Returning to his tent Xero sat on a rock as he watched Ash eat the tail of the forest dragon. It was the top and from it to the end it was 2 meters long, Univa had gotten a little more than 1 meter of tail but it clearly contained the same amount of meat.
Xero was not worried about it. Comparing her familiar to his, Ash had larger growth potential then the salamander she had.
As he thought this Ash stopped eating after taking only 5 bites from the tail. Suddenly the familiar seal began to glow and it took Xero by surprise but after a moment he felt into the seal and found what the cause was. Inside Ash’s body there was a tremendous amount of mana circulating from just those several bites and was slowly forming a magical formula.
“This is when he makes new innate magic if I remember correctly.” Xero thought.
It was taught in class, there are times where a sudden increase in mana within the body of the familiar could trigger them creating a new magical ability. When this happens the master can impose his will and work on the formula with the familiar sometimes making it really powerful.
The first year had been 70% about learning the ins and outs of magical formulas. Now that he was seeing one forming he could alter it to make a stronger innate spell.
He slowly watched for figures of the magical formula form in the body of the Scaled Imp and after a while he figured out what the spell could be.
“So this is a Demon Claw spell.” Xero said in his head..
The Demon Claw is a Spell imps have that uses Demon Magic. Demon magic can only be used by demons or people corrupted by demons. Its an extremely corrosive magic that can cause lots of problems such as festering of flesh, plague and other things.
Xero frowned, he did not want something like this since it would be hard to find a chance to use this. Still this is quite easy to change, within the structure of magical formulas there exists specific points that correspond with a branch of magic. Innate spells in general also always use the affinity of the monster in question so it is said that Innate spells have a huge effect on the future evolution of the monster so when new Innate spells appear the master should always take precautious when making the Innate spells.
He quickly found the magical rune that corresponds with the Demon Magic and after thinking a bit replaced the single ‘Demon’ rune which stands for the Demon magic for ‘Fire’ and ‘Air’.
The previously black colored formula suddenly begins to burn as the formula coming after it was destroyed and began to rewrite itself. It expelled quite a large degree of heat from the formula as he expected.
“Now it’s Blue Imp Flame Claws.” He thought with a smile and kept reading.
There were some calculations that made the spell quite unruly and slowly he changed some of the earlier ones causing another section further down to burn up and rebuild itself. Finding another that caused the fire and air proportion to be off making the air dissipate the fire faster making the spell duration shorter. Changing that made another piece burn and rebuild it as well.
Each change slowly affected a section further down and slowly the formula rapidly stabilized into a powerful Blue Fire ability.
As the spell finished, Xero smiled and read the spell over. Blue Imp Flame Claw, creates a large claw of blue fire that will burn anything it touches. So nice.” Xero thought excited.
As the spell finished it integrated itself into Ash’s body and he simply turned and took another bite of the meat and froze once more as the Familiar seal lit up again.
“Again!” Xero thought and this time he looked once more.
He carefully watched the spell and slowly it formed into something that he never expected but should have.
“This spell? Isn’t it a skill? No wait this section puts a duration!” Xero analyzed and was shocked to find a buff type enchantment spell. Grinning he started from the start and moved some key magical runes. Like before sections further day were altered. “Oh wow! Who know that Ash’s jumping strength would get boosted!” Xero said to himself as he reached half way when he finally figured out the spell. “The spell is called Super Pounce, this skill can enchant any target the caster chooses and their jumping power doubles.” He read out the description he could make out.
“Just double? Let’s see.” He muttered and reviewed again and found a small formula that when changed just a tiny bit caused the entire spell to shake and the skill ranked up to Triple power boost which is a huge increase and he was satisfied since he probably won’t get much more. Then he worked slowly finishing.
“There, Super Pounce, A spell with a duration of 2 minutes, it will improve jumping power by three times the normal amount. It can be used on the caster and any target the caster chooses. ”
Reading the complete formula this is what he figured out from it and was extremely happy. With the recent incident he found that this was a perfect escape magic as long as he got used to the massive boost of speed. Not only that but if Ash aimed right his jump boosting his sword could have serious penetrating power.
When he noticed Ash had stopped eating and looked at him, There was a flow of emotions from the imp as if wanting something.
“Oh you want to use the new magic? That would probably kill you since you just gained them.” He explained.
The emotions were still there and it was clear that it was what Ash wanted.
Xero stored the huge tail and walked with him back outside and after look for a bit Xero looked upwards.
“It might not be safe if the fire spreads but…” He pondered as he looked for a really wide space and found Miss Gilbody walking about.
“Mr Null? Did you already feed your familiar the tail?” She asked.
“Yes, in a few bites he developed two innate skills. He doesn’t want to eat until I use them.” He explained.
The woman's eyes widened. “What spells?” She asked.
“The first would have been Demon Claw but I changed the demon magic for Fire and Air magic making Blue Imp Fire Claws. And the other is a boost spell called Super Pounce the original spell boosted jumping power by two times for 40 seconds, I raised it to three time the jumping power for 2 minutes.” He explained excited.
“Oh my.” She looked shocked and then showed a slight smile as she looked down at him. “Come then, I can erect a barrier for you to utilize your spell.” She said.
She turned and walked a bit before stopping in a clearing and with a snap of her finger her familiar seal shined. From the seal a light shined and expanded greatly in the air before it burst revealing a massive Owl with Grey feathers. It flew in the air for a moment and circled around before landing behind Miss Gilbody.
“This is Merlin, he is my familiar, a Sage Owl.” She introduced him, “Merlin this is Mr. Xero Null.” She introduced Xero to the owl.
“Hoo~! So this is the one possessing the unique imp? Hoo~!” He asked bending over and looking at the two more carefully. “They both possess such potential. Hoo~!” Merlin says.
“Merlin is a unique Owl, he holds an innate ability to sense potential in others and it seems we were right to keep you Mr. Null.” She said.
“Hoo~! What did you need of me?” He asked Miss Gilbody.
“Right, the Imp just formed two Innate skills, one of which is attack based and will most likely cause surrounding destruction. We need to set up a simple barrier to reduce the damage.” She said.
“Hoo~! Then let us begin.” He said.
She looked at Xero and nodded.
With an Order he made Ash move some distance away and with a wave of her wand Miss Gilbody fused her mana into the Sage Owl who spread his wing and large 10 meter in diameter dome barrier formed around Ash.
“Alright.” Merlin said and closed his wings.
Xero pulled out his sword and pointed at Ash and found the Blue Imp Fire Claw and began to feed it mana. The flow of mana was the same as the Imp fire but as it reached the arms it suddenly began to take several different routes and the mana began to change between fire and Air mana and instantly these new channels began to hit snags but the fire mana followed the previous route halfway and then turned into several routes and all hit snags.
Instantly Ash’s body turned from dark grey to bright blue and turned into a blinding light before a resound explosion happened and even began to form cracks on the barrier.
“Hoo~! Oh my!” Merlin exclaimed.
Miss Gilbody was also greatly shocked by the shockwave. The barrier dissolved and the a steaming red pearl shot out of the dust and entered the familiar seal.
The seal turned from grey to Black but only a moment before it began to shine as shockwaves of mana burst and returned into the seal several times and when it settled down the seal began to suck up mana from Xero like normal.
It pulled mana longer than it did before and when it finished Xero summoned it. The Red pearl shot out and all the ash in the ground and in the dust cloud began to gather around it pulling all the surrounding dust and soon formed the body of the imp but this time it had a really drastic change.
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Standing with a strong figure of a 15 year old human standing around 165 cm tall, his body was covered in shiny black scales, his hand was complete with a fully developed thumb. His nails were long claws. On his back was a large black bat like wing. The chest of the large imp was defined and the body shape could only be called human and the face now looked sculpted even more but as he grinned the sharp black fangs showed. On his forehead were two long 10 cm long black horns. He opened his eyes and showed the white eyes with the blue ring forming his Iris. On his back, the previously small thin tail was now thick and long and the scales on them made it looked like a black scaled dragon tail. Looking down the legs were now fully muscular and well built and the feet were much larger. The large toe had formed but it didn't take the position that human feet had and looked like a demonized ape foot where all the top digits of the fingers were sharp black claws.
Ash was attracting a large amount of ashes and was building his body but even then he lifted his hand and closed it as he felt his human like hands that he had built.
“Oh my! Hoo~! A truly unique demon! Hoo~! Human shaped even at this early level of development and even a complete five finger hand! Hoo~! This race? It is the Obsidian Scaled Imp yet it feels more like a Demon Dragonewt or Black Scaled Devil to me. Hoo~!” Merlin said as he examined the imp.
“Is there a difference?” Xero asked.
“Yes Mr. Null. A Demon Dragonewt is like a demon form of Dragonewt and is commonly called the Black Dragonewt because they are descendants of a Black Dragon which is usually called the Demon Dragon. I don’t believe it’s a Dragonewt because the legs aren’t curved like lizard legs and are instead human legs. As for a Black Scaled Devil, it’s a very rare evolution of Scaled Imp that are born in respawn pools with lava flow near them I believe. They are ruthless and normally distorted.” She explained.
“And the Obsidian Scaled Imp?” Xero asked.
“Hoo~! The original Scaled Imp would already be a slightly more distorted Imp with scales, the Obsidian Scaled imp would even start to walk on four legs for a period of time like a lizard and usually later on evolve into demon reptiles. Hoo~!” Merlin said.
“So with the most safety I can call him a Black Scaled Devil?” Xero asked.
“No.” Merlin shot him down. “Black scaled Imp. Hoo~! He is only Level 5, Black Scaled Devils appear rarely appear at level 10. Hoo~!” He said.
“Oh, this is confusing.” Xero said scratching his head. “I always wondered but what are the differences between Demon and Devil?” Xero asked something that was always on his mind since he obtained an imp familiar.
“Hoo~! Demons are more distorted and will willingly torture and attack other creatures, most are mindless killers. Devils are intelligent and cunning, although they follow the same instincts as Demons they control impulses for the thrill of the hunt. Hoo~!” Merlin explained.
“Ah! One more thing, what level is he? You said level 5 but just by looking it feels off.” Xero said.
“You will have to go to Niska and see if there is any identification mage that can properly view your familiars basic characteristics including his race. Until then you may not know.” Miss Gilbody said.
“Alright, thank you for the help Miss Gilbody and thank you for the information from you both.” Xero said and bowed.
“Hoo~! Anytime young man.” Merlin said.
With a bow Xero turned and recalled Ash. He now needed to head to Grunt to see about resizing the Restraints for Ash and also to gauge his new strengths.
In another part of the camp Univa sat watching her Salamander and sighed. She had eaten a bit of the dragon meat and stored the rest once her familiar had eaten. Now it had entered a state of full rest. As she watched her Seal shined and she looked and found it was slowly gathering mana making a new Innate skill. She brightened up since it was a chance to boost her strength.
Slowly the meat broke down in the salamanders stomach and it absorbed the mana at a much slower pace compared to Ash.
Slowly it formed and she found it was Acidic Bite. The salamander covers its fangs with poison magic and bites another creature.
“Why couldn’t it be a fire breath or something. Oh well, let's see, poisonous bite would make it a poison variant dragon later on. I don’t want that.” She thought and brought out a book on dragon monsters.
Did not worry about the magical formula developing to quickly, it would take several hours for a dragon creature to develop their Innate spells.
She found the section with unique dragons like her Blue winged salamander which is a known salamander type.
“Developing wind and fire would make it a Sapphire Flare dragon eventually but the endurance is quite low. But then there is even the rare Ice dragons I can make but those are hard conditions that I might not get right.” She muttered. Looking between each element there were pure elements and mixed elements but mixed ones are harder to achieve. “I think for now maybe I should try to make his endurance higher. There are several dragons in all types that need a high endurance level gained through earth magic.” She muttered and felt the seal again and looked at the magical formula and found the ‘Poison’ rune and changed it to ‘Metal’. The chain reaction caused more than half of the formed formula to burst and from the first broken part it reformed. She slowly accompanied it. Some spots changed breaking another section but this followed efficency but the spell was simple compared to the complex fire ball that needs to be formed and spit out. “There, Metal Fang. Close range spell that makes his fangs sharp and made of metal for a duration of several minutes.” She nodded but as the light of the seal faded it lit up again.
“Another one?” She exclaimed and looked. This time the magical formula was forming quickly and she quickly found it was a Tail smash attack but unlike other innate spells this one didn’t have an element making harder to integrate one into a spell that wouldn’t have it. If added it would cost much more mana to form it and if the familiar doesn’t have all the mana it might not finish.
She bites her bottom lip before nodding and adding the ‘Earth’ rune into the proper spot. She crashed large parts of the spell that began to reform soon after. “Tail Quake.” She muttered and kept doing small changes which slowly altered the spell. Each change she would fuel with her large supply of mana.
Unlike Xero, she had huge talent for absorbing mana and had an abundant amount so she use it at this time to fuel the creation of the Innate Spell. When the spell finally reached its end she sighed happily that it finished.
“Seismic Earth Smash, impacting the Salamander's tail on the ground will cause an earthquake in the immediate area and can cause the ground to shift and if controlled can cause rock pillars to rise under other creatures. If the attack hits the body of another creature it would be like causing an earthquake in their body but the strength decreases by 75% unless it’s a creature made of earth or elements of earth.”
She smiled extremely happily at the spell. This was a perfect control spell for trapping monsters. She only needs to properly train these spells but they aren’t complex spells. It will cause problems at the start due to her salamanders lack of affinity for the elements but that is all. “Maybe the Seismic Earth Smash will backfire and kill him and he may evolve?” She muttered and looked at the salamander that was waking up at this moment.
She nodded and called it before walking outside and into the forest before removing her wand and activated the Seismic Earth Smash. The mana instantly smashed into several snags but the lizard hissed and raised before slamming it tail only for it to backfire and its body completely exploded like a balloon. All that soon turned into light and gathered into the seal.
Following the last piece turning into mana and entering the seal, a powerful wave of mana burst out and was sucked back in. Three powerful waves followed and made the trees in the surrounding creak as the strain to remain standing was hard under the force of the waves.
She frowned at the sight and wondered how many deaths it would take for it to grow accustomed to the magic.
She walked back towards the camp as she poured her mana into the seal. Since she didn’t have the elements for replacing the body of her familiar she will need to use extra mana and already it was using more mana than before but as she reached the doorway she noticed Xero arrive at the same time.
“Oh Boy, girly! I saw you both leave before and heard to big bangs! Did you go and blow up your familiars?” Grunt laughed.
“Yeah, Ash wanted me to use one of his new Innate skills and it gave him a completely new form that even stumped Miss Gilbody about what race it is. Even her familiar didn’t know exactly what race it is and just said a few that were closest.” Xero said excited.
“Oh? Let me see.” Grunt asked.
Xero summoned the tall demon. It couldn’t even be called an Imp any longer and its figure was too human, if it got rid of the scales, wings horns and claws it would look elf like.
“I also got a similar reaction, I brought Tryus to the forest and used a new Innate spell. It… looked a bit painful.” She said.
“Yeah, for anything besides Imps it's a painful deal.” Grunt said. “So did it grow up?” He asked.
Univa looked at her seal and after seeing it could summon she did so. A blue light flies up and lands behind her. It expands almost twice as much as it did before and what appeared was a much larger Blue scaled salamander but this time it looked more majestic.
The neck was longer and it formed an S shape with the head at the top looking around curiously. It no longer dragged itself on the ground the hind legs were larger and strong enough to support the body as were the front legs. All the paws had four fingers, the underside of the salamander formed plate like scales from compacted scales overlapping each other making it more powerful. The tail was also thicker but it could move up and down and would slap the ground. On its head were two horns and a few spikes around it. The lizard face now turned a bit more dragon like and the eyes held a hint of intelligence. The blue scales shined under the sunlight reflecting the light beautifully. If it stretched its neck out from the nose to the tip of the tail it would be a length of 3 meters and it stood about the height of a horse. On its back were the two huge wings that folded on its side.
“Well what do you know, you had a triple level up and evolution girly. From level 4 to level 7 you got yourself a Lesser Sapphire Drake Adolescent. With thicker Dragon blood this beauty can already be used as a mount for one person. They are quite intelligent but not enough so to speak the human. If you're smart you can evolve it early on without losing the Lesser and Adolescent parts. You have a ways to climb to true dragon and Drake is one step only.” Grunt said bellowing a laugh.
Univa was almost in tears, to think that in one jump she could rise so many levels and get closer to proving herself to her father.
She walked up and put her hand on her drakes snout. He bent down and pushed his head on her. Her hand moved to his chin and she scratched a small scar he had on the side of his mouth which left a small bald spot without scales. It was sensitive but with her touch she scratched and he liked it. It caused him to purr a bit and she giggled.
“Come on Tyrus, let’s go eat the rest of that meat and then we can go out and train.” She said.
Snort!
He blew out a lot of hot air and rose up before roaring. He then looked at Ash and growled. The Imp looked at it and grinned. Strangely, looking at the white part inside the Iris it seem to shrink as if it was a pupil and it looked directly at the dragon clearly showing that Ash had formed his eye enough to see in detail within a short distance of himself and with a momentary boost he can increase his visual range.
The two glared at each other before they looked away and they both began to glow and suddenly flashed and hid in the seal.
The three just stood in silence but Grunt suddenly laughed, “Oh boy, this is good, the two familiar formed enough intelligence to become rivals this is rich!” Grunt almost fell over.
“Hey Grunt, can you give me a larger suit, ash doesn’t fit anymore.” Xero said.
Only after a long time did he stop and took the restraints. “I had guessed he would grow bigger quick so I prepared a few extra.” He said.
“Um teacher, can you give me one my size, with Tyrus as a Drake his physical strength is really high so I can probably grow stronger, I don’t want to…” She lookes at Xero, “I don’t want to depend on others to protect me.”
Grunt grinned and fished out another one. “Brat go do your own thing, I need to teach the girly how to get in these.” Grunt shooed Xero away who shrugged and walked inside in a good mood.
At his tent he dressed the evolved Ash and dropped the dragon's tail and Ash started to eat it until there wasn’t even bone left. Then his body flashed and returned to the seal and a large burst came and he appeared again a bit more muscular.
“I guess he leveled up even more. It’s starting to get hard to keep up.” Xero said and tightened the restraints and walked outside with Ash to start training, doing so until night time and going to sleep.