To Zoe’s surprise, her new status was actually shorter than it had been the last time she looked at it.

Zoe Blackwell

Demon of Corruption / ??? - 34

Growth Mage

Abilities: - {Corrupted Spirit Shield - 2, Onyx} - {Instinct - 2, Onyx} - {Predator’s Eyes - 1, Onyx} - {Devour - 4, Onyx} - {Corrupt Wound - 1, Onyx} - {Kinetic Manipulation - 14, Bronze} - {Kinetic Enhancement - 7, Silver} - {Kinetic Dash - 7, Bronze} - {Mana Manipulation - 20, Bronze} - {Meditation - 18, Bronze} - {Corrupted Strike - 2, Onyx} - {Sapping Strike - 2, Onyx} - {Morph - 1, Onyx}

Aspects: {Defiant}, {Resilient}, {Ferocious}

Mana: 212 / 340

Scanning through it several times, Zoe tried to pick out each of the changes. The first thing she noticed, other than the reduced number of abilities, was the return of the path section of her status. As far as she recalled, it was in the same place as her previous paths had been. Only, there was just the one now. Still better than zero.

What exactly a ‘growth mage’ was, she didn’t know. Didn’t it get corrupted from something else? I think it was life mage…

The next major thing Zoe noticed was that her whole traits section had entirely disappeared, and the perks section had been replaced by something called ‘aspects.’ She assumed for now that these behaved similarly to the former two categories. To be fair, I rarely noticed either of those doing much anyway.

Moving on, Zoe realized that her species had changed once again. After she became no longer technically human, she had first been listed as a ‘lesser demon of wrath.’ That had very recently changed to ‘lesser demon of corruption.’ The new change was even more subtle, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t significant. The system had dropped the ‘lesser’ prefix. I wonder if that actually does anything, or if it just reflects my increased power?

Finally, Zoe had to confront the abilities. Her first thought was to be annoyed at the changes. While it was nice that she had a path again, and while some of her new abilities had very much saved her from what had previously been certain death, it almost looked like she had experienced a downgrade.

So let’s see. I lost both my traits and my perks, even if I gained these ‘aspects.’ Which abilities did I actually lose? Zoe knew that she had lost a decent chunk—enough that the system had completely destroyed the organization scheme she had created.

Well, it looks like I lost all of my resistances. Zoe couldn’t actually remember all of them—after all, everything so far had happened quickly and extremely chaotically. She did know that she had had resistance to pain, spirit, psychic, and most recently, annihilation.

Also—well, definitely cold. Zoe shuddered at remembering the torture that Lily had put her through just a few days ago when they soared through the freezing clouds. Then there was the lightning from the guildsmaster in the mines…

Thinking back, Zoe frowned. She still didn’t understand who he actually was and how he had gotten involved. Obviously it was related to this Merchant King guy—Greensworth. But there was so much that she needed answers to. She didn’t even know where to begin sorting it out. God, so much has happened…

Finally, Zoe was pretty sure there had been acid and poison as well. Let’s see—the acid was from when I literally got eaten by that giant demon while still in the underworld. What was the poison from? Wait, it might have been from the others who were with the guildsmaster. In the mines.

In any case, they were all gone. So disappointing.

Other abilities that Zoe knew she was missing were {Manasight} and {Medicinal Diagnosis}. The latter hadn’t been too terribly useful, but she was just starting to get the hang of using the former in combat. Even early on it had been super useful.

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She was also missing {Spirit Enhancement} and her trusty {Cleansing Hellfire}. Well, that one did get corrupted into soulfire. But still—those were both very potent abilities. Finally, there were a few others she had gained recently—{Stealth}, {Breath Control}, and {Physical Conditioning}.

Deflated but not deterred, Zoe moved on to sorting through all of the notifications she had ignored. After reading through them, she immediately picked out several to understand what had happened to trim down her status.

{Your path Growth Mage has subsumed Breath Control, Stealth, and Combat Sense to produce Instinct.}

{Your path Growth Mage has subsumed Manasight, Medicinal Diagnosis, and Combat Sense to produce Predator’s Eyes.}

{Your path Growth Mage has subsumed Physical Conditioning to produce Morph.}

{Your path Growth Mage has subsumed Corrupting Soulfire and Spirit Enhancement to produce Corrupted Spirit Shield.}

So the abilities weren’t actually just removed or wasted—they were used to combine into new ones. That immediately made Zoe feel much better. I might not have actually lost anything! She just hoped that the resulting abilities would outgrow their components. Because while the spirit shield was extremely powerful, for instance, {Spirit Enhancement} had been a really great ability too.

The aspects were probably also a simplified merger of her various traits and perks. Looking for more notifications confirmed that.

{Your path Growth Mage has subsumed Rugged Constitution, Untamed, Monstrous Strength, Last Defiance, Righteous Ire, and all of your resistances to produce Defiant, Resilient, and Ferocious.}

Oh, now that’s not too bad. Not only would it reduce clutter, Zoe hoped that it also amplified and broadened the effect. Would one of these aspects be equivalent to having resistances in EVERYTHING? Resilience, perhaps? Zoe had no way to know that and it seemed a bit too good to be true, but she could hope.

Finally, Zoe made a quick list of the things to prioritize experimenting with—{Morph}, {Instinct}, and {Predator’s Eyes}. Of secondary concern were {Corrupted Spirit Shield}, {Sapping Strike}, and {Devour}.

The former three were total unknowns. As for the latter three, the first two were completely new and quite powerful, and the last one had potential she didn’t fully understand.

Finally dismissing her status, Zoe moved on to other considerations, such as figuring out where to go and also eating the latest corpse. Scooping up the astral knight, she then jumped back off the cliff, activated {Kinetic Dash} as she neared the ground to arrest her momentum.

It didn’t take her long to eat the most important bits of the body, which completely topped off her mana and fully healed up all of her minor injuries. Sadly, {Devour} didn’t grant her anything else. For the next few minutes, Zoe continued prowling around the remnants of the airship wreck. Nothing else attacked her, and she didn’t find anything of note. It had pretty much been entirely reduced to ash and twisted hunks of still-hot metal.

Sighing, Zoe climbed back up the cliff. Once she was halfway up, she dashed the rest of the way. With her mana being overcapped, she wasn’t too concerned with wasting a measly seven points, and she was kind of tired. Not physically, of course. Just mentally.

From the top, she was able to better survey the surrounding landscape. It was very similar in all direction—rolling mountains and valleys completely covered in a dense carpet of jungle. The only truly distinct feature was the small river lazily winding a path between the mountains.

I guess I’ll head for the river.

As Zoe continued to survey the landscape, she wondered if it was the same river that had cut the canyon through the scorched wastes. If the corrupted mana in the water had been washing downstream from far away, and since her would-be captors had been taking her in this direction, it seemed decently likely that it was the same river.

And if that were the case, it would be her best bet towards finding the base they had referenced. To finding answers.

It would also give her a good route to follow to avoid getting completely lost.

But did she really want to pursue the people who were undoubtedly responsible for the repeated attempts to kill and capture her? It seemed risky. Weren’t there better options?

It didn’t take Zoe long to decide. So far, her entire experience in this new world had been mostly reactive. She had been fighting to survive, and events had swept her along like driftwood. Now, she felt she had an opportunity to go on the offensive. To take an active role and forge her own path.

She could do and become whatever she wanted—demonic, inhuman monster or not. While Zoe still didn’t actually know what she ultimately wanted, she still had a lot of possibilities to choose from.

But all that ultimate purpose and meaning of life shit is for later.

For now, the task was clear—because this whole tangled conspiracy against her wasn’t going to just disappear and leave her alone. So as Zoe dashed back down the cliff and set off for the river, she began to formulate a plan. While there still wasn’t much good information to go on, at least one aspect was perfectly clear.

There’s gonna be a lot of killing.