Although Olivia was told that her body was unbalanced but after actually channelling the technique while converting her E rank mana to F rank again which decompressed it but blended it along the new technique, she properly channeled to develop but there was no grinding like the first time.
Instead, the process actually exchanged old mana for new mana. As such, a lot of mana was released slowly while the new mana took its place and she was constantly converting that mana and reusing it. There was no pain in the process but it was just a little slow to make sure there were no faults.
It still wasn’t a fast process to do because she had already begun to use E rank mana to develop it and that was also released so she had to decompress all of that first until she reached the areas with F rank mana which was easier to trade.
She didn’t see time pass and only heard some noises that she assumed were the goblin undergoing the evolutions until her mana hit the mana pools after returning from the last channel.
Although the flow and quality dropped back to the peak of F rank, she felt like her body was not off balance.
Opening her eyes, though she felt like she was about to have a heart attack from the mess the goblin had done. Before screaming, she took a look at the time and as soon as she saw that it had been two days, she felt the clenching in her stomach so she sighed and took out raw meat and threw it.
The goblin instantly turned towards the smell and rushed to it and even licked the blood off the ground where it hit.
She took her time to examine it and saw it had changed quite a bit. First the skin on its body had gone from sickly green to a slightly lighter tone and all the rough warty skin was gone. The giant hooked nose and wort filled face with a mouth filled with fangs that stretched from ear to ear was also gone. Its large oversized head had also become a bit more proportionate to the body and the ears decreased in size but were still big. The nose had shrunk by at least 60% of the massive size it had and the shape had taken a tad bit more natural form.
This was the result of the fixed monster core position but also the purified mana. Most inhuman humanoid monsters become more and more humanoid during their first cycles of training. It was why people call goblins and orcs fallen elves despite elves being plant based instead of animal based.
She stood up and used the cane to walk. She instantly gave several orders to add restrictions on its animalistic behaviors before telling it to follow.
It was morning after two days and she found Logan eating slowly with Jade and storm next to him. She walked over and sat down.
“Feeling better?” Logan asked.
“Yeah, it was less development and more switching mana. I had to decompress though to replace all the mana from all development layers with the mana of the new technique but I did it in one sitting.” she said.
He nodded and looked at the goblin, “He seems rather humanoid, was it expensive?” he asked.
“No, it was a normal unranked dungeon goblin until two days ago.” She said and told him about the core positioning and what she found and was surprised by that fact.
“Dungeon monsters are really a mystery. Are you going to start developing all your battle beasts while you are still F rank? It would be better before going back to E rank.” he said.
She nodded and agreed.
“I am going to start with the goblin since I need it to do my chores.” she said.
Like that she ordered food for them and they both returned to the room before calling the goblin and began to build the mana pool around the core.
It was far less painful but once it formed, the lines of the mana channels became thicker showing their forms more clearly.
She didn’t need to rebuild the body and just needed to follow the full system while opening channels where she went.
She had both their mana to use and channeled the technique through it’s untrained body and began from the mana pool.
She kept a watch of its condition while developing it and when she saw the mana body start to turn unstable she stopped and gave it some meat to eat before having it go rest before she called out the first elemental spirit bird to start making their mana pools first off.
In the blink of an eye, three months passed. The two siblings that were bed ridden took the time to catch up on a lot of things.
The biggest changes are the battle beasts. The second biggest change was the masters who had great development in magic. Logan was able to finish the second cycle of Jade and Jin’s development within the first month and quickly started Arashi within two weeks before going to his own development.
This on it’s own took the rest of the month where he only moved to eat and was right back to training. This allowed him to quickly develop the third cycle and with the last month he and the battle beasts pushed themselves a bit more to finally finish.
As for Olivia, she completed the first cycle for all 9 birds and achieved two cycles for the goblin.
Now all the spirits were baby chicks of different colors and had the aura of a type of mana while the goblin was much bigger. It naturally advanced to F rank as soon as the first cycle was complete. That said, only after the second cycle that he finally achieved sentience and clarity.
It was no longer controlled by instincts and this quickly helped as it no longer damaged the room which Logan and Olivia had to help reimburse the damage constantly. Storm even had to go hunt on his own just to make gold coins to maintain that but it stopped right after.
For the changes in the two who had the capacity to change, a lot changed.
First off Jade, as they had expected but once the second layer was formed her body grew just taller than his knee and the third one she finally reached goblin height but her body fully stabilized and organs like vocal cords fully formed and she could properly speak.
For Olivia’s goblin, he started to form it but could understand and learned to read right after.
They began to supplement knowledge of him among things such as teaching him butler rules and etiquette that he had to follow. After that they started to reinforce the skills he had with scouting. This was done with some common spells and spells to enhance those skills. Of course that wasn’t all. Survival skills were followed right after and taught by magic tome. Logan also took him to teach him skills Maxwell taught but it was all lightly explained as Olivia had the books still.
Now for Jin, this was a big shock. When he was in the second cycle, he began to move around more actively but they began to notice the peculiarities such as the habit of sitting up and how the front legs possessed shoulder blades which no felines possessed.
The strangeness was finally explained when the final cycle was complete.
What appeared was still a lion cub but it stood with stability on the back legs while the front paws had grown into human hands while the yellow ring had changed. At one spot of the ring a drum with three circling dots on it appeared.
They had never seen or heard of such a creature. A tailed fox was famous and appeared rarely but this little lion was clearly not a normal spirit.
It could not talk however but it was skillful in transmitting intent. What was really surprising was that when he controlled the ring and it circled around him with the drum on the front, he struck down and instantly Storm and Arashi began to discharge and the drum beat felt like a dull rumble of lightning.
The disturbance worked only for a moment but it was clear as day that this little guy was some kind of thunder spirit or even weather spirit.
He did not want to take it to check because it would clearly attract attention.
Getting up on the last day of the three months, Logan stood stretching making his joints crack.
“Finally i can move freely.” he said.
“You still need to be careful not to get hurt, master!” Jade said with her cute high pitched voice like a child.
With the development the three had, he no longer needed to channel for them and all three of them could now actively train and they did so to grow stronger.
“Ahaha! This is great!” Jade exclaimed as she held a wand that was nearly a staff in her hand.
“Wow, her proficiency with magic has really gone up.” Olivia said.
“Yeah, Storm has been doing missions in my steed and most of them in Tip rewards so I’ve been purchasing the magic books I needed for her.” He said.
“What about the other books on medicine?” She asked.
“I’ve gone to the alchemist guild, I got the introduction, basics and basics of intermediate alchemy for her. I also got her several herbal encyclopedias to learn. Now I need to supply the herbs and that is a big expense. For the hands on healing, I can’t find anything in the dungeon where there are so many magical creatures and people. I would need to go to nations of low magical development and technology. I can’t trust her to learn from the net since there is so much useless knowledge there.” He said.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Olivia agreed with that.
At that moment, they saw her manipulating water like a tentacle and began to whip it around making snaps.
“Heh, even as a healer she clearly wants to be of some use in fights.” Olivia said.
“Yeah, well I can’t do much except train her a bit. Now i need to check Jin’s power and then figure out what to do from there.” He said. “And you?”
“Well… I’m stuck until all the birds fully develop and can train on their own.” she said.
He understood but they were needing to move their bodies and rented a training room and got training weapons. Without having access to the weapons they couldn’t do the sword arts but that was good or they might kill each other.
They each used just their master and began to spar and each attack produced powerful pounding as their speeds kept increasing until Olivia started to get hits. It was always going to be an unfair fight because Logan had the capacity to follow high speed movements as if it was normal speed.
Eventually they stopped and she complained.
“Your lightning accelerator is a cheat!” She shouted.
“Ahahaha! If you want that skill you should learn to buy the Brain overclock innate skill from the mage tower if they have it. That is the proper name but you should be careful, overloading it can be really bad.” he said.
“So that is the skill name. Great! I’m going to check and next time you will not be able to out pace me because i am getting both skills so you will never be able to run away!” She shouted.
He rolled his eyes at how competitive she was and was basically copying his skill set just to be able to match him.
“Is it fine master?” Storm asked quietly as she left.
“What?” he asked.
“She is quite obsessed with building your skill set which might not suit her.” he said.
“She is well aware. I can bet you that the skill she gets isn’t lightning clad. She is likely to get a pure clad skill of gold rank that could properly blend with other elements. That way she can benefit from every element we have access to.” He said.
“Why does master not do that?” Storm asked.
“Why should I? I am perfectly content with my breathtaking speed. I’ll soon be able to support the pressure of using it and I won’t be as limited as I am now.” He said and laughed.
Storm smiled as he saw his master confident in his strength.
He still felt stiff muscles and suddenly thought of something he had seen once in a video and with the others he headed to a medical massager, also known as a chiropractor.
It took a while to find one but in there, he learned the intense pain of his clenched muscles and even the pleasure of decompressing his joints.
He didn’t wait after paying as he asked for books on how to do this art so that Jade could learn this. It was shocking how many books he had to buy though and a lot of it was on human structure but he didn’t mind and could let her learn at her own pace.
Among the things he also learned about acupuncture therapy and went to look for it. What he learned from that made him shocked because there were actually ways to fight by attacking these points.
He finally thought of the perfect self defense technique for her to learn that didn’t need a lot of strength but it needed strong mana to focus into a single point to properly attack these points inside huge beasts.
If used with the pointy wand, it would be quite painful and deadly.
He liked the idea but it was clearly a martial art that didn’t have magic tomes to teach it. Only by forming your own style would it work and the first step is knowing the body of countless creatures.
When he returned to the inn, he had wasted a huge sum on money for all that and Jade had many years worth of study material.
They gathered up to fix up the materials to learn in order so that it would be more systematic and that would consume hours just to look through each book.
***
Although the interior of the dungeons were about as calm as it could be, the outside world was not so peaceful.
The shocking news of every nation suddenly ganging up on basically every religion so that they would properly help as well as properly protect the artifacts was a big shock. Both to the people and to the religions. When the popes tried to pass this off as blasphemy towards the gods, the emperor said that the gods presented them with holy artifacts to protect humanity from evil members of the demon race and at this time they were starting their attack against Nuntip.
They informed the ill informed popes of what Helix had discovered and what they were doing, they turned pale. When the order of smiths joined behind the kings, the religions of the various gods were forced to swallow a lot of their pride.
It was also at this time that news got out about what was really happening and it caused widespread panic until the royalty moved in using one continent wide broadcast.
“People of Nuntip, please do not worry. Although it is true that those who possess demon origins have truly begun trying to create or recreate the legend of the demon lord, they aren’t like they once were. They have neither the immense numbers they once had and the remnants also are not the pure demons of the past. Many have simply settled and lived regular lives, what we see are a few rebels among a larger good population hidden in the shadows instead of being in the open. This proves they are but a weak force that does not possess the strength to openly fight. We have already begun to take measures for the future and have begun to improve the quality of training of the armies of not only national forces all across the continent but even the religious forces backed by the remaining holy artifacts. We will no longer let any other artifact be stolen, this I promise you on my name as Emperor.” the great emperor said.
After that, countless reporters asked for details. They lightly glossed over a lot of it but revealed that the demons were in fact aiming for anyone with new or undeveloped legend swords to obtain their power to make demon weapons, supposedly for new generals and likely a new king.
“How is this actually known?” one person asked.
The emperor turned to an elder man who stood and took the center stage, “My name is Helix, not many recognize me but I am Helix dungeon’s core and master. The reason we know they are after these weapons is because one of their attempts at such a weapon ended in failure costing his life. It allowed us to retrieve 3 holy artifacts and more than 500 legend swords that were already killed and their power of legends stolen. This showed us that they have not been at this for no small amount of time so we will be reinforcing the armies in the same way they seem to desire. Using some of the legend swords as materials, combined with the Order of Legend Smiths, we are contacting people with at least some fame between B to S rank who do not possess such weapons and forging them from their most famed weapon. Beyond that, although they will not be extensively strong ones, at the very least, high ranking army officers of most empires will be able to obtain such swords if they are capable of obtaining the materials for forging them. Information on this process is classified of course and only those who are reached out for will obtain this information. To those who do not know what a legend sword is, please read the legend of the ancient hero to understand.” He said and went to sit down.
This news instantly caused big waves.
In a small city, gathered in the many houses, the people were watching with cold glares at the news being broadcast.
“They are really bold to say we can’t get those artifacts.” A cold snort came from someone in one of the larger central buildings of this city.
They sat around a table and a deep voice came from the back, “Do not underestimate them. The emperor is correct, we have few numbers of pure demons left, most of whom do not interact with humans. We are meer hybrids of our races meant just to survive and keep our bloodline flowing.” he said.
“What do we do then?” one of the men at the table asked.
“We will have to find where they are forging these weapons and keep an eye on who is invited. We can still search for other weaker weapons to fill the spaces or deal with those foolish army officials.” he said.
“Should we get that little fool we caught and brainwashed to start forging our own weapons?” one of the men said.
“Each of you have children, yes?” the leader said.
They were all surprised. They all naturally nodded. Those with demon origins always had many children and this entire city was populated by at least 50% of people with their genetics mixed in.
“Gather your children who are between 5 and 10, we shall begin to sort out a single child from each of your families. They shall be the demon generals, as for the lord…” He said with a smile as he waved his hand. A door opened and a small boy was standing there. “This is my own son, my only child to date.” he said.
“Sir, why leave it to the next generation?” one man asked, wishing for glory himself.
“Because the greatest owners of legend swords are children who grow with their swords. Do not think that the ones getting those legend swords that the order is making is the adventurers themselves. Whether they get adopted children or have ones of their own, those swords are going to the next generation. Only the army generals are likely to actually get their own weapons to truly enhance the strength of the army. They are likely to also make a great deal of magic weapons as well. We need to prepare and start using coordinated attacks to obtain some.” he said.
“Here is an idea, sir. Why not have the brainwashed smith teach our own smiths to become like the smiths of the order?” a man said.
“It does not work like that, they have a strict limit on how many can be taught by each smith. It would take too long to create our own order. At most we can increase the number by 5 at most.” he said.
They understood, it was the order’s pact with the god of smithing.
“Sir, I noticed your child has a sword on his back? Is that a demon sword already?” a man asked.
“Yes… that sword was made by my family a long time ago and I had the smith make it a legend sword. Those spirits you all are making of legend energy is not the proper way to make a legend sword. The weapon of a demon lord has to be a proper legend weapon. From this starting point, we shall train our next generation with what we restored from the ancient demon army development methods.” he said.
They all nodded.
The waves that were slowly gathering were already starting to show and the so called, good population mixed into human society were slowly getting called upon and began to move in a united fashion within the united human society.
That said, after walking back to his own room, the young child whom the leader said would be the new lord they would raise up was frowning. Intelligent for his age, many magic tomes were used to quickly fill his bank of knowledge so that he would never be under others in knowledge. He was expected to study those and learn many basic spells before moving up.
That said, this environment made him mature faster.
He scowled as he drew the white blade with the red burn already nearly formed.
“What does father expect from me? Does he expect for me to be just a weapon that he can send to any nation to destroy? Does he want me to become some kind of king or something? What is the point of trying to rule the entire continent, we barely have enough population to match the numbers found in coastal kingdoms. What does he expect to do to the central empires whose every general and royal knights are above S rank.” he scowled.
Shockingly, the prince of the demons whose bloodline was purest despite a thousand years of breeding with humans and sentient monsters. He still had the highest bloodline purity with him being 40% demon.
Supposedly there was a ritual which can enhance this but no matter what he didn’t see the world like the adults did. They wanted to recreate the great legend of the demon lord and achieve what he couldn’t which was complete world domination.
For him, however, raised in an era of magical technology which made news and knowledge flow from one side of the continent to the other in a very short time, this is the kind of civilization he found was best suited but he could clearly see the strange hatred in the adults.
The adults were raised with a near brainwashing of their side of the story but they didn’t account for their greatest prince, descendant of the demon lord, to see that so-called hatred as redundant. He knew he couldn’t say this to his father, that would likely cause them to do actual magical brainwashing. As for the growing legend of the demon lord that was gathering in his sword, he actually saw a different story to the one known by humans or demons.
A tragic story of the first demon to care for its people and try to bring peace and stumble across a tragedy that made him desire to bring this to life through force if necessity.
Compared to this story with no lies written in the annals of the world’s history he chose to believe the legend compared to the story spewed by the brainwashed minions left over after the war.