Demon's Virtue

"You sat in that cocoon for three months to get two more arms? Seriously?" James asked with a scoff, looking at the demon in front of him. Eiro was currently sitting there with Leon and Avalin on his lap, properly embracing them. He didn't want them in the room earlier because he knew that it was going to be a rather unusual and potentially scary sight for them.

"Amongst other things," Eiro pointed out. When he had his third eye closed, his wings pulled into his back, and his tails intertwined, he looked basically identical to how he did before, just with two more arms and slightly more elaborate horns.

"So, what's your race now? What did you end up evolving into?" Arc asked curiously, and Eiro raised a brow. He hadn't actually checked his status yet.

"Let me take a look at that," Eiro replied, and the blue window quickly appeared before his eyes, and he quickly focused on the top part of the screen.

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[Name – Eiro Jura Daemonherz][Race – Arcanus][Level – 1]

[Health – 4.024.638][Mana – 10.696.292]

[Strength - 306][Constitution - 301][Resistance – 300]

[Agility - 302][Evasion –300][Dexterity - 308]

[Intelligence - 501][Wisdom - 600]

[Perception – 300][Willpower - 201][Charisma - 200]

[250 Stat Points Available]

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"Huh. I'm just an 'Arcanus' now. I guess I'm determining the 'default' progression of the Arcanus species right now, so no matter how skewed and unique my evolution should be, since I'm a new species, it-"

"Yeah, yeah, right. Anything else new on there?" James interrupted, already getting bored. Arc looked over at him.

"Hey, I happen to find that kind of thing interesting. The biological function of evolution, as well as the system-based response to a whole new species coming into existence, has barely been studied," he pointed out, and James clicked his tongue as he leaned back in his chair.

"You're really your father's son, huh?"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Heh... thanks," Arc replied smugly, but James rolled his eyes.

"Not really a complement, kid."

Eiro chuckled lightly, "Either way... there's not anything particularly new, no. Oh, but my Health and Mana increased considerably. My health points are at 4 million, and my mana is getting rather close to 11 million points."

The room grew silent for a few moments.

"The scale of a monster's energies is... envious," Shimour pointed out from the corner of the room. Eiro looked at him with a smile on his face.

"I guess so, yes. But that did come with something slightly new in my body," Eiro placed one of his hands onto his chest. He manipulated his physical structure, pushing two crystals out of his chest, one red and one blue. This action immediately drained him of 1 million mana and health respectively. The moment Shimour spotted them, he took a few more steps toward Eiro.

"Are those...?"

"Yes. Crystalizations of my life energy and mana. I had the latter for a little while now, but the former is new for me," he explained, looking at the crystals curiously. These mana stones allowed him to practically 'supercharge' some spells if he used them as a conduit. Similarly, Eiro wondered if he could do something similar if he infused one of these life force crystals into a physical attack. But before then, there was something else that Eiro wanted to try. Glancing over at Shimour, the only one of the masters that was currently in here, he infused the crystal with the concept of 'stealth' itself. Basically, he was trying to skew this separated mass of life force as close as he could to what Shimour's was. Realizing what he was trying to do, the master let out a slight grumble. He clearly wasn't sure if this was going to work, and neither was Eiro, but both of them were curious to see what was about to happen.

A few moments later, the concept was properly fused with the life force crystal, and Eiro grinned lightly. He placed it into his mouth like a candy and crushed it with his teeth. A wave of energy immediately flowed through his body, dyeing the life force flowing through him in a version that was like the life force currently in the duplicate that embodied the stealth aspect.

The others in the room didn't quite understand what was happening, but both Shimour and Eiro knew that the demon had done something that the masters could really only consider 'cheating'. Eiro learned how to temporarily change the aspect of his life force. And if he could properly refine those crystals, then he could copy the masters' refined energies.

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Eiro walked back into his bedroom. He had collected all the duplicates walking around the manor, reabsorbing them. Particularly the aspects needed to be collected again so that nothing would happen to his skill growth. But there were a few more things for him to check out before the day was over. First of all, his new 'agility'. He had been holding back quite a bit, but luckily his new body allowed him to manage that sort of thing rather easily. But if he basically 'let loose', he could move at the speed that one of his newest cards gave to him.

One moment he stood on one side of the room, and the next, he stood on the other. He opened his mouth and spoke a brief chant; the 'Blink' spell's chant. His body was broken apart, and his mana was moved to the target position in an instant. Rather, it was exactly how he thought it was going to happen. The arcane magic that carried his cells arrived before his whole body was even broken apart, basically creating instantaneous 'teleportation'.

"Perfect. Next..." Eiro said, pulling open his status window. There was something he noticed earlier when he called up this window. Carefully, Eiro held forward one of his hands, tapping the system window. And he felt resistance. A normal system window couldn't be touched. Though, after Eiro's senses increased through the Five of Pentacles, he started to feel a moment of resistance lingering on his finger. But this was different. It was like the window was actually made of glass now. He could press his hand against it and feel resistance. His hand still passed through when he wanted it to, but otherwise, it was like a true, physical object to him now.

The system was something created through the arcane shards fused into every living being's soul. It seemed that Eiro's deep connection with the arcane allowed him to interact with this projection in a unique way. Then there was also Eiro's new racial ability that could potentially explain this phenomenon. It was called Arcane Integration. There wasn't a description to the ability, but Eiro could feel that it was much easier to create and manipulate arcane magic from the moment he stepped out of the cocoon. Clearly, infusing himself with arcane magic the whole three months was worth it.

Eiro felt the system window. Its texture, the strength of its resistance, and most importantly, the flow of energy within it, which Eiro had never been able to feel before. Out of curiosity, Eiro pulled some arcane magic out of his body and tried to replicate that flow. Thanks to his third eye, he had an insight into this that he never had before.

The artificial system window was quickly formed and now floated in front of Eiro. However, it was just a blank window with nothing on it. So, Eiro got something out. The 'Author's Pen'. He grabbed the mystical quill and tapped the artificial window, carefully writing something onto it. It was a few sentences that seemed to come to him almost instinctively. Once he finished writing it all, the words disappeared from the window, and were instead replaced with something new. A flow of messages scrolling down the window bit by bit, numbers and words that Eiro had never seen on these windows before, speaking of synchronization, integration, updates, and so on.

And then, those words disappeared again, and a new message popped up instead. Both both windows displayed the same words, both the one from the actual system, and the one that Eiro created himself.

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[New personal System function has been created – System Log]

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Eiro raised a brow, touching the window he created himself. Curiously, he swiped down at the window, seeing all the messages that he had received in the past. Plus, messages that he hadn't seen before. Specific instances of him gaining experience for skills and levels, every time he used a skill in a particular way. Everything was recorded on this window, and Eiro could view it all. Plus, it seemed like he could search particular terms in here. It was all quite interesting and Eiro had a few things he wanted to check on with this, but most importantly, he wanted to see what else he could do with this new ability.

He wanted to see what other 'new system functions' he could create.