Demon King

Qualification – 2

‘Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just devour all the mana in the world? I could just eat everything that’s annoying…’ If I were able to do that, nothing would be left to stand in my way. But the reality wasn’t that simple; a price had to be paid for all things. In order to grow stronger and make these powers mine, I still had to pay the price. I still had to be dominant and take what I wanted. Predation often made the process a lot easier, but it couldn’t fundamentally change it. It wasn’t like I could predate upon a living enemy unless I overpowered them first, and even when devouring the corrupted undead souls, I couldn’t just bite into them.

That same logic applied here as well, to the energy of Jinma’s Tower. These shells of pure mana had a completely different form from what I was able to devour so far. But what if I acted as if it could be predated? If I could break the mana’s will, overwhelm its aggression…

“Quickly!”

It wouldn’t be easy; I had no idea what I should do. One more death claimed me; this experience reminded me of when I challenged the first floor of the tower. ‘Is this even possible for me now, in this body? No…I have to do it.’ If I couldn’t, I would never conquer the dungeon. And if I couldn’t conquer the dungeon, I would never be able to go outside.

A few more deaths claimed me as I considered these things; the location of the Wings of Jinma was no closer to me than when I started. My sensing skills had reached the higher levels and continued to grow, allowing me to grasp everything within a few kilometers around myself. Even if the wings were a bit outside that range, I should be able to get a rough sense of where they were. But nothing came to me; I couldn’t sense them at all.

‘Are the wings of a similar material as the mana of the tower?‘ I desperately tried to increase the detection range, but all I could feel was the seemingly infinite mana trying to kill me, pure and dark as it volleyed through the air. I had to figure out a way to deal with this mana; the search could wait. I had to prove my superiority to this mana that made up Jinma’s Tower, to subdue its will and make it my own.

‘But how?’ I could tell that the mana here was stronger than any I had experienced before; it was engraved into my bones now after demolishing my body several times already. Even after the tower reconstructed me, I couldn’t shake the feeling of the mana tearing me apart. Nor could I help but notice the difference between myself and the power of the tower.

‘But is the purpose of this floor really to help my Predation grow?’ The thought suddenly occurred to me. Only one thing was certain: the mana of Jinma’s Tower shouldn’t pose an issue to me by the time I cleared this floor. It wouldn’t be possible to obtain the wings with the mana raining down on me anyway. I thought the way to go about this was to devour the mana with Predation, much like I had been ingesting bodies with the energy of life and the energy of death. I had even been able to devour the soul as well and learned how to deal with its power. Once I had learned how to do it, it wasn’t so hard. The trick was to keep pushing forward even when I didn’t know what to do.

But this time? The mana of Jinma’s Tower was overwhelmingly stronger than my own, darker and purer than mine. If I entered a battle of strength with the mana of the tower, rather than management of mana using skill, I couldn’t win. ‘Mana…mana?’ Mana was everywhere, but I couldn’t eat it. Maybe I was mistaken at a fundamental level about what I needed to achieve here. The tower wasn’t presenting me with the grandiose goal of devouring all mana, just to eat this tower’s mana.

It was a level of challenge that made more sense to me, one I could wrap my mind around. I hadn’t tried it before, but I couldn’t back down now. I was filled with anticipation. ‘Why hadn’t I thought of this before?’ Well, I suppose I had been relying on my skills up until now, ever since I became a goblin. I’ve evolved several times, developing various skills such as Predation, and yet I hadn’t noticed the energy inside me that I was capable of controlling. So it should be possible, right here and now in this space filled with pure mana.

I closed my eyes and focused on the mana flowing throughout my body, pumping through my Ebon Heart. I was already too familiar with the sensation of it, so it was easy for me to grasp on to. At the same time, I could feel the mana from the tower, flying through the air all around me. I began to analyze it as it collided with my body, destroying me once more. As I suspected, it was oddly similar to the mana in my own body.

I attempted to alter the mana that was flowing through me. The mana each being is born with is unique, and it changes as one grows. Being a goblin, a hobgoblin, a bugbear… and now, a Crimson Elf. Each time I evolved, my mana changed with me. ‘Can I control how it changes, though?’ I would need to if I wanted to reach the same level of mana that the tower possessed. Mana should still be mana no matter the size or strength of it, right?

Shortly after my body was reconstructed, I could feel the waves of mana rushing once more. Even without any specific form for it to take, it had enough power to tear right through me. It was violence, in its purest form. ‘Why isn’t it taking a form? It could be flame or ice, lightning or wind…why pure mana?’ It occurred to me that perhaps the purpose behind it was to familiarize me with it, that the over-saturation of mana within the air wasn’t an attack. It made no sense for the tower to use its energy to kill me and then have that same energy reconstruct my body.

I felt like I was seeing clearly now, the veil lifted from over my eyes. The Ebon Heart was pounding in my chest, trying to tell me something. ‘When did I start thinking of my heart as something separate from myself?’ Had it been when I first recognized its existence in its pitch-black form? Or when it saved me before? It was silly to consider it as a separate entity. My heart was my heart, and it didn’t matter if there was something in there I didn’t know about. It was the organ at the center of my body, creating the mana that flowed through me like blood. It would cower in fear, lying to me by saying certain things weren’t possible.

Only

But when I thought about it, it wasn’t like I had the ability to directly control everything happening in my body anyway. My lungs, my stomach, I didn’t have individual control over those things. I, like all humans, had to rely on unconscious processes to run that stuff. Wasn’t this pitch-black heart of mine just the same? I couldn’t control it or grasp all of its behavior, but that was natural. It was just a heart that was a bit different than the one I had as a human, one that knew how to create stronger mana.

Still, something about it confused me. When I claimed that the heart had been pushing me forward, was that all just for show? Was there no actual will in it? Since then, I had calmed down a bit, and I figured out my goals since then, but something still felt odd. Why did my skills of lightning magic and escape disappear, to be replaced by black lightning? My heart was circulating mana throughout my blood as it was supposed to, but it felt like it was trying to get my attention. ‘When was the last time my heart moved according to my own will?’

The black lightning had been a powerful skill for me to acquire, but I always thought it a coincidence that I did. But what if it wasn’t? What if I instinctively pushed my heart to move forward, to grow stronger? The thought spread through my mind, gripping onto me and refusing to let go. I had to stop thinking of this as a battle against another being inside of me who had its own will. A memory of when I was able to feel this dark heart the strongest flashed through my mind, its strange beat pulsing through me.

The mana that had been flowing through my body up until now was gradually absorbed into my heart. My body gradually lost function as mana flowed out of it, soon to be destroyed by the mana of the tower. My arms, legs, torso, and head…all were destroyed—all but a pitch-black heart that continued to pulse. I could feel my soul and flesh unified now; I could tell that I had control over the beat of my own heart, and it would move according to my will. The mana flowing in from all directions couldn’t destroy the pitch-black heart; the heart merely accepted it into itself and began to change in the way I wanted it.

This was the purpose of Jinma’s Tower from the very beginning: to change the mana flowing through me and this heart of mine. To qualify me as Jinma. To awaken the Wings of Jinma.

The shape of the heart changed to that of Jinma, beating more vigorously as it did, and began to produce mana like that of the tower. From there, a body gradually formed around it. It wasn’t different from the body I had, but I could tell it was full of mana from the tower. Wings of pure mana began to sprout out from my shoulders.

‘This is a little embarrassing…’

And as such, I had succeeded in overcoming the challenges of the 6th floor of Jinma’s Tower and acquired the Wings of Jinma. But, I had to wonder… at what cost?

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