Once he reached the doorway of the third floor, Regis found himself staring at the familiar barrier enchantment barring his way as the ones before. ‘Time to get cracking.’ The youth thought as he reached out to touch the rune of connection on the left side of the door frame. It took him a few minutes the pull apart the rune, continuing on with two more of its copies before the barrier faded away. With this out of the picture, the dark elf had nothing to stop him from rummaging through the few bookshelves of the third floor.

Barely a few steps later he stopped as the sight of several scrolls turned his breathing somewhat excited. Stepping closer to the bookshelf, he pulled out one of the scrolls and unfurled it. On it, the familiar drawing of the fighter pathway constellation greeted him. Checking one scroll after the other, Regis found all of the seven different tier one pathway star charts along with the four main element’s basic tier two spell caster pathway charts. There were five animal depicting constellations in the pile as well, supposedly not related to any path. Regis studied the charts, feeling that his soul changed slightly as they were memorized.

According to their description, three of the five were lesser constellations with twelve nodes that would grant a single point in their respective attributes trio upon completing them to the gold rank. The other two were major star formations with eighteen nodes, promising two points in their individual three attributes. ‘Jackpot!’ He thought to himself with a wide smile. Temporary distractions aside, the third floor was quite scarce.

There were three bookshelves up there in total, one on each of the sides of the tower besides the one where the staircase was. The shelves were also small, with about a metre or so width and two meters in height. Regis began to check the tomes one by one, skipping them once they turned out to be something he didn’t need at the moment. ‘Alchemical formulas for Letty, beginner and advanced arcane forging guide for Amanda.’ The dark elf rummaged through the books, putting aside a couple of them. ‘The tenets of the druidic path, also for Letty. Where the hell is that damn… oh. There you are.’

The book of uncommon novice ranked enchantments looked the same as its common variant, only the symbol on its spine differing a bit. He opened it to take a cursory look at its contents, immediately finding himself face to face with the elemental rune of lightning. ‘That’s one book down. Now let’s see what else useful can I find.’ The spell weaver thought to himself as he continued on searching through the bookcases. Much to his disappointment, Regis couldn’t find any spell tomes containing journeyman or higher ranked spells. He did find a set of novice ranked necromancy related rituals and spells, but he simply put those aside with disgust.

A thin booklet also caught his attention as it detailed several blood magic related spells and trivia. The dark elf figured that Valerie might be interested in that one later. ‘These two look interesting.’ His eyes squinted somewhat has he read the title of the books he found once again. ‘All that’s known of the Landwaker trees. I definitely need to read that one. This book about the laws of the arcane material transcendence is also a must have. The rest can wait.’ With only three books catching his attention on the third floor, Regis headed down to the second one where he spent another quarter of an hour to sift through the near two hundred titles, picking up five more tomes of interest. After placing the small pile of books on the long table on the main floor of the library, he searched through the shelves of that floor as well, finding seven more seemingly necessary volumes to add to the pile.

“That’s quite a collection you got there.” A calm voice resounded in the library as Osmond walked in.

“Have you got them bored already?” The dark elf asked from his pale companion while opening the book that contained the uncommon enchantments.

“You could say that,” Osmond admitted. “I also wanted to show Letty around. I remember seeing a book somewhere on the second floor with records on nature magic.”

“It’s over here,” the spell weaver pointed at a much smaller pile of books not far from his own. “I brought that one down along with the beginner and novice ranked alchemy books.”

“Really?” The wood elf girl walked closer to the long table. “Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it. I also found a couple of herbalism related ones and a tome regarding druidic laws and magic.”

“How attentive of you.” The shadow touched spell caster said with a knowing smile.

“She mentioned before that she was interested in trying her hand in alchemy. Since I came across the books during my search, I figured I might as well put them together so that she wouldn’t have to waste time on searching for them. I also so brought down the books I thought might interest the others.”

“Oh,” Osmond walked closer, checking out the hefty tomes. “Is there anything for me?”

“Beside the common ones? Not really. At least not unless you’re interested in hard core necromancy.”

“No thanks,” he shook his head. “I’d rather just stick with the skeletons. Those are easier to work with, and also much cleaner. “

“Plus I can enchant them for you.” Regis pointed out.

“That too. By the way; the third floor...”

“I already opened up the barrier. There aren’t that many books are there. I only found three that was interesting, at least for me. I did find a book about the Landwaker trees though if you’re interested.”

“Maybe later. I guess it’s my turn to try my luck then. I’ll be back.”

With that, the pale youth left the two of them alone. Letty sat down as well, so she could read more comfortably, but first she pulled out a small pouch from her satchel, handing it over to the dark elf.

“What’s this?” He asked surprised.

“Landwaker seeds,” she answered. “While I was healing the tree, I asked around about them and as it turned out, they were hoarding the seeds quite seriously.”

“Most likely the apprentices told them that they were useful.”

“Perhaps, but I still managed to get a good amount. Elder Jonah said that it was nothing compared to healing the tree. I already gave some to everyone else, so this one’s all for you.”

“Thanks. I’ll try to make good use of these.” He promised as he put away the pouch.

After a couple of minutes passed by with silent reading, Letty broke the silence once again.

“There’s only a few nature spells recorded in this book,” she said after taking a glance at the tome’s contents. “And I already know at least half of them.”

“I guess the local druids weren’t that keen on sharing things. Hopefully it will be enough for now and there’s also that novice ranked tome. It should have a couple of useful spells as well.”

After a few moments of slightly awkward silence, Letty spoke up again. This time her voice was a bit more softer.

“Alicia told me about the things that happened after you left the inner town in the morning. Are you alright? I mean, you know... that arrow thing.”

“I’m fine,” the dark elf answered curtly. “Luckily my arcana shield and my armour dampened the hit just enough for it to it not be fatal. Still; I wonder what Hyord will do with that archer.”

“He’ll be executed, the wood elf said with a downcast gaze. “They decided on the matter when you and Amanda were away. They said that assisting the demon collaborator and the things he took part in were bad enough to get him executed.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Regis looked at the young woman with a discerning gaze. “Do you think their judgement is unfair?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Even if he was just following orders, he did try to kill you you and the others. I’m sure he also had plenty of chances to secretly inform the captain, but he chose not to. He chose to look away when Zareef hurt the Landwaker and then they provoked the crowd into killing Mary and the others.”

“What about you?” Regis tried to divert the conversation to a new path, seeing that she was uncomfortable with the current one. “Did everything go alright with the Landwaker tree?”

“It was difficult at first,” she admitted. “I expected some resistance when I began to heal it, but I didn’t expect it to be so turbulent.”

She fell silent for a moment, the dark elf trying to read her facial expression.

“It felt as if my magic was a small boat thrown into a raging sea. The first hour was spent with nothing, but getting used to the flow of the tree’s energy. After that, I managed to actually begin healing it, however both the tree and the damage was quite large and my power got diluted too fast to do anything significant at once. It took near a dozen repeated spells for some sign of healing to show. Do you know what was the most surprising thing in all of it?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Did it talk to you?”

“What?” the young woman leaned back, trying to hold both her laughter and surprise at the answer at bay. “Trees don’t talk, or at least they don’t talk to me yet. The thing that surprised me was that when it started to actually heal, the Landwaker began to send back Amaranth through our link.”

“Hold on,” Regis stared at the wood elf with his eyebrows. “So you’re telling me that the tree paid you for healing it? Damn.”

“It wasn’t much,” Letty said immediately. “It was just a trickle, but it still felt as if there was a very basic intelligence in its action.”

“Okay, now that is terrifying. The last thing we need now is for the trees to turn on us as well. Who’s next; the pebbles?”

Letty couldn’t stop any more and burst out laughing as she listened to the dark elf’s theatrics.

“See,” Regis said. “It’s much better when you laugh and smile. Brooding is Osmond’s thing.”

“Get a room you two!” Osmond spoke up as he appeared at the stairs leading to the second floor of the library.

“Speak of the devil,” the dark elf sighed as he watched the girl get flushed red. “And speaking of rooms; there’s an alchemy room if you want to practice what you read. I should be able to deactivate the barrier on it like I did with the others before.”

“We did walk by it on the way here,” Letty nodded. “I’d love to finally try out alchemy. If I can brew a couple of potions for us, then that way I’d be at leas doing something useful.”

“Hey,’ the spell weaver turned serious. “You managed to heal a Landwaker tree. That’s on equal ground of usefulness as us closing the gates.”

“If not more,” Osmond added as he sat down with his own pile of books. “Starving people can be very grateful when food gets on their table.”

“I sure would be grateful if Fabien put some proper meal in front of me,” the spell weaver sighed. “That bit of vegetable soup barely kept me going throughout the fights today.”

“He said he’ll make some stir fries with ham and sausage.”

“Sounds good, but let’s not talk about food for now. There’s a lot I have to read through.”

“Nerd.” The pale youth whispered, just loud enough to get a small chuckle out of Letty.”

Regis tried to shut out any stray thoughts from his head as he jumped head first into continuing his infusion enchanting studies. The book of novice ranked uncommon enchantments was a bit thinner than its common variant, but just as valuable. He barely opened the book and he already found himself staring at the elemental runes of blood, darkness, lightning and nature. The tome had no records about the element of death or poison, but it was understandable since those were considered forbidden.

Even blood was walking on a thin line, but it seemed to make the cut, although just barely. Each of the advanced elemental runes were made up from five fragments and only two of them would have a base effect on their own. The element of blood would cause extra bleeding if used on an edged weapon or a slight internal haemorrhage if infused into a blunt weapon. Lightning would cause, well… electric shock basically. The elements of darkness and nature were different however from what he read.

They wouldn’t create any effect on their own. Regis would either have to weave their runes together with the rune of damage to cause actual elemental effects, or do the same with a defensive rune to produce elemental resistance. What caused him to have a headache was that he would need bloodstones for any blood elemental rune related enchantments. That meant either having to rely on Valerie for the creation of the stones, or for him to personally dabble in blood magic. It was a disturbing thought.

Pushing it to the back of his head, Regis turned the page towards the first actual enchantment. The runic diagram he was now looking had a simple yet crucial purpose. When infused into a container, it would preserve the energy of its contents. At first it sounded strange, but as he read on, it became a lot clearer. This rune was mostly meant to be used on potion and elixir vials to preserve the potency of their contents. He knew that both the arcana and healing potions would degrade over time.

The stronger a potion was, the faster it would degrade, although the alchemist’s skill could somewhat slow the process. This shelf-life could be further enhanced using such runic vials. It was definitely going to be useful later on, so he studied the diagram and the side-notes intently before turning the pages to the next enchantment. It was an enchantment that would silence one’s movements. ‘A must have for rogues, but not so much for us.’ He thought as he turned the pages yet again.

The next was the rune of armour, which was a more complex variant of the beginner ranked piece used in the armour value increasing enchantment as it referred to the actual armour piece instead of the intention of protection. In his mind, the idea of combining both fragments with other pieces to create a summoned ‘mage armour’ was already in motion. That was still up for the future, however the next page showed a complex and intricate looking diagram that made him blink twice, his eyes growing as wide as mortally possible.

“Osmond,” he called out to the pale youth with his eyes still glued onto the page. “I think we just hit the jackpot.”

“What did you… find.” The shadow touched spell caster got up to see what Regis was acting weird for, but he too had to stop for a moment. “Is that the design of the teleportation circle?”