19 – Grimoires

The tome that landed in Vivi’s lap was unexpectedly substantial in all dimensions—tall, thick, and wide. Unlike Saffra’s, Vivi’s grimoire featured a polished obsidian cover adorned with elegant designs made from an unusual, almost pearlescent violet metal. Centered on the front was a raised ivory crown, points tipped with red gemstones. Ornate didn’t begin to describe the book’s appearance.

There was a solid heft to the grimoire as she picked it up, and when she flipped it open, the spell diagram and description of her lowest-level spell met her: [Illuminate], a tier-0 that summons a glowing ball of light. Looping black ink on cream parchment described the ability. She saw no additional information over what she could have found on her spell screen, but she admitted it was an interesting feature, being able to summon her spell list into a physical vessel.

When she lifted her gaze, she found Saffra gawking at her with an even more pronounced look of astonishment than usual.

What had Vivi done this time?

“What is it?”

“How many spells do you know?” she asked, sounding almost horrified.

Vivi paused. Right. The thickness of her grimoire would indicate how large her arsenal was, wouldn’t it? And as an over-two-thousand who had picked up just about every spell in Seven Cataclysms that wasn’t locked behind a super high-tier subclass, the tome was impressively massive.

“A few,” Vivi answered. “Why do ours look so different?”

“Grimoires change based on their owner. Class, level, and so on,” she said, staring at her dumbly even as she answered. “I’ve never seen anything like yours though. Not even the Headmaster’s comes close.”

“The Headmaster? Of the Institute?” Vivi dug through her memories. “Aeris?”

The question seemed to dispel some of her astonishment. Her mouth stopped hanging open as she studied Vivi with a furrowed brow. “Archmage Aeris? No…he stepped down shortly after the Turning, I think. He’s a professor now.”

“The Turning?”

“The day the Party of Heroes defeated the Seventh Cataclysm. You know Archmage Aeris?”

Vivi pursed her lips. “In a manner of speaking.” He had been moderately involved in the game’s plot, being one of humanity’s most powerful archmages. And also the headmaster of the Institute, thus appearing in various class quests. “Someone took his place?”

“Archmage Lysander.” Her nose wrinkled. She wasn’t a fan, Vivi could tell.

Speaking on this topic reminded her that Saffra had been expelled from the Institute for a yet unknown reason. She wondered whether she should press that matter.

She lifted the heavy tome with one hand and held it out to Saffra. “Trade.”

Saffra froze. “What?”

“Trade,” Vivi repeated, holding her other hand out and gesturing with a ‘give-me’ motion. “I’ll look through yours, as you offered, and you look through mine.”

Saffra continued doing her best impression of a statue. “You’re giving me your grimoire.”

“Stay to the first six tiers, don’t flip past that. Find something you want me to teach you. In the meantime, I’ll see what you’re working with.” She waggled the book impatiently.

Saffra didn’t move an inch. Just sat there, wide-eyed. Was the offer that shocking?

“Take,” Vivi ordered, pushing the grimoire into Saffra’s hand.

She finally seized the heavy obsidian tome, hastily handing over hers in return. Even when she had the book in her lap, though, she sat there, frozen, afraid to touch it. Her eyes flicked between Vivi and the grimoire repeatedly.

“Open it,” Vivi said dryly.

Clearly, Saffra was finding this a much bigger deal than Vivi had assumed. She guessed having one of the world’s most thorough compendiums of magical knowledge dropped in one’s lap would be overwhelming to an aspiring mage—even if Vivi was only allowing her access to some of the lowest-tier magic she had.

With the sort of slow and careful movement reserved for handling the most brittle artifact in the world, Saffra opened the heavy black cover of the obsidian grimoire. Her eyes widened as she drank in the sight of the first page, the tier-0 spell [Illuminate]. It really wasn’t impressive, so why did Saffra’s eyes keep rounding?

“And find a spell you want to learn,” Vivi said. “I have [Flame Bolt] in there somewhere, if you want to improve on the design of one of your staple spells. Or pick a new one entirely. Your choice.”

Saffra nodded rapidly, red hair bouncing with the motion, apparently mute.

Having the girl look through only the first six tiers shouldn’t be an issue. There were some rather…revealing spells deeper in, but there was only so much insanity a mage could get up to in the lower tiers. Saffra already knew she was a ridiculously powerful mage, so exposing the first portion of her grimoire wouldn’t matter.

Vivi looked down at Saffra’s much smaller book. It was a plain thing, reddish leather tied with strings to hold a few dozen pages together. The grimoire of not a beginner, but also not someone even into gold rank.

Saffra was in the high three-hundreds, and while that was respectable, doubly so for her age, she’d only had time to pick up a few spells. A grimoire showcased breadth of knowledge, and Saffra was too young to have learned much more than the daily kit she used for adventuring. Especially having been expelled from her place of education. Vivi suspected a mage’s arsenal increased more than linearly with level and age, though probably not exponentially.

She flipped through Saffra’s grimoire. As the young mage had told her, she knew a few utility spells—[Illuminate] served as a staple for how simple and useful it was to an adventurer, so it was the first spell in her book as well. Otherwise she had learned mostly elemental combat magic. Predominantly ice and fire, though two earth spells and a single air. [Fireball] occupied the last page, her only tier-five spell.

“It’s nothing impressive, I know,” Saffra mumbled, her state of awe replaced with obvious insecurity, shoulders slightly hunched.

Vivi considered her. She leaned forward and, using the girl’s own grimoire, lightly smacked her on the top of the head. Her ears flattened in surprise, and she looked at Vivi with a startled expression.

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“It’s the life work of a diligent, earnest young woman,” Vivi scolded. “I would ask that you don’t insult her right in front of me.”

Saffra stared at her for a long moment, then lifted Vivi’s grimoire to hide her rapidly reddening face.

“R-Right,” she stammered. “Sorry.”

Vivi shook her head, then returned to studying Saffra’s grimoire. This time, the spell circles in specific.

They were…not good. Horrible, to be honest. Vivi could improve Saffra’s general casting ability twofold simply by giving her better designs. She could also make ones from scratch if she wanted.

The new spell circles wouldn’t even need to be more complex—they could be simpler and better than what Saffra had. Though the best would, admittedly, require techniques probably beyond the girl’s current ability.

Saffra had mentioned that the best spells were hoarded within guilds and families. Even the Institute, an establishment of learning, didn’t yield its best to its students. She found herself deeply disapproving, but supposed humans were humans. It wasn’t like things worked differently in her world. People hoarded wealth and power there too. Why would it be different here?

It took Saffra ten minutes to find the spell she wanted to work on. Hesitantly holding Vivi’s grimoire up, she displayed the page describing [Scorchlance].