A couple robbers stopped Ben and Bella as they walked through the forest. They are mages too, but they were weak so Ben just used his Gravity Magic to increase the gravity by 5 times. The robbers can't even lift their fingers and Ben effortlessly defeated them.
"Why bother robbing people with your measly strength?" Ben asked as he tied the robbers up with rope.
"W-we don't have a choice, we need to fill our families' stomach." A robber muttered.
"Typical." Ben sighed.
The robbers try to persuade Ben to release them in a variety of ways. But he didn't budge and continued tying them up while checking their belongings in return. Now he is the one who robs the robbers.
There was nothing that piqued Ben's interest among their belongings. They only have money and pieces of jewelry that look cheap. But then, he found something good in one of the robber's pockets.
"A Silver Celestial Spirit Key. Hmm, it's Nikora's key, a very common and cheap item. But it's still a free item, so I will take it." Ben said as he kept the Silver Key.
Ben dragged the robbers to the authorities and they are arrested. With this, the key owner's contract will be nullified, so he can make a new contract with Nikora.
"Bella, you will have a new friend after this." Ben told her.
Bella was happy to hear that and asked Ben to make the contract now. But Ben told her to be patient as he would make the contract in the library. It's easy to make a contract with a Celestial Spirit, but he wanted to do it somewhere quiet.
After they arrived in the library, Ben activated the Silver Key immediately. Then a Nikora appeared in front of him and Bella was excited after seeing it. She walked around the Celestial Spirit and looked at it curiously.
The Nikora had a blue color and wore sunglasses and white headphones. It keeps whistling and tapping it's feet while dancing around happily. Bella watched the Nikora curiously and follows it's dance.
Ben raised his eyebrow and tilted his head after seeing this strange Nikora. He never knew there was such a unique Celestial Spirit like this guy. But it's not that strange when he remembered that Celestial Spirits were living beings too, so they have different personalities and preferences.
"What's your name, little guy?" Ben asked.
"Puun, pu pu puun." The Nikora said with rapping beats.
Ben is dumbfounded after hearing that and had no idea what the spirit just said.
"Let's make a contract so I can understand what you are saying." Ben sighed.
The Nikora stops it's dance and nods at Ben before signing a contract. They agree to call the Nikora every Monday and Friday. Ben named it Gee because it reminds him of Bee from Naruto.
"Gee, your job is to play with Bella. I won't ask you to do anything difficult, so have fun." Ben said.
Gee nods before disappearing because it is Sunday now, not his contract day. Ben and Bella prepare their food and eat before resting. They will resume their activities tomorrow as it's almost night time right now.
The next day, Ben summoned Gee and told it to play with Bella as he started his daily activities. Ben made 4 clones and gave them their usual tasks, except for Wrath. He ordered Wrath to practice Clone Magic, while he scanned the books again.
Ben scans the Fire Magic books, Envy scans the Heat Magic books and Green scans the Gravity Magic books. Gluttony practiced Teleportation Magic while Wrath practiced Clone Magic on the bottom floor.
There are tens of thousands of books on each Fire Magic. It's been one of the most popular magics for hundreds of years. As for the Heat and Gravity, there are only a thousand of them. It's a lot, but still lower than the books on Fire Magic.
Ben and his clones do their tasks every day and it goes well. Their book scanning ability slowly increased and they can scan 55 books a day after spending a month in the Magic Library. It's just 5 books, but 3 individuals were scanning the books, so it meant 15 more books a day.
Bella continued playing with Gee every Monday and Friday. But she is quite lonely on the other days even though she had a clone as a playmate. So Ben bought 6 more of Nikora's key.
He chose Nikora's keys because they are easy to find and cheap. Each key only sold for 20,000 jewel, so 6 keys are 120,000. He bought 6 so he can summon one every day as Bella's playmate.
Besides, Nikora doesn't need a lot of magic power because they are weak. They can't fight either, which was fine because Ben didn't need them to help him fight. Their task was to be Bella's playmates.
All 7 Nikora's were different colors. Their colors are Blue, White, Green, Yellow, Brown, Red and Black. It's a coincidence that they have different colors because he can't choose them while buying the keys.
The 7 Nikora's also have different personalities, but they are all docile and hear him. Their names are Gee the Blue, Snow the White, Ueki the Green, Dio the Yellow, Choco the Brown, Akashi the Red and Popo the Black.
They have different personalities, but they all are docile and always follow Ben's orders. All of them can be summoned 2 times a week. So Ben can call 2 Nikora's every day to be Bella's playmates.
Bella is very happy with her new playmates. She keeps playing with Nikora and her strict clone. She never practiced her Clone Magic again after she made one. But Ben had no reason to have her practice it again.
After 2 months in the library, Ben successfully made his 5th clone. As he guessed, the clones were based off the 7 deadly sins. The 5th clone is Sloth and he always looks sleepy.
But Ben can tame him and make him follow his orders. The Sloth clone was also tasked to scan the books. So now Ben can scan 4 times faster with 220 books a day.
Ben had almost scanned 10,000 books in 2 months. Now with the 5th clone, his scanning speed will increase even more. But this speed wasn't enough to reach the goal of 100,000 books in 6 months.
"I need something to enhance my scanning speed. Is there anything useful among Morgbitt's magical items?" Ben asked A.I Chip as he scrolled through the list in A.I Chip's database.
[None. But I have a suggestion for you? There is an item to increase reading speed, but I don't know if it can increase scanning speed too.]
"It might be possible. If it raises my reading speed, then it'll increase my brain's processing speed too, right? With my brain working faster, you will also work faster." Ben replied.
[That makes sense, so let's try it. The magic item's name is Gale-Force Reading Glasses.]
Ben nodded and went to Dawn City the next day. He went to a shop that sold magical items and bought the glasses. It's the lowest variant with 2x reading speed because he just wanted to test it out.
The glasses worked making him happy, so he wanted to buy the highest variant. But the shop didn't have it and only had the 18x reading speed. Ben was disappointed, but he still bought it and returned to the library.
18x is good enough for him and he can research the glasses to make it himself later. With 55 books per individual day, 18x faster means he and his clones can scan 990 books a day.
And with 4 individuals scanning the books, he can scan 3960 books a day. That means he can scan 475,200 books in the remaining 4 months or 120 days. That is 4x more than his previous 100,000 target.
"If I have the highest variant with 120x speed, then I will finish scanning every book in the library soon. Too bad they don't have it, but this is enough for now." Ben said as he left the shop.
He bought 8 pairs for himself, his clones and spares. Then Ben returned to the library with an excited expression. He can't wait for the result after he and his clones use them.