"Is this also group bonding?" "Yes." "You know, I'm starting to think you're using this as an excuse to just mess around." "Your point?" "..." Aleph lays relaxed, her body half submerged in a bubbling spring of clear waters just a layer below where the demon was summoned. The walls bear a solid red, almost glowing from saturation of Mana, while the ground lays splattered with sporadic patches and roads of obsidian. Steam loudly billows from holes in the nearby pillars, bringing with them the thick scent of humidity and filling the ceiling with an ever-wavering fog.

Lyly floats lethargically in the pool across from Aleph, rhythmically bobbing along with the undulating ripples around her. Despite her apparent reservations she is clearly enjoying herself as she soaks in the spring waters, only occasionally paddling to steer clear of Dyly who seems to be enjoying swimming back and forth in the pool like a child. Goldy sits relaxed at the edge, idly swirling small whirlpools in the water and giving Dyly the occasional boost across the pool. Standing behind the group is Fluffy, caked in sweat as he throws one practice swing after another with his obtusely large sword.

"Oh well. No complaints from me at least. It's about time we took things slow." Lyly chitters, flipping upside-down to soak her back. Aleph instead turns her attention to the diminutive demon who swims her way to her side. "So, miss Aleph!" So cute! The way she calls me miss makes me feel like her big sister, or aunt. Hm... I guess I kinda miss having family. Though... isn't Lyly technically my sister? Or cousin? Hmm... Needs some thought. "How old are you exactly?" "How old? Hm... hmm... hmmmmm..." "You... don't know?" "Well... I feel like the question doesn't quite make sense... Are we including past lives?" "Um... I guess? Have you had a lot of those?" "A few hundred. That I recall at least. Don't know if some of them count though."

Lyly paddles over to the pair, wiping water from her grinning eyes. "I take it by 'past lives' you mean 'future lives' of course." "What?" "Fuehehe, your secret is safe with me!" She declares, cryptically backing away. I feel like there's been a fundamental misunderstanding here... Thud! Fluffy sinks his blade into the ground behind them, instead of just putting it down like a normal person, and slips into the pool, the steaming waters immediately kneading away the visible fatigue of exercise. "Now that you guys bring it up, which of us is the oldest? I'm forty-two cycles by the way." "Oh! You age well for a human." "I'm an elf..." "Ah, right. What's the difference again?" "Nevermind..." The elf sighs, turning to Goldy.

"How about you? How do you even measure age down here?" Goldy scratches his nose, squinting in mild confusion. "My kin do not measure the duration of one's life. Seniority is ascertained from physical maturity and the lustre of one's fur. My teeth have all grown in, so I am an adult, and my fur matches with that of my father's, so I am strong. Beyond that we simply measure health and character. The idea of keeping track of one's time spent alive is foreign to me. How would you even know the duration of a rest?" "Right! You've never seen the sun, and the seasons here are more based on geological activity than surface temperature! How fascinating! What about you Tiny? How do demons measure age?"

Dyly climbs atop Aleph, seeking dry land upon the willing dragon to relax on. "Well, we do keep track of age. Not sure how this will translate, but I'm around unoleshi'e k'zicsu'unoleshi'e." "Weird... I heard two really specific numbers. Around three-hundred-fourty-one years and some crazy big one I've never heard before." Lyly chitters bemused. "Yea, translation can be funny like that sometimes. I guess you measure time differently to me. Being that age makes me quite young in my family, but seniority is more based on rank, at least where I'm from. Being rank zero is basically infancy, and rank one is considered the minimum for being allowed any adult responsibilities. Rank two is the minimum for being eligible for contracts, and being rank three means I might be conscripted if another war breaks out with the angels."

Aleph perks up, turning her head back to face Dyly. "War with the angels? As in a full on war? I've never heard of this... As far as I'm aware angels and demons have always been good terms. What happened?" Dyly slumps across Aleph's back, her face muzzled into her scales. "That stuff all predates me, and it's classified to hell and back. All I know is that it's the reason for our strict, and seriously over the top treaties with the angels, and the intense animosity the older generations seem to have towards them. I think multiple wars may have broken out, but again it's pretty tight lipped so I really don't know." "How strange... Well anyway, Lyly, how old are you?"

Lyly leaps from the water, landing triumphantly atop her perch. "That makes me the oldest! I'm seven-hundred-and-twenty-one this year! Guess I'm clearly the most qualified leader here! Fuahahaha!" "But... If Aleph predates the angel wars that would make her at least five times older." "That's not how time travel works! And besides, she probably the type to just not pay attention and miss the fact that angels and demons have been natural enemies for eons or something. I can totally imagine her doing that." "Hey..." When did time travel get involved here? Is Lyly a time traveller? Could make for a neat plot... Hmm... Oh well. I think I'm done here anyway.

Aleph stands, water rushing from her scales as the pair atop her cling to avoid sliding off. "I've finished my DNA manipulations now. I'm ready to move on." She announces, stepping out from the spring. "You were manipulating your DNA? Why?" Dyly asks, adjusting to sit by Aleph's neck. "For better natural healing mostly. But also to replace my blood with ichor and fix some inefficiencies in my design. At this point, I'm fairly confident I can hold my own against Lyly's dragon." "Is this why you've been so relaxed lately? We aren't going to start speedrunning our way down again... are we?" "Yes, well you said there was a dangerous dragon. I wanted to make sure I was ready."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Fluffy extracts himself from the pool alongside Goldy, the pair flexing and pulling the water from their bodies. "Is this an advanced Aether technique? How does it work?" "If you have enough Aether to see DNA, you can pull it." "Thats... it? You pull each strand of DNA individually? How absurd..." "The hard part is knowing what to change. Took me ages to trial and error my way into changing the right stuff. Then I had to make the same changes to all of my DNA, which was tedious." "You guys see what I mean, right? She's clearly some kind of eldritch freak in disguise!" Lyly jests, lightly thwacking Aleph's skull. "Understandable." "I concur." "I don't know... Among us demons, there are a bunch of shape-shifters who can do just that on a daily basis, albeit less manually. Doesn't really seem too out of the ordinary to me." Dyly steps in to Aleph's defence, poking the spider back for her assault.

"See? She's on my side. You guys are just mean." "Eh. Demons are just eldritch abominations with extra steps, so of course she agrees with you." Aleph shakes her head, the spider almost falling off from the sudden momentum. "Let's get going. It was a straight shot down, right? Shouldn't take us long to get there." She sets off, Goldy and Fluffy following shortly behind as they head towards the nearest pillar. "Wanna play a game in the meantime?" Aleph offers, prompting Dyly to hop excitedly atop her back. "Oh, I know a good game! It's called liars. We each say an outlandish statement and the others have to figure out how we said it through the curse." I think I might have heard of this one? Sounds fun either way!

"Well, you're the only one here with the curse, so why don't you go first?" "Oh, right. Hmm... Let's start with an easy one. I've never said my name." Oh, that one is easy. Lyly scratches her fuzz, narrowing her eyes at the demon. "That's clearly a lie... You told us when we met." "She can't lie though. You mentioned that was your official name, so... not your true name?" Fluffy posits, gracefully grooming his endless scraggle. "Maaaybe. No hints from me." "Perhaps... you changed your name? And are yet to announce this?" Goldy suggests, rubbing his nose as he thinks. "Nope! I've had the same name since birth." Aleph shakes her head before speaking up. "You can't pronounce your true name. Something common in some families to prevent a forced summoning." "Ah, you got me. Yea, my Dad always gives his kids impossible names. He's kinda paranoid about that stuff. Not sure what you mean by some though. Nearly every family I've met does this."

"I guess it's my turn then? Hmm... My memories are scattered so this is a bit tricky, but how about... I know exactly how many adjudicators are in this dimension." Dyly turns stiff, the other three shooting a confused glance Aleph's way. "You don't know what that is? Okay, I'll pick something else. I know where the nearest Ahvi-The fir-" "How about we play something else." Lyly interjects, whacking Aleph on the eyes. "What? Why?" "Because I'm afraid you'll summon something if you keep talking about weird things and strange names." "Spoilsport..."

The group reach a tunnel leading downward around a large pillar. Small drips of water stream into the world-encompassing darkness below, some pooling into tiny streams and following the winding path. Stepping in, they begin their descent. "We could play eye spy?" "You suggest that now?"

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Besides Mana, the most well understood pure energy is that of Demonic Energy. Though still considered taboo in many places, the act of summoning demons has become far more common in recent years, allowing us a much better understanding of the energy than before. Before the advent of modern summoning rituals, most records date back to historic wars, particularly that of the fourth battle of the gods.

In the past it was believed that demons were entirely combat focused, with all of their abilities boiling down to some form of wide area destruction. These abilities are well documented from their use in war, for example the demon Vandir's ability to pull energy from the deceased to fuel more and more attacks, or the demon Angl'tok's ability to freeze all momentum within a wide area. It is also theorised that the silent war ended due to the summoning of an exceptionally powerful demon. Wealthy countries would summon these demons for use in key battles during war, often pouring large portions of their national fortune as a toll for the summoning. There is one known case of two countries summoning powerful demons for the same battle, resulting in a widespread battle between the two and immense collateral, largely attributed to poor assignment of conditions in the contracts.

What we know now, is that the abilities granted by Demonic Energy are far more varied than once believed and not necessarily tailored for use in battle. The abilities appear to be uniquely tailored to the individual and often, but not always, closely matching their personality in some form. One case was a demon capable of transmuting water into various forms of alcohol, something they reportedly took extreme pride in doing.

The process of summoning a demon is time consuming, expensive, and still poorly understood. As a result it is still considered dangerous to summon demons without significant amounts of caution and preparation, so only countries or extremely wealthy individuals are capable. Despite this, testimony from some demons indicates that there are safer methods of summoning used in other worlds which would allow the process to become far more commonplace, and perhaps even useful for more mundane tasks.

This book is primarily focused on the nature of the pure energies, so I will not go into detail on what is known of demon society. Though it is worth noting their consistent silence on all matters relating to their society and biology, seldom ever willing to elaborate any details, and notably aggressive when one attempts to trick them into speaking of it. Many have been known to entirely abandon contracts on these grounds which, by the claim of most demons queried on the topic, may hold significant penalties for them.

Suffice to say, the actual capabilities of Demonic Energy are considered to be equal to that of Mana, though its use differs greatly. Most demons summoned have been extremely powerful, sometimes matching the strength of entire nations. It is unknown if there are more powerful demons than these, and even less is known about those weaker.

- Excerpt from chapter 11 of Eyva Poe's 'Analysis of the Pure Energies'