Chapter 24: Mirodar
The book Damien was holding had a black cover. On it, symmetrical figures of silver symbols formed a complicated magic circle in the center. Additionally, the back of the cover was adorned with a raven-like feather pen as dark as the night sky.
Damien was excited and felt his heart pound with anticipation. Wasn't this the cliché of a light novel? The moment when the protagonist receives a divine treasure?
Has his time to shine come?!
He picked up the pen and slowly opened the black cover. On the first page was...
Well, nothing. He turned to the next; there was nothing there either. Not even a speck of dust.
Damien felt confused and quickly turned page after page to the end.
"Why is there nothing?" His initial enthusiasm deflated as quickly as a punctured balloon. He scratched his head several times and stared at the feather.
"This looks like a feather pen from the old days. So what is its real use?"
As he thought about it, he remembered a certain anime he had watched with his sister.
"Wait... Could this book be able to kill everyone whose name is written in it?"
"No, that would be too scary and probably shouldn't exist."
However, this book did not seem ordinary. It sat on the throne of an ancient ruined castle, but there wasn't a speck of dust on its pages.
Damien decided to see if he could actually feel something and pricked his skin. He felt a small prickle of pain rise up his cheek, which told him that even though it wasn't like real pain, he could at least feel something. He brought his hand to his chin and blinked, considering several possibilities.
This was no ordinary dream, somehow he was in a real place. An astral world?
He thought maybe he had died and his soul was somewhere strange, but that didn't seem to be the case. Anyway, he had already confirmed that he wasn't dreaming, so this book should be as real as he was.
He decided to try writing a few lines, and to his amazement, the pen left thin black letters.
"Mm, just as I thought. A normal pen wouldn't work without ink."
He remembered the face of a bully who had made his life miserable in college. With a sinister smile, he began to write his name and the details of a death for him.
A few seconds after he finished, surprisingly, another writing appeared under the words he had written, as if an invisible pen had added to them. It was red ink, like blood.
[Nice to meet you, Honored Master]
[Did you think it was a Death Note? Ha ha! Sorry, I don't have that kind of power. My gift lies in omnicience: I am the all-knowing consciousness. Type-Origin 02 Arcane Artifact. You may address me as... Mirodar]
Damien stared at the writing for a while, his eyes wide. An Type-Origin 02 Arcane Artifact... it sounded even more powerful than what Albedo had stolen. And its power was Omniscience!
He snapped out of his initial astonishment and hurriedly wrote a question: "Does that mean you know everything? I mean, you already answered, but I mean everything I can ask you."
The red ink answered underneath: [Of course. I am a righteous and noble being. I make an equivalent change. This means that if you want an answer, you'll have to be willing to pay the price]
"Pay the price? And what is the price? I don't have much money..."
[The more mysterious the question, the higher the price. Don't worry, the payment is not money, but .... your lifespan!]
Damien's lips tightened at the thought of this terrifying bargaining chip. As a vampire, he had a long existence, but that didn't mean he was immortal, although according to Helene, the higher they rose in the Hierarchy, the more a vampire's lifespan increased.
However, Damien had just joined them and hadn't had time to increase his power. He doubted he had much lifespan left.
Mirodar read his mind and wrote: [You have a lifespan of 150 years]
Damien was surprised that it could do that before shaking his head. It was to be expected, after all, this book was omniscient.
"But 150 years... that's not a lot of time."
He wanted to achieve immortality so he could live with Nephelia and Sophie forever. To that end, he set out to rise quickly in the vampire Hierarchy by ingesting Noble Vampires crystallized blood, thus prolonging his existence.
Nephelia might not have liked the idea, but it was the fastest way for him. But using his lifespan just to get answers would make it difficult to fulfill his plan.
Damien sighed when he saw what Mirodar wrote next: [Although I mentioned being omniscient, that is only partially true. I have lost much of my energy in the past and am now in the recovery phase. If you ask something very guarded, I will not be able to answer. Likewise, if you ask something trivial, I won't charge you]
Damien must have imagined that something like this would happen. Just like in light novels and anime, when the protagonist encountered something too powerful, there was always some kind of limit.
Suddenly, he felt like cursing out of frustration, but he held himself back. Instead, he went back to writing, "For example, if I ask about my Pathway, how much would you charge me?"
Mirodar's response was, [Finding out the name of your pathway is a simple matter. However, answering you would subtract one year from your life span. On the other hand, if you ask for the ingredients of the pill at each rank... I can't give it to you]
Damien got the point. He wouldn't even know he was an Ascendant if it weren't for Nephelia. When he asked her about his Pathway, she replied that she had no idea and that his case was different from that of an ordinary Ascendant.
Getting the ingredients for the pills was even more difficult. Even the top factions kept this kind of information secret from their members.
"Very well. A year's lifespan isn't much, what's the name of my Pathway?"
The moment he asked the question, Damien felt something leave his body and get sucked into the book. This was the cost of getting the answer he wanted.
He figured it was worth losing a year of useful life to find out the name of his Pathway. If he found out what it was called, he might have a clearer idea of where his abilities were focused.
This was because, as far as he knew, the names of each Pathway and rank were unique and closely related to the special abilities determined by that very name.
After Mirodar absorbed the year of his lifespan, the answer manifested itself in bright red letters:
[Your path, Venerable Master, is unfortunately the Spiritist Pathway]
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone