One's Own Origins, Using the Grimoire

Liber followed the members of the Hephaestus Familia to the Twilight Tower, where he found an empty room to rest in.

The room was located in the lower-middle section of the tower, facing west. As he stepped inside, the setting sun bathed the interior in a deep, wine-red glow.

A Familia member opened the door and said, "This will be your room from now on. Feel free to use it as you please. If you need anything added, just let us know, and we'll do our best to arrange it."

"Thank you, I'm sorry for taking up your time," Liber replied. The member then bid him farewell, closed the door, and left.

Listening to the fading footsteps, Liber surveyed the room before dropping his backpack and lying down on the bed.

Fourteen years have passed since that day. Finally, I've taken the first solid step.

Liber mused, his mind drifting into a quiet contemplation. In his consciousness, he saw a vast starry sky; most of the points of light were dim, but forty-six of them shone with brilliant radiance.

Originally, only forty-one stars had been shimmering, but five more had appeared after joining the Familia, bringing the current total to forty-six.

"I wonder if these stars increased because I met Loki or because I joined the story. What exactly is the purpose of these stars?" he muttered to himself.

Liber had originally been a hardworking wage slave in modern society, feeling lost about his own future.

Things had been stable enough at his company, but after a change in management, his personal hell began.

As time went on, the mounting workload and reduced wages fueled his growing resentment. After a heated argument, he reached his breaking point and quit in a fit of rage.

Temporarily disgusted with work, he used his savings to take a break, planning to travel and clear his head.

During a hiking trip, he saw a bungee jumping attraction and eagerly signed up.

He had always loved the sensation of being in the air. However, in the middle of the descent, his vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

When he regained his senses and became aware of his existence, he found himself a ten-year-old child. As his memories intertwined, he gradually realized he had been reincarnated.

He had become Liber Miller.

He had grown up in a small town near Orario. At ten, he had accidentally tumbled down a hillside and injured his head. After being in a coma for several days, he woke up with his past memories restored.

As his memories resurfaced and merged, he realized with a shock that this world was remarkably similar to a work he knew from his previous life: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, or DanMachi for short.

Here, there were all kinds of vicious monsters, legendary hero tales passed down through generations, and the labyrinth city of Orario, where gods gathered and Familias thrived.

Heroes and dungeons were the themes of this world.

It was a Western-style fantasy world where magic, adventure, gods, and monsters were intricately woven together.

Once he understood the nature of this world, Liber's mind was filled with dreams of heading to Orario to start his own adventure.

However, when he told his relatives in this world, he was met with a stern refusal.

In this life, he had been raised solely by his grandmother in the small town.

According to the townspeople, his father had once been an adventurer who died in an accident during a quest. After his father's death, his mother had been so heartbroken and frail that she passed away shortly after giving birth to him.

Only his grandmother remained to raise him. Having lost her loved ones to the profession, she was vehemently opposed to him becoming an adventurer, leaving him with no choice but to comply.

After all, the debt of gratitude for his upbringing was real. He calmed his heart, thought it over, and consoled himself with the fact that it was indeed unsafe for a ten-year-old to travel alone.

Besides, if he had arrived in Orario at ten, he likely would have been eaten alive, bones and all.

Reality was not as beautiful as the stories, and Orario was not a place of pure perfection.

After his request to go to Orario and become an adventurer was rejected by his only living relative, Liber began to formulate a plan for himself.

In this medieval-leaning Western fantasy world, one was generally considered independent at sixteen. He would head to Orario to become an adventurer then.

In the meantime, he would study, train, and hone his martial arts to ensure he had the capability to survive on his own.

Once his request was denied, he began implementing his plan: first, he learned basic swordsmanship from the town guards, then worked at the local smithy to earn travel funds, all while maintaining a rigorous daily exercise regimen.

While helping at the smithy, he did his best to learn blacksmithing techniques, hoping it would help him join the reputable, logistics-oriented Hephaestus Familia, ensuring he had the time to grow.

Time flowed on, and he had been sticking to his plan for two years.

During a routine break, his grandmother took him to the family storage room and handed him a beautifully wrapped, intricately decorated book.

His grandmother hesitated before saying, "This is something your father left behind, called a Grimoire. I don't know what its specific purpose is, but after your father died, his Familia companions sent back some of his belongings."

"The rest were just valuables, but this was the only thing he left a final request to be given to you if you ever became an adventurer."

"I didn't intend to give this to you, but I've seen how you've persisted in your training and how hard you've worked to become an adventurer these past few years. I'm old now, and I can't help you much."

"I thought I should give this to you after all. Perhaps it can help you, Liber."

Liber took the Grimoire with pleasant surprise, his resolve to become an adventurer growing even firmer. With this item, he had even more confidence in becoming a top-tier adventurer.

In this world's magical superpowers, there existed individuals who had reached the pinnacle of magical knowledge. They could craft Grimoires to help those with a magic slot awaken their spells. These Grimoires were categorized into three types based on their quality and effects.

The first type of Grimoire could grant a person a fixed spell. Spells obtained through this type were usually common, everyday magic.

Aside from the fact that owners of rare magic wouldn't be generous enough to give their spells away, highly advanced magic was simply too complex to be stored in such a book. First-type Grimoires were often worth tens of millions.

The second type of Grimoire was even more precious because it was crafted by the creator to mimic the form of a "Falna," allowing it to draw out the magic most suited to the reader.

Through this type of Grimoire, one had a high chance of obtaining a spell with great potential tailored to themselves. Because of this, such Grimoires were often priceless and impossible to find on the market.

As for the third type of Grimoire, in addition to the ability to awaken magic like the second type, it also had the potential to grant the reader an additional magic slot, provided they had not yet reached the limit of three.

By virtue of the possibility of expanding one's magic slots, third-type Grimoires were worth a king's ransom.

At the time, he did not know what kind of Grimoire of Enlightenment he had obtained, but regardless, he knew that with it, he would achieve even greater things once he became an adventurer.

Later, he revised his goals, changing his intended Familia to the Loki Familia so he could compete with top-tier adventurers and insert himself into the flow of the story.

He trained twice as hard, and after learning swordsmanship, he took time to learn how to butcher prey from the village hunters to temper his courage.

This continued for a year and a half, until Liber was thirteen and felt the sorrow of losing a loved one.

The only family he had in this world passed away quietly on a cold autumn night.

After his relative's death, he suddenly discovered a starry sky appearing in his mind. Most of the canvas was filled with glowing specks of light, among which forty points flickered with brilliant radiance. Only then did he realize that he had not come to this world alone, but possessed a unique ability.

However, no matter how he tried, he could not figure out how to ignite or use these points of light. It wasn't until he was fourteen that the starlight increased by one point; he seemed to understand that the count was related to his age, specifically the sum of his past and present lives.

His original plans were shaken by the death of his relative and the emergence of his ability.

Lonely in this world, he no longer had any ties.

Moreover, the plot of DanMachi progressed very rapidly, and he needed to join a Familia as soon as possible to secure time for development.

Liber remained silent for a long time before changing his plans. Having become an orphan in this world, he decided to go all in and fight a desperate battle. He sorted through the meager remains of his relative's belongings, liquidated some assets, and exchanged everything for travel funds.

Then, at the age of fourteen, he set out on the road to Orario.

After a month and a half, he finally arrived at the dungeon city, Orario.

Reflecting on it now, he was filled with emotion.

Finally, Liber sat up and took the exquisitely decorated, gem-encrusted Grimoire of Enlightenment from his waist pouch.

He muttered to himself, "I never dared to open it all these years, fearing it would be consumed upon use. Today, I can finally use it."

"What kind of content lies within?" With this question in mind, Liber unfastened the chain locking the book.

He opened the untitled Grimoire of Enlightenment and gazed at it intently. The next moment, his consciousness was completely captivated by the book.

"Haha, self-analysis, a super magic tutorial that even an idiot can learn from."

Strange words echoed in Liber's ears.

"Assault charge, never feeling sad for one's own disappearance, the idiot's grand classroom!"

Familiar words, familiar sensations—at this moment, Liber understood completely that this was the Grimoire of Enlightenment.

"Magic can be roughly divided into two types: innate and acquired."

"Innate magic goes without saying; it refers to magic related to an object's aptitude or the foundation of one's race. Since ancient times, magical races have relied on their latent talent, combined with training and rituals, to learn magic early. Although their attributes have fixed tendencies, they are generally powerful and possess large-scale effects."

"Acquired magic is a possibility that sprouts through the medium of [Falna], and it is also self-realization. It has no rules; it has infinite branches. It is heavily influenced by [Excelia]."

As he continued to read, Liber listened to the voice in his ear and felt his spirit becoming increasingly active.

"Magic is interest. For the latter (acquired type), this element is particularly crucial. What do you maintain interest in? What triggers recognition, hatred, longing, sorrow, or desire? The trigger is often within oneself. Under the [Falna], the heart is laid bare."

The text and voices in the book intertwined in his mind. The characters gradually drifted out of the pages, circling him, and he was slowly pulled into a world of words.

A [painting] gradually appeared before him. The characters wove together into strokes, and facial features slowly emerged—it was a human face.

Woven and outlined in solid black ink, it was a familiar face, a portrait made of text.

"Ask if you seek. Solve if you seek. Look if you desire. A mirror of ugly truth that brooks no hypocrisy is prepared here."

No, this is me. He looked at the three-dimensional face composed of text.

It was another true self he had never known.

"To you (me), what is magic?"

Hearing the question from his other self, Liber answered naturally.

"It is a dream, something that cannot be touched in the mundane world."

Liber thought of himself as a child, reaching out to touch bubbles shimmering with seven colors.

"To you (me), what is magic?"

"It is space, a space that changes unpredictably and at will."

Liber thought of the Mirror Dimension of the Ancient One from the Marvel movies; he had been full of wonder and curiosity when watching it on the screen.

"To you (me), what should magic be like?"

"It should be simple, casual, and unrestrained. It should be used at any moment, accompanying one's heart."

Liber thought of the way Gilgamesh used his vast treasury in the Type-Moon world; he envied that convenient ability.

"What do you pray for from magic?"

"I want magic that can grow infinitely."

When it came to magic, he thought of the explosion magic from the Konosuba world—the kind of magic that never fades from the story.

Naturally, he also wanted to possess that kind of simple, powerful magic.

"Is that all? How lazy and greedy."

"I'm sorry. I am just that greedy."

"But that is who I am."

The other self in the book revealed a smile.