Thoz was absolutely terrified of his new situation, understandably so. Being told that your literal soul would be destroyed if you died when you had gotten used to the concept of suicide as an escape for all of the your earthly problems is quite the blow to your worldly perception. Unfortunately for our former imp, he still had the relative intelligence of a four year old child despite being older than most human civilizations had written history.
There is one conclusion you reach in such a situation if you have a single digit IQ: Survive.
In order to survive in the mortal world with the very, very real threat of death Thozronnath only had one effective plan. Level up, evolve, and get powerful enough that he can't be killed as easily (or as instantly) as he was previously. Every time he had come into danger, he had either been utterly destroyed or had managed to survive, there was no inbetween for the pitiful former devil.
Taking stock of his surroundings, Thoz was greated by the quivering puddle that serves as his only minion, but otherwise found himself alone in what appeared to be a densely grown forest of strange trees.
The mortal world had changed drastically in the thousands of years of relative peace that followed the construction of the barrier blocking all extras from reality. Notably, certain sections of land that were previously barren wastelands had adapted new forms of life, like the space Thoz found himself in right now. Surrounded by black tree trunks and nearly entombed by a cannopy of rust colored leaves, Thoz had encountered the ironwood forest.
Each ironwood tree was a living organism by definition, but the branches and bark they produced were harder than some low quality iron and steel weapons made in early civilizations. Cutting down the trees was nearly impossible, and so forestry was done through controlled burning. The middle of the forest where Thoz was now, was largely left alone thankfully.
Ironwood was a valuable resource if you could enchant a hard enough saw to cut one down, but enchanters and enchanted tools are even more rare than ironwood itself. Thus, the most activity this grove saw was the ocassional firey maintanance of the single road that ran through it. A road that would soon become Thoz's livelihood.
Over the next few months of his first honest to goodness true life on the mortal plane, Thoz and his murky little minion Zild would set themselves up a little camp in the forest, barely just a stones throw from the road. The goal of this was to provide the daily essentials they needed to survive, namely food and shelter. As an ooze based lifeform Zild didn't really need to eat, or rather he was constantly eating. The absorption skill he had aquired and leveled up allowed the tenacious little puddle to disolve and 'eat' just about any organic matter it could fully enclose in slime.
Thoz was not so lucky. Ironwood trees did not produce fruit, they produced tiny nuts that were akin to trying to eat bullets. The devil literally had to wait for them to rot before he could get them open and then rely on his poison immunity skill to keep him alive through the disgusting process of digestion. Effectively making the duo scavengers.
As for their shelter, hollowing out a bit of space under the thick growing tree roots gave the Wing Devil a small enough cave to build a fire and avoid the cold. Zildoxoxi slept outside and drank whatever rain water fell on him.
"Thisis only a temporaries measure oozey-thing" Thoz spoke aloud to his minion one day, nearly two weeks in.
"Nots getting any strongers by eating trash and hiding" the devil sighed, nearly defeated in tone.
"Wes will be movings of the camp soon, piece by pieces along road until finds something" Thoz eventually declared, warranting only a vague wiggle from the slimy listener.
The next few months were extremely repetative. Thoz and Zild would spend several days at a time excavating a new camp or searching for a prime location, before eventually abandoning the previous one. This left them with a network of scattered dens so no matter where they foundthemselves at along the forest road, there would theoretically always be a place nearby that they could find a dry spot to sleep. This also led to them being much more active along the road, a prime time spot for running into the occasional traveler.
Murdering innocent bystanders was second nature to both of the monsters, and Thozronnath found that his newly upgraded sting skill could even fire some of the small spikes from his body as detached projectiles. The murders of the 'The Devil of the Forest' as the humans came to call it, gave Thoz a lot of new information. First, he no longer gathered souls when killing as he had previously done when summoned magically. Second, human meat tasted amazing, and he got so much more nutrients from it.
Ripping into a cadaver and tearing the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys into bits as he ate his way through the body of a freshly dead mortal was an exhiliratting experience for the devil. Thousands of years of bland experiences seemed to pale away in comparison.
Eventually, Humans (the term here meaning any mortal humanoid creature) began to avoid the forest all together as a new road was slowly constructed. Thoz and Zild had to go back to their old diet as a result of this, but by that point both of them had gathered enough experience to trigger their next evolutions.
Congratulations! Level maximum has been reached!
Congratulations! Proficiency gained!
Progenitor of Sin is now level 3.
Requirements met for variant evolution.
Evolution commencing.
His body shuddered with pain as the wings and spikes covering Thoz's body crumbled to ash and fell away along with the wet piles of shed skin. The familiar pain of a rank up was now a distant memory after so many years of torment, but each agonizing change brought with it recollections of the first time. Bones snapped and broke, joints tore and stitched back into place, and what few organs were present liquified.
Proficiency gained! Magic Resistance is now level 2!
Proficiency gained! Blood Frenzyis now level 1!
Proficiency gained! Shapeshift is now level 3!
New form unlocked: Human (Man)
All the while, Zildoxoxi was undergoing a similar change, though his liquid form merely shuddered as it slowly changed color. Unable to speak or make vocal sounds, it was difficult to know or care what the slime was thinking at that particular moment.
When the process came to an end, Thoz took a few deeply painful breaths before viewing his own status as well as Zild's. Both of them had undergone massive stat increases while leveling, and the evolutions only brought those up higher. They had new skills, new classes to reflect the species change, and a chance at actually surviving better now.
Thoz could in theory blend in with humans as his new shapeshift skill allowed him to take their form, and Zildoxoxi was an utterly massive pile of ooze by now.
Actually, that wasn't far off. Varying in size from a few cm to close to a meter tall depending on how he stretched, Zild was nearly five meters across as a puddle in resting state. The previously small ooze had absorbed and eaten so much mass over the past months that his new amber colored form was nearly twenty-five hundred kilograms of raw sludge.
This drastic change prompted Thoz to have a better look at himself.
at one hundred eighty two centimeters, Thoz was now average human size, this was reflected in his one hundred kilogram weight as well. He could no longer fly, as his wings had not grown back, but a thick purple skin covered most of his body, including a thick and muscular tail now devoid of spikes. The top of his head had short moss colored hair, and the teeth in his mouth were far less messy. Long dual pronged devil ears on either side of his head and clawed feet and hands made him clearly monsterous, but at a distance he now cut the proper silhouette.
His lisp was also gone.
"Status!" Thoz shouted, pronounced properly for the first time.
He already knew all the information, his mouth was just a nice feeling now. It hurt less to talk.
Please choose a minion from the primordial sins:
Pride
Sloth
Wrath
Greed
Lust
Gluttony
Envy
His celebration of his new form was cut immediately short by a message he was waiting for for far too long. Another minion would grant him greater numbers and a far higher chance of survival. Of course, he had no idea which sin would produce what kind of minion, so he picked randomly. Or almost randomly.
"Lust!"
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The devil had actually been granted functioning sex organs with his previous evolution just in time to be trapped in a mind prison for thousands of years. Being on the mortal world and playing with the flesh of the dead humans, or ocassionally their wives, had presented some physical urges he was not prepared for.
Choice registered! Minion summon under way.
This was followed by a brief crashing sound and several snapping twigs as the new minion fell to the ground in front of Thoz.
Congratulations! You have successfully summoned Prisaela!
Your new minion can be inspected to view its status.
"I'm starving..." a voice like music rang out around the devil, shaking him from his stupor.
Sprawled out on the forest floor in front of him was his minion, Prisaela, the first minion that could actually talk. Thoz said a silent prayer of thanks to the infernal king.
"Uhhm" Thoz cleared his throat.
"We have limited food here, only rotten nuts from the hard trees, and burnt meat from the man-things" he explained to the woman across from him, drinking in her form with thirsty and lascivious eyes.
Prisaela would be just slightly taller than Thoz if she stood up, her form was approximately one hundred and ninety centimeters tall, though at ninety kilograms that entire form was rather lithe and suprisingly supple compared to her master. Her skin was almost porcelain white, long locks of cascading silver hair fell around her shoulders. She had pale eyes, up close you could see the irises, but at a distance they looked completely white. Her waiste was slender, and her arms looked almost fragile, but as Thoz leered at her with no remourse he had to wonder just how much of her weight had been put into her hips and chest. Thozronnath didn't fundamentally understand the purpose of breasts, but the more he looked at them, the more he understood he liked them.
Prisaela's wide hips provided ample space for a round behind that Thoz could find no comparison for. Lust. She was the sin of Lust and the more he looked the more her master understood that. Prisaela seemed almost designed to elicit desire.
Taking the opportunity of her slack jawed master's silence, Prisaela activated her skin changer skill and brought coloration to her form. Her eyes became a gentle emerald green, her hair a subtle auburn, the procelain white paleness of her skin replaced with a sun-kissed pink.
When she was done the sin of lust looked like a different person entirely, though she elected to keep the bodily proprotions that seemed to have gained her master's interest.
"Well, I suppose that will keep me from starving to death, but I'd really like to avoid sleeping naked in a cave for weeks on end" she complained aloud.
Thoz would have to get them both some clothes and food if they were going to continue along this forest road, after all his shape shift skill had given him some new ideas. Though maybe the clothes could wait a few more days.
Status:
General Stats Classes Level Name: Thozronnath Strength: 50 Legionary Devil 3 Species: Legionary Devil Captain (Lesser Devil) Dexterity: 30 Wing Devil 20 (Max) Sex: M Resilience: 40 Imp 20 (Max) Age: 13530 Intelligence: 10 Affiliation(s): Hell Wisdom: 20 HP: 210/210 (+4/sec) Charisma: 20 MP: 60/60 (+1/sec)
Imp Skills
Level
Special Skills
Level
Invisibility
2
Progenitor of Sin
3
Stealth
2
Subterfuge
2
Wing Devil Skills
Silver Vulnerability
1 (Max)
Poison Immunity
1 (Max)
Fire Immunity
1 (Max)
Telepathy
2
Shapeshifter
3
Magic Resistance
2
Eyes of Hell
1 (Max)
Sting
3
Legionary Devil Skills
Blood Frenzy
1
Zild:
General Stats Classes Level Name: Zildoxoxi Strength: 55 Amber Ooze 2 Species: Huge Amber Ooze (Lesser Ooze) Dexterity: -2 Absorption Ooze 20 (Max) Sex: N/A Resilience: 50 Ooze 20 (Max) Age: 9861 Intelligence: -5 Affiliation(s): Thozronnath Wisdom: -2 HP: 260/260 (+5/sec) Charisma: -2 MP: 10/10 (+0.01/sec)
Ooze Skills
Level
Absorption Ooze Skills
Level
Acid Resistance 1 (Max) Poison Immunity 1 (Max) Cold Resistance 1 (Max) Absorption 4 Fire Resistance 1 (Max) Fluid Replication 2 Ooze Sight 1 (Max) Liquid Form 1 (Max) Amber Ooze Skills Corrosive 4 Duplicate 1 Natural Disguise 1 Vulnerable Core 1 (Max) Stealth 1 Lightning Resistance 1 (Max) Natural Weapons 3 Blind Immunity 1 (Max) Deafen Immunity 1 (Max) Charm Immunity 1 (Max) Fear Immunity 1 (Max) Fatigue Immunity 1 (Max) Prone Immunity 1 (Max)
Prisaela:
General Stats Classes Level Name: Prisaela Strength: -1 Skin Shifter 5 Species: Skin Shifter (Lesser Shapeshifter) Dexterity: 20 Sex: F Resilience: 15 Age: 0 Intelligence: 20 Affiliation(s): Thozronnath Wisdom: 20 HP: 85/85 (+1.5/sec) Charisma: 40 MP: 110/110 (+2/sec)
Skin Shifter Skills
Level
Subterfuge 3 Stealth 1 Skin Changer 5 (Max)