Demon's Virtue

Eiro looked at the two crystals float above his palm, reacting to every single of the Demon's thoughts. It was a concentrated mass of mana, meaning that it was a concentration of Eiro's will. At least for a few more moments.

The Demon drew a magic circle into the air, placing the two crystals into the center. Once it was activated, Eiro split his mouth in two and started muttering different chants in the ancient language. It was not the chant for this spell itself, but rather, he was trying to chant the essence of the ancient language to infuse it into the crystals. Slowly, as the spell was doing its job, another crystal formation started growing on the outside of the two crystals. Eiro was pulling his essence out of these two crystals, while stabilizing them with the ancient language.

Luckily, it worked surprisingly well. Soon, the spell was over, and the two crystals fell down onto Eiro's palms. With a single thought, he made the crystalized essence split off from the pure crystalized mana. He had a tougher time manipulating the crystalized mana, but he could still make them float. As for the crystalized essence, however.... it was quite incredible. Maybe Eiro should try to produce more of this over time, because having this crystalized mass would be more than just useful. But for now, he simply fused the essence together and placed them into his treasury in the form of a smooth, small marble.

Then, he grabbed the crystals of pure mana and brought them into the center of the four wooden pillars. He made the crystals float there, and started drawing another magic circle array there. But this time, he made sure that it wasn't going to be fed with his own mana, but the natural mana that was being pulled here by this whole room. It took a while for Eiro to fine-tune everything, but luckily, the crystals were each worth exactly a million points of mana. If they weren't, then Eiro would have to do a lot of fine-tuning to get this to work. But knowing their exact value, Eiro could skip a few steps, and soon activated the magic circle. The two crystals were floating, suspended in air indefinitely. They were pulling in the elemental magic that was here in this room, making it continuosly move between each crystal. By doing this, over time, the magic was going to crystalize on the surface of the mana crystals. If Eiro was right, then that huge magic stone that was now placed into the center of this mountain had a direct connection to the plane of gravity, a minor plane, but still one that had an unending access to gravity magic.

Through that crystal, Eiro could pull the magic into this world and stabilize it in the process, before artificially turning it into gravity magic stones. It would take a while to get enough mass to be able to use them properly, but it wasn't like they were short on it. And now, the Demon moved to a specific spot on the other side of the room, and slowly pushed his finger into the floor, completing the circuit that was carved everywhere.

The room was suddenly being flooded with magic, a suffocating amount. For just an instant, the gravity was crushing, to the extent where Gobo was immediately thrown onto the ground. But the next instant, the arrays in the room did their job, and the magic was focused into the space between the four pillars.

Out of curiosity, Eiro approached that space, and moved his hand into that space. The moment he did, however, he could feel his skin and flesh practically being ripped off his bones just due to the sheer gravity that was affecting that space.

"Don't let anyone in here, ever. And I'll set up a barrier around these pillars, so don't ever try to enter this space. Anyone that does is just going to get themselves killed." Eiro said bluntly, quickly getting to work on the barrier that he mentioned, even though he was already rather low on mana from doing all of this.

Gobo slowly stood up after recovering from the physical shock of that intense gravity, looking at his master, "So, why exactly are you trying to create gravity magic stones? Could we not just harvest them from that giant one?"

Eiro turned his head, and looked at the Hobgoblin, "Well, sure, but... not directly. That is a huge magic stone, but that volume is the only reason it can draw out as much magic as it can. If we harvested any from that huge mass, the magic stone we get would just be... sub-par. But what we are doing now, is creating high-quality magic stones of one of the most rare magical elements. Having access to this is going to help our town grow an incredible amount." 

Crossing his arms in thought, Gobo slightly tilted his head, "Right, but... that island just went missing a few months ago, and then all of a sudden a town nobody's ever heard about starts exporting gravity magic stones? That seems sort of..."

"Sketchy, yes, but that's because we won't be doing that, at least not for now. In the first place, it isn't common knowledge exactly how that island was able to float like that, so even if we did, it probably wouldn't be as big a deal as you think. But either way, what we're doing is using these high-quality magic stones to create carriages that can carry two, three, if not four times more than a normal carriage of that size can. And, we will be using those magic stones to create a troupe of powerful mages, so that in case of an emergency, we can easily push back any potential intruders or threats. Because gravity magic is not only one of the most rare types of magic out there, but it's also amongst the most imminently threatening to living beings. You just saw it, right? Just a moment of that brought you to your knees, and you're not particularly weak." Eiro explained with a grin on his face, as he finished the barrier, pushing his hand into the center of one of the invisible walls. From there, he pulled a lot of the gravity magic gathered in the space in front of him into his body. He may have unlocked the gravity magic skill, but that didn't mean he could currently produce as much as he could gather up here in an instant. And with it, he was going to show off the power of this particular magic.

Eiro moved the magic around, bringing it into his palm. Over the last while, he had managed to grow his control over his new abilities, in particular, the ones where he could physically absorb practically anything he wanted. Right now, he was absorbing that magic into himself, and manipulated it for a specific goal. He compressed it within his body, and slowly brought the compressed mass toward his palm, gathering more and more of this magic there. And then, he used the tricks that he learned after not only consuming different gemstones, but when he practiced bringing them back to a directly physical form to help him in his defensive abilities. He had learned how to crystalize substances that he had already turned into something else within him.

And so, a small magic stone, smaller than even his pupil or a drop of water, appeared on his palm. Eiro walked over toward Gobo, and placed it into the Hobgoblin's hand, before bringing him outside.

"You know how to use magic stones already, so go ahead. Try it out, use on anything you want. It's small, but it's pure magic, different to most naturally-occuring magic stones." Eiro pointed out, and Gobo looked at the tiny orb. Slowly, he rolled it over toward his fingers, until he was holding it between his index finger and thumb. 

Eiro could feel that Gobo was letting his mana flow into it, and just a moment later, the rocks and pebbles, uprooted flowers, and small mounds of dirt and dust, rose up weightlessly from the ground. Not much later, Gobo himself lifted off the ground, even if just a foot or two.

"Using this... construction is going to be a lot easier as well. We've had to use a lot of tricks for some of the buildings, especially cause the harpies want really tall buildings to build their nests. But building supporting foundation for that and taking it apart again is so much more expensive in time and materials than building those towers in the first place." Gobo pointed out, soon setting his feet steady on the ground as well, before noticing Eiro's expression when looking at him, "What?"

"Oh, nothing, just... you've become a lot more eloquent and responsible since I met you. Back then, you were a total dumbass, seriously." 

"Yeah, and my intelligence and wisdom more than tripled since then, and that's all thanks to you." Gobo replied immediately, but Eiro just shrugged, "I know. But that doesn't mean your little part in it isn't impressive. You've been doing good work here, Gobo. It's why I'm leaving this place in your hands, after all."

"Hm? But you are the lord of this town, master."

"Right, but that's just in name. I'm here once every few weeks, help out a little, and then leave. You're the one actually taking care of everything. And when the rules of this world change, I might not end up being the lord in name anymore either, then that role might be given to you too."

Gobo looked at Eiro confused, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that, if everything works out, in the future, monsters and people can coexist."