Chronicles of the True Wizard

Felix sat down and meditated in front of the book then slowly felt out his soul. Once he was ready, he reached out and looked towards the book's soul. He had never tried to look at or feel another being's soul before. He expected to find something similar to his own but slightly more bookish. Instead, he found that he couldn't map the book's soul at all but he could sense it's values or beliefs. He also understood what the book meant when it said there wasn't a perfect word or translation.

He could feel the fundamental beliefs, ideals and laws that governed the book as a sentient being. Things that made the book an individual and gave it personality. Before he wasn't even sure it had a personality, now he thought it might be the most complex and human thing he had ever encountered. Out of curiosity he tried to sense his own convictions but didn't come up with anything.

Looking back towards the book, he didn't feel any ill intent at all. He felt something along the lines of protect, nurture and uphold among a slew of other more mundane things he didn't bother trying to classify. As impressive as the feel of it's soul was, Felix still wasn't ready to bond his soul to it. Instead he stood up and opened the book and wrote the following: "I understand now. I am not ready to bond souls though."

"I understand, think about it please."

"In the meantime, I can't seem to place you in my inventory and I don't love strapping you to my chest. Is it possible for you to let me stow you in my inventory?"

"It is, but I won't do that. I can however follow you or hide on a shelf. I will need you to provide me with mana though."

"How much mana?"

"Not a huge amount? I'm not familiar with how you measure quantities of mana unfortunately. I can't hold much mana on my own though, which is one of the reasons I wish to soul-bond."

"You ate the books I gave you, can you still access them?"

"No, I destroyed those. I could have kept them whole, but learning your languages would have been much slower."

Felix pulled out a mana battery and held it out in front of the book, "How about this? Could you use this to store more mana?"

"Yeah I definitely could, feed it to me the same way."

Felix fed the battery to the book and then pulled out 8 more and fed them as well, leaving him with 25 batteries for himself.

"Woah, that was more than I was expecting, thank you. These are simple but very impressive and well made."

"Thanks, I stole them. Sort of."

"Oh lovely, (only sort of sarcastic). Would you rather I hide or follow you?"

"I'm not leaving you here, you are too interesting and potentially catastrophic."

"If I had eyes, they would be gleaming. I'm both touched and disturbed at how accurate that statement was."

Uh… what?

The book then rose off the bed and hovered in the air, it immediately fell to one side as Felix had it open to the first page, making it unbalanced. The book righted itself then opened to a page in the middle to maintain balance. The book then hovered to be just in front of Felix.

Not bad, I still don't want this thing being identified though.

Felix reached forwards with his quill and wrote, "Unfortunately I'd rather you not be identified in public as I suspect you would be a little too disturbing for most."

After almost a minute of no response the book wrote, "Is that another skill?"

"Yeah, one that everyone has."

"I'm going to need more information so I can disguise myself."

Felix though about it for a second before he took off his mask and held it in front of the book. He wrote, "This mask changes what people see when they use the skill on me and also makes me less noticeable in public, does that help? I couldn't tell you how identify works."

"One moment please. Could you identify me?"

[? - ???] ??????

??? ??? ???.

"Thank you."

Felix waited for almost five minutes before the book continued.

"Okay, identify me now."

[E - Common] French Dictionary

A book that contains the words and corresponding definitions that make up the French language.

"How'd you do that?"

"Magic?"

"Fair. I'm not sure people will believe that with your cover and binding though."

"Good point, most people should see the cover of a French Dictionary though when they look at me. You know what I am, so you see me normally. It's not a great illusion but I have an inkling it will suffice."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

I really should test this first.

Felix replaced his mask and enabled it then walked down the tower to the lobby. He made sure to shuffle his disguise and this time he set the level to 32. As he got there, he heard voices coming from a few hundred meters away just outside the door.

The hell?

Felix opened the door just a crack and peered through. On the stairs, he saw a large group of people carrying furniture led by Amelia.

Oh shit. I guess that works.

Felix fully opened the door and cast a few spells to lighten the load. Even though none of them appeared to be struggling thanks to their stats, he still felt bad they had to carry it all the way up the stairs. Felix quickly placed his hand under the book so it didn't appear to be floating then Amelia arrived at the top first and approached Felix, "Hello, I am Amelia. I have arrived to deliver furniture for Felix?"

Oh right the mask.

"What book am I reading?"

"Uh, a French Dictionary it looks like?" Amelia said taken aback.

"Perfect, thanks. You know better than he where the furniture goes, feel free to come and go." Felix said then bowed, he wasn't sure why but it felt kind of right. Then he walked out the door and jumped down the mountain so he didn't have to squeeze by the people carrying furniture.

Felix half expected the book to write out ‘I told you so' but it didn't say anything. As he jumped down Felix stopped quickly to write, "That is pretty cool. I'm impressed."

"Thanks."

Felix continued on to the main street to hit as many restaurants as he could before his appointment in an hour or so. He quickly bought and devoured food from all of the restaurants and stands whose smells had enticed him a few days ago. He had dishes of exotic spiced meats, delicious fruits and even sushi. Apparently the fish had originally been sourced from the river to the south, but now there were fishing boats over at the docks which let them really ramp up. Once he was finished, he headed straight for his appointment. He was going to be slightly early, but he was fine with just hanging out until then.

He arrived at The Vault of Secrets and consulted his map to find the correct room. It turned out he was about 15 minutes early so he turned to his floating book and wrote, "Do you have a name? I'd prefer to stop referring to you as book in my head. It makes thoughts like ‘I fed books to the book' a little odd"

"I don't have that kind of name, no. In the past I was referred to by my use, kind of like calling your local fireman ‘the fireman'"

"Are there any names you are fond of?"

"I'm pretty sure most of the names I could come up with would be in another language that you can't even speak, or copied straight from a fairy tale. How about you throw out names, and I'll rate them, then we pick the best one?"

"Alright, you are a book, a tome. How about Tom?"

"Meh, not awful, not great."

"Fair. What about Brock? Similar logic."

"Nope, I don't like the taste of that word."

"The taste?"

"Being a book, I have some weird senses."

"The cube you came out of was Arcane rarity, what about Archie?"

"Seems a little too cute for my liking."

"We could just pick a random name, like Robert or something?"

"We could, as a fallback. I'm rather fond of this word play though. It satisfies me in novel ways."

"You know you don't have to emphasize the puns, I am seeing them."

"Yeah but there's a chance you don't and that would be hugely disappointing. I don't think I know a single other language that contains quite the same overlap of words to allow for these ‘puns.' Everything other language I know is clean and efficient, nothing sounded too similar or was written too similarly so things were legible and decipherable even with messy hand writing. Some words had multiple meanings but they were intentional and never really humorous."

"That sounds very pragmatic. I want to learn these languages some time. Especially the one you started with when I first opened you, that was cool."

"Ask me about it some other time and we can see about that."

"Sure. What else are you? You are a book, you know spells and can use mana. You have a soul with ideals or convictions. What do you see yourself as?"

"A grimoire of forbidden secrets? A vault of taboo knowledge? The keeper of nightmares?"

"That is a little concerning. How about Grim? You are a grimoire and those are all rather grim sounding titles."

"Ooh I like that one, it has multiple meanings. This language is so dumb, I love it."

"Yeah it's not the most efficient. Welcome to The Vault of Secrets, Grim."

"Thanks, Felix."

"I think it's time for my class now, I'll talk to you in a bit."

Felix headed to the designated room and sat at the back of the room. It was just a couple minutes from noon and there were a handful of other people in the room as well. The second his tutorial countdown indicated it was noon, the professor walked in from the door next to the small stage at the front. The professor walked right up to the middle of the stage and scanned the room, smiling.

[E - Common] Human (Lvl 32)

[E - Uncommon] Professor (Lvl 34)

[E - Uncommon] Mathematician (Lvl 29)

"Welcome, my name is Charles and this is ‘The Wonders of Math.' Is there any topic in particular that anyone would like discussed? There is no curriculum so to speak and there aren't enough people that I need to structure things so rigidly."

A couple people raised their hands, having clearly come with questions prepared ahead of time. The questions ranged from high-school level all the way to what Felix assumed was very high level math. Some had clear value to shopkeepers and merchants, other's seemed to be entirely theoretical. Some people had multiple questions and others left after obtaining the specific answer they were seeking. Felix sat through the whole class but didn't ask any questions himself.

While the class proceeded and Charles was answering the class' questions, Felix quickly entered a meditation and tried to sense Charles' soul. He didn't think Charles had any ill intent, he just wanted to test out soul sight and be able to compare other's to what he saw in Grim. It took him a handful of minutes to sift through the other souls in the room, but eventually he found what he was certain was Charles'.

He sensed dedication, learn and teach from his soul, not as rigidly as in Grim's soul but they were all obviously there. He also realized Grim's convictions seemed unnatural where Charles' seemed to be a part of him. He figured he would ask about it some other time and returned to reality then waited out the rest of the class. In total, the class lasted just under an hour by which time everyone else had left, most just after their questions were answered. Just as Felix was standing to leave the room, he was interrupted.

"You didn't have any questions yourself? I think we still have enough time for one more?" Charles addressed Felix and stopped him as everyone else left, leaving them the last two people in the room.

"No thank you. I just enjoy math."

Charles eyes beamed at that, "Me too."

"I remember seeing you in the math section of the library at, what seemed like, every hour. Now you're a professor and your level is much higher."

"Ah, I got some good advice to look towards the pacifist option and managed to pick up a second profession instead of a class. The town administrator asked if I wanted to be a professor and well, I loved my job back on earth so how could I say no."

"I'm glad things seem to have worked out. Why is your class the cheapest one by the way?"

"It's just enough for me to live off of. After today's stellar turnout I'll have to lower the price. The town administrator provided me with an apartment to live in so all I need to cover is food, occasionally clothes, paper and the laundromat. Plus charging any more than necessary is… well, unnecessary. I love teaching, so why would I make it harder for students to learn by gating my class behind a high price?"

"That's rather inspiring, professor. Thank you for the class and candor."

"Of course. Thank you for attending and sharing in my enthusiasm for math."

Felix left the room and headed back up to his tower. The stairs were empty and this point so Felix assumed they had finished moving things in. He opened the doors, unsure what to expect, but found the lobby as bare as he had left it. He continued up to the next floor which was as he left it as well, though he only walked through the main feast hall. . . . . .