“And your name shall be Quan.”
“Wait, hold on… Lua! I can’t believe you're just naming them like that!”
“Shit, I have been found out.”
I had been naming the demons with the same trend I had decided upon when I named Prim.
I turn to look over at Prim, Sec, and Tern who are all standing off to the side, their personalities shining through the forms they have taken for themselves using the wooden golems I have provided.
Prim in her evil maid outfit, hair tied up in a bun, and her wispy purple eyes.
Sec and his yakuza style suit and slicked back blonde hair, he even turned his golem weapon into a katana of all things…
I hope my memories of anime on earth don’t affect the demons too much. Sadly, there is no light at the end of that tunnel.
Thinking that, I look at Tern rather pointedly. Her witchy magical girl outfit along with her pink hair and starry eyes… I still refuse to comment on it.
“What? It is not like the demon's mind, and the names sound normal enough.”
The demons all seemed rather happy with their names, so I had been procrastinating on making that name list.
“Nope, not pulling that shit with me. They deserve proper names!”
Alice had a point, these are my soldiers and I could do better. Quan didn’t seem to want to change his name after I gave it, however, so to prove to Alice that I could name things I was forced to give our carriage a name.
“Fine, but I still want to try that experiment I mentioned before so I will be putting a Lesser Demon inside the Golem Spider Carriage.”
I call one of the Lesser Demons I had stationed around the edges of the carriage. The things are rather lacking in any kind of sense of self so making one into a carriage is totally fine.
Should even make the ride smoother as I won’t have to add new commands to it every time we run into a new edge case on its programming.
“I dub thee, Buttercup!”
The best part about having my memories from earth is my ability to choose random words from the many languages on that world and cheat at naming!
I can sense Alice trying to read my expression to determine if her BS radar is working correctly.
I lock my face into place using my wonderful shapeshifting abilities and hope for the best.
After a moment, she either decides it is not worth it, or barely passable enough to not warrant a comment.
“Great! Now that we are all ready, we should be really close to the border of The Sea of Trees soon.”
We had been traveling rather quickly through the forest for two days now, Buttercup had really put in the work and we had only just stopped to grab materials for new experiments as well as making new demons.
I look over the large mounted turret we are building on the back of Buttercup’s platform. The whole thing is still made of wood, seeing as we don’t have anywhere near enough metal to even make a single rail, but it is coming along nicely.
“Project Illegal Weapons is looking real snazzy. I wonder if I had the demons start mining for metals in the third ring, maybe we could stumble upon a massive vein of mithril or something?”
It was a faint hope, but the third ring is generally an unexplored region. There were many reasons people never went there, even Class 3s avoided the place, so I could dream of untouched treasures.
“Enchanted mithril golem bullets fired by a giant railgun! Every girl’s wet dream!”
Everyone seems to have decided to ignore my insanity, and finish loading the materials we harvested for my experiments onto Buttercup.
Once the preparations were done and the materials stored, we set off once again.
“Onward Buttercup, there’s fuckery to spread!”
“Lua… I don’t know what you are on about, but I feel the urge to tell you to shut up.”
“Truly a shame to lose meme culture in another world. I will put creating memes and the internet on my todo list.”
My blooming insanity aside, I really need to focus on the latest experiment.
“So, you wanted to try upgrading a Lesser Demon to a Mid Demon? Will that work?”
Alice was skeptical, but if the demons were made of the Demonic Essence in my Soul, then adding more should do something to upgrade their power.
I think.
It would be a shame to have Prim and the gang be stuck at Class 3 when I eventually reach Class 4.
Not wanting to delay any longer, I call over one of the Lesser Demons and have it exit the golem it is inhabiting.
When the shadowy figure leaves the golem’s form, I notice an odd change. Normally, the demons were shaped more like devilish imps.
All of the Class 2 demons I created up until now had looked practically identical.
Now, I can see a monkey tail flicking behind the demon's frame, warping and twisting along with the smoke, but unmistakably similar to the tail of the golem it had been inhabiting.
“Interesting, is this a case of the body affects the mind? Maybe… Do the Class 2 demons have such a weak sense of self that the form influences it or will this be the case with all demons?”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
I have always loved learning new things and fitting puzzle pieces together. Since my reincarnation I have had many opportunities to toy with the rules of this world, and I just can’t keep myself from getting excited at seeing a new and fascinating problem to solve!
Before I can get carried away however, I close my eyes and reach into my Soul.
I can feel my connection to the demon before me, like I can feel the connection to all the others.
Focusing on the closest thread, I flip the switch in my mind and create the usual black smoke streaked with red lightning.
The smoke rises off my skin and I can feel the usual tingling sensation followed by a bit of lethargy.
“Ugh, I probably should stick to a single Class 3 a day from now on. The weakness from hitting my limit could cause issues if we are attacked.”
As I complain, the smoke rushes into the Lesser Demon. It looks as though the smoke is being eaten by the monkey imp oddly enough, the demon’s form becoming plump as it gets its fill.
Eventually there is no smoke left to eat and the Lesser Demon bursts into a whirlwind of shaded lightning.
“Reminds me of baglemon evolutions.”
Once the storm clears the imp is no more, and standing before me is a Class 3 demon.
The usual animal skull rests in place of a head, but this time I can see its shape is clearly a monkey’s skull. The tail that had been there from the previous incarnation remains, and I can see a light of intelligence forming in the demon’s glowing red eyes.
It kneels.
“Greetings my lord! I thank you for your generosity in granting me new power!”
Speaking in a rather childlike tone, the rather short demon looks up at me with absolute glee.
“I am glad you are happy. From now on your name will be Timmy.”
It was a success! I am a bit concerned about possible changes when I eventually upgrade other demons, but that is a problem for future Lua.
With all that concluded, Myself, Alice, and the 5 Great Demon Generals set off on our trusty demon spider carriage named Buttercup and head for the third ring.
“I can feel your glare Alice, and it won’t help my naming sense. Would you like to name them?”
I don’t get a response.
It seems she has less faith in her own naming sense than mine.
…
..
.
Just as we reach the entrance to the third ring we come across a cliff far bigger than the last one I encountered. The one Lucadon pushed me off…
Still pissed about that.
“Damn, That is one freaky sight.”
“I will agree with you on that much.”
Alice nods in agreement as we both stare out into the abyss.
In the first ring the trees were big, sure, maybe 20 feet wide and 300 feet tall. Monoliths of wood that were strange to look at but nothing too crazy.
Moving into the second ring the trees went up to over 40 feet wide and 700 feet tall. I had thought the size of those trees were mind numbing enough, but this takes the cake.
The world seems to bend under the crushing scale as each tree is 100 feet wide at minimum and towering over 2000 feet tall.
Looking down the sheer cliff I, even with my vision that ignores light levels, see a rather murky dark blur.
While each tree is rather far from the next, their long reaching branches stretch so far that a single droplet of light would need a miracle to reach the ground. And that would be without taking into account that the mana of the trees seems to eat light itself.
I can feel it from here, a clawing sensation at my magic, not enough to affect me, but enough to feel a tiny pull in my soul.
“Now I understand why even Class 3s avoid this place. A magic flame would be snuffed out in an instant, never letting you see the hordes of Class 3 monsters right next to you.”
The third ring is clearly far from a pleasant place to be.
I didn’t think about it when I was in the fourth ring because I basically never left the house that Lucadon made, the darkness there obscured the trees completely so I never had a chance to feel this sensation.
This is a terrifying place to be.
“Well, in we go!”
Buttercup begins to stab into the cliff face and lower us down gently.
“I really wish I could figure out how those light wings of yours work!”
Alice’s wings from her fairy form are still accessible in her current state, but no matter how hard I try I can’t replicate them when I look at the flow of magic.
It is rather frustrating.
Alice giggles at my childish tantrum about wanting wings.
“I am sure you will figure them out eventually, then you can make all the demons fly as well.”
She pats me on the head from her superior position in height.
I grumble but let the patting continue.
“See anything down there?”
Alice’s vision had changed since her evolution. Before she could project her vision using the runes I crafted into her original doll form’s eyes. Now that function is gone. Replacing it is the ability to see Life Energy.
Every living creature gives off Life Energy, and since it is a hard thing to conceal, that makes Alice’s sight in this magically dark forest even better than mine.
“No, the trees give off too much of their own Life Energy that it obscures everything.”
Or not…
I can still see, but it is like looking around a very dimly lit room. And since the demons seem to be able to see fine in the darkness that just leaves Alice as the odd one out…
Not wanting her to run around blind, I decide to weave together a new spell from an old one.
My mapping spell was able to create a 3D map of the surroundings before, so why not just overlay that data on to the eyes so we can see perfectly!
I generate a ball of light in my hand and mess with the frequency before it can be eaten by the ambient mana.
Smoothing things out, the light approaches the point where they are considered radio waves.
“Well that is even more interesting!”
“What? It ate your light ball?”
“No, it seems that the mana here only eats certain wavelengths of light. They are plants after all, so radio waves are of no use to them. That makes things much easier.”
I take hold of my ball of radio waves and send out a burst to scan the area before converting the returned light into a map.
“Woah!”
Alice freaks out a bit as I overlay the scene onto her eyes.
“Your powers are such a cheat.”
“I think you were just too used to The System restricting magic to skills.”
“Maybe, but your control over it is still absurd.”
“The kind word would be ‘impressive’ not absurd.”
“I stand by my statement.”
With our bickering over and our vision of the forest no longer impaired we all set off for a fruitful hu-
“Get down!”
Before I can even think, I pull Alice into my arms at the call of Prim.
A large spike flies past where our heads had been and slams into the rock wall behind us.
“Well, that is one warm welcome…”