Demonic Devourer's Development

The forest—what was its name, Greenscale Forest, because of the kobolds?—met me with the rustle of leaves on the wind, the scent of young grass and life that always boomed in places like these. I didn't remember the exact place of my rebirth, but it wasn't important. Either way, this was forest—a studied ground.

I made a burrow in a tall slope of a creek, giving myself both shelter and access to water. The surroundings I filled with traps out of invisible web, strong enough to catch a bear. Maybe they won't stop a deity, but they might slow the bastard down.

Pest helped too, using his magic to hide the place under illusory and force barriers. These particular ones he learnt from studying designs of Aivena's spells. He still was slow in weaving his spells, but his enchantments were now powerful enough that he could directly boost my combat ability the way his older kinsmen did. He also had a wide array of damage spells he was too slow to use in combat, and learnt how to boost regeneration in my inhuman body—also something he stole from Aivena.

Teleportation, though, was still beyond him—but if you listened to him, he was just a step and a bazillion EXP from getting there. And with EXP, he was always limited to what I let him have and the speed with which he could drain it. In Aivena's prison, Pest had plenty of time, but a very limited amount of EXP, all of which I gave him already.

As for myself… the only thing I got from Aivena herself was an additional dislike towards angels. She gave me as much EXP as an average human would—or an adventurer. Only thanks to Marianna I had something to evolve right now, and it was time for me to spend my millions of EXP on abilities. Which is what I did in my reasonably safe burrow.

My current problem was that even though Marianna's corpse gave me plenty of EXP, her delicious dragon abilities cost a lot, too. 'Temperature Resistance' and 'Fire Breath' both went by 20 EXP as base cost, and 'Melting Touch' was worth 15 EXP. With me wanting to upgrade 'Telepathy' after all and maybe even put more levels in other skills I already had, I had to prioritise.

Fire breathing sounded like an effective ranged attack, but I already had one. Having an attack of another element would give me a broader range of options in a battle, but was also somewhat redundant.

'Melting Touch' sounded like a fire-based melee attack—which, again, was redundant to all the options for attacking in melee I had. Starting with 'Absolute Devourer', which devoured absolutely and was a great way to pierce through defences if I could get to them in the first place.

So I started with 'Temperature Resistance'. Just like I hoped, as soon as I bought the first level, a notification from the System popped up.

[A possibility for merging had been detected. 'Cold Affinity' could merge with 'Temperature Resistance'. Due to the difference in levels of the abilities, you are required to pay 326960 EXP. Proceed?]

And after that—

['Cold Affinity' and 'Temperature Resistance' had been successfully merged into 'Temperature Affinity'.]

I also found, after checking the costs of the ability in question, that its base cost increased not to 30 EXP (with 10 EXP from 'Cold Affinity' and 20 EXP from 'Temperature Resistance'), but to only 20 EXP. An unexpected, but sensible, bonus. I basically only needed a half of the second ability.

It was hard to say what it did. I certainly didn't feel any change in myself, though I found out that my blue hair changed colour to pure white—with the same lonely red streak in the middle. The temperature around me was mild… but there was a way to test this.

'Pest, make some fire around me,' I ordered.

'Huh? Alright.'

He silently worked on the spell and in a minute, a string of magic flames floated around me, casting the dark hole that my lair was with ominous reddish light and warming the air. I ignored the aesthetics of it all and stuck my hand into the fire.

Instead of searing heat, I felt a warmth that made me feel more awake than a moment before. It was a familiar feeling—I felt the same when I stuck my limbs in snow with 'Cold Affinity'. It seemed that the ability worked just like you'd think it would—a simple merge of 'Cold Affinity' and its analogue for heat.

I took my hand away and told Pest to remove the fires. This development was a little disappointing. I hoped there'd be some synergy… Still, maybe there will be, if I level the ability to the second branch—I had EXP to spare on that.

Twenty million EXP later and some time evolving, I was put before a confusing choice. 'Engine' versus 'Body'. Of course I picked 'Body'—that was at least something I understood… Somewhat.

The result of that was that my ability transformed into 'Ice-Fire Body'. What it gave me? I tested out with Pest's help again. This time, when I stuck my hand in fire, I not only felt energised—I saw my hand transforming before my eyes. Where flames licked it, my half-transparent flesh turned molten, like a weird mix of lava and slime.

Amazing. I could only imagine what that'd do to anything that wanted to touch me. The transformation disappeared almost as soon as I left the fire, though… Which meant that to exploit this ability fully, I needed the way to bring fire around me, everywhere.

So the next ability I went to evolve was 'Melting Touch'. I only thought about how I'd be able to (hopefully) heat myself up to trigger the transformation, but what I saw was much better than just that. It was an announcement that I could merge that one, too!

Maybe after all that trouble I went through, cosmic balance gave me some luck.