Endangered The Demons Of M A Pt 04

Endangered: The Demons of Monstrum Academy Pt. 4

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© 2024 S. Round. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. All sexually active characters in this work are eighteen (18) years of age or older.

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Ch. 28

Evan and Alex spent a good two hours exploring the hidden library, and it was truly amazing. There were so many books that it was impossible to check them all. They settled for doing a quick scan of each row of bookshelves and reading the titles to get a feel for what each book's subject was. From what they could tell, most of the books were studies or lessons on different magical phenomena. Evan started making a pile of the ones that looked the most interesting, even if he didn't really understand what the book was about.

Alex pointed out a few books that looked to be about augmenters, and she expressed an interest in reading them. Besides the books, there were plenty of shelves and cabinets on the lower level filled with artifacts. Well, they assumed they were artifacts. They wouldn't be able to tell until someone tried to activate them. But if they were all artifacts containing powerful magic, this was a greater treasure than what the base had in their vaults. While some of the items had odd shapes, other items looked like jewelry or common household tools. Evan looked over a handheld mirror inlaid in a fancy metal frame before quickly returning it to its place out of fear. His imagination got the better of him after thinking about what it might be capable of. Better safe than sorry.

After a while, the two decided they needed to tell someone. Surprisingly, it was Alex that was the most hesitant to reveal the finding. She felt it might be better to keep it a secret. But she did agree that the resources in the room could potentially help the community greatly. In the end, they compromised by bringing in Alex's mother.

Ms. Vaduva was quite excited to see Evan and Alex show up at her office together. She couldn't help making a few comments about how nice it was to see them getting along. Alex rolled her eyes, but she ignored the comments for the most part. Ms. Vaduva became more serious after they revealed the reason for their visit. They brought her to the clock tower and made sure nobody else was around before Evan reopened the hidden passageway.

"Amazing," Ms. Vaduva said. "How did you manage to find this?"

"Well, uhh, I chased a... rabbit," Evan said feeling embarrassed at how it sounded. "It led me here."

"A rabbit?"

"Yeah. It was a big, white rabbit with blue eyes," he said. "I had seen it a few times around campus, but nobody I pointed it out to could see it."

"I couldn't see what he was chasing," Alex said. "I kinda thought he might be on drugs or something."

Evan looked at her with a hurt expression.

"Hmm," Ms. Vaduva said.

She inspected the wall before looking behind her thoughtfully at the courtyard. Her gaze was aimed at the statue of the woman holding a shield. Ms. Vaduva then asked Evan to demonstrate how the door worked again. He showed her that he could close the door by holding his palm against the bricks. Once it was closed, Ms. Vaduva tried to open it herself. She touched the wall all over and tried several methods to illicit some response, but nothing happened. Only when Evan again touched the wall did the entrance reappear. They finally entered the library after that.

Evan and Alex showed her some of the things they found and pointed out the book with Elias Monstrum's name on it. Ms. Vaduva quietly walked around the library once on her own and took it all in.

"There is no doubt," she said after rejoining the kids. "This is definitely Dr. Monstrum's hidden library. I never thought it would be real."

"What do you think we should do with it?" Evan said.

"Well..." she said touching the big book at the center of the desk. "I don't think we should tell anyone else about it for starters. We need to keep it a secret."

"I agree," Alex said.

"Are you sure?" Evan said.

"Yes. I believe this was all left behind for you anyway."

"Huh? How's that possible?"

"Not specifically for Evan Matthews," Ms. Vaduva said. "But for whatever young generator happened to come to the academy. It seems clear to me that Dr. Monstrum set up this place to help teach the next generation, and he even set up magic to help lead you here. I think if he had wanted the material in this room to be shared with everyone, he wouldn't have gone through all that trouble."

"All of this would just be confiscated and put in a vault anyway," Alex said with a little disgust.

Ms. Vaduva nodded slightly at her daughter's words.

"I mean, I'd love to keep this all for myself," Evan said. "But I don't want to be selfish. There might be some very useful stuff in here that could help people, you know?"

"That could be true," Ms. Vaduva said. "But I'm sure most everything in this room wouldn't have any value without a generator to use it."

"..."

"Keep it secret and study magic here," she continued. "If you need some guidance about what you find in here, I can help you. I hope you do find many helpful things, but we can find a way to use them without revealing this secret. Just don't be so quick to throw away this gift that has been so generously given to you, ok?"

"Right."

They spent some more time looking around together after that. Alex showed her mom some of the titles she saw, and both of them asked Evan if they could borrow one of the books. He had no problem with it since he didn't really feel like the books were his just yet.

Evan sat at the desk and eyed the large book placed at the center titled "The Writings of Elias Monstrum." He opened the tome and scanned through a few pages. What he saw was a mass of scribbles and large blocks of unidentifiable symbols.

"What the hell is this?" Evan said.

"What is it?" Ms. Vaduva said rushing over.

Evan showed her the book and she thumbed through a few pages just like he had.

"Oh, this is Dr. Monstrum's book," she said. "That makes sense. This is a grimoire."

"What does that mean?"

"It's a type of artifact," she said. "You read the contents by activating it with magic. Judging by the size of this one, it must be pretty advanced. Looks like this will be something only you can read, Evan."

"Not that I can do anything with it now."

Evan closed the book and again looked at how thick it was. Even if he learned to use artifacts, he knew it would take a substantial amount of free time to get through it all. He had a feeling Dr. Monstrum's story would have to wait a while.

Closing the large memoir, Evan noticed another book set on the desk that he had overlooked. It was much smaller and less conspicuous than Dr. Monstrum's history. He picked it up and dusted off the cover to read the title. It was called

The Three I's

. The title didn't give him much indication of what kind of information the book held, so he opened it up and began to read. He soon realized that this book had been left out in the open for a reason. Evan read the first passage of the book out loud to himself.

"This book is an elementary introduction to the theory and mechanics of growing and using magic for the beginner magician. Intention, infusion, and issuance. Together, these make up the three I's, which are the foundation for all magic spells."

"Amazing," Evan said.

It was the very thing he needed the most, a guide on how to grow as a generator mage. Having a teacher would have been best, but having a written textbook on how to learn magic was much better than nothing. Thinking about it, it wouldn't have made sense for Elias Monstrum to leave behind this library for the next generation without providing a method for the inheritor to learn.

Evan skimmed through the first few chapters. It went into some depth about the meaning of the three I's before it gave an overview on the different levels of power that magicians could reach. It seemed there was an actual tier system for ranking how strong magicians were. Evan knew this would be the first book he read, but he put it aside for the moment. He had many other exciting things to check out still, so he couldn't keep his mind focused on one thing for too long just yet.

Evan turned his attention to the stack of books he had picked out from the upper floors. One had a big cross on the cover and was titled

Health and Healing

. Another was called

A Study of Prescience

. There was also one that said simply

Animation

. Each one pulled up a specific image in his mind of some miraculous magical feat he had seen in movies or read about in fantasy novels. He was giddy at the thought he might become like those fantasy heroes someday.

He picked up

A Study of Prescience

first. He skimmed through the first few chapters and realized he had no clue what the author was talking about. It seemed the subject was a little too advanced for a complete beginner. He proceeded to look through the other two only to find the same thing. However, he did notice that all of them started off with the same first steps. They all mentioned something about cycling your power in preparation for the magic to be performed. He picked out a few books at random from the upper shelves and saw the same thing there. As one would expect, it looked like Evan would not be able to jump right into the hard stuff.

The vampire ladies soon left citing the need to attend to other business, but Evan decided to stick around a while longer and dive into

The Three I's

to see what he could learn. He sat down at the big desk and started to read. It wasn't easy to understand, but he found he was able to make more sense of it than the advanced books. He read for around two hours before he started to feel uncomfortable from sitting too long. He decided to take the book with him as he left the library and closed up the entrance behind him.

At the end of the night, Evan had managed to learn a few useful things. He discovered that cycling magic power was essentially the process of summoning the power from your body and bringing it to the surface where it could then be used for whatever you planned to do. It sounded simple enough, but it really wasn't. It seemed that the process of cycling power required a lot of mental discipline and what the book described as mind body connection. He wished he only had to flex a certain muscle or say some special words, but it didn't look like it was going to be that easy.

Despite the difficulty, Evan felt much better having finally found a way to progress on his own. He made up his mind to dedicate whatever free time he had outside of his classes to studying how to use his magic. He wouldn't neglect his normal studies, but he was going to take learning magic seriously. He felt he owed it to the people of Tourmaline to do so. Evan was thrilled to have a way forward finally, and he fell asleep that night to sweet dreams of all the potential magical wonders that awaited him in his future.

Ch. 29

Classes resumed for Evan as usual on Monday. Part of him wanted to skip and spend all day in the hidden library, but he didn't want to fall behind in his schoolwork. That day he had lunch with Zayla, Barry, and the twins. They had normal light conversations as they ate until Zayla and Barry got up first to leave. As soon as it was just Evan and the twins, the two hobbit girls looked at each other with an excited twinkle in their eyes.

"So, Evan," Lia said. "What are you doing tonight?"

"Probably studying," Evan said. "Got some tests coming up that are stressing me out a little."

"Well, we know of a party happening tonight," Laia said. "Smaller than the last one, but probably way more fun."

"How about blowing off that work and letting us treat you to a good time?" Lia said.

"I'm sure it would be good for you to let loose a little after all that has happened."

"..."

Evan couldn't deny that he was still wound up from his ordeal, so there was probably some truth to what they said. But he didn't feel like a party was the right medicine for what was ailing him. Even if it was a smaller affair than the last one, there was still bound to be plenty of strangers there, and he didn't want to have to deal with all the attention that would undoubtedly be sent his way.

"Sorry, guys," Evan said. "I don't think I want to do any partying right now."

They seemed to understand and didn't push the issue, but Evan could tell they were a little disappointed for some reason. It made him feel bad for letting them down, but he knew he would most likely only kill the mood at the party anyway. They'd have a much better time without him moping around.

The rest of the day was ordinary until the end of his math class that afternoon. It was the one class he shared with Clara. She had mentioned many times hating math, so he figured that was why she put it off until her senior year. Clara pulled him aside as they were leaving class that day and asked if he wouldn't mind helping her study later. They had a big exam coming up, and she wasn't confident about it at all. He was happy to help seeing as he had already planned on studying for it on his own anyway, and they agreed to meet up in her room that evening.

Evan was equal parts nervous and excited to be spending some time alone with Clara in her room. Clara was a sweet girl, and she had become one of his closest friends at school. She was also very pretty. Evan would have been very interested in trying to start something more than friendly with her, if it wasn't for the fact that she already had a boyfriend. That would normally mean she was off limits, but Evan felt like he got some mixed signals from Clara sometimes. Maybe he was just misreading things. It wasn't like he was an expert on girls.

The time for their study session came soon enough, and Evan made his way up to the top floor where Clara's room was. The room was easy to find due to the big flowery "Clara" that was decorating the door. He took a big breath and knocked.

"Hey!" she said, opening the door and letting him in.

He walked in and saw the same layout he had seen in the other rooms he had visited. Clara had decorated her place in a more girly fashion than Zayla. There were lots of flowers and lots of pink everywhere. Instead of a couch or a recliner, Clara only had a plump loveseat set up in front of her TV.

"Nice place," he said.

"Thanks! We can study here," she said indicating the coffee table in front of the loveseat.

They sat down and got to work. It turned out Clara was a little worse off at math than Evan expected. He wasn't a genius on the subject himself, but he felt he understood what they had been going over in class recently. They spent a couple hours going over some of the practice problems, and Clara was finally able to grasp some concepts she had been a bit murky on. She wasn't stupid by any means. She just didn't care for numbers.

"Thanks a ton, Evan!" she said as they put their books away. "You'd make a great teacher."

"I don't know about that," he said. "But it would be easy if all the students were as smart as you."

"Ha! You're sweet," she said with a big smile.

"Well, I guess I should leave you alone," he said standing up with his bag. "I'm sure you're busy."

"Oh, no!" she said putting a hand on his arm. "Stay and hang with me! I actually don't have anything else going on tonight."

"Yeah?"

"Mmhmm. Come on, sit," she said pulling him back to the loveseat. "I'll find us a movie to watch."

Evan awkwardly sat back down next to Clara as she joyfully searched for something to watch on her streaming services. He had been alright when they had a task to focus on and he knew his role. He started feeling nervous now that he didn't have anything to occupy his hands or mind.

Clara ended up settling on some new romcom that had just come out. Evan didn't object, mainly because it was one of the few new movies out that he hadn't already watched. She started the movie before settling back into the love seat. Evan had reclined on his side of the seat and put his legs up. He was surprised when Clara snuggled up against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"I hope you don't mind," Clara said. "Just feels more comfy like this."

"Yeah, sure, no problem," he said as coolly as he could manage.

He tried not to tense up, but he did find it hard to act naturally while he was feeling the softness of her breast against his arm.

Just one thought of what he was feeling pressed into his side made him remember the game of truth or dare. He had witnessed all of Clara's shirtless glory. Her large perfect globes had featured many times in his daydreams since that night. He had to force himself to stop remembering this time, however. He wasn't in a position where he could get away with something popping up in his pants.

They watched the movie, and besides the slight anxiety on Evan's part, it was a fun time. They laughed occasionally, and Clara swooned a bit at some of the more romantic parts. One time when the male lead said something sweet, she hugged his arm tighter and sighed. The whole experience with her cuddling as close to his body as she could get was another thing that made him wonder about her feelings. If it were anyone else, he might be feeling pressured to make a move. As it was, he was more just curious about what was going on in her head.

"You sure Matt won't mind you watched this without him?"

"No, he doesn't really like these kinds of movies," she said. "Typical guy."

"I don't either usually," he said.

"It's good I trapped you before you could leave then," she said emphasizing her hold on his arm.

"But really," he said trying to be serious. "He wouldn't mind...like... that you're spending time alone with me?"

"No," she said shaking her head. "It's ok. We don't get jealous about things like that."

"Oh, ok."

They watched the movie in silence for a few minutes before Clara spoke up again.

"This," she said quietly with a squeeze to his arm. "Does it bother you?"

"No! It's nice," he said. "It's just... I just know a lot of guys wouldn't like it, you know?"

"Yeah," she said. "We're a little different, I guess."

"How long have you two been together?"

"It's been three years," she said. "Well, two years since we became official. It took a while to gain the courage to tell our parents."

"Really? Why?"

"Because I'm a monster mage, and he isn't," she said after a short pause.

"Is he a normal human?"

"No, he's an internal augmenter."

"Oh, I see," he said. "Why is that a problem?"

"Well... it's complicated," she said.

He could see her face had fallen as the conversation went on. The subject seemed to be bumming her out. He was curious, but it wasn't worth ruining the night.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to pry. It's not any of my business."

"It's ok," she said. "Just know that he doesn't mind us being together, ok?"

"Got it."

They got back to watching the movie after that. Evan had a lot of questions, but it wasn't the time to ask them. He was mainly curious why Clara and Matt's parents wouldn't approve of their relationship. He thought that being able to have a relationship with anyone was something to be happy about with the low number of men around. It seemed like there was a lot more to Clara's story than he realized.

Whatever the answer was, Evan couldn't help noticing the conversation had killed the mood somewhat. Clara still stayed cuddled up next to him, but she wasn't as bubbly as before. He felt bad, so he decided to try something a little risky. He gently pulled his arm free from her grasp, much to her confusion. He could see a hurt look flash briefly in her eyes before he moved his arm over her shoulders. He grabbed her and tucked her back in close to his side with his arm now around her.