Juin slowly nodded. He thought about it for a moment before putting his hand out on the desk. "Can you see anything from me?"Mr. Thompson looked at Juin"s hand, and after a while, he placed his own hand above Juin"s palm. However, all he could see was darkness.
"Nothing…" Mr. Thompson said as he released Juin"s hand. "But I"m a lot weaker now than before…"
He said that, but even so, the fact that he could not see anything meant that Juin was different from a normal boy. Otherwise, even with his diminished strength, he should still be able to see something.
"But you know that you aren"t normal human, right? Otherwise, you wouldn"t be asking about all these questions…" Mr. Thompson said as he narrowed his eyes. "What happened recently?"
"I honestly don"t know what I am…" Juin admitted honestly. "It"s just that I found out that I"m not who I thought I was… But..." He then shrugged dejectedly, giving Mr. Thompson a helpless expression.
Mr. Thompson frowned. He stood up and paced around one of the walls of books. He had a pensive look on his face, so Juin did not dare to bother him. Mr. Thompson touched the spines of the books on one of the shelves. "It"s not a good idea for someone who knows about us to be left alone…"
Juin felt somewhat threatened by his words, and he unconsciously pushed his chair back a few inches.
His action did not go unnoticed. Thankfully, Mr. Thompson wasn"t offended by it. "Since you"re Max"s friend, I"ll help you this time… But only because it would be more dangerous for you and those around you if you were to be let loose without any knowledge of what you are getting yourself into."
"Sir?"
With his back facing Juin, Mr. Thompson said, "You understand that everything we talk about in this room has to stay in this room, right? Max is just a normal human, and I don"t want her to get embroiled in any of this."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell me what you know so far��"
Juin hesitated for a while until he heard Lucifer"s words, "Tell him everything except my ident.i.ty…"
He then watched as Lucifer took shape in the room. When Lucifer saw Juin"s curious expression, he said, "His ward is not as strong as Warlock."
Warlock could see Lucifer, but Mr. Thompson couldn"t. That was the difference in their strength, and it also told Juin how powerful Warlock was.
After clearing his throat, Juin said, "So… A while back, I got into an accident at the museum…"
"The one where you were found fainted in a room… By the way, did you take the sword and the book?" Mr. Thompson turned around and asked. In his hand was a leatherbound book with a belt that had a golden buckle on it, and on the buckle, there was a carving of a diagram that seemed to glow with white light.
When Lucifer saw the diagram on the gold buckle, he frowned. "There"s a strong aura coming from the book."
Juin stared at the book intently, and Mr. Thompson saw it.
"Curious?" Mr. Thompson asked.
"Yeah… It"s… glowing…"
"I guess that means you are really not a normal human," Mr. Thompson said with a chuckle. He brought the book with him as went back to his seat. When he sat down, he pushed the book to Juin. "This is a book that was taken from another dimension that was destroyed thousands of years ago… It has the ability to test out a person"s ability. To a normal human, this would just be a normal leatherbound book. They wouldn"t be able to see the glow…"
He then continued, "Place your hand on it… Don"t press down on it, just hover above it for a while. This book could tell your species and give general guidelines on your abilities."
Juin raised his left hand, but he was slightly afraid that this might be a trap.
"Do it. If he tries to do anything weird, just merge with me," Lucifer said to calm him down as he slowly walked and stood next to his vessel.
Juin nodded. He closed his eyes and placed his hand a few centimeters above the book.
The diagram on the buckle glowed brighter, and within seconds, the belt disintegrated and the book flipped open by itself. Juin"s eyes went wide as he watched the pages flipped by itself. He could see undistinguishable letters on some of the pages, but they were moving too fast for him to read.
And the book suddenly ended on a page with a word written with an almost blood-like red on it, and as if someone were dripping black ink on it, black dots appeared on the page until it covered the whole page except the word.
The word wasn"t in English, so Juin could not understand it, but he had a feeling that word was not from any of the Earth languages.
"Unknown…" Mr. Thompson and Lucifer read the word out loud.
"Unknown…?" Juin glanced at the two and repeated their words. He then looked at Mr. Thompson and asked, "What does it mean? Why unknown?"
"The book can"t detect what you are… but you are something..." Mr. Thompson explained. He signaled Juin to remove his hand, and the moment the hand was pulled back, the book closed on its own and the buckle appeared over it again. "An enigma indeed..." Mr. Thompson mumbled to himself. He had never heard of this before. Even that old vampire could not escape from the detection of the Cryptkeeper.
He looked at Juin with a complicated expression, wondering how did someone like Juin end up unnoticed.
"What should I do?"
Mr. Thompson reached out to take the book back while saying, "You haven"t told me everything about how you reached this point. Continue…"
Juin nodded and told him about Luca Rockefeller and how the guy came after him and Max. He also told Mr. Thompson that he had accidentally summoned a "little demon" when he touched the book, and that the "little demon" had been teaching him some stuff.
"Little demon, huh?" Mr. Thompson scoffed in disbelief. "Fine, if that"s what you are going with. Either way, as long as you leave Max out of your shenanigans, it"s fine. As for Rockefeller, I"ll talk to him myself. I didn"t know he was the reason that Max got hurt."
The Book of the Daemon wasn"t just any normal book. It was created with the blood, bones, and soul of a Grand Demon that lived in another dimension; a dimension where humans were prey. Any demons that were summoned through the book would be quite high in terms of ranking, and it was near impossible for a weak human to summon anything from it, much less just by touching it.
"So be it…" Mr. Thompson said gruffly as he stood up. He went back to the shelf and put the book back in. "You need to choose a faction… a group. If you want to survive longer," Mr. Thompson added as he looked at the books on the shelves. He then pulled another leatherbound book out before throwing it at Juin.
Juin caught the book and looked at the t.i.tle of it. "History of Nakamura Order and The Order of the Supernatural Code…"
He then looked at Mr. Thompson curiously. "This is…"
"If you keep getting stronger, they would come for you, and if you aren"t strong enough to stand on your own, they would force you to join them. Joining them would benefit you if you wish to know more and get stronger."
"Are you in one of them?" Juin asked as he flipped the book open and looked at the stuff inside. Each and every word in the book was written with a red ink, and there was a faint metallic smell in the air as he read some of the words.
Upon hearing Juin"s question, Mr. Thompson"s eyes turned dimmer, and unconsciously, he reached his right hand up toward his right eye, but he stopped halfway when he realized what he was doing.
Juin did not notice it. He only looked up when he heard no response from the man, and that was when he noticed something else. The green in the man"s right eye was a little darker than his left.
Mr. Thompson did not answer Juin"s question. Instead, he said cryptically, "Just know that, once you joined one of the factions, you would never be able to leave without paying a heavy price for it."
…