Without realizing it, several years have passed since the day Cedric turned into a humanoid navigation that informed Yuma and others regarding the location of demons. With it, the day of the demon king’s birth has also drawn nearer.
Currently, Cedric is controlling his mind power to observe a battle in the Crystal Cube world.
Inside a destroyed village full of corpses, two groups have been fighting non-stop.
On one side, there is a gigantic red mole that seems to have many metal ore growing from its body. The sight of those metal ores are enough to make anyone with trypophobia faint. While on the other side, there is a hundred strong army full of blessed with Lacius in the lead.
Lacius who attained the throne in his teenage years has now almost turned into a middle aged man. His face has changed from its initial youthfulness into one full of dignity that gives rise to a feeling of respect on anyone who saw him.
While Cedric is suddenly feeling melancholic and in awe at the power of time. The battle between Lacius’s army and that mole like demon has intensified.
The mole demon keeps on trying to burrow toward the earth to escape from the army’s volley of attacks. But, Lacius always kept on interrupting its escape by solidifying the earths under that mole.
When it failed to dig the earth, that mole’s movement froze for a short time. Which gives enough time for the army Lacius has trained to release their blessed power and throw a spear to injure the mole.
But the tumor like metal ores growing from its body worked as a defense mechanism and successfully deflected most of the attacks.
Seeing the army’s attacks are mostly ineffective. Lacius made a motion of raising his palm, which caused the earth nearby that mole to rise and turn into a spike that pierced through it.
Although that demon quickly broke free from the earth spike that impaled it. But, that attack has caused the metal ores growing on that side to be knocked off and exposed the mole’s flesh.
“Attack!” Lacius commanded while controlling the earth under that mole to envelop its limbs and restraining it
Once again, a massive volley of attack arrived toward the mole. This time, most of them succeeded at slightly injuring it as the mole began to scream in pain.
“Still, the sheer difference in level isn’t something that can be easily overcome by numbers.” Cedric muttered while opening his Divine Sight to observe the demons once more.
[Life level: Peak level 1
Potential: Mid level 1]
In The past few years, the density and range of Negative Energy in the Crystal Cube world has been steadily increasing. It caused the strength of demons to keep on rising.
Right now, the average strength of demons has reached around peak level 0, with lower level 1 demons appearing now and then. The amount of demons also kept on increasing, which makes the situation in human territory to be even tenser.
Luckily, every time a demon is killed, the surrounding people’s level will slightly increase. Otherwise, most of the humans in the Crystal Cube world would’ve long gone extinct.
After fighting an endless battle against the ever-growing amount of demons. The amount of blessed in the human race has also greatly increased to the point it reached more than ten times that of other races. Although most of them are just low leveled blessed at mid level 0, and need to work in a team to fight off against demons.
But every time a demon at level 1 appears, it will always cause massive casualties, mainly because of the slow travel speed in the Crystal Cube world.
***
After a long battle, the army led by Lacius successfully killed the mole shaped demon.
From the rear of the army, granny Maude and a young woman came forward and healed the surrounding injured soldiers with their blessed power.
While watching it, Cedric must say that the demon is quite pitiful. Among all humans in the world, he must fight against Lacius, someone who is the best in terms of earth element.
Under Lacius’s control, every time the mole wished to burrow into the ground. He would solidify it and make the mole’s attempt futile.
Lacius also occasionally created an earth spike that heavily injured the mole and knocked the metal ore guarding its body.
Without the help of its greatest advantage, the army led by Lacius soon successfully killed it.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
With the demon’s death, Cedric activated Divine Sight and checked Lacius’s current status.
[Life Level: Peak level 1
Potential: Peak level 1]
“Sigh… He is still stuck at the first level?” Cedric felt pity for Lacius.
Since he secretly reached Lower Level 1 after the fight against that demon chicken. Lacius has been continuously fighting against demons to the point he reached the Peak of level 1 within ten years.
But, after reaching level 1, his level has stagnated no matter what he does.
Cedric has also tried to help by informing him that eating magical animals and magical plants could help. Yet, even after he ate magic plant and animals daily, his level still failed to increase.
Right now, Cedric has already lost any hope of seeing Lacius reaching level 2.
Still, he tried to ask the System about how to raise Lacius’s level. A habit he has built up during these few years. Every time he saw Lacius’s level, he would always ask the same question. “System, suggest some method to help Lacius raise his life level.”
[There are two methods you could try. First, purchase an item that allows forceful breakthrough in exchange for the user’s lifespan from the shop. Second, create or buy a training method for your world’s special energy, so the creature inside could train to increase their level. There are other methods, but they are too difficult, take too much time, or are too expensive for you.]
[Also, please stop spamming the System with that question. This is already the 83th time you asked it in the last decade.]
“Alright, alright.” Cedric waved away the System’s last screen.
He has checked the two methods the System mentioned before. For the first method, he has found several items that have similar functions. But their side effects are utterly insane.
Cutting off 50 year lifespan is already the best side effect. Some will cause the user to mutate or often enter a state of madness. Furthermore, they all have a success probability that will cause the user to die upon failure.
There are also Divine Items that could increase levels without side effects and are guaranteed to succeed. But they all, without exception, went far outside of his budget.
As for the second method, which is to find a way for the people in the Crystal Cube world to utilize the mana that existed in the world. That’s easier said than done.
He doesn’t even understand how mana could make a creature evolve. So, how the hell could he create a way for the creature in the Crystal Cube world to use mana?
Last time Cedric checked, the shop also sold power systems that could help creatures to utilize mana. But the cheapest, most bare bone one is sold for 10.000 GP in the shop!
If he mindlessly bought it, Cedric is afraid he might accidentally get checkmated if another disaster were to happen in his world while he ran out of GP.
He also thought of teleporting a person from another world that already used mana. But, it will cost at least 2.000 GP just for the visa there and the cost of teleporting a person.
He has asked the System, and it said, including the material used to teleport someone with a certain level of energy, the fee for transporting someone of certain influence, and other fees. The point spent will add up to an additional 1.000 GP.
That too only if he is lucky enough to meet a mana user with sufficient knowledge level within the first week. Otherwise, he would need to buy another visa, which massively increased the cost.
There is also the choice to use Visa to a world with mana and learn things on his own. But, not only is it dangerous because he might get killed in an accident. The amount of things he could learn within a week also wouldn’t be a lot. In a week, he should be barely able to learn the basics of mana.
Furthermore, the System said there are some slight differences even for the same type of special energy between different worlds. So, he still needs to acclimate the knowledge he gained to suit the Crystal Cube world.
Sharing the knowledge he gained to Lacius is yet another problem as it requires spending GP to purchase Divine Intervention items.
Basically, no matter what kind of plan he thought of, the cost effectiveness will be around the same as purchasing a power system for 10.000 GP.
***
After reminiscing, Cedric felt bored while watching the soldiers clean the battlefield. So, he switched his attention towards Yuma, and saw him riding a horse with Alan and Tsukiko.
Even though Yuma should’ve been a bit older than Lacius. But, thanks to a little increase in lifespan he gained upon reaching Lower Level 2 from all the demons he has killed these few years. Yuma still looks like someone in his early twenties.
According to what the System has explained to Cedric. After reaching level 2, the current Yuma should be able to live for one hundred years at least. He could even easily live for a hundred and twenty years old with some self care.
Coupled with the vitality brought by the increase in life level and rejuvenation from mana. His youth phases will also last longer than a normal person.
If Cedric hadn’t gained immortality already, he might be envious of Yuma’s youth.
Next to Yuma, Tsukiko has grown into a healthy looking middle aged woman with slightly tanned skin. Currently, she has only reached the peak of level 1. But it shouldn’t be long before she leveled up once more and regained her younger looks. Meanwhile, Alan has been stuck at lower level 1 for a long time.
As for Rumina, after teaching Yuma how to control fire related power and reaching the limit of her potential. She leave the party and became the head guard of Winter City.
Currently, the party of three is on their way to kill another demon which Cedric has located.
Inside Divine Space, Cedric calculated the distance and travel speed of Yuma’s group and found they’ll still need around a day to reach their destination. So, he decided to patrol the Crystal Cube world once.
After making sure the elven and dwarven territory are still stable, without any trace of Negative Energy at all. Cedric placed his attention on the human’s territory.
Viewed from his mental power, the human territory is dotted by many areas with Negative Energy.
Except for the super massive NE area that’s located around River Stone city, the others are much smaller in size. Those smaller areas are where small sized villages once existed. Before everyone in it got slaughtered by demons, which gave rise to Negative Energy area.
Cedric focused on the area around River Stone city. Just like usual, the size of Negative Energy mist nearby the River Stone city keeps on increasing at visible speed. Right now, it has even enveloped the River Stone city.
“Wait a minute! It’s increasing at a visible speed?!” Cedric is shocked by his observation. “Why is it increasing so quickly?!”
That’s when the System sent him a sudden warning.
[Warning!!! Due to sudden increase in NE density that’s outside of the System’s calculation. The estimated time until the demon king appears in your world has been advanced by a year!]