Demon's Virtue

Eiro watched as the card was absorbed by the splinter. As this was happening, the card seemed to activate, taking on its 'true' form, the dungeon map itself. The large scroll of paper unfolded and seemed to be wrapping around a section of the splinter, as it was enveloped in soft golden-white light.

As if burning away into white ash, the scroll fell apart, the splinter underneath it almost bulging and growing where said ash touched it.

As the splinter absorbed it, Eiro raised his brows a bit surprised at what it was he was truly experiencing here. The card was gone. It still seemed to be registered among the counter of cards that popped up whenever a new card was collected, but the actual card was gone. And nonetheless, Eiro still felt its power.

The Demon, not the incarnation, but the real body, slowly glanced down at his arm. Or at least, he tried. Moving any part of his body was quite... uncomfortable. Too fast.

The muscles around his eyes tore at the movement, so instead of relying on his physical strength, Eiro decided that he was just going to use magic to influence the blood inside of his veins and the flesh making up his form, moving his eye like that. Similarly, so that he wouldn't lose control over his arm, Eiro moved it with magic, holding it up in front of him somewhat jankily.

His muscles still reacted, of course, but his control over his magic was stronger than the influence his newly acquired 'Ultimate Agility' had over his otherwise limp muscles.

And then, Eiro felt his magic flow through his veins. No, it wasn't quite correct to call it 'magic'. He felt pure powers of the arcane make his way through his magic circuits. It was similar to how when he created Arcane magic from pure mana, but so, so much more potent. As the arcane essence reached his fingertips, it flowed out of his body and started to form a physical object.

A paper scroll soon sat in Eiro's hand.

"Huh," he muttered slightly. He had just summoned the Dungeon Map directly instead of activating the card. It was like his body had become a replacement for the card. But just a moment later, he pulled it back into himself.

Slowly, Eiro looked to the side. This time, through the incarnation within his soul. He hadn't done it on purpose, but rather just on instinct; the library was expanding. While, at its center, no matter where you went within this space there were books and scrolls and everything you could think of, everything was still sorted into sections. Categorized into their importance and theme and topic.

For one, all the maps and his memories of the geography of the surrounding lands was stored in a specific part of the library. And right there, at the centerpoint of this section of the library, a large new table appeared.

There had already been some desks there for transcribing new maps or editing old ones, or just simply parsing through them, but this one was different. It was a large, flat table. Thirty by sixty feet in size. And on top of it now sat a large map, and what it displayed wasn't any particular area, but Eiro's very own body.

The incarnation flapped his wings and flew over toward it, taking a closer look. As he pressed his fingertips onto the paper, he could feel magic flow through him, combining blood and flesh magics, and anything else that could potentially affect his body, in a brilliantly efficient and beautiful manner.

And as he started to drag around the depiction of Eiro's own skin, the demon could feel the skin on his arm move and wrinkle, as it did on the map.

An idea popped into the Demon's mind. He placed his palm over the map and moved around exactly what was depicted on it, until all that was visible was his eye. In excruciating detail, a duplicated artifact that had been placed into his eye was displayed.

The thin, intricate engravings and magic circles were shown, and Eiro looked at a part of those engravings that had become a full part of his physical form at this point, and changed the angle of a single one of those runes.

It wasn't a particularly important one; it was just one that was helping in the definition of the actual angle of refraction as light traveled through the translucent mirror of duplication acting as a lense in his eye.

And as he slightly changed this rune, he could feel the sight in that eye actually change. Just slightly, but enough for Eiro to notice the difference. And a broad grin formed on his face. With this, Eiro was able to alter his body to a wholly new degree.

Not only that, but, after returning that rune to its former state, Eiro pulled back out to a view of his whole body, and instead changed to something else. A view of his mana.

With a flick of his wrist, he was now able to change the shape of his magic circuits.

"Maybe... combined with the Author's Pen, I could create some patterns within me that I couldn't before," the demon muttered quietly. But then, another idea crossed Eiro's mind. He held his hand over the map once more, pulling the view out even further. And as he did, the figure displayed on the map changed.

Instead of a biological diagram of his own form, he was able to see a map of the room he was in. Though it appeared as a simple illustration made of black ink, he could see the whole library displayed in front of him from a birds-eye view. He could see himself sat on that armchair, and Bavet laying on one of the tables next to him.

Slowly, the incarnation placed his finger onto an object not too far away from Eiro. A small rug placed into the center of the room. And Eiro slowly dragged it away as the power of the dungeon map did its job, affecting the world immediately around Eiro.

Bavet raised his head startled, but lowered it again as he didn't notice what actually happened, as Eiro flicked his wrist to 'reset' the effect of the map on its surrounding, releasing the distortion in space it caused.

He could feel the side effect of the map take hold for just a fraction of a second as he felt himself connected to this room in a slightly different way than normal, but any trace of that disappeared instantly, unable to take proper hold due to the minor change that he had caused.

And then, instead, Eiro tried something else. The incarnation pressed his finger onto the map, and on the other side of the room, a magic circle was being drawn through the power of the map, and the Demon grinned broadly. His real body was just seated there emotionless, as the slightest twitch could rip his muscles as he tried to get used to his new card's effect.

However, his incarnation was barely able to contain itself at the realization.

The power of the dungeon map had integrated with him in a completely new way. He was able to use it without even summoning it into the physical world. If he could do this with the other cards... then he could unlock powers that he couldn't even imagine yet.

However, that of course came with some massive risks. With new powers and abilities, new side effects could appear as well. For the time being, Eiro would just leave it at the Dungeon Map; if nothing particularly bad happened, he would try and fuse the next card into his splinter.

And only if he concluded that there was no or negligible risk would he truly start fusing the other cards to his splinter. And if there was any risk, he would seal away the Dungeon Map. These new abilities seemed incredibly useful, but there wasn't much use to it if he ended up becoming somehow consumed by the space directly around him.

Or even worse, if he suddenly became fully obsessed with his own physical body.

That being the case, there was still something Eiro had to deal with. For the time being, as the incarnation would continue looking through the library, the real body had to get to work. Bit by bit, he would have to get used to his new speed as he made his way to his bedroom to head to sleep.

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