Antor was very surprised when Rey took out the atanit daggers from his bag. They were in fairly good condition, but if you looked closely, you could see small notches that covered the surface of the blades.

But when the armor appeared, the blacksmith's eyes opened wide. Without waiting for permission, he pulled his hands forward, literally tearing the armor off the guy. He, in general, did not mind, because he vaguely guessed how valuable she was, especially in the eyes of a person of such a profession.

“Armor of the Mooncaller…” Rei heard this name for the second time. But, like Griham, the blacksmith said no more.

Antor carefully examined the armor. She was in a much more deplorable state than the weapon, which was made of a stronger material. Most of the damage was scratches and even quite deep, but the biggest was the acid mark on the lower back. He went through about three-quarters of the thickness of the armor and looked rather dangerous. It was on this damage that the keen eye of the blacksmith lingered.

"What did you do to piss him off like that?" the man asked with slight reproach.

The question was more of a rhetorical one, but Rey remembered the day the armor was damaged very well.

- Acid worm. – with obvious disgust barked guy. - For the first time I met these creatures, but, as you can see, they hit me only once, I did not repeat the same mistake twice.

The creature was very dangerous. Moved underground and attacked with a spit of strong acid, the result of which Antor was now observing. When the worm attacked him, Rei was ready and dodged the monster's first spit, which was as thick as a grown man's thigh. But then he had no idea that the worm had two heads, which is exactly why he was stabbed in the back.

Unfortunately, those present did not seem to know which animal the guy meant, but he was not going to say anything more about it. Now he was worried about another question:

- Can you repair the armor?

The blacksmith frowned. For a while, he fiddled with the armor in his hands, squeezing different places, but mostly he paid attention to the acid burn. After a few minutes, he shook his head in disappointment.

- I don't even have atanite to replace the damaged inserts, let alone Gilfar's skin. I could cover them with strong leather, but...

The words he heard did not disappoint Ray too much, because he was ready for the fact that the armor would not be completely restored. But here's what the blacksmith said, he did not let past his ears.

- That is, you just need an atanit?

Antor looked at him, and then looked at the daggers.

“I'm sorry man, but there aren't enough of them.

- I have one-piece armor, I'm sure it will be enough.

The blacksmith's eyes widened once more, then lit up brightly.

“If you are willing to sell the rest of the materials, I will pay a fair price for them.

Ray only nodded at this proposal, which made the blacksmith very happy. He grabbed his hand and did not stop shaking it, while he assured that he would personally do the work, not allowing the assistants to even look in the direction of the armor. The guy didn't care much. Anyway, he was going to give Antor the armor, which did not fit him, so the extra way to earn money did not interfere with him.

- How long will the repair take? he asked as he pulled his hand out of the blacksmith's grip with difficulty.

He was silent for a few seconds, thinking about something and finally said that it would not take long to remove part of the armor and attach it to another, which means that by the evening the work would be ready. After that, taking one of the armor, for which Ray had to return to the room for the sake of appearance, gilfar armor and several daggers, he left, promising the guy to bring a few more bundles of the best arrows, as he asked.

It seems that the blacksmith really was an important figure, because Lifina personally escorted him to the gate. They were talking about something, but unfortunately, in human form, Rei couldn't hear anything.

- Antor is the only blacksmith in the city who can work with atanit. You are very lucky guy, because he does not take orders from commoners. Griham decided to remark when the blacksmith left. For this, he received only a reproachful look from Lifina, so he hastened to apologize, again to her.

Ray didn't care about the circus. After dryly thanking the minister, he was about to leave for the manor when he remembered that she could help him with one thing.

- I'm sorry to bother you, but could you tell me where the library is in the city?

The woman, perhaps surprised, did not show it in any way, immediately answering:

- Books are a very valuable thing and the only library is located in the palace, however, you may be interested in my personal collection.

The guy was a little surprised by this, but after a little thought, he realized that here the books were most likely written by hand, which was too surprising for him.

Lifina's collection was quite large by the standards of this world - no less than a couple of thousand books, which, as Rei expected, turned out to be handwritten.

- Are you looking for something specific? asked the minister standing next to him. She personally led him to this wing of the building, because it was closed to servants and ordinary guests.

- It is hard to say. I know what I'm looking for, but I can't explain it.

The answer was very strange, but he satisfied the woman, because she did not notice the lies in the guy's words.

- In any case, you can stay here as long as you want. All books are sorted by subject, I hope this will make your search easier. - Dropped Lifina, after which she left.

Ray, on the other hand, spent the next four hours in the library. Here he really ran into the problem of reading a foreign language, but since he only skimmed through the descriptions of books, and even then not all of them, the browsing did not take so much time. Fortunately, they really were sorted, otherwise it could take more than one day.

All the time while the guy was in the library, his face was gloomy. The thing was, he didn't find what he was looking for. Not even a distant mention. Nothing at all.

Rey wasn't lying when he told Leafina that he didn't quite understand what he was looking for. The fact was that the word describing the phenomenon he was looking for was not in any of the two languages ​​of this world that he had already managed to learn. And to describe it, not understanding clearly what exactly you are talking about, was quite difficult. Tessa, for example, could not understand him even when he gave an example.

Magic.

Neither the Pharos nor the people used this word. It was not at all in their vocabulary, because they simply did not have such a thing as “magic”. They took skills for granted, and apart from them there was simply nothing that stood out. At all.

And Ray would have thought so too, because he himself had not seen anything that could be called magic either in the capital or in the city of the people of the forest. He could not consider his own example as indicative, because his ability to transform was innate and he could not classify it as magic. More precisely, he had no idea whether she was or not.

But the problem was that Rey could still see the magic. And not once. He could watch her so often that he already hated her.

The guy put the book on the shelf. She was the last of those in which there could be at least something, but, unfortunately, it turned out not to be so.

The boy clenched his fists tightly. And not only because the search did not bring results, but also because this activity awakened in him memories that were far from the most pleasant, but because of the damn memory, they were also very clear.

It was as if Rey saw his legs and arms burn again in the blue flame created by his tormentor, heard the bones crack, slowly but inexorably turning into ashes. And turning his head to the side, he even froze for a moment, imagining the indifferent eyes of a creature that did not react in any way to the heart-rending scream that escaped from his throat many, countless times ...

It took some time before the guy came to his senses. After that, he, having suppressed hatred and anger, finally unclenched his whitened fists and continued his thoughts. That creature in the forest could create fire from nothing, but the most amazing thing was not this ability, no. What amazed Ray the most was the healing. Any injury, even one that is quite considered fatal, disappeared under the influence of the monster's magic like an obsession. Lost limbs regrow right before my eyes, torn skin covering bare muscles like a tidal wave. Once, in a matter of seconds, that creature restored even the completely missing lower jaw ...

But even this magic brought agony. Feeling when your own bones, muscles and nerve endings grow in a matter of moments was no less painful than when they disappear. At such moments, Rey, resigned to his fate, only regretted that he had stopped losing consciousness and that this useless body belonged to him ...