Demon's Virtue

Eiro stepped up to the large, ornate double door that had appeared on the far side of his mental library. It was weird; the library didn't usually change in this way. Of course, there were parts of it that were simply altered subconsciously; like the improvement of the quality of the space that happened just now.

Since Eiro's mental capacity itself had improved vastly, it made sense that not only the books but the library itself improved in quality as well. And of course, new memories that formed would automatically be added onto the shelves, and the library would adjust and shift around depending on how many memories Eiro's mind actually held.

However, when it came to the sorting of the things within the library, the creation of the different sections and partitioning of his mental tasks was a more active effort. It was something that he directly chose to do, even if it was just a passing thought at times. But this? He didn't make this door, or rather, the space beyond that door.

He didn't know what was here whatsoever, and he wasn't able to see past the thick metal with his inner eye either. It was uncomfortable, extremely so. Why would a part of his mind, of his soul, be shut off from him? And why did this door appear just because he increased his stats to this degree.

Carefully, Eiro pressed his hand onto the door, trying to push it open. But it wouldn't budge. He pushed even more, using all the strength that was in the body of this incarnation. But it didn't matter.

"I'm not going to let something shut me out from my own mind," Eiro almost growled, turning back around. He quickly stepped up to the section of the mental library that he had reserved for his treasury. There, he went up to the pedestal holding his cards, and quickly picked up the Queen of Wands, the key that opens everything.

In his hand, the card quickly turned into that ornate metal key, and the Demon immediately made his way back to the door. It didn't matter if there was no lock on this door; that's not how this thing worked.

If he could open up a literal soul, a door would be an easy thing. Eiro pressed the key into the center of the door, as a keyhole magically formed around it. With a quick twist of his hand, a clicking sound could be heard. Eiro pulled the key out of the door and threw it to the side. It turned back into a card and disappeared back onto the pedestal that Eiro got it from.

He placed his hand onto the cold metal again and pushed forward. The door opened smoothly, as if it didn't weigh anything at all.

Behind it, Eiro saw an empty white space. It was a bit unnerving, especially since he still wasn't able to see what was inside of it through his mental eye, just through the sight of the incarnation. The Demon took a step forward into the space, and looked around. He could feel that something was here, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.

An eeriness that was slowly creeping up on him, that was the only way that he could rationalize this sensation.

And then, it smiled.

A soft, welcoming crescent that formed in the space in front of Eiro. It wasn't scary or unsettling anymore, it just felt... right. The smile opened up, and a few words were spoken, but Eiro couldn't hear what they were saying, until suddenly Eiro couldn't concentrate on that anymore. He looked down at his right arms. They were splitting apart.

Not like normal; he only had two arms on each side, but right now, he had four... six, eight, twelve!

More and more limbs started to grow from him as if they were trying to climb out from his flesh. It felt a bit uncomfortable, but it wasn't painful in any way. They didn't even tear up Eiro's clothes, instead just phasing right through them.

However, as Eiro saw these masses of limbs and raw flesh pour out of him, he realized what he was looking at. They were his 'Aspects', the thing that he had been looking for this whole time.

In any person, their aspects were represented in sort of incarnations like the one that Eiro was accessing his soul through at the moment, except that you wouldn't be able to access them in that way. Of course, it didn't always mean that an incarnation had to look identical to the person. They could really be anything, and often appeared in the form of objects as well.

But for Eiro, it did seem like most of his aspects were individuals. They stood up from the pure white ground once their bodies fully formed, one after another. Eiro looked them in the eye and felt a sort of... understanding.

They didn't have a consciousness like this incarnation or the mental duplicates, they were more like instincts, and they would act as such. And with those instincts came a natural understanding of what each of them represented.

Eiro could group them into mostly two groups. Concepts and skills.

The conceptual incarnations were a bit weird, to say the least. His fears, likes, dislikes, the things he loves, the things he fully hates. What he does for fun. There were a few dozen of these incarnations, all seemingly shifting slightly here and there. Some of them were moving into one another, while others were splitting apart into more incarnations.

Eiro figured it made sense; things like these emotions were ever-changing in any individual, so of course that was the case with him as well. As long as they didn't cause any trouble, Eiro didn't mind.

The incarnations of Eiros skills and abilities were more straightforward. Every skill or ability he possessed would had its own incarnation that represented the skill. The incarnation of the Artificing skill, for example, was simply Eiro who wore something that he himself considered a sort of 'classic artificer outfit'. Tools, materials, gloves, that kind of thing.

Similarly, the Carving Incarnation wore something sort of similar, but more aimed toward woodworking. The skills that were related to more straightforward physical skills were all like that, simply a version of Eiro that looked slightly different. Basically, they looked like Eiro would if he had gone a different route, focusing completely on that one skill.

However, then there were other ones, like Chaos Manipulation. When looking at that incarnation, Eiro felt similar things as when he looked at the Dragon of Chaos; at every glance, something just slightly changed in an almost random way.

Then, there were of course also Eiro's superior skills. They were... different.

The incarnation of his 'Universal Monster Language Comprehension' skill was Eiro, covered in numerous mouths that all seemed to be speaking without making sound. But from the shapes the lips and tongues were forming, they were speaking in all the different monster languages that Eiro knew at this point. The 'Elemental Magic Mastery' was Eiro, but made of those elements itself, all the way down.

It was shifting and switching which was in most power, but Eiro was looking at versions made of fire, water, earth, shadow, light, holiness, and everything else you could think of.

At least the Negative Effect Resistance and Physical Combat Mastery skills were physically a bit easier to look at, but with them in particular it became clear that these four incarnations had a lot more awareness than the other ones. Of course, Eiro had two more skills.

The Special Skill 'The World'. Frankly, Eiro's guess was that this incarnation he inhabited was fully that aspect of himself. It was something a bit different to other skills, hence the name. But that still didn't account for the last of his skills.

His Legendary Skill. Something with as much of a presence within him as something like that, which affected literally every part of him, simply had to have its own incarnation. If not, then Eiro might not fully understand that skill yet.

But then, shivers ran down his back. He looked past all the incarnations still in front of him, still seeing that grinning crescent floating in the air of this empty space. With a wry smile, Eiro stared up into the empty space that was the incarnation of the 'Supreme Demon' skill.