I left Kai in the library and made sure I was seen walking up to our room, obviously upset. I had a lot to prepare and only a few hours to do it. Even though I had thought about this plan before today, I wished I would never have to make it happen. I would have much preferred to be allowed access to the glass chamber and to read the book with the trust of the monks, but nothing had ever been easy for us so far.

I entered our room and locked the door. I wasn’t planning to stay in here, but I wanted to make sure nobody entered while I was downstairs in our chest making preparations. I left the chest open so that I would be able to hear if anyone knocked on the room’s wooden door and climbed down the stairs to our home. I moved to the big wooden table we used for reading, took some paper, and started writing down everything I knew that could potentially play a role in my plan.

If I was to start any funny business with the glass chamber and the books within, I had to do it while nobody was looking. This meant it had to be done right after dinner.

During our days in the monastery, I had seen how much the monk-priests valued their daily routine. Once the bell rang five times, signaling everyone that dinner was ready, they all abandoned whatever they were doing, and headed for their last meal of the day before retreating to their quarters. Almost all of the days we spent in the monastery, we had our dinner and returned to the library, but none of the monk-priests ever returned to resume their studies in the evening.

Galad, on the other hand, sometimes came back to the library—at first to check on us, but later only if he had forgotten a book. He seemed to be very confident of the alarms he had set in the glass chamber.

This meant that I needed to act on my plan right after everyone had left the library to go to dinner. However, in order to be sure that Galad would not walk in on me, or be alarmed by his triggers, someone needed to keep an eye on him and let me know if he was going to come. That would need to be Kai.

He had spent many hours talking with Galad about the books he read and almost every time, I had to pull Kai out of their conversations so he would grab something to eat. Kai would be more than able to distract him.

As a means of alarm, should Galad decide to visit the library before I was done, I thought of a pair of stones we sometimes used if we wanted to make warm water.

Item : Stones of Warmth

Type : Magic Item

Durability : 50/50

Grade : E Grade

Weight : 20st.

Description : A pair of stones that are connected to each other. Once one of them is activated by pressing three fingers on it, both of them instantly become hot to the touch.

Having a stone that would instantly adopt a temperature slightly higher that the human body would serve as a great notifying tool for me in this case. If Kai was unable to distract Galad long enough, he would just have to press his stone and I would immediately feel mine become warm. Without further thought, I picked up the two stones and put them in the pocket of my robes.

The most difficult part of my plan, however, was working around the alarms the monk-priests had set up on the glass chamber. Galad had informed us that should one of the books exit the room, he would instantly know and teleport there.

The way this kind of spell worked was that once a specific condition occurred, a trigger would be activated, sending a command or message somewhere. This indicated that some kind of mana trace would have to travel to him once a book left the glass room.

A traveling mana trace could be countered by utilizing an inverted magic-reflective sphere around the room. However, this was not necessarily the best option by any means.

Name : Magic Reflection Wall

School of Magic : Abjuration

Verbal Components : 128 words

Somatic Components : Complex

Material Component : 1x Glass Crystal

HP Consumed : 0

MP Consumed : 0

Divine Mana Consumed : 72,000

Range : 700 inches

Casting Time : 300 seconds

Precondition : None.

Description : A weave of divine mana that is able to reflect any incoming spell that is using the same kind of mana. This wall will not reflect physical objects but only the magical forces that might be propelling them forward or protecting them.

Magic-reflecting spells were usually weaved as walls around items or individuals. These walls would send any spell that fell on them back toward the caster, in the same way a mirror would reflect light. They were complex spells but nothing I wasn’t able to create.

Inverting the spell would just mean the reflective surface of the wall would be on the opposite side—to keep the mana in, rather than out—which of course was pretty simple to do. But weaving the wall in a way that it closed securely into a sphere, without leaving any space open for magic trying to escape, would be a challenge in itself. Making a perfect sphere while also inverting the reflectiveness would probably be the most difficult spell I would have ever tried.

Apart from the sheer complexity of the casting, there was also the issue of how recognizable the spell would be. I would definitely not be able to add another layer to the combination so it would not be easily identified if anyone tried to find it.

The best I could do to cover my traces would be to try to make the bubble at least invisible to the naked eye after I managed to set it up, but before I activated it.

Name : Spell Camouflage

School of Magic : Illusion

Verbal Components : 64 words

Somatic Components : Complex

Material Component : 5oz. orichalcum

HP Consumed : 0

MP Consumed : 0

Divine Mana Consumed : 212,000

Range : 700 inches

Casting Time : 60 seconds

Precondition : None.

Description : Certain spells are visible to the naked eye, be it continuously or when interacted with. This spell will make sure that any magic effect will produce no magical glow or even be visible to the naked eye. However, this spell will not hide said magical effects from magic vision or spells that reveal mana patterns.

Camouflaging persisting spells that cover whole areas required the spell to be blended with any it was counteracting, otherwise the solution would just be like using fresh dirt to cover something you hastily threw away. An eager eye would immediately find out.

Even if nobody saw the poor work I did in hiding the reflective sphere, they would immediately find out if they were to cast a spell in it. If Galad tried to teleport himself, or anyone of the monk-priests, outside of the glass chamber, they would find out. If someone looked for the book itself, or Galad merely glanced at the bookcases, they would find out.

No, it was not a viable solution. I had to do it in a way that nobody would notice.

I remembered a story Kai once told me of his favorite hero, Magaer—The best thief is the one who steals nothing. In that tale, a young Magaer was trying to retrieve a precious gem from a dragon who refused to sell it. Magaer wasn’t going to quit and decided he would steal the gem instead. But he knew that if the dragon found out, he would be in serious trouble.

For this reason, he took an ordinary stone and cast a permanent illusion spell on it so that it appeared exactly like the gem he wanted. He then made his way into the dragon’s lair, avoided the many traps laid there, and replaced the gem with the stone he had cast the spell on. The dragon would never know the difference as he would never use the gem for anything, and Magaer was successful yet again.

That’s what I needed to do. But I didn’t actually need the book at all. I just wanted the information it contained, and so I would only need to somehow copy the book, without entering the chamber. Teleporting in was only available to Galad, so this option was out of the question. However, I had dared to carry out some experiments in the first few days after our arrival in the monastery.

I brought a grain of salt with me from the dining room and successfully teleported it inside the glass chamber. I did not expect any opposition there, but I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to take it out, especially without sounding any of the alarms. To my surprise and relief, I teleported the grain of salt back out of the forbidden room and nobody realized anything.

While this didn’t make any difference to our end goal, it provided me with a lot of valuable information. I could teleport inanimate things in and out of the room. I was sure that teleporting any of the books already in there would either not be possible or it would notify the librarian of the act. For this reason, I had to find something to teleport in and take the information that I needed out of the book. The best spell I could think of was relatively simple, but required some delicate handling.