A seed had laid on the ground of the underworld for untold centuries, submerged inside a spawning pool. Then one day, it opened.

A small body crawled from inside it, covered in rags that once had been top tier equipment.

An imp.

Born from a human body, transformed after bathing inside a demon birthing pool.

Johan groggily dragged himself out of the blood lake, his mind finally awakening.

“Is this the underworld?” Johan asked as he took in the view.

There was not a source of light, the sky overhead a deep black color, mottled with small specks of light, the connections to the surface world.

Even without light, the particularities of the magic inherent to all things, gave them a sort of inner illumination. Making it possible to see around as if things were clear.

The ground was white and grey, withered trees of different sizes could be seen in the near perimeter. Their pale and jagged form contrasted against the black background.

Occasionally a crack the size of a bucket could be seen on the ground, and bursts of magic emanated from them, sometimes looking like steam or smoke.

Johan stood up wearily, his balance a little off. That's when he confirmed his body had changed.

His dragged his trousers and shirt behind him, or what was left of them.

Johan’s body had become smaller, no taller than a medium-sized dog. He had small legs with big feet, and long arms ending in small claws, reaching at his knees. Touching his face he realized his nose was flat, his ears big and pointy, while his mouth was much wider and filled with small, sharp teeth. His skin reddish and rough.

Johan had become an imp.

Most importantly, his left eyeball had been replaced by a golden eye. An arcane symbol could be seen, carved on the place of his pupil.

Johan looked inwards, towards the circle of his soul space. It was divided in an inner area, housing his mind deck and fulmin, but the golden eye hovered there too. Outside, forming a wheel around the inner area, was the hearth deck.

His mind deck only had two cards.

-Fire affinity 1.

-Soul manipulation 1.

His heart deck had no cards at all. The wheel empty.

Johan checked the eye.

-Eye of the dead gods.

*Witness of the world.

*Holder of the old order.

*Mark of legitimacy.

“How much have I lost? How much have I gained?”

A dreadful sensation enveloped him. Back on the other world Johan had lost his life, now he had lost his human body.

But how much was that worth anyway?

The eye granted him knowledge of the history it had witnessed, and now he knew his world was but a war trophy. In the process of being shaped into a perpetual toy.

“To do: Revenge.”

“Number one: Kill the ones who betrayed me, no, humiliate them first, then kill.”

“Number two: destroy the works of the gods, the new gods.”

Killing the gods was a little above his weight. But destroying their playground was pretty well inside his capabilities. Specially considering the gods were currently immobile.

Johan would only need to kill their servants.

“This eye has chosen me because our interests align. So be it. This time the new surface will have something else to fear, besides the demon king’s resurrection.”

The blood of the underworld was strange, existing in birthing pools, reactive rivers, mutation chasms, and other strange marvels.

The unyielding blood of the demon king, the power sustaining the underworld.

Johan had not bet everything on a blind chance, and had a plan. The demonic blood may be strange, but it was also a chance.

His chance.

No matter how strange the demon blood may be. He would chart its secrets, extract them, and use them as a basis to reach the surface. To deliver judgment on the elves.

His blood revolution.

But first things first, Johan required cards.

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He took his old clothes, now wet and gummy, and fiddled with them, crumpling them and stretching them while he focused inside his soul space.

-Level 5.

-Fire affinity 1.

A most basic ability, humans had no affinities, but they could gain them with effort. Demons had other roadblocks and strengths.

Inside his soul space the inner area was filled with “Fulmin,” the mana generated by his soul, perfectly attuned to himself. While the outer area allowed the contact with ambient mana.

The area between the inner and outer area was called The Hand, because those cards were ready to be activated. Used as a bridge between fulmin and mana, between the person and the environment

Johan placed his Fire Affinity 1 card into his hand, where it manifested as a hologram. Then concentrated his fulmin, and made the card activate.

The fulmin concentrated, and was transformed by the affinity, then it became a flame.

Easy enough, being the simplest of spells.

Johan took the flame and condensed it back into fulmin, the process perfect, with zero loses, due to happening all inside his soulspace by his fulmin.

The flame turned into a card.

-Flame 1

*Produces a simple flame.

“One ready, four to go.”

Johan repeated the process, creating another flame card. Then a third one, but this time the card drew in ambient mana, slowly changing it into fire, a bigger fire than before, then dissipated.

Johan repeated the process several times until the result was efficient enough. Then he took the magical flame and enveloped it with his fulmin, dissipating the ambient mana and leaving only fulmin behind.

Fulmin and an empty framework, that could be used to ignite a magical flame. All it required was to interact with ambient mana.

-Ignition 1.

*Ignites ambient mana.

Every card could only affect as much ambient mana as its own value, unless the card indicated otherwise, but refining that level of mastery would take time. This was good enough for now.

Most cards had a cost equal to their level. Unless the card indicated otherwise. Johan had five levels, meaning he could store five level-one cards.

But it would not do to be a squishy imp.

Johan took his clothes, now a little less wet than before, and proceeded to cover himself.

His old leather shirt enveloped his torso, forming a padded defense. He used his claws to rip the trousers into long strips, half of which he used to envelop his left hand, while the other half got used to cover his head and his new golden eye, leaving only a small slit to see.

Johan looked around, and decided to travel towards the nearest source of magic, the largest amount of light on the distance.

He approached one of the withered trees and broke a branch, then tested its might, but it shattered easily and turned to dust. Then the branch grew again on the very same tree.

“Reflections, huh.”

With no proper equipment Johan had to settle for a stone, but there were only pebbles and dust.

Johan circulated his fulmin inside his body as he jogged near the lake’s edge, and when he was satisfied with the result, condensated that inner flow into another card.

-Dash 1.

*Generates a small burst of speed.

All magical cards were external unless stated otherwise. And they had the potential to generate very powerful spells. But cards related to the body were internal, and reinforced the body while inactive.

Johan reasoned there was not much physical power he could generate while in this imp form, and settled for not making a second Dash card yet, then he went away.

He kept walking, but this time he extended his right arm in a punching motion, but instead of a fist he concentrated his fulmin on the tip of his claws. Eventually it was good enough to make a card.

-Sharp Claw 1.

*Increases the sharpness of the claws.

An undetermined time later, Johan arrived to an area with less pebbles and more rocks. Small burst of steam or smoke could be seen rising from cracks on the ground.

It took a while for the rocks to get big enough to cover an imp, and Johan finally began to feel the need to be cautious.

He advanced slowly, circling the rocks to avoid being spotted, and in the ground he finally found a stone large and flat enough to use as a weapon. It was not as long as a forearm, but it would do.

Johan unwrapped his left hand, grabbed the stone and wrapped it again. then he continued his advance.

Not so long before, he finally found company. Two imps lazed around on the top of a big rock, enjoying the steam that rose from the ground and heated the rock.

Unfortunately the rock was two times taller than Johan, making it impossible for him to launch a surprise attack. So he waited.

Johan felt a small twitch from his left eye.

-Lesser Imp, level 6

-Lesser imp, level 7

“Handy,” Johan said to himself, as far as he knew, there were no easy ways to determine a person’s exact level. That may be the function of “Witness of the world,” not only to deliver information of the past, but to provide insight of the present, Johan reasoned.

A couple hours later an imp descended from atop the rock. The level 7 one.

“Good,” Johan said, as he ran towards the imp and landed a stone strike on the head.

The imp managed to raise his hands, but failed to block the initial strike. The imp unleashed a clawing frenzy, some of his hits empowered by magic, but the arm’s protection took the worst of it.

Johan landed another hit to the head, this time more cleanly, and the imp fell to the ground.

Meanwhile, the other imp had taken notice and was already jumping down, threatening to pin Johan with his weight.

Johan could have rolled to the side, but decided to take his chances, he activated Sharp Claw and stabbed the imp’s torso. The position made it hard to aim, but the weight of the falling body created a long gash on the imp’s side.

It was not deep, but it bleed slowly, and it had to be painful.

The imp activated a card of his own, and launched forward with a claw clad in flame. Interestingly, the fire was much stronger than Johan’s own.

Johan had expected something like that, and took his Ignition and Flame cards, activated them and threw them into the imp’s flaming hand.

The fire increased in a burst of flame, and the imp recoiled in pain, he tried to swat his hand left and right, hoping to extinguish the fire, but it was useless.

While the imp thrashed around in panic, Johan activated a Dash card and closed the distance, then landed a strike to the head with his stone.

It was enough to take down the imp.

A sharp pain erupted on Johan’s leg, and he saw the other imp still alive, crawling and biting his leg, He stoned it to death.

The wounds were not that deep, and would heal with time. Johan took the chance to circulate his fulmin across his whole body, cycling it and trying to concentrate it on the wounded areas.

He sat down, his back resting on the big stone.

Johan breathed the ambient magic, circulating it across his hearth deck.

There were still wisps of magic from the scratches he suffered on his left arm from the first imp, and the air had traces of the fire magic the second imp used.

His heart deck formed a wheel, and the mana circulated all around it

The cards he had used on the fight looked greyed out, and they would need time to restore their power. But the process could be speeded up by stimulating the cards with compatible mana.

Johan not only refilled his cards, but took the time to appreciate the way in which that foreign magic worked. After all, even if they were imps, they had more experience with those cards, if nothing else.

The differences were minute, small adjustments made to make the magic more violent. Johan considered some parts of it useful, and tried to copy the effects on his cards. But other differences he discarded, and simply absorbed the magic to refill his cards

The amount of magic was not enough to return to full shape, but it was something.

Slowly but surely, Johan gained one level.