Now, it was time to go on to my next destination.

Before leaving, I quickly double-checked the Stealth Runes which I had laid down around Anna. When at full strength, they could hide her from even Arre unless he were to descend, and gods didn't tend to use Descent unless it was absolutely necessary.

After I made sure that everything was fine, I reactivated my own Stealth Runes and jumped into the air, flapping my massive wings.

A small adjustment was required to aim towards the huge tower, which was surprisingly close to the castle.

The huge spire had a lot of smaller buildings located at its base, but I knew that they had nothing interesting in them. Sitting at the top of the tower was a massive crystal, which had many small glowing Runes orbiting around it.

Strangely though, the glow of both the Crystal and the Runes were only visible to Magi, or other Magic sensitive people.

This tower was known as the Great Library and it was one of the most important things in the Human Magic Academy, and I had never managed to completely explore it back when I was a Hero.

I didn't have the time, because back then I preferred to learn melee combat.

There were very powerful Wards protecting the tower, being projected from the crystal.

They were very easy to slip past and I didn't even need to use spells.

Which was because while I was an ex-Hero, my genetics had been fixed and I got the Hero Unique Skill 'Slip' back.

After a long time, I had the inbuilt skills and capabilities of a Divinely crafted body again.

Passing through the Wards was as easy as I had expected, and I entered through a window on the top floor of the tower, and what met my eyes was heaven, row after row of books.

The books ranged from simple Magical Theory all the way up to advanced level seven Magic. There were, however, no Ancient or Taboo Magic books on this floor.

I already knew that most of the fun Magic would be locked deep in the basement of the tower.

Smiling happily, I started to generate Space Runes.

Spatial Magic is a very rare Magic that I had learned from the same tome which had resulted in Master's death.

This tome was known as the 'Dead God's Shard', it was the physical manifestation of a shard of a Dead God's power, and its Domain, that had been processed by a very famous necromancer, the Dead God's arch Priest.

However, this tome was also known as the Soul-Stealing Book.

The tome was filled with a lot of unknown Soul and Spatial Magic. These two Magics were the core of the Dead God's Domains. That's right, this god was stronger than a Younger God, with more than one domain.

He was an incredibly knowledgeable and powerful god, his spells were unlike anything that even Master had seen or heard of.

The spell that I was casting was a Spatial Magic that I had copied from the book and then modified, it was a simplified version of the long lost spell 'Perdition Space'.

The original spell, the true 'Perdition Space' was used to create an alternate space. A Perdition as it were, a hellscape which was used to imprison the spell's target.

While most alternate dimensions generated by Spatial Magic wouldn't allow living creatures to enter them, like my modified version, the original could do this.

Of course, I didn't require the full 'Perdition', just a small alternate dimension which I would use for the books.

My modified spell copied the entire target's space, all of the nonliving items were perfectly replicated, whether I, myself, knew the contents or not.

It was perfect for replicating books and leaving no evidence, but since it was weakened and modified, it couldn't absorb or copy living organisms. The copy function was a creation of mine.

The Magic encompassed the entire floor and replicated it into my 'Perdition' Dimensional Space.

Once the spell was completed, I left the room and found a staircase and started down it. As I walked down the stairs, I considered my situation. I would probably have around half an hour before the church became properly mobilized.

The next wave of the Human army would set out with the church's soldiers.

All of the Mages in the Academy, other than the apprentices, had already been called away to the Church. Said apprentices were probably all hiding in their rooms in the dorm.

Floor by floor I slowly descended, using my Magic, causing my new stash of knowledge and entertainment to rapidly increase in size. I couldn't wait to read them all.

Finally, I got to the lowest level of the tower, the Wards here were so powerful that the air itself seemed to solidify and freeze.

Slipping these would be difficult if I only used 'Slip'.

Anna's Soul Skill wouldn't have been bothered at all.

There were even Divine Magic Wards which had been laid by the Church, the casters would have to be at the Cardinal or Archbishop rank. Maybe even the Pope had laid some of them.

This was a little strange.

What could they be hiding here?

Maybe this room contained the reason that I was here, whatever the strange girl had said I could use against that bastard Arre.

 

As I observed the Wards, I had already started to formulate the Counter Runes, but my lack of foundations in Arcane Magic was an annoyance. The lack of knowledge of the Magic would have made it more irritating if I had tried to do this a year ago, or even a few months ago.

Ironically, it would have been more difficult if the Wards had been constructed from lower level spells.

Luckily, these were high level wards, Level-eight or nine, in the case of the ones laid by the Pope, so they didn't require me to have a strong foundation.

Because of how Master had trained me, most of my knowledge was specialized towards high level Magic, and Ancient and Forbidden Magic, of course.

Reinforcing my need to catch up on the earlier levels of Magic, those of level five and below.

Ironically, most Mages couldn't wield Magic higher than level five, even people who were classified as Archmages might only know one level five spell.

That's why most of the theory books that could be easily accessed only went up to the Journeyman grade, or level three in other words.

Level one was first through third year students, level two fourth or fifth year students, level three was journeyman, level four master, level five Archmage, level six Guildmaster, level seven was unheard of in Arcane Magic, but Archbishops could use the Divine Magic equivalent, level eight was for Cardinals, and the Pope had one level nine spell.

To be classified as a Shureen, the person had to be able to use level nine and ten Runic, Glyphic, or Sigil Magic chantless. As well as being able to use Ungraded and Ancient Magic.

It took almost half of my new Mana pool before I had countered or destroyed the very last Divine and Soul Wards. The rest were simple, weak, Arcane Wards which I could use 'Slip' on.

I finally had access to the basement room, to the hundreds of books which all gave off an aura of danger.

It intrigued me.

They were all incredible, and all mine...

As I cast the spell to copy the entire room, I felt a resistance to my spell. Looking around again, I couldn't see or sense any living entities. One of the walls looked odd though, so I inspected it again, more closely this time.

If I squinted and looked through the corner of my eye, I could see the outlines of a strange door, which shimmered in and out of existence.

Quickly excluding the door, I copied everything else, then very cautiously walked over to the phantom door. As I got closer, the door became clearer and clearer.

It was covered in Runes that I had never seen before, as well as pitch-black, and incredibly ominous, chains.

The sealing was beyond anything I had ever seen, it could possibly even be used to contain a demigod.

I quickly copied all of the Runes that I didn't recognize into my special notebook.

The thick black chains and Blood Runes--which looked strangely bright and fresh--were the Magic that I could figure out. But there also seemed to be some kind of Temporal Magic, Magic that I didn't know existed, also applied to it.

My skin started to itch as I got closer.

Whatever was sealed in here was obviously something that both the Mages and the Church thought was incredibly dangerous. It could either be a calamity or a lucky chance for me, I was intrigued.

It has been a very long time since I last encountered something truly dangerous.

Fascinating.

Where did the Humans learn Magic of this calibre?

Or was some of the sealing Magic created by Arre himself?

I could feel the gathered presences of the army getting ready to move, if I was correct in my judgment. Each individual presence was incredibly weak, the strongest wasn't much greater than a high-grade Paladin.

Of course, to any Human city or army, this was still an unbeatable army.

To me...not so much.

Only someone of the Cardinal rank--only five of which were currently active in the Church--could directly channel Arre, or be consumed in the use of Arre's Descent.

Only that could threaten me.

I had left unavoidable traces when I had broken into the basement, traces that an experienced Diviner could find and follow. But this was the only way that I could enter this room, so in my opinion, it was worth it.

However, to break through this chained, sealed, and phantasmal door, I would need to use spells which were incredibly powerful and high level, Ungraded even.

I prepared a Magic Incantation that I had found in the Dead God's Shard.

The Runes on this page were powerful enough that they required the use of six Soul Stones set up into a specialized array before I could even unseal the page for the first time, and even then the Runes had almost killed me when I had just looked at them.

This time, however, I was prepared.

It would still probably be painful though.

Even with my increased, and much purer, Mana, I would still need assistance.

So, I, reluctantly, took out my special Soul Stone.

To cast the spell that I was planning, I had to channel most of the Mana and Soul cost of the spell through the stone. It was the only way that I could hope to cast the spell, otherwise it would require a few hundred Archmage level casters, and even then, it would result in most of them dying with their souls ripped out.

Alongside the massive Soul cost, this spell also required insane amounts of Mana.

After I completed casting the spell, it would take a minimum of half a day for my Mana to recharge, but the Soul Stone had the capacity to cover around ninety nine percent of the Mana and Soul Cost.

This was especially vital to the completion of the spell, since I could convert the excess Souls in the stone into pure Mana.

The Runes of the spell started to circle me.

While casting, I had to keep my eyes shut so that I wouldn't be affected by the spell.

Light that wasn't light began to flash blindingly.

As the spell was beginning to build in power, almost ready to be released, I suddenly heard a strange creak.

Shocked, I paused the spell and opened my eyes.