Demon's Virtue

Luckily, this was nothing that others could spot, otherwise the issue would rise to whole new heights. But it was undeniable – Eiro had Holy Energy stuck inside of his body.

It was most likely a residue of infusing himself with it. Usually this sort of magic would simply fade away over time, but in this case, it apparently didn't. The Holy Energy reacted to Eiro's flesh in a different way, it being his bane. That probably explained why Eiro kept on feeling worse throughout the day, because he simply wasn't aware of what was going on within his own body. He wasn't particularly focused on it, after all.

'Now, that is not good.' Eiro thought to himself. Him using magic pulled the Holy Energy forward into his arms, and no matter what other magic he would now cast, the Holy Energy would probably be passively pulled out as well. The smoking and sizzling that came with it would be pretty hard to hide from others.

So for now... Eiro proceeded like normal. Acted as if nothing was going on, although he could feel his arms slowly bubbling up on the inside along his veins. It was more than just uncomfortable, and worst of all, it made Eiro's blood quite literally boil.

It was sizzling away, taken by the Holy Energy. Disintegrating. And the side-effect that came with that was rather obvious. Eiro had a tough time feeling his left hand. He managed to get through this by manipulating his own blood and simply pushing more of it through the areas where the Holy Energy was stuck.

Of course, this also pulled Holy Energy further through his veins, and sooner or later, it ended up spreading throughout his whole torso. Once it hit his heart, throughout his whole body. Since the Holy Energy was thinned out, Eiro's blood wasn't disappearing at that dangerous a pace, and he was able to get through it by simple making his blood produce blood a bit faster than normal. Didn't make this any less painful, of course.

Toward the end of his lesson, Eiro's internal body temperature had risen to the point where others would feel pain when touching his skin. Bavet luckily wasn't all that affected by temperatures at this level anymore, so the transformation didn't change, but it was most likely still quite uncomfortable for the slime.

The moment that the students left, Eiro dropped down onto the ground and proceeded to enter a meditative form. He needed to somehow flush the Holy Energy out of his body. For that, he needed to gather it somewhere.

Mana flowed throughout one's body in vein-like patterns. Actually, these mana veins' locations completely overlapped with the places where his regular veins were. For a long time, it just followed the major ones, but now it completely overlapped with this system within his body.

Just like that, Eiro should be able to take some form of control of all this Holy Energy that he was unable to take direct control of, by manipulating his blood. However, the worst thing was that he would have to basically 'bleed' himself to get rid of the Holy Energy at this point, considering how far it had spread throughout his body.

At least, that's what he thought at first. Before doing anything else, the first thing Eiro did was try and take control of his mana that had mixed with the Holy Energy. After all, it was still his own mana, at the end of the day. He tried to pull it away from his veins directly, as if tugging on it. And that was when Eiro noticed something that would chnage the way that he would end up casting magic through his body completely.

It would revolutionize his own methods. Maybe this was only possible because the Holy Energy messed something up within his own body, loosening up these 'Mana Veins', or maybe it was something that he could do all along and simply never realized. Either way, it was something amazing.

Eiro pulled the whole Mana Vein away from his regular vein. It wasn't much, just a fraction of an inch, but he still did it. The natural flow of his mana had been changed within his body. And it didn't seem to make any efforts to change back to normal either.

And from this point on, it was possible for Eiro to loosen his Mana Veins altogether, letting his mana flow to a single point where he managed to gather the Holy Energy, letting it out of him with a quick air spell.

But not just that, the spell's form was rather different as well. It was usually quite straight and went exactly how Eiro wanted it, but now it was just completely messy. Maybe due to the way that Eiro's mana veins changed. And just as he was thinking that, something else appeared in front of him.

[You have learned the <Beginner Mana Circuit Manipulation> Skill!]

"Mana Circuit... Manipulation..?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself as he stood back up, now that the leftover Holy Energy got out of his body. He already felt quite a bit better than before, although his body was still aching a little.

"So they're called Mana Circuits? I never heard that term before... And I never heard of this skill either." Eiro muttered to himself, "Nelli, do you know about it?"

The Naiad floated up to the notification and stayed silent for a while, before bluntly shaking her head, "No, me neither. I mean, obviously everyone can actively manipulate the flow of mana, that's how anyone casts spells, but changing the flow of mana permanently? That's something I've never heard about."

"I'll have to figure this out soon then. But first, I should make sure I finish my classes for the day."

---

Eiro walked through the school's library. The aching pain that he had been feeling all day finally disappeared now that class was over. So for now, Eiro figured he should take the time to see if he may find something out about 'Mana Circuits'.

This Library was huge, and Eiro knew that it had plenty of knowledge that was hard to find anywhere else. This was where he found information about mind-manipulating magic, after all. However, no matter how much he looked, he didn't find anything. There were a few books he took an interest in, but they weren't related to 'Mana Circuits' at all. He simply found nothing. Maybe the organization had access to the right information.

In defeat, Eiro left the library. There was not even an ounce of information anywhere to be found. However, as he was there, he got another idea while talking to his spirits. Something that could help him absorb elements and raise his affinity through it some more. He just had to place his Mana Circuits in the right patterns and locations.

But for this, Eiro needed a way to practice. It was quite hard to move the strands of the Mana Circuit around, but with a bit of determination, as he was flying back toward his Manor, he managed to return his mana circuits to 'normal' with a single difference.

His right hand also had these mana circuits, as it was basically like a part of his body, and inside of there he created a magic circle using the circuits running through his hand. It was the 'air bullet' spell, a rather simple one.

Eiro let his mana flow through that magic circle, and instead of leaving his hand like normal magic would, then requiring him to create an external magic circle for this spell, the bullet simply left his body straight away. He could shoot it at a rapid pace, as if he was consecutively activating magic circles one after another.

"So, that's quite interesting, then." Eiro smirked a bit, looking at his manor in the distance, hearing James' heavy breathing from here already. He was talking to Jess while he was training, apparently.

"Ah, that's a way to use this as well." Eiro soon landed in the gardens, startling both James and Jess. Jess quickly picked up the book that she was supposed to be reading, and looked at Eiro nervously, "H-Hey, the kids said you'd be back later..."

"Don't worry, I won't reprimand you. I have something new to teach to the two of you." The Demon explained. James and Jess looked at each other a bit confused, "What is there you could teach to both of us?"

Eiro looked at Jess and smiled broadly, "A new method to cast magic." He held his hand forward, and demonstrated his air bullet spell.

"How did you..." Jess muttered confused. Eiro quickly turned toward her, and explained the situation. This new skill that he found.

"And the best thing is, since the magic circles are formed within your body, even James should be able to cast spells to some extent." Eiro pointed out, "If you learn the skill, then I'll design specific magic circles for you, James, don't worry."

Jess stared deep into Eiro's eyes, "This... How did nobody ever know about this?"

"Probably because it's hard to achieve. But now, we'll train specifically to manipulate your mana circuits. I'm sure yours are quite well-developed already Jess, but I don't know about yours, James. We might have to start with that."

"Even more training...? When am I supposed to do this..?"

"Ah, stop complaining!" Eiro laughed, "It's a way to make you stronger immediately. Just be happy about it."

Eiro slowly turned around, "For now, keep on practicing. We'll do this later tonight. I have an undead to take care of for now...."

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