“You may leave now,” the black-robed Lilith said with a wave of her hand.
Principal Aurora replied, “If Your Excellency encounters any issues, you can find me on the first floor of the tower.”
“Mhm.”
Principal Aurora respectfully withdrew from the top-floor library, and the heavy magic door slid shut behind him.
The moment the door closed, the black-robed Lilith shed her disguise and let out a long, ungraceful sigh of relief.
Lilith walked over to the bookshelves and peered through the crystal covers, examining the books one by one.
Most of the titles were written in ancient Common Tongue or magical script.
Holy Light Judgment: Rank 9 light-element offensive magic. Lilith curled her lip. “Pass. Just looking at it makes my eyes hurt.”
Call of the Abyss: Rank 8 dark-element summoning magic, capable of summoning monsters from the Abyss plane to fight alongside the caster. Lilith nodded. “This is somewhat interesting, but what is the Abyss? Does it have anything to do with the Demon Realm? Also, what if I summon some traitorous backstabber...”
She continued to browse quickly, offering a running commentary of complaints.
Soon, she stopped in the section for offensive magic.
A thick magic book with a dark-red cover that seemed to flow like liquid caught her eye.
Lilith’s eyes lit up.
She reached out and lightly touched the crystal cover.
Sensing her magic, the cover slowly opened, presenting the book to her.
She picked it up and flipped it open.
It didn’t record a specific offensive spell, but rather a unique technique for mana manipulation.
The core principle was to use a specific magic circuit construction to actively burn a portion of one’s magic while casting any spell, converting it into pure explosive energy to significantly boost the spell’s instantaneous power.
The burning ratio could be adjusted from 10% to 90%. The higher the ratio, the more terrifying the power increase. Theoretically, it could even allow an ordinary high-level magic spell to erupt with destructive power approaching a Super-tier spell.
But the price was also clear.
“Precautions:” Lilith read the warning marked in bold red font on the page. “The process of burning magic will rapidly deplete the caster’s magic reserves. One must carefully evaluate their total mana.”
“If forced to use this when magic is insufficient, the secret technique will burn the caster’s own life force until their life is exhausted.”
“Burning life?” Lilith paused for a moment, but instead of being afraid, she showed a look of interest. “Sounds pretty exciting.”
She closed the book and carefully sensed the bottomless, Demon King-level magic reserves within her body.
To be honest, she had never actually encountered a situation where she ran out of magic.
“With my total magic capacity...” Lilith estimated, “even if I burn 50%, I should be able to handle it easily.”
She nodded in satisfaction. “This is the one!”
Then, she did something that would have given Principal Aurora a heart attack if he had seen it.
Holding the magic book in her left hand, she raised her right hand.
Threads of magic outlined the book’s silhouette in the air.
In just a dozen seconds, a replica almost identical to the original was hovering above her palm.
The only difference from the original was that this replica was composed of Lilith’s magic and radiated her own aura.
“Done.”
Lilith casually tossed the mana replica into her personal storage space and carefully placed the original book back under the crystal cover.
The entire process was smooth and seamless.
“Got the offensive type, now let’s look at others.” Lilith clapped her hands and walked toward the other sections.
She arrived at the shelves for healing magic.
Here... books with names that sounded very healthy were lined up one after another.
Lilith looked at these books and fell into thought.
Healing magic... was it useful for her?
She thought back carefully and realized she hadn’t really been injured since she transmigrated.
The only time she had felt pain was when Luya ambushed her in the forest.
That beam of light hitting her arm had indeed caused a noticeable sensation of pain, but that was it. It hadn’t even broken her skin.
“I don’t think... I’ve ever been injured.” Lilith touched her arm.
But what if? What if she encountered a more powerful opponent in the future, like that Orosius, the First of the Four Calamities? Could he hurt her? Would she need healing magic then?
“Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.” Lilith nodded, feeling very clever.
Then, she did something very solemn.
She raised her right hand, and magic surged from her palm again, quickly condensing into a blood-red dagger.
Lilith gripped the dagger in her right hand and bared her left arm.
She looked at her skin and took a deep breath, hesitating for a fraction of a second.
In the next second, her gaze turned fierce, and she plunged the dagger hard into her left forearm!
Squelch!
The dagger pierced her skin without resistance. Blood surged out instantly, flowing down the blade.
“Hiss!” Lilith sucked in a breath of cold air, grimacing in pain. “Damn, that really hurts!”
She looked down at the dagger stuck in her arm, her expression slightly contorted. “Was I a bit too ruthless to myself...”
With a thought, she released her grip on the dagger.
The dagger dissolved into motes of magic light and dissipated into the air.
Almost at the same moment the dagger vanished, the wound on her left arm actually began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye!
The entire process was completed in an instant.
Lilith flexed her left arm.
“As expected...” She looked at her arm and concluded, “With this ridiculous self-healing ability of mine, basic healing spells should be perfectly sufficient.”
She shook her head and stopped worrying about healing magic; she would reconsider it only if it became absolutely necessary.
“Next, defensive.” She walked toward the last area of interest.
There was a wide variety of defensive magic...
Lilith looked through them one by one, and finally, her gaze landed on a book titled Mana Barrier.
She took it out and flipped it open.
This book recorded an extremely special type of defensive magic.
It didn’t rely on any elemental attributes; instead, it converted the caster’s magic into an invisible barrier.
The strength of the barrier was entirely determined by the caster’s magic output.
Theoretically, as long as the caster’s magic was not exhausted, the barrier would never be broken from the outside.
It could withstand physical and magic attacks, and even had a certain resistance to spatial-level attacks.
Of course, the downside was also obvious: it consumed an extreme amount of magic and required very high magic control. Furthermore, it could only defend against attacks from the outside and could not protect against internal or rule-based damage.
“This is good.” Lilith’s eyes sparkled. “Built from pure magic, it has great affinity with me. And as long as there’s magic, the barrier never breaks...”
She could already see herself standing behind a mana barrier, calmly drinking tea while being bombarded by enemies.
“This is the one!”
Raising her hand again, her magic surged.
A dozen seconds later, a mana-replicated Mana Barrier was also tossed into her personal storage space.
The original was returned to its place.
Lilith clapped her hands, looking at these high-level magic books with satisfaction.
Offensive and defensive—she had both. Healing wasn't needed for now, and if there were other interesting spells from other schools, she could copy them too.
Thus, for the next half hour, a strange scene played out in the top-floor library:
A black-robed figure wandered between the bookshelves as if she were at a grocery market. She picked up powerful high-level magic books, flipped through them quickly, sometimes nodding, sometimes shaking her head, and occasionally complaining.
...
She was like a dragon that had entered a treasure vault, copying whatever she liked and taking it with her. In any case, she wasn't stealing or looting.
By the time she felt she had enough, more than twenty magic books had been added to her personal storage space.
“Alright, that’s about enough.” Lilith stretched. “I’ll just indulge in this much for now.”
She took one last look around the top-tier library, then turned and walked toward the door.
“Time to head out~”
Lilith pushed open the door and walked out in high spirits.
Outside, from below the spiral staircase, the sound of Principal Aurora’s suppressed yawn could be faintly heard.
Rate on N.U.
