After making the familiar contract with the fish, I walked back to the academy with the bucket in hand.

Perfect Me, the ability I had created under stress, was quite a powerful one. Which would be even more helpful the stronger I grew. However, the special ability in and of itself will never grow stronger. I will never be able to be in the Perfect Me state for longer than five minutes. Those were the limitations I had put on it.

But I had seen and felt how my body moved when I was in that state. No rule said I couldn't grow to a stage where the Perfect Me ability would be used more as a training guideline on how to use my power and fight.

I hadn't thought about that when creating Perfect Me Ability. Back then my mind was laced with only thoughts of survival.

So this was something of a loophole in the ability itself. Though not enough to be called a cheat ability, it was better than most.

As I walked through the hallways, students kept giving me weird glances. Some whispered amongst themselves and chuckled.

What? Never seen a guy with a fish before?

Walking past the creepy paintings in the hallway that led to the headmaster's office. I was about to knock. But the door opened on itself.

"So you have your familiar," the headmaster looked at my bucket weirdly. Not even the Hermit Exorcist, known as one of the most knowledgeable exorcists, knew about what I was up to.

"Yes, and I want to use the Demon Turning sword on it to turn it into a low class demon," I said. Trying to read what the headmaster might be thinking.

This was a shortcut I had in mind. It would take one or two months to evolve the carp into a low class demon. But with the demon-turning sword, it would be an instantaneous transformation.

The old man leaned back on his chair and put his feet on the table. Showing zero manners and respect for the position he held. "Normally, I would warn reckless exorcists about creating abilities without thinking. Or when they do something reckless. But no matter how I look at you, you aren't a reckless kid."

He stared at me as if expecting a response. But I didn't say anything and only gave a harnessed smile in response.

Without a doubt in my mind, he was probably suspicious of me at this point. I had asked him for the Demon Turning sword that was one of the academy's biggest secrets.

"Well, I'm sure you know what you're doing," the headmaster threw me the sword, and I caught it.

I unsheathed the weapon.

An ominous aura covered the room. Dark letters wriggled around the sword's blade and crawled up my arm. The Cursed Ord coming from the sword wasn't plentiful, but the hate coming out of the weapon made me freeze.

My instincts were screaming at me!

"Amazing isn't it?" The headmaster chuckled. "The weapon in and of itself isn't strong. The craftsmanship is somewhat good. But for the Ord it has, the ability is very powerful."

My arm felt numb. I clenched my teeth as a chilly feeling spread all the way to my shoulder. "This is a cursed weapon."

"Not even one of those cursed weapons that give you power. But a shitty one you can't even use," the headmaster's smile dimmed and the gears on his head started turning.

But from what I remember in the manga, that wasn't the case. This weapon would be stolen, and then the thief demon would use it with no problems.

Did the headmaster put some restrictions on this so that it would be hard for me to use it? No, that doesn't make sense. He could have just not agreed to lend me the Demon Turning sword or just feigned ignorance of the weapon's existence.

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Magic Weapons were created by Ord. They were a Creator's obsessions that stay in this world even after they die. Cursed Weapons were technically considered Magic Weapons too since they had whacky abilities.

Since a demon could use the sword, but I as a human have such difficulty. There must be a 'condition' set by the dying will of this weapon's creator. "He must have really hated humans."

Despite the biting cold that was slowly turning painful in my hand. I swung the sword at my carp fish and scratched it slightly.

Immediately the carp grew almost twice bigger and barely fit into the bucket. Its scales grew more lustrous. The Ord drainage on me also increased over five times. It was still something I could handle.

The fish only grew and didn't develop any other changes in appearance that would show it was a low class demon. It had instead become a lingering spirit.

My heart almost stopped.

This was disappointing!

But taking a breath, I calmed myself down.

Then I sheathed the sword and put it on the headmaster's desk.

What was I going to do now? How much time would it take to evolve the carp into a dragon? Were there any particular things needed for that to happen?

"Huh, would you look at that? I for sure thought you would cut yourself and turn into a demon," the old man scratched his bandaged head.

"What? Why would I do that?" What was he talking about? That would be a dumb thing to do.

"Demons are immortal, can regenerate, can't die of sickness. They are generally better than humans in most aspects."

If I wanted immortality, there were better methods out there. Also turning into a low class demon wasn't some kind of dream either. The chances of losing control were higher than being able to keep your sanity.

"Thanks for trusting me to let me use the weapon."

After some small talk, I walked out with the carp almost falling out of the bucket.

A lingering spirit. I had hoped for the carp to at least be able to turn into a low class demon. But it seemed like that had been my wishful thinking.

This will be harder than I had thought. No wonder other exorcists don't know about demon evolution. It's hard to achieve even in ideal circumstances.

Since my familiar won't be able to break the barriers naturally, I will have to pick up the slack. I have to do more!

Once back in my dorm room, I took out a glass box from under my bed—something I had prepared a while back.

Putting the big carp in it, the fish swam around a bit before it settled down and stared at the wall.

"Well, nothing great is easy to do," I was going to raise an Ultimate Monster. If it were that easy to do, there would be dragons everywhere.

The fastest way to evolve a demon is for them to consume Ord. Most do by eating humans, but he is my tamed demon so I can just transfer my Ord.

The more Ord I transfer, the faster it will grow, and the fastest way to raise Ord was strong emotions.

'Amongst heaven and earth, only I am the honored one.' The words of the Demonic Exorcist came to mind.

He might be an evil guy. But controlling hundreds of demons, each of them consumed Ord. Even with all that, the Ord in his body when we fought was still massive.

Having a big ego, or being crazy and believing something so much it will manifest into reality.

Getting up, I imitated the pose the Demonic Exorcist did. "Amongst heaven and earth, only I am the honored one!"

After saying the embarrassing words, nothing happened.

Yep, just saying them doesn't change anything. I need to believe those words!

Which was impossible for me. Not only did I know that there was an actual main character in this world, but also because there were people way stronger than me.

The Demonic Exorcist had the pleasure of not knowing just how big the world really was. Or else even he wouldn't be able to keep his ego in place. There were demons and monsters out there beyond comprehension.

Suppose I don't find a way to get fast and overwhelming growth in Ord. With my current Ord output, it will take more than a hundred years to even have a chance to evolve my fish into a dragon.

There was another way to raise Ord. That’s how Bets had created an ability that should have been way over his level.

I lacked the guts to do what Bets did. It was scary to play with my lifespan, one mistake or accidental spillage, and I would become an old man in an instant.

Creators could create an object with their lifespan and give it strange abilities. Masters were a bit different. When we use lifespan instead of an object, we can make a contract.

***

While deep in his contemplation. Kon didn’t notice the carp fish staring at him.

Bubbles floated out of the fish's mouth, and its mouth curved upwards to what could only be perceived as a smile.