It was time for the scouts to get their jobs; however, Axel was exempt from the job picking. At least until his body is well enough to go on missions again.
With the down time he was given, Axel began to think of ways to become stronger so he could defeat the Owl Lady, and he had found his focus.
The Emperor's Covens Relics. Items of power correlating to the nine main covens. What interested Axel most was the mystery of the Relics.
When Axel tried to get information on the relics, he was told the work off of powerful magic. Which is really weird.
There wasn't anything that Axel knew of that was just explained like that. For example, the scroll phones could also be described as working because of magic, but the scroll phones were very well understood.
Perhaps it was because of the Relics were kept in the Emperor's castle, and them not being released to the public caused no one to know how they worked.
However, there was still the question, why aren't there more of the Relics? If more of them could be made, why weren't they mass produced and given to the coven heads.
The Relics were said to be very powerful. For example, a hat that can heal any curse, a glove that can grow any plant, and an orb that shows a witch how to be their best selves.
The only reason that Axel could come up with was that the method of making them was lost to time. But the problem with that was that the Emperor was right there.
A being who at least claims to be extremely old, and all the records that Axel has found said that the Emperor was the one who discovered, or made, the Relics.
It didn't make sense to Axel, or maybe that was because he was thinking hard about something that he wasn't supposed to be thinking of.
All the records he got of information of were from the Emperor's Coven library, where the only non-coven books that get through are those specifically about wild magic.
Perhaps there was information about the Relics in a non-coven-controlled source.
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Axel walked around town of Ribdis he knew there was a library around here somewhere.
The town was southwest of the castle and not too far from it. Ribdis was built near a cliff that overhangs the main way to get to the Emperor's Coven's Castle.
Scouts that were working in the towers could actually hear young witches playing.
Quickly, Axel found the library and walked in, he had to finish his research before dinner. His eyes glazed over the floating books as he searched for something about the relics.
He checked the crystal ball, but he couldn't find anything about the specifics of Relics, there was one website about how the Relics were keeping the planet a triangle.
After that, Axel began to check the bookshelves.
'Bingo'
The Emperor's Coven's Relics. A tittle that promised everything that Axel was looking for, and it was a book that wasn't in the castle's library.
Unfortunately, as Axel read, he realized that the book's first few pages were about what the Relics were, then the rest of the pages were just about how great the Emperor's Coven was.
But, at the end of the book there was a small note about how some of the Relics could have come from Humervile. Axel guessed that the final note was the reason that this book wasn't included in the castle's library.
He wasn't exactly happy about needing to pay the snail fee for transport, but could he do? Ignore the breadcrumbs he was given, that wouldn't happen, he needed more than he had.
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Axel had to cough up quite a few snails to get to Humervile, but if he could find out more about the Relics.
However, after getting to the library and searching the bookshelves, he couldn't find any new books about the Relics. He found the same book as he did the last town but nothing good.
He kept looking despite knowing that the book he was looking for was not here before giving up.
'Well, I can at least make the best of this'
Then Axel began to look around the library for books on wild witches and wild magic. Axel had already read the books the castle library, so reading some new books would be nice.
Looking through the selection of books, Axel found one that was particularly interesting to him. It was about how wild witches used healing magic, with how hurt Axel was getting on recent missions, having some healing information might be good.
As he read the book, he came onto a page about the distinction between wild magic healing and coven system healing. It was pretty interesting due to how wild witches didn't have a specific distinction between certain spells.
For example, many spells that wild witches casted that they considered healing spells wouldn't count as healing spells in the coven system, like healing damaged trees, or potions that would numb pain.
But they did still have a multitude of spells for healing witches, and something that some wild witches would use was a bright red hat.
The hat acted as a magic power bank. So, if a witch could use healing magic more than they could otherwise, which was good to have in the case of a patient needed healing for an extremely long time, or if a witch needed to cast healing magic for a long time.
Unfortunately, the hat itself was very flimsy and easy to rip so it couldn't be used in any combat. And the magic that was held in the hat couldn't last more than a day.
As the magic was used up the color shifted. Starting at red, it shifted to orange, yellow and so forth, eventually ending on purple. When purple the hat was out of magic and would need to be replenished
Of course, the method to replenish the is completely lost to time.
'You know, it's kind of funny, the hat kind of looks like the Healing Hat Relic'
Axel stopped, before reading over the page about the hat again. He then checked the author.
Verite Dechaine.
He then began to go through the library looking for more books made by that author, and luckily there were a few other books written about the similar subjects, wild plant magic, wild oracle magic, history of backscratchers?
'I guess they wanted to try something new'
Grabbing the books on magic Axel began to flip through them. The book on plant magic had a section on the seedling glove. A glove that can helps plants grow, as long as the specific seed of the plant was in the glove.
'Green Thumb Gauntlet'
The oracle book had a section on an orb that was used for therapy. An orb that would make a copy of the user that would tell them what they wanted to hear.
'The Oracle Sphere'
And as Axel kept looking through the books, the same pattern kept appearing. Relics of the Emperor's Coven matching items from the wild witch items.
Thinking ahead, Axel grabbed the books that he found by Verite and checked them out at the front desk as fast as possible.
These books directly contradicted that it was the Emperor that made or discovered these things, and the books also said that the items were not as powerful as the Emperor's Coven said.
The books were absolutely on the chopping block and soon. Axel wasn't happy about the Relics being fakes, but information was information and he needed anything.
And maybe the Relics were fakes, but they could still do things that Axel wouldn't be able to do.
He needed to get ready for the next time he and his group was put up agent the Owl Lady, or he may go to fight her himself.
Probably not by himself though, he wasn't ready for that.