were staring at his back the whole time, but Eiro didn't care enough to even be bothered by it. As soon as Eiro stepped past the gate, the heat increased even more, to the point where even Eiro felt sort of weird. The magic was a lot more dense in here, even though the 'air' was as thin as outside.

But really, it didn't matter at all. Eiro walked through town, spreading his senses to try and find where the library was. This plane had its own language that was the equivalent of Aquarian on the plane of water. It was probably going to be similar in the way that it had unique symbols that didn't correlate to the way that most languages in the central material plane worked for the most part. So, he had to get to it, and quickly start learning this language, Pirock.

With a snap of his finger, he called a certain spirit to his side. He appeared rather quickly, as if he had been waiting for the signal that it was alright to come. The flames came together and formed his body, to the surprise of some of the other people walking around them.

"Hell yeah! It's been so long! Finally I'm in a real town again, argh, this feels so good!" Sarius exclaimed loudly and excitedly, making the surrounding people just stare at the two, while they were walking over toward the library, "Right, mhm. Anyway, do you know Pirock?"

"Of course I do, I spent nearly my whole life over here. And I will be the ruler of this realm at some point, how can I not know how to speak our language?" He replied with a loud scoff, "And yeah, before you ask, of course I'm going to teach you. You're the only way that I can move around freely in this place anymore, so I don't want you to get stuck on this for long, alright?"

"That's perfect. Then let's get to it." Eiro said, as the two of them soon reached the library. Eiro pushed the door open and looked around. Immediately he noticed just how few books were in here, compared to the actual size of the library. And it didn't seem like all the books had been checked out by the people of this town either. The Demon turned his head to the Salamander right next to him, and asked, "Do the people here not like books?"

"...Not particularly, no." Sarius replied, "We like to have fun in other ways. We throw amazing parties."

"Urgh, of course you do. At the very least it won't take long to get through the books in here." Eiro sighed, quickly picking up the first of the bunch. The moment he did, his mental library expanded once more. A third major section opened up, corresponding to the books and knowledge found in this elemental plane of fire.

Eiro looked at the book in his hand. It was at least shaped like a normal book, but instead of using paper, this book still held crystal-like formations with a similar substance to it, like the shell-shaped books in the plane of water. The Demon flipped through the book until he remembered all the pages, and then handed it to Sarius, "Read the first sentence."

"...Right, of course." Sarius sighed, dropping down onto one of the seats near him, starting to read the first sentence. Then, Eiro instructed him to read the next sentence. Of course, Eiro wouldn't be taught in the normal way. Instead, he was going to use Sarius to fill in the gaps. He would let him, bit by bit, read the symbols out word by word, symbol by symbol, to teach him the meaning and pronunciation. That way, the doubles that existed in nothing but the mental library would have an easier time compiling the dictionaries. It didn't take long until Eiro knew every word of the first book. And then, they moved on to the next book. As Eiro was reading, whenever he found a word he didn't know, Sarius told him what it meant, and then they moved on. Only a few hours later, the gaps between Erio asking what certain words meant were growing noticeably larger, to the extent where Sarius was even getting bored here and there. And so, Eiro really started off his journey of learning within this plane.