Disclaimer: I do not own Zero no Tsukaima or Destiny

Chapter 9: An Arcane Mystery

Tristain, Halkeginia

Tristain Academy of Magic

The Day of the Void

Louise wasn't quite sure what to expect from the academy's library. Her first thoughts were that of the ancient, decaying old libraries and book rooms she had passed through in parts of the European Dead Zone. They had a certain aesthetic, and a common feel, even over five centuries after the Collapse. While most of the actual paper in those books was long rotted away, many of the more durable covers remained in place where they sat.

At least, that was what she thought of after disregarding the more modern concepts of a library. Sure, there were plenty of physical books in the City, but they were mostly treated as historical objects and relics more than anything actually useful. 'Libraries' in the City were essentially just server farms, to be accessed by virtually any connected device. A closer comparison would be the Cryptarchs' vaults, where engrams and data were often stored in physical isolation, disconnected from external networks.

When they arrived, she opened the door, looked up, and immediately became a roadblock for the two following her. The room before her looked largely like what she expected, except for being ridiculously tall. The ten meter high bookcases were a bit much. How did they even get up there? Some kind of flying spells? Probably so, she realized, noticing that there were no ladders, steps, or other obvious means of vertical movement visible.

There were few students in the room, or rather the space was so big as to make it appear that way. None were near the section she was moving toward, almost on the opposite end of the cavernous space.

Within the academy's library, there were several subsections, mostly dedicated to knowledge of specific magical disciplines, divided by their element. She passed a few shelves related to lightning magic, an advanced subset of wind magic, as she made her way toward the restricted section. This was an area of the library ordinarily unavailable to the student population, and was walled off from the rest of the library, both physically, and also magically with similar spells to those that secured the academy's prized vaults. Whatever knowledge was within was obviously worth protecting to the locals.

Unlike most who approached this section, Louise was expected. The stylized gate, far stronger than it physically appeared, was opened from within. Inside the magical barrier was a space far more cramped than the library surrounding it. The bookcases were of a reasonable height, although the actual working area was limited to a small section near the entrance. Professor Colbert stood at a small wooden table in the center of the clear space, which looked to be big enough for maybe five people. He looked warily at the pair following Louise.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you into the restricted section. Louise has a legitimate reason to be here, but you do not." He told them.

"Tabitha was there." Louise said. He blinked and turned to her.

"Last night? I did not see anyone else in the clearing." Colbert mused.

"Up." The quiet girl said.

Up? Colbert wondered what she meant for a brief moment before remembering that the girl in question had summoned what appeared to be a blue wind dragon as a familiar the day before. Had she learned to ride it so quickly? Was it really only yesterday? It felt like weeks ago. His sense of time was still moving in a blur.

"She saw everything." Louise told him.

"Only Tabitha?" He asked. They both nodded.

"Sorry, Ms. Zerbst. I'm afraid you'll have to wait outside." A few moments, and a deflated Kirche later, the three of them were sealed into the restricted section of the library as the door closed and the wards reengaged.

"Apologies for the security, but this section is restricted for a reason. It's rare that anyone even comes here." Colbert said, walking a few steps over to the table and the assortment of books arrayed upon it. There were seven in all, and without exception, all looked absolutely ancient, yet somehow very well cared for.

"Those look...really old." Saito said, appearing from thin air over Louise's shoulder, his blue glowing eye transfixed on the display.

"Indeed they are. All originals, and there are no known copies. In addition to being a school of magic, we're also entrusted with the care and preservation of priceless artifacts...and things best left secret." He continued.

"These are all about summoning magic?" Louise asked him. He nodded.

"There are more, many more, books on the subject here in the library, but you're not going to find anything more detailed than what lies between these covers."

"Fascinating." Saito muttered, as the blue light from his glowing eye intensified, bathing the table in its glow. His shell swirled with excitement as he analyzed the texts with his sensor suite.

He couldn't tell how old the books were, the protective magical energy from what he thought was some kind of preservation spell kept them in exquisite condition, but that only aided in his ability to scan them. In moments, he had scanned and translated the volumes, and began to analyze them for patterns.

"Is there anything useful in there?" Louise asked her floating companion. Colbert looked on in astonishment of his own. Had that little floating creature just read the texts in an instant?

"Potentially." He answered. "Apparently, summoning spells are in fact rare around here, in terms of variety. The most commonly cast version is known as the springtime summoning ritual, where mages in training summon some creature to be their familiar, which is how you ended up in a Hive summoning chamber on Luna. From what I can tell by the texts here, the spell itself is quite vague in its mechanics. There's a lot of religious connotations that may be helpful in determining its origin, however. I think we'll need to find an even more ancient source to truly start to decompile it.

The spell that brought you back is a bit more interesting. It was apparently made as an alteration to the springtime summoning ritual, although it goes into no further detail of how the original works. While the original spell summons a creature based on some as of yet unknown criteria of the caster, this modified version summons a specific target through the use of a focus tied to the target." Saito explained at length. "The modified summoning ritual only appears in one of these books." He added.

"Which is going back in the academy's secure vaults once we're done here." Colbert told them, glancing at Tabitha again. He was still unsure about letting her in here. Even if she had seen everything at a distance from the air, she wouldn't have seen enough details to know much about the other summoning spell or even known about the book.

"Professor, how is the familiar summoning spell supposed to work? Clearly it did not for me, but I'm the exception." She asked him.

"It's an ancient tradition that a familiar summoning be performed in the spring, usually just before the Day of the Void. The ritual is supposed to summon the most suitable familiar for the mage performing it. For example, Tabitha here is talented with wind magic, and summoned a wind dragon. Ms. Zerbst is the strongest with the element of fire of any second year student, and she summoned a giant fire salamander. Generally, the summoned creature in some way matches the elemental affinity of the student, or if it was previously unknown, helps determine it." He explained.

"But the banned spell, the one you used to bring me here, uses a focus. What does the focus do, specifically?" She asked.

"Headmaster Osmond would know more about it than I would. I've only ever seen it done once, and I was simply assisting him with it." He admitted.

"Normally, when the original summoning ritual is performed, the energy flows from the caster, through their wand, and into the summoning circle. According to the text, the focus acts as a middleman in that process." Saito answered, analyzing the book he scanned earlier. "All of the energy is channeled through the focus and then into the summoning circle, instead of from the caster directly."

Louise thought about that for a few moments, her mind snagging on one particular detail.

"What if it's the exact same spell?" Louise wondered aloud. Everyone else stopped thinking when she said that.

"How could it possibly be the same spell?" Colbert asked.

"It could be if you're just exploiting a flaw in the original's logic." She argued, tempted to make analogies to code exploits, but stopped herself when the realization caught up with her that Colbert would not even know what computer code was. Best to avoid that topic.

"The summoning ritual can't possibly be flawed. The Founder himself is supposed to have developed it." Colbert told her.

"Alright, maybe not flawed." Louise gave, deciding not to descend into an argument over claims of religious infallibility. "But this is definitely an unintended behavior." She continued. "If the spell was intended to be cast by a mage directly into a summoning circle, then something about the ritual probably analyzes the caster to find the best 'match' that it then opens a portal to summon. If you use a focus strongly tied to a specific being, then wouldn't the focus actually be 'casting' the spell, since it's what feeds energy into the circle?"

"Summons the best match for the caster." Tabitha repeated aloud in thought, breaking her silence.

A cold chill went down Colbert's neck. It suddenly made sense, at least academically. The ritual summoned something that was the best match for the caster, or at least it should. If the 'caster' happened to be a bundle of Louise's spare wands wrapped in a few strands of her hair, then wouldn't Louise herself be the best match it could summon? It made sense, but the implications were stunning. And terrifying.

"You must not repeat this to anyone, do you understand? The implications are maddening." He told them with newfound urgency.

"You think I'm right?" Louise asked.

"It would need to be tested, but it may be so. If what you just said is true, then this information cannot be allowed to escape the academy." he warned.

"Well, that sounds dangerous." Saito chimed in. "It's like everyone having the tools to transmat their opponents straight into an ambush at will. Hard to think of a better method of assassination or capture than to summon the target into a place of your choosing by force."

"Still." Louise began. "As interesting as this is, it still doesn't help us very much."

"I suppose we could technically use the same modified ritual to return, but we would need a suitable focus that would open a portal back to the Sol system. I don't think we have anything that qualifies." Saito expanded aloud.

"Try to summon a familiar again?" Tabitha asked them.

"I doubt it would work." Louise mused. "I suppose I could do that to go somewhere else, but the universe is a big place. If it opened a portal to another world once, who knows where a second attempt would end up. Besides, even if it did work and send me home, I would be gone without solving the mystery. That just won't do."

"Here we go again…" Saito mumbled to himself. Louise shot him a look, but she had a grin on her face. "Warlocks. No wonder both you and Osiris went back into the Infinite Forest without a second thought after that mess with Panoptes."

"What's Panoptes?" Colbert asked, curious for more information about where she came from.

"It's…" Louise began, but stopped. How was she going to explain something as crazy as a Vex Axis Mind that lorded over infinite simulations of alternate realities inside of a planet sized computer to this man from a preindustrial civilization?

"Panoptes was the 'king' of a place called the Infinite Forest." Saito saved her from the problem. "It's a long story. I'm sure we'll have time to talk about it later, after we get this sorted out. What I meant was that Louise, like many warlocks, cares more for knowledge than the final result it brings. It would seem that we're not leaving until we figure out how your system of magic works." Saito explained.

"There are many volumes on magical theory here in the library, and I don't believe any of those are locked in the restricted area. You're free to help yourselves to reading them." Colbert told him.

"That won't be enough to satisfy her." He said bluntly, his shell twirling around his central core. "She'll need more than just the words and rituals you use to cast spells. I've known Louise long enough to know that she's not going to stop until she figures out how your magic functions, and why it works." Beside him, Louise was nodding with a smile.

"That's how you reverse engineer something. Study the final product until you figure out the real details behind it. That's what I need to do in order to crack the summoning ritual." She said.

Saito looked at his guardian with the realization that they were going to be here for a long time. Louise was obsessed with summoning magic. She had intensively studied Hive and Taken magic, as well as certain Vex technologies, such as what methods Skolas used to attempt to pull the House of Wolves of the past forward through time, and the Vault's Oracles. She had a pretty good understanding of those topics, even if the application of them remained generally out of reach for a guardian. But now she had a whole new mystery to solve, and it was perfectly presented in her favorite form.

Louise picked up the book that contained the modified summoning ritual. It was one thing to have her ghost scan and record everything for review later, but it was another to experience the original artifact first hand. She parted the hard cover and got to work. There was so much to learn, so much to investigate, that next twelve hours went by in a flash.