Chương 113: Chapter 107: Overly Cautious Mage

Lira opened the book between herself and Lyth and began quickly reading through the first page. The book was essentially a catalogue of useful spells, explaining what each one did and how it could be used. It started with fire magic, beginning with a simple cantrip for lighting candles, followed by another for warming water.

There was a spell for heating cloth, useful for warming clothes and blankets, and another for melting metal, although the author included a warning that the spell was surprisingly mana-intensive for a cantrip. There was even a cantrip designed to dispose of paper by creating a flame that would only burn paper while leaving everything else untouched. Lira found herself becoming increasingly interested as she read.

The book wasn't teaching her anything she could immediately use, since it didn't include the incantations, but some of these spells were incredibly practical, and others gave her ideas for spells she could potentially create herself. Still, it was frustrating that the actual incantations weren't included. I suppose I can't have everything. Lira glanced toward Lyth. The prince was already absorbed in the pages, happily reading through the descriptions himself. That gave her an idea.

If she pretended that she wasn't particularly interested in the book, she could let Lyth continue reading on his own and use the opportunity to search for something even more useful. The only problem was that she needed to whisper her incantations while remaining close enough to Lyth for the enchanted bookmark to conceal her magic, but far enough away that neither he nor Sir Henry could hear her.

Fortunately, the sound-dampening field gave her some room to work with, as sound slowly dampened the further it traveled. She lowered her eyes toward the book and began quietly humming to herself, carefully slipping the incantation between the sounds.

"Hmm... fire magic... hmm... restricted burn... hmm... sustained casting... hmm... Pika... hmm... Linasara... hmm... Cognar... hmm... Coopar... hmm... Nagla... hmm..." Lira blinked. Then she continued humming. A flood of information suddenly filled her mind. Thousands of spell descriptions appeared in her memory, covering far more than fire magic. There were spells for water, air, cleaning, and even dressing.

There were spells for heating and cooling food, repairing damaged objects, helping plants grow, digging holes, preserving materials, and other construction spells. There had to be more than a thousand spell descriptions in the book. Lira sat perfectly still, staring down at the pages as she processed the sheer amount of information. Some of the spells were incredibly niche, but even those had their uses. Most of them were absurdly practical. There was apparently a spell that accelerated the decay of waste.

Then why are footmen still digging out new outhouses? She couldn't understand it. Magic was apparently capable of solving an astonishing number of mundane problems, yet most people seemed to use it only for a handful of basic applications. Lira's thoughts drifted toward the restrictions placed on magical knowledge. She understood why higher-tier spells were dangerous. More powerful spells created greater mana disturbances, and those disturbances could have serious consequences.

But most cantrips stabilized within seconds. Why were those spells restricted? She couldn't help wondering whether other kingdoms handled magical propagation differently. Lira shook her head. That was beside the point. She needed to focus on the task at hand. She glanced around to make sure neither Lyth nor Sir Henry had noticed anything unusual before beginning another spell in the same manner, disguising the incantation beneath quiet humming.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Hmm... freezing water... hmm... preserving produce... hmm... temperature... hmm... Ladar... hmm... Linasara... hmm... Oshkan... hmm... Cognar... hmm... Turat... hmm..." As every book in the library lit up to her magical senses, she focused her request specifically on a book that could help her create a healing spell. The response was immediate. Lira's eyes widened as only a single book lit up.

Unlike the divination she had performed in her own library, where all the books related to medicine had responded to the request, this time there was a single book that answered her question. There you are. Unfortunately, that created another problem. Her Book Divination spell didn't tell her the name of the book. It only highlighted it to her senses. She needed to keep the spell active while searching for it. But she couldn't do that while remaining inside the magical obfuscation space surrounding Lyth.

If she left the area protected by his bookmark, she would become visible to magical perception. Lira frowned. That meant she needed to activate her own bookmark. She began quietly humming again, carefully slipping the necessary words into the melody.

"Kisar... Maja... Tureth... Tarasana... Kurur..." She paused for a moment before continuing.

"Kisar... Maja... Veshar... Tarasana... Kurur..." It took several minutes of carefully hiding magical words between meaningless humming, but eventually she felt the familiar response as her Mana Obfuscation enchantment activated, followed by the Mana Stabilization enchantment. Lira carefully stood.

"Where are you going, Miss Lira?" Lyth asked.

"I think I'll go find some books that I could bring back to the Royal Library."

"Like what?"

"Let's see... The books on health and healing are pretty outdated, so I should probably start there."

"Want me to come with you?"

"No, no. Keep reading. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Okay." Lira smiled before walking away. The moment she left the blue-carpeted section, she headed toward another empty sound-dampened table and activated Mana Sight.

"Pika. Maja. Syneth." The world around her changed, and mana became visible, flowing through the library in countless overlapping patterns. Then Lira noticed something immediately. The space around her was hazy with mana disturbances. It must be caused by the sound-dampening field enchantment. However, the area immediately surrounding her was protected by her own enchantments and thus was remarkably clear. She carefully stepped away from the sound-dampening field.

A trail of clean mana followed her for several steps before slowly becoming hazy with magical disturbances once again. Lira gulped. Hopefully no one saw that. She slowly turned toward Lyth. The prince was sitting inside a bubble of perfectly clean mana, surrounded on every side by the hazy magical atmosphere of the quieting enchantment. Lira stared at him. Ah, shit. That's incredibly obvious. What was she supposed to do about that? She considered walking over and destroying the enchantment with her ink magic spell.

But that would mean she couldn't continue using magic. No. It was better to leave it alone. If anyone noticed the strange magical effect surrounding the prince, she could simply hope they assumed it was some kind of personal defensive enchantment. After all, a prince possessing magical protection wasn't particularly unusual. As for herself, all she needed to do was avoid stepping into areas where the mana disturbances were particularly thick.

With that in mind, Lira began walking toward the medicine section, carefully avoiding the areas where she could see heating runes, light runes, and other unknown enchantments contributing to the magical disturbance. Eventually, she reached the correct section. Her Divination spell immediately drew her attention toward one particular shelf. Instead of climbing up to retrieve the book herself, Lira walked toward the nearest chained catalogue.

She worked backward from the book's position, checking the shelf number and section until she was finally able to determine its title. The Truth Untold: Life Within Life, by Tony Vanly. Lira committed the name to memory. Being overly cautious, she then searched the catalogue for four more books. Two were standard works on humor theory, another was a collection of herbalist recipes, and the last was a physician's memoir. Five books in total.

That should give her enough material to work with while also covering the book she was really interested in. Lira headed toward the nearest library assistant and politely asked for all five books to be retrieved. Once that was taken care of, she started walking back toward Lyth. As she approached the blue-carpeted section, she quietly cast the Book Absorption Spell once more.

"Pika. Linasara. Cognar. Coopar. Nagla." Lira's eyes widened as knowledge flooded into her mind. She stood there for a moment, absorbing the sheer amount of information contained within the book. But one realization stood above all the others. This wasn't merely an interesting theory. Just like what she had done with sound magic, this was something she could actually reproduce. Lira's pulse quickened. She might finally have found the missing pieces she needed to create a healing spell.