Tristan teleported everyone back into the classroom leaving behind Nevil and Garius who were still in the midst of fighting. Everyone went over to their respective seats, and Azule continued his lecture on magic.
He explained the intricate relations between each element and slowly introduced each of their Elementary Level spells, as he did so.
Fire is the element that threatens to consume everything reducing everything to ashes.
It’s spell [Ignite]
Water is the tranquil element that plays an intricate role in preserving life, and healing injuries.
It’s spell is [Aqua Forma]
Wind is the element that moves as it wishes as it shapes the land and blows in the sky. It’s spell is [Gust]
Earth is the element that serves as the foundation for the very world as we know it. It’s spell is [Terra Forma]
Arcane is the element of magic that is present in everything, and nothing at the same time. It’s spell is [Mana Form]
Lightning is the element that charges through the heavens and the earth splitting the world in an instant before vanishing into nothing. It’s spell is [Spark]
Darkness is the element that consumes that everything, light and all. The element born from another and destroys another. It’s spell is [Shade]
And Light is the element that creates, yet destroys darkness. The nemesis of all evil, the eternally shining sword of the heavens. It’s elementary spell is [Glow].
Azule commented, “I’d suggest that you never cast the spell [Glow] as the Light Element is hazardous to us demons. Though there are times when you might have to use it ,so memorize it. There are some demosn though that are capable of using the Light Element unharmed, for example there was the Chimera Silverlight. We don’t know his true name but he earned his name after killing several Demon Kings with his powerful light elemental type spells.”
Azule finished his lecture after a full hour and said,“Anyway with this class is over, you are dismissed. Daemon I want you stay back for a bit.”
Everyone got up and walked out leaving behind only Satou who was quietly waiting in his seat.
Satou wondered, “What does he want now.”
Azule ordered Satou,“Come closer Daemon.”
Satou obediently picked up his books, got off his seat, and sat down on a chair in the front of the classroom.
“Give me your hand”
Azule moved a chair over and put it in front of Satou. He Satou down and took a look at Satou’s hand. Azule’s eyes had a faint glow as he observed Satou’s hand. He took his thumb and pressed it into Satou’s skin. He felt around feeling the bones in Satou’s fingers, and stroke his veins.
Azule was astonished, “His body has undergone a forced variant transformation in a premature state that required a large amount of blood, and energy to stabilize. It’s a miracle that he even survived the process, or wasn't turned into a cripple. But in the end his body was far from reaching a truly stable point, even after a full ten years I’d doubt he’d be completely stable either. So why is he perfectly fine, he seems so healthy? His soul, mind, and body survived an onslaught of energy during the transformation so he should have been mentally and physically impacted. Why is he acting as if nothing happened? He has yet to go insane surprisingly so that means the damage to his psyche was minimal, so he can still be considered sane. His body was strong enough to survie the damage, but even then it might be a bit too early...”
Azule sighed, he was a scholar heralded as a mad genius, but never before has he read of such a strange occurrence. More and more unanswered questions just kept filling his head. He saw great value in Satou, so he wasn’t willing to take any risks. But leaving things alone in itself was a risk. Azule had no other choice ,he asked Satou,“Daemon do you know which race is considered the strongest?”
Satou thought about it for a bit. He doesn’t exactly know why Humans are capable of exactly, but Azule did tell him not to underestimate them. But Azule never specifically mentioned anything about Humans, he referred to them as Mortals. Dwarves, Elves, and other unknown races could exist after all. Satou said uncertainly , “Demons?”
Azule shook his head, “In a way yes, but not exactly”
Satou tilted his head, "Don’t tell me it’s humans…."
Azule continued, “In truth Mortals are the strongest race…..”
Satou cursed inside of his head, he thought he was quite lucky for ending up as a Demon. Though things were a bit odd, Demons were usually one of the more powerful races in fiction.
“Though nothing is really set in stone. In combat Demons, and Angels are stronger than Mortals, with a few exceptions of course. For example there are the God Beasts who at Birth are already at the equivalent of a High-Demon, or the Dragons the weakest of which are are equivalent to Mid-Demons. You’ve seen Nevil’s Bone Dragon it’s at the level of an Archdemon. ”
Azule opened up a book, and ripped a piece of paper off of it. He took out a pen with a black crystal at the end. Azule began drawing a demon to the left and a angel to the right. In the middle he drew a number of different races from beasts to humans to dragons and elves. Surprisingly Azule was quite the artist.
“Out of the three main categories Mortal, Demon, Angel we Demons possess the greatest prowess in combat, the largest population, and the greatest individuality. We pride ourselves in our individual strength, and the freedom brought by the chaos we bring. Angels on the other hand possess the greatest information network in existence surpassing all the information gathered in Arkadias and Padanilam combined, the longest lifespans, and the greatest unity. They pride themselves in their order, and by uniting together under a strict hierarchy they have been able to fend us Demons off for ages. Mortals however have the shortest lifespans, what is considered the weakest strength, a vastly inferior information network, and the smallest population.But even then I still consider them the strongest race, can you take a guess why.”
Satou shook his head, from the sound of it Mortals really were weaker than Demons, so why does Azule fear them so much.
“It’s because Mortals, Humans in particular have the greatest potential. They have been able to reach a level that took hundreds of thousands of years in their puny lifespan of 200 so years. The dwarves have been able weapons greater than we’ve ever seen, the elves have concocted potions more potent that even the [Blood Elixir] the Elixir that even Emperors seek, and Humans have in the past thousand years changed drastically. They can achieve what we cannot, they see what we will never. Their growth is their saving grace, and their most frightening trait.”
“Ah.” Satou nodded, if you looked at it really is quite frightening where Mortals, or rather Humans have gone. Just how long have Humans been on Earth? Compare that to the oldest species that’s been around, and then compare the amount of feats Humans have been able to accomplish. In just how many years did it take our relatively new race to reach the stars, a place others could only see.
Satou thought back a bit to what Azule said earlier and asked,“But wait why did you say that Demons were the strongest in a way?”
Azule replied, “Because we have something Mortals will never attain even with their god like growth, no maybe one day they will attain it ,but until then Demons and Angels will reign supreme. The main difference between Mortals and Demons is in here?”
Azule raised his thumb and pointed at his heart, “Our Souls. We have what is known as a Death Born soul, a soul that has experienced Life, and Death once. We, Demons , were not created by the Gods ,or at least not the True Gods. Only Mortals were created by the Gods and we are ,ironically, the unfortunate byproduct of their demise. You see The Demonic Realm , Arkadias, is referred to by Mortals as Hell, the realm of the dead. While the Celestial Realm, Ecclesia , is referred to by Mortals as Heaven, the Kingdom of passing. The one thing that dictates where you go after death is called Karma, how much sin you have stacked up in your lifetime. It adds weight to your soul, and depending on where Death’s Scale leans you’ll fall into one of two parts of Death’s River, the River of Souls. And due to this fact we Demons are inherently Evil, and Angels inherently Good. Here’s a little quote from a book from the Mortal Realm that I took fancy, You who sins, know not kindness. You who sins, know not love. For you who sins, will always be evil as you are one of the Demons who walk the Earth. It captures the message pretty well honestly. Mortals can be both Demons or Angels, it's just a matter of time really.”
Azule flipped over his paper, and began writing things down. He wrote down Primary Soul, and under the category Death Born Souls he wrote ,First Born, Second Born, and World Born.
“Anyway I was getting a little of topic there, but it’s sort of important so try and remember it. Anyways I’ll explain Death Born Souls. In the Universe there exists two types of Souls. Primary Souls and Death Born Souls. Only Mortals are born with Primary Souls, and after death they end up in the River of Souls. While Demons and Angels can either be World Born, First Born, or Second Born all categories of Death Born Souls. Our ancestors were World Born Demons, Demons who by pure chance were able to create their bodies out of nothing. Me and that fool Royce are considered First Born Demons birth by another Demon. This is similar to Primary Souls, but a Primary Soul wouldn't be able to survive in this hell hole. So in the final day of pregnancy for a mother we kill the child still in the womb and revive it thus giving birth to a First Born Demon. And finally there are those like you who are Second Born, the most common type of Death Born soul. Those who are Second Born were not lucky enough to be born by the world, nor born from a mother's womb, instead we gave birth to you with Magic. The process was originally created by one of the Great Demon Gods to increase the number of Demons.”
Azule ripped another piece of paper out of his book, and began drawing. He drew a grass plains with a flame floating above it.
“The reason death Born Soul’s are so important is simple, it’s because after experiencing death once we changed we become more sensitive to things we normally would be able to sense. Let me tell you a little bit about our origin. You see there exists a different plane parallel to our own, and every other realm. That plane is the Domain of the God of Life and Death, the River of Souls, as I’ve mentioned before. Any way that phantasmal river so happens to flow from the Mortal Realm depositing souls in either the Celestial Realm or the Demonic Realm. However a Soul is just a Soul , without a vessel they will simply disappear. Most souls that drift into our realm find refuge by turning into plants or beasts, but these can’t exactly be classified as Demons. The World Born Demons are the few Demons who were able to harness the abundant energy in the Demonic Realm and forge a body out of it giving birth to the first Demons and in turn the first and strongest Demon God. The main thing that separated him from the mindless plants and beasts given birth to those weaker souls was his awareness. He possessed intelligence similar to a Mortals, and an awareness of one's self. And with this self-awareness and intelligence he was able to sense an energy he was never able to as a Mortal, Demonic Energy.”
Azule put his hand on the desk, and out of his palm and miasma began flowing out. This miasma soon enough completely filled the room. It gave Satou a very sickening feeling.
“You see the dead can’t rely on their natural senses like when they were alive, they relied on their Soul directly. They began to more easily sense mana, life, emotions, and the energy they used to forge their bodies, Demonic Energy. And after being born into the world they were able to freely control this energy. You see constructing a body out of purely energy is an extremely difficult task that ,without the assistance or a magic circle ,would normally be impossible. But those World Born Demons managed to complete that impossible task, and at birth had complete mastery of Demonic Energy.The First Demon God manipulated it to create an impenetrable body, a massive pool of mana, and even his own descendants. And by mimicking the Demon Gods we too were able to reach a strength similar to theirs. Because you see as long as you are Death Born, whether or not you are Demon or Angel you were given birth to by this Energy, by prana itself.”
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Satou asked “Prana?”
“Prana refers to Demonic Energies, and Celestial Energies neutral form. You see Demonic and Celestial energy are both different forms of Prana. Prana is an energy similar to Mana, and Life Force, but unlike both of them it doesn’t have a clear cut role. It's not very common here in the Demon Realm as most of it has already been converted into Demonic Energy. Though the Mortal Realm has an extremely high density of Prana, but with no way to sense, control, or master it it’s useless. At most Prana enhances their bodies, strengthens them a little bit, and increases their lifespan by shortening the amount of Life Force they burn by half. If the Mortal Realm wasn’t so densely packed with Prana a race like Humans would only live between 40-100 years. Well anyway Prana has an odd property, it can be changed into a variety of different forms, and is affected by one's emotions. Demonic Energy is the byproduct of negative emotions and naturally gives a sickening feeling like this, while Celestial Energy is born through things like love, and compassion and gives people a feeling of bliss.”
Satou asked, “And it’s because we have Demonic Energy we are stronger than Mortals?”
“Precisely. You see one’s strength is determined by Birth, there are a few ways to overcome the hurdles of talent ,but without any luck you are destined to remain weak and feeble. Some Mortals are incapable of even using Magic due to this limitation. But you see unlike Mortals every single Demon and Angel is capable of using Magic due to the existence of Demonic Energy. I've said before Prana doesn't have a clear cut role, it's present in our lives and we need it to survive but until the Demon God came in we didn't exactly know it's purpose. Prana's main purpose is to be converted. It has no real purpose, because it's purpose is to become something with purpose, and naturally Demonic Energy has that exact same property. You see Prana is a higher tier energy than Mana so we can easily convert Demonic Energy into a large supply of Mana to refuel our reserves. Our Mana pools are located in our souls so charging it is risky, but you see in the process of our Birth a large amount of Demonic Energy began coating our souls. Naturally this can damage it and that’s why there exist several different categories for your soul. Fragmented, Reforged, and Complete. The Demonic Energy is literally transforming your soul. And since this is the case we can use Demonic Energy to expand our Mana pools, a tank normally set by birth. We can even make pseudo-mana pools. We can use it to strengthen our bodies permanently to a level surpassing any metal. We can condense it into Life Force to increase our Lifespan. And we gather enough of it, we can become literal Gods!”
Azule flipped the paper around, and made a cylinder with ten layers.
“Anyway, now for the reason I called you here. You see I'm going to teach you how to increase your Demonic Rank.Our rank is based on how much Demonic Energy is present in your body. Our bodies naturally have a limit to how much Demonic energy we can store. So to store more we condense it, and after doing so we reach another Rank, and have more room to absorb. The more Demonic Energy we have the stronger we become, so naturally the higher Ranks are stronger than the lower ranks. Anyway let me show you how to condense it.”
Azule stood up and put his hand of Satou’s head, “Relax, Close your eyes, I will guide the Demonic Energy already present in your body and condense it into the outer regions of your soul. Try and remember this feeling, and tell me to stop when the pain becomes unbearable.”
Satou closed his eyes. He felt as if something was crawling up his skin. There was a sharp pain in his head, and it was becoming a little difficult to think. But there was an even more excruciating pain in his chest. It was as if someone was trying to squeeze his heart.
Satou tried his best to get a grasp of the feeling, to try and find out what's happening. Once more Satou was dragged into a world of darkness. He stood there looking around inside of a white sphere.
When Satou looked at the sphere he was in, and touched he noticed something. He noticed an odd familiar feeling.
Satou looked at the white sphere, “This is, my soul….”
The white sphere was Satou’s soul. It was a bit difficult to believe, but he was standing inside of his own indestructible soul. He wasn’t able to recognize it instantly, after all he never saw his soul before. However this feeling, was undoubtedly his own soul, the soul that was flying through the multiverse for ten thousand years.
He thought to himself, “Since this is my soul, am I still able to move around?”
Satou attempted to guide his soul to fly in one direction, and after a bit he was actually able to fly out of the black space into another white space.
“So before I was in a white space, inside of a black space, which was inside of this white space. Is there another black space outside of this white space?”
Satou looked around in an attempt to find the next layer of a possibly never ending loop of black and white. Though in the end he didn’t find it, but he did notice something. In the white space there were holes similar to the holes connected to his mana pool. He found that from these holes there was a large amount of black vapor floating in. Satou looked at the black sphere and noticed it was gradually getting smaller and bigger over and over again.
Satou put his hand on his heart, “Is this that squeezing feeling? Is this what he was talking about, Demonic Energy?”
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Azule was still watching Satou who was outside and not inside of the multi-layered black and white space. He saw as a smile broke out, as if this was something comfortable.
Azule was constantly pumping Satou with a bunch of Demonic Energy, and was growing increasingly more tired. He stared at Satou perplexed, “He smiled, did he get used to it already? His body shouldn’t be able to absorb too much Demonic Energy, this process should be excruciatingly painful at first. Why is he able to go for so long? How much Demonic Energy is he planning on absorbing exactly? There’s only so much pressure a soul can take, even if it is categorized as the most durable soul."
Azule waited in a bit and thought that Satou would tell him to stop any minute now, but soon a total of five minutes passed. Azule wondered, "Should I stop it? It might be risky if I continue any longer, but so far he seems to be doing fine. It's better to be safe than sorry though....”
As soon as Azule took his hand of Satou’s forehead Satou woke up. He stood up and stretched. Originally the process of absorbing and condensing the Demonic Energy into his soul was a painful process, but as time passed he hardly felt the pain. The sickening feeling actually turned into a comfortable feeling that invigorated his body. Right now it was as if strength was flowing out of his very being.
Azule ordered him, “Open your Grimoire what Rank are you, your rank is determined by the amount of Demonic Energy is present in your body after all.”
Hearing this Satou immediately went to check, he was quite curious after all. He opened up the Grimoire on the desk, and on the first page there was his Rank.
Satou said disappointingly, “Only Rank 3: Lesser Demon…..”
Azule furrowed his brow, he thought to himself, “How is it that he’s still Rank 3? With the amount of Demonic Energy he absorb and I condensed he should be at least Rank 4. I don’t feel like he’s lying either, and the Grimoire has never been wrong. Don’t tell me it’s because of that variation. I’m going to have to perform some tests, to his actual abilities later for now it would be for the best if I stopped.”
Azule sighed no matter what someone tried it would always go wrong when it involved Satou. Possessing him didn’t work, mind control didn’t work, and even try to increase his rank didn’t work. In Azule’s eyes Satou was an uncut, unpolished gem that require a lot of work, “Okay, you’re dismissed. Try practicing some spells, and condensing your Demonic Energy on your own time.”
“Ah, Okay.”
Satou stood up and left the room, he decided to do a little experimentation with these new found powers of his.
Azule watched as he walked out, “[Teleportation]”
Azule teleported to library from before, and used the Latus Crystal to find a number of books. Each book would glow and slowly float over to where Azule was sitting. He grabbed a book flipped through it, grabbed another book flipped through it until he skim through each book.
Azule sighed, and leaned back on the chair and lost himself in his own thoughts.
“A Second Born Demon’s body is created through a very specific formula put in the Magic Circle. It first looks through the Soul grabs, onto one, and proceeds to build the body of its recipient. However a Soul can’t just be crammed into any old body, it has to have at least 90% compatibility rate with the body. To reach this we rip out a piece of their soul and use that as a blueprint of sorts. The Demonic Energy in the surroundings floods into the Magic Circle and by using the ripped out piece of soul it naturally forms a Demon's body. The ten years life-span of a Lesser Demon is related to the damage left during the process. If not enough Demonic Energy is gathered and condensed into a protective layer in one's soul, one’s life force will gradually leak out and in ten years they will die.That’s the way it’s always been.”
Azule thought about what he saw when he was helping Satou condense. Azule opened up another book, and read it over
“A Complete Soul a soul so strong that even after experiencing Death, and being ripped apart it was able to remain whole…”
Azule sighed, “But that thing is on a whole other level than a Complete Soul. It’s like it was never injured in the first place. But then how did his body form without a blueprint, how did he go through a variation? Don’t tell me…..”
Azule came to a sudden realization and a smile broke out into his face.
“I see, so that’s how it is Ahahahaha. How ridiculous, truly ridiculous….”
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Author Notes: <- I always forget to put this but I'm sure you guys realize that the line signifies that it ended right?
Hey guys, I went and got a bunch of tests done and over with. Now I can relax, for like idk a week? I've been told not to and I should start studying and working on more what not, but whatever. Anyway here's today's chapter/information dump. With this out of the way I can do less explaining and more doing for the next few chapters. Anyways tests basically killed me and my friend so I worked on this alone, again....
But hey he did help me work on the other story for a bit so I forgive him. Anyways I'm sort of behind on fixing the chapters since schedule is out of wack, and so is my friends so thanks to those who helped point out any issues, and please continue to do so. If there are any errors please point them out, and I will consider any suggestions. Oh and a special thanks to nf_zeta for point out some errors last time, was a big help.
Also by the way I started up that other story was talking about, the one for shits and giggles Gotta Gacha. I'm actually working on it as you read this, well the draft anyway. The next chapter should come out soon, that's the plan. I don't know if I'm going to have it as a fixed update, or just a purely random update but I'll do what I can. The stories about a world where otherworlders are common, it's rpg fantasy themed. The kind of story where you are sent to a world and receive RPG like powers. The gimmick the stuff you get is due to pure luck, and you can easily get something random. I was originally writing it as a comedy, but some of the shit got dark in the draft, but I'm a still say it's a comedy. Though with the way the MC is it might not be. I think I've messed up already. But check it out if you want.
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It's also kind of a short chapter, but I stop things when I feel it's a nice time to stop them. That's probably a bigger problem than I think it is cause I'm weekly and not daily, but I thought the amount I wrote was sufficient. Felt like it when I wrote it.