That time I was reincarnated as a snake (Tensura)

With everything we needed in hand, Mira and I left the magic academy.

Taking advantage of the fact that it was already nighttime, I decided to go directly to the royal castle in search of the library. Our search took us through every corner of the castle, from the first floor to exploring each of the towers.

It was after some time that we discovered it under the castle, dozens of meters deep.

To reach it in the conventional way, a person would have to go to the king's personal study, where, like in the movies, one of the books on the shelves would function as the access lever. By pulling it, the bookshelf would open and lead to a hidden passage. In the passage, the person would have to avoid several deadly traps placed there. Only after descending dozens of meters would one reach an imposing steel door, steel mixed with magisteel to make it resistant to magic.

As for us, thanks to my magic sense, which has a range of several dozen meters, I discovered the mechanism when I passed by the study. I didn't even need to use the mechanism; I simply used shadow movement, was able to pass through the traps without activating them, and reached the door in no time.

As for how to enter, it was simple: where there is darkness, there will be shadows. They act as access points to the shadow space; without a barrier preventing the use of skills, sneaking inside was no problem.

All the mental preparations about how difficult it would be to enter this library, the risks he would face, and the possible consequences of being discovered, came to nothing.

Damn it, give me back my expectations!

While I admit that a large part of the reason why my actions are so easy is due to shadow movement, I can only thank my luck that I met Mira in the forest and that our connection led to acquiring this ability in my evolution.

I can imagine a 20-foot-long snake trying to sneak into this castle without attracting attention. Sure, I have stealth, but that doesn't help me sneak through tight spaces.

When I entered and looked up, before me were hundreds, if not thousands, of bookshelves filled with tomes and scrolls. Instead of being happy to have arrived at the library, my expression was quite the opposite.

"Fuck, I forgot how much of a hassle it was to find the information you're looking for when you went to the library. I remember that it would take me an entire afternoon to finish the homework I was assigned in high school. That's why I was so happy when I discovered the Internet for the first time," I thought while letting out a sigh.

Looking at so many books, I knew that most of them would have irrelevant stuff, like politics or history. I knew that this would be the most difficult or at least the longest task to complete that I had set myself, even taking thought acceleration into consideration.

The owners of this library had not even classified the books; one would have to rely on the cover of the book to know whether it would be useful or not.

"When things go wrong, hurry up," I said with determined eyes.

I walked over to the shelf farthest from the door. "Look, could you help me pack this bookshelf and carry it to the mansion?"

"Okay," Mira said.

With a flick of his shadow, the bookshelf was put away.

As a firm believer that good reading requires a good environment, I decided to steal the books and bring them to my mansion. If I was going to spend who knows how much time reading, I might as well do it in luxury rather than in this depressing underground library.

When I was done with the current bookshelf, I would return it and steal another new bookcase. And that was how my arduous mission to learn all the information in that library began.

…

The days passed.

While I was still following my routine, in the mornings I would practice or develop my skills together with Mira; in the afternoon I would start my reading sessions that could last into the night. When I was bored, I would look for some monsters outside the capital to entertain myself or try new things with.

Every few days I would go to my old base, the fortress city of GreenRock, to see how Phersu was doing. In addition to seeing if any members would recommend others, I would use my identity as Night to scare them and then recruit them.

The organization did quite well at first, with many requests and a large number of desperate and unscrupulous people eager for rewards. The missions did not take long to complete. But like everything, nothing can be perfect.

With so many crimes occurring in the city in such a short period of time, it was no surprise that the city lord took notice. He searched tirelessly for those responsible, until he stumbled upon one of Phersu's members who hadn't covered his tracks well.

Although he was subjected to several tortures to make him spill the information, knowing the consequences of doing so, he preferred to remain silent. Luckily for him, the city lord had only caught him, so he did not want to lose his only source of information, and did not allow him to die.

When I heard about that a few weeks later when I came back to inspect, I was really upset. Although I wanted to beat up the city lord for meddling in my business, I needed him alive, so I just snuck into his dungeon and rescued that guy. I gave him some gold coins and told him to get out of town.

It wasn't out of mercy, but to show the other members that someone had their back, and to not be afraid to complete the tasks. Which worked out pretty well, if I may say so. The members who had been panicking over the matter had calmed down.

To prevent similar accidents, Clo, thinking it was a warning from her lord to fix the organization's shortcomings, quickly implemented a ranking system for members. This would prevent unskilled members from taking requests beyond their capabilities and potentially being discovered.

Due to the growing number of members, the tavern was suspect. Knowing this, Clo created, with the help of some trusted confidants, whom she bribed and threatened, the establishment of other branches within the city.

To prevent their leak, he only shared their locations with certain less capable members. Those branches would serve to ease congestion, and also as a distraction, both of which could be sacrificed to the city lord if the situation called for it. These actions on Clo's part left me very satisfied; I wish he were my subordinate.

During this time, I was not lazy.

With Phersu doing so well in GreenRock, I thought about creating other branches, so I went to other cities near the Jura Forest. There I repeated my old methods. Unfortunately, the administrators I found for these branches were not as capable as Clo. While they were not discovered and the branch destroyed, they came close several times.

Although I shared Clo's methods with them, they were not very good at implementing them. I got to the point where I had to get more involved in management for a while, of course, always hiding my identity.

Luckily, after more than three months, things stabilized and the managers got better at managing staff and organization, so I was able to hand over the burden to them, leaving me free at last. Luckily for them, I was getting fed up; I was close to the point of killing them and getting others.

Phersu now had over several dozen cities spread across the kingdoms of Eldoreth and Nexus. The downside to all this was that I couldn't keep tight control over each of the branches. Sometimes they would do things on their own, like trying to expand their influence into other cities or planning to take over my city. I would only find out when I returned weeks later to fix the accumulated problems and prevent them from getting out of control.

You know, humans are never satisfied; it's a pain to manage them.

A note to my future self: if you ever rule a territory, don't let humans live in it.

As for my newfound knowledge, I must admit that while a portion of the tomes and scrolls in the royal library were, as I expected, about politics, etiquette, family history, and fairy tales, a good portion contained very useful knowledge. Among them was botany: many herbs both common and magical and their uses for remedies or potions, as well as several types of magical minerals for the crafting of enchanted items, forging, and alchemy.

I also found knowledge about a lot of monsters I didn't know existed, which is normal; in the original work most of the time everything takes place in a forest, deserts, cold climates, mountains, seas, etc. were not explored. Although the information was not very complete about them, it did contain at least their images and brief rough descriptions of their capabilities, as well as possible uses for their body parts as crafting materials.

But the greatest reward for wasting over nine months reading tens of thousands of books was that I finally learned how humans see and use magic.

As I had expected, the first thing an apprentice magician must learn is how to influence the magicules of the environment. Although not in these words, I found records that speculate that there is a mysterious energy that surrounds us always, so they first make use of meditation methods to clear their minds, so that the process is easier. Then it is to use that energy to form magic circles, following already created templates, which optimize the use of energy to achieve the desired result.

Yes, the only relevant thing I discovered was his use of magic circles, which have the same function as skills for monsters. They just need to be supplied with energy and they create the result without the caster needing to understand what the circle is doing.

The biggest obstacle for a human mage is learning these circles and managing to cast them with the ambient magicules, while always preventing them from collapsing.

Apparently their inheritance had been cut off long ago. I came to that conclusion because, although I found many types of magic circles, I found no relevant notes on how each of their parts worked or how to create your own.

It was a clear sign that, at least in this realm, they didn't even understand how magic worked. For them it was just learning the existing templates and using them in different situations, without any innovation. Although I found notes of experiments to create new circles based on already existing circles.

For me it was more a lot of trial and error until a change occurred. Who knows how many died in those experiments, all because they didn't really understand what they were doing.

It was because I did not want to be like them that, instead of memorizing a bunch of useless circles for me, I spent most of my time discovering their operating principles.

To do this, I first took several circles of the same elements or of the same type. For example: water ball and water arrow, as well as water ball and fireball. It was after doing a lot of cross-referencing with multiple circles that I was able to isolate the elements of the circle responsible for giving it an element, its shape, as well as instructions: how to fly forward, turn, look for a nearby target, and finally what to do after impact, such as exploding and releasing energy.

I don't know how to explain it in detail, but you can imagine something like creating an electronic circuit, where the electrical paths of the circuit are replaced by circuits that carry magicules. These circuits then carry the magicules through the equivalent of logic gates or microchips, where they are infused with the characteristics that you want. And it is only if you supplied the magicules necessary to carry out the entire circuit process that the circuit gives rise to magic.

If we supply too many magicules, the circuit, not being designed for it, collapses. Besides the important fact that the whole circuit is supported by our will and desires. Without sufficient belief that it will work, even if everything else is correct, it will not lead to a successful outcome.

After all, circles are just a support, all the magic in this world is born from the will of the caster.

But thanks to learning all this, it became easier for me to use other elements.

I speculated that a monster's elemental affinity manifests as magicules with the properties of our elements already loaded by default. When we use magic of our element, we skip that step, which makes it easier for us.

As for elements that we are not akin to, since we already have those properties in our magicules, when we try to use another element such as earth, we must overwrite the properties that our magicules already have. This can be more or less difficult depending on the elements we are akin to.

In my case, the earth element is very difficult for me because, although I haven't used it, my magicules have properties of the space element, which is weak to the earth element. But thanks to magic circles, that drawback is greatly reduced. Sure, it's still not as good as using water, wind or shadows, but at least I don't have to spend a ton of magicules to create an earth wall anymore.

In addition to the elemental magic circles, I also found other types. For example: defensive or surveillance barriers, inspection circles, some detection circles, buffs, debuffs, among many others. Apparently the library contained a great variety. It's funny that, having magic circles for multiple types of barriers, and among them was the anti-magic barrier, the library didn't have them as a defensive measure.

But it is understandable to a certain extent, the engraved magic circles can deteriorate and lose their effects over time. Perhaps in the past there were protective barriers, but later they stopped working.

As for why they were not repaired, if you looked at the diagram of those circles, you would understand. In addition to the strict control of who can read these knowledge by the royal family, their learning difficulty is very high.

You can see it as going from a circuit that lights up two light bulbs on a ladder to a circuit that performs the operations of a calculator. The difficulty is no longer on the same scale.

Unfortunately I didn't find the circle to summon demons.

As for the spirit summoning book, it was very old and damaged; part of it was illegible, to my disappointment.

I was hoping to find some space element magic in the library. I wasn't looking for anything very advanced, I just wanted something that would allow me to understand something about space. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything of that nature. I would have to search other realms, maybe I would get lucky. In desperate cases, I would look for the ruins of the ultra-sorcery realm. As long as I was careful, I shouldn't be discovered by Kazalim, at least I could escape from him. It wouldn't be the same case if I tried to infiltrate Sarion or Luberius, places where I am one hundred percent sure of finding such information.

After the first month I stayed in the mansion, a certain incident occurred. The district guards became suspicious that I hadn't seen the guards of this mansion in a long time, so they prepared a raid. Unfortunately for them, they were no problem for Mira and I.

In order to avoid future problems, using a mind control magic I had recently learned, I implanted in everyone the order to forget what happened in the mansion and subconsciously ignore what happened there in the future. Although a supervisor came to check on the mansion later, I did the same for him so I wouldn't have to worry about it later.

Naturally, Mira also had her improvements, but I won't be a gossip, so I won't say anything.

As for what I'm doing right now... Do you remember that old man told me about the slave auctions for the nobles? Well, I've been going to them for months without much success; there were only some trivial items like jewelry, some magic items, human slaves, all very bland in my opinion.

Luckily for me, today was the day of this month's auction. This time they had announced well in advance that there would be other races as the night's star products. Thinking of the possibility of finding an interesting race, such as elves, dwarves, or werewolves, I got very excited. So I put everything aside and decisively went to the auction.

I even invited Mira, which she accepted.

...

We were in a top-quality auction hall within the central district of the city, just a few hundred meters from the noble district. While the lower (barons, viscounts) and middle (earls, marquises) nobles sat in the seats at the bottom, the VIP boxes contained dukes and princes of the kingdom.

Seriously, who taught them how to have an auction like this?!

Mira and I were resting in one of the VIP boxes. It originally belonged to a duke, but when the attendants left him alone, I used my magic to control his mind and threw him into a corner. If I wanted to buy something, I would do it through him.

This magic was very convenient, unfortunately it was very low level. I tried using it on some monsters, but it only worked on D ranks or lower for a short time.

It worked by leaving magicules in the target's body, which maintained control, but that was susceptible to outside interference or the effect ceasing to work after a couple of months when the magicules ran out. I had to renew control of the overseer and guards every month to avoid problems.

I liked it so much that I incorporated it into my Hypnotic Eyes ability. Not only did I now control my victim's senses, I could also implant commands into their mind without them realizing it, but they would remember that they were controlled when the effect wore off, so I always used it carefully.

It was because of these inconveniences that I didn't implement it on Phersu, though I would have liked to at least use it on those useless administrators. Instead, thanks to some magic used on slaves, which I tweaked a bit, the magic seal on Phersu's members finally had the functions I boasted to the members I recruited. Since I knew all of them, it wasn't difficult for me to seek them out and engrave the seal on their bodies when they were sleeping in their homes.

The auction started as usual, with a host thanking the guests for coming, blah, blah, blah, practically kissing their asses.

As the auction began, items were displayed and sold one by one, from antiques from destroyed kingdoms, some magical items, weapons forged with some magisteel, among many others.

None of this mattered much to me, so I set my mind to continuing to try out combinations of magic circles, something I had been working on for a while now. Having learned which components were responsible for what, I set out to create my own custom magic circles.

But like any innovation, it took time.

So much so that at some point I had acquired the chant nullification skill. Although I never needed to make use of the chant in the first place, as I had a very clear mental image of the magic I wanted to cast, my acquisition of it was very welcome due to the fact that it functions as a spell storage. By just manually casting a new spell the first time, it would be stored in my mind thanks to the skill and I could cast the spells instantly with a single thought.

So the auction time passed. With only three items left, the host called the audience to order, so I put aside my research and focused on the auction.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the section that most of you have been waiting for all night," the presenter shouted.

"The first item, from the mountains between the Jura Forest and the Sorcerer Dynasty Sarion, a beauty: the mixture of a woman's beauty and the grace of a bird, a harpy! "

From the side of the platform, several men pushed a steel cage. Inside it, a woman with blue hair could be seen, with a pair of bird wings with green plumage on her back. Her legs had sharp claws used to catch her prey. Her arms and legs were tied by strong chains, immobilizing her. On her face, a clear reluctance for her situation could be seen.

"Hey Mira, what do you think about humans buying monsters like they're commodities?" I asked.

"If she was weak enough to be caught by weak humans, she deserves it," she said disdainfully.

I nodded at what she said.

"I agree with you. If you are weaker than others, your life does not belong to you."

"Here you have it, gentlemen: a harpy, a rare specimen at auctions due to its flight ability. Experts had to pay a high price to capture it. Most importantly, my lords, it has been confirmed to be a virgin. Its starting price begins at fifty gold coins, and each increase cannot be less than ten gold coins. Let us begin!" said the host.

"Fifty."

"Seventy."

"Eighty."

...

I watched the price go up and up. In my opinion, the harpy wasn't worth it. Sure, she's rare and has an anti-mage ability, but it's not a big deal. You should know that one gold coin is equivalent to ten thousand dollars in my old life. You can buy a Ford Mustang for just five gold coins. Imagine what you can buy for over eighty gold coins.

I shook my head several times.

"Sold to Marquis Crow for two hundred gold coins, applause!" the host shouted.

While the rest of the audience was lamenting their inability to acquire her, Marquis Crow had a face of pride and lust that was clear to all the spectators. It doesn't take a genius to know what was in store for that harpy.

The men carried the cage back to the back, while others brought in a new cage.

Inside was something he had been longing for for a long time: a wolf-breed werewolf. It looked similar to any human, but it had sharp claws on its fingers, a fluffy tail, silver fur, and the unmistakable wolf ears on its head. A great fury could be seen in its eyes; I was sure that if it weren't tightly bound all over its body, it would surely escape from that cage and kill everyone present. Mira and I don't count.

"In front of you, a member of the Swift Fang Tribe, a tribe that specializes in close combat and dagger combat! He was captured outside a battlefield between the Swift Fang Tribe and the Golden Mane Tribe. He was the only survivor. He is a strong warrior and can serve as a strong competitor in the coliseum. Don't miss this opportunity. The starting price is twenty gold coins, and each increase must not be less than five gold coins."

"Twenty."

"Twenty-five."

"Sixty," said the duke I'm controlling.

Everyone present fell silent. I could sense in their eyes: fear? Is this guy really scary? Seeing no other bidders, the host began the countdown.

"Sixty gold coins at one, sixty gold coins at two, sixty gold coins at three. Sold to Duke Brinquillos!" said the host, quickly becoming somewhat uncomfortable.

Duke Brinquillos? What idiot named his noble house Brinquillos?

An assistant came to my booth to request payment. I let the Duke pay for me, while Mira and I hid in the shadows. They said the product would be ready when we left the auction. I simply told him, through the Duke, to leave.

"The ultimate product of the night, what every man desires!"

From the back came a beautiful woman with golden hair that reached down to her back. Her eyes were a beautiful emerald, her skin a clear shade like jade, her legs long and toned. Her eyes showed a clear sadness for her situation, her hands were restricted by some kind of magical object, surely something used to prevent her from using magic. But what stood out the most were her beautiful pointed ears.

"This beautiful elf was secretly captured in the Sorcerer Dynasty Sarion! Our supplier claims that she enjoys noble status there. What better way to devastate an arrogant elf!" the host shouted excitedly.

Which was followed by shouts and applause from the rest of the audience in excitement. I opened my mouth in disbelief.

"These idiots! They dared to kidnap someone from Sarion? Are they tired of living?" I used my stealth skill to prevent my scream from being heard by the humans.

"What does it matter if it's from Sarion?" Mira asked me.

"Didn't I tell you about the Sarion Sorcerer Dynasty?" I asked, puzzled.

"You only said that the person you were looking for should be near Sarion," she said affirmatively.

"Simply put, Sarion is ruled by two spiritual lifeforms as powerful as the Demon Lords. While neither of them care much about ruling, someone who can be considered noble in Sarion must be related to a royal family from one of the kingdoms that comprise it. If nothing happens, they'll send someone to investigate the disappearance, and when they find out that she was sold as a slave to humans, you can imagine what will happen," I said quickly.

See, grasping the implications, she also became serious.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"We take that werewolf I bought and get out of here. Let's get back to GreenRock, quickly," I said hurriedly.

Without wasting any time, we passed by the werewolf and sped away from the capital. When we left the capital and drove a few kilometers away...

*Boom*

I heard a powerful explosion in the distance. I quickly turned around to check out the situation. From where I assumed the auction area was, a gigantic mushroom-shaped cloud of dust rose into the air. Everything within a radius of several kilometers in the capital was leveled, including a considerable portion of the noble district.

Mira and I just stood there watching the aftermath of the explosion.

"Do you see why I'm so cautious about everything, Mira? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can mean death. Veldora's forest may be a dangerous environment to a certain extent, but it's Veldora's existence that restrains the rest of the strong types from acting unscrupulously within it," I said in a wise tone.

To which Mira just nodded.

We stayed silent for a few more seconds. After that, we continued our escape towards GreenRock, not wanting to be part of what would come after this incident.

___________________

Author's notes:

After months of learning, Kai has gained a wide variety of knowledge on multiple subjects. He is now no longer as ignorant about the world as he was when he arrived and only had superficial information he remembered about the original work.

As for why a "common" human kingdom would have so much knowledge of magic, if later in history they relied on dwarves to forge magical equipment and elves or the church for matters of magic, the answer is: all intelligent races had very strong and wise ancestors.

Naturally, it was they who left behind much of their knowledge. Sadly, over the centuries, amidst internal struggles and the ongoing Tenma Wars, much of the knowledge was lost. With the death of the most talented humans, the following generations were not even able to use that knowledge, so it was relegated to collecting dust on shelves.

If you're wondering about the randomness of the auction ending, I actually, to make it interesting, created a roulette wheel with several dozen races, both male and female, from which I would take three. Among those dozens were several special ones that, if drawn, would trigger subplots I had thought of. And as you noted, a kidnapped elf from Sarion was one of them.

Note that there were forest elves from Jura, dark elves from Jistav, and half-elves on the roulette wheel. And the one I least expected came up.