Demon's Virtue

Eiro slowly pushed open the door in front of him and walked into the room that was barely lit up by the dusk's sun. The moment that they saw him, Leon and Avalin ran toward him happily.

"Daddy!" They exclaimed together, and Eiro squatted down to give the two of them a hug, "Hey there, you two. I missed you as well." He said with a smile, and slowly raised his head as he looked at the others, "I missed all of you too, obviously."

"Did everything work out well?" Rudy asked, wondering if he was able to achieve the thing that he had left for, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yes, I managed to level up a few times. I will take a break for a few days until another guest comes to our home, and then I will change my class." He explained, once more speaking in terms that people would use since there were guards standing near the door that might overhear him.

"That's great!" Clementine exclaimed with a broad smile, although she quickly realized that there was one aspect of Eiro's evolution that she had to deal with as well, "That means you'll be in a lot of..."

"...Yes, I will be, at least I assume so. But don't worry, I'll be fine. And if you can't sleep at night because of it, just let me know, alright?" Eiro said to his daughter, since Clementine was able to sense any sort of pain that other people were feeling. Whenever Eiro was going through a painful evolution before, she was affected by it to an extent as well, because she was sensing Eiro's pain throughout the whole ordeal, no matter how much he was trying to hide it. She had quite a few sleepless nights through it.

"Alright..." Clementine muttered, holding her own arm as she slightly looked to the side. Eiro lightly smiled as he walked up to her, giving her a hug as well, "Everything is going to go well, don't worry. I promise."

---

It's been a few days since Eiro returned from hunting the wyverns. Armodeus had already turned the claws and fangs into some items, and Koperia had arrived in the middle of the last night.

Classes at the Academy were going to start again in a day. So if possible, Eiro wanted to initiate his evolution today, so that he could slowly get used to teaching while the pain was growing. The Demon made his way to the library, more specifically the hidden part of it, since it was simply incredibly relaxing and pleasant to be there. It would be the perfect place to start his evolution and see what was about to happen to him. Koperia was already waiting there, sitting at one of the desks.

She looked at Eiro with a seemingly quite curious expression, and crossed her arms, "Are we beginning now?" She asked, and the Demon immediately nodded his head, "Yes, we are." He quickly replied, as he stepped into the center of the room. He was wearing some comfortable, loose clothes, something that Koperia was actually surprised to see.

"I would never have expected to see you in those sorts of rags." Koperia pointed out, but Eiro just rolled his eyes, "They're more comfortable than what I usually wear. And at the start of my evolution, I usually start sweating a lot, so that's easier to deal with in clothes like this."

"You have access to ice magic, simply use that to cool your body down."

"Heat isn't the reason why I sweat. I bathe in boiling water, after all." Eiro replied, "It's more because my body itself is working so quickly that it's pushing out anything that it can. Usually, along with the sweat, a whole bunch of other stuff is being pushed out. Now, I realize that's probably impurities in my essence, since the scent is surprisingly similar."

"...Your essence, you say? Show it to me." Koperia said with her arms crossed, and Eiro let out a slight sigh. He held his hand forward, and started to clean up part of his mana, pulling his essence out of it before pushing it out of his palm. His hand then became covered in that dark, muddy sludge that was his personal essence.

Koperia's face convulsed as she even shuddered a bit, "Your essence is quite... vile."

"Oh really? Then what about you, what does your essence look like?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and Koperia quickly held her hand forward, and pushed her essence out in a similar fashion to Eiro. She personally didn't have access to the Ancient Language Comprehension skill, so the pure mana that she formed inside of her body simply dissipated the moment she split her essence off of it. But more importantly, Eiro couldn't believe his eyes when he saw Koperia's essence.

Its color was a clean silver, but it was somewhat transparent and seemed quite similar to a liquid gemstone. And the scent... It wasn't what Eiro expected either. He had thought that he was about to smell the scent of death, but all that he was met with was the smell of a particular flower, the corpse blossom. It was a sickly sweet flower, created to attract bugs that would feed on the corpse and take it apart so that the flower itself could feed on the leftover nutrients more easily. It was a fitting scent if you knew the effect of the plant, but otherwise, it was something that rather opposed the image that Eiro had of Koperia.

"As I said, I have never seen such a vile mana... What does that tree you planted look like? Knowing Jura, before letting you study under him, he had you grow your own, personal tree." She pointed out, and Eiro just scratched the back of his head.

"You're right... My tree is really quite different to my essence, which is a bit weird. Not that I'm complaining, though. My hand is made from its wood, so if it had the same scent as my essence, that would be an issue."

"Ah, right, that's how he would make those personalized prosthetics... It really does not seem anything like you're essence. Interesting, really."

"Well, the seed that Jura picked out for my tree was a special one as well, I think. Maybe it reacted positively with my essence."

"That is indeed quite likely. But no matter that, we came here for a reason. I want to witness a Legendary Evolution, so get on with it."

"You realize that the evolution will take quite a while, right?" Eiro pointed out with a wry smile, but Koperia simply shrugged, "It can't be that bad, can it?"

Eiro smiled wryly, since he was hoping that this was the case as well. But either way, Eiro just took a deep breath.

"Now, let's start my evolution." He muttered, and the moment he said this phrase, that weird system appeared from the center of his chest again.

{[Do you wish to initiate your Legendary Evolution?]}

"Yes." Eiro replied, and immediately, the window changed.

{[Warning: You will not be able to access system information throughout your evolution]}

{[Base Evolution Time: 1 Year]}

"...Excuse me..?" Eiro muttered with a wry smile, and Koperia walked up to him with a frown, "What's the issue?"

The Demon turned his head toward her and explained what it said, "It seems like the evolution will take a... a whole year..."

"...A whole year?"

"A whole year..."

"That's way too long..."

"I know it is! I don't want to wait that long either!"

{[The System has recognized dissatisfaction with the evolution time. This value has been calculated due to the energy collected by the consumption of different probabilities. Do you wish to give more energy to the evolution?]}

"If that speeds it up, then yes. What can I give to the evolution?"

{[Theseoptions have been found]}

-{[Initiation of the royal ascension will create energy to reduce the evolution time by 6 Months]}

-{[Temporary connection subversion between you and planar gateways will give access to reduce the evolution time by 2 Months]}

-{[Destruction of the Mark of the Devil and Mark of Wrath will create energy to reduce evolution time by 1 Month]}

Eiro raised his brows surprised. That meant... Throughout this evolution, he would not only turn into a royal at the same time, but he would also get rid of the Mark of the Devil and Mark of Wrath that were bothering him so much? The only issue was the second one...

"What are the drawbacks of each of those..?" He asked with a deep frown, and the writing on the special notification changed immediately.

{[The general reduction of evolution time will cause the evolution to undergo more violently]}

{[The addition of the royal ascension will affect the evolution and will cause it to undergo more violently]}

{[The subversion of energy from planar gateways will stop you from accessing the energy from those gateways yourself, restricting your summoning of elements]}

{[The destruction of two marks will cause the magical wavelength to be interrupted, causing a considerable weakening of magical capabilities during the time, and the evolution will undergo more violently]}

Eiro looked at the window in front of him with a wry smile, not sure how he was supposed to react. So basically, the evolution will be much more excruciating, his magic will be weakened by a lot, and he won't be able to summon flames or water... But at the same time, he will be a royal when it's over, and he's going to be freed from any sort of control that the Devil might have over him. It was an alright price to pay, considering that the evolution time will be reduced by nine months on top of that.

"Well, this is... great..." Eiro muttered with a wry smile, as he slowly nodded his head, "Fine, take the energy from all of that, and reduce the evolution time to three months. Is there anything else?"

{[Further energy sources could not be located]}

"Alright, then start the evolution. Better than a year, at least."

{[The evolution has been initiated]}

{[Final Evolution Time: 3 Months]}

Immediately, the notification window in front of Eiro disappeared again, pressing itself into Eiro's chest once more. And the moment that it really disappeared, it seemed like the evolution actually started.

Everything was fine for a few moments, but then, everything started all at once. Eiro's veins bulged up, and he was starting to feel nauseous. He fell to his knees as the world started to spin around him.

Koperia immediately jumped up and rushed over to Eiro, together with Nelli, Gondos and Sarius of course.

"Are you alright?" Koperia asked, and Eiro held his hand in front of his mouth. His face had gone incredibly pale.

"Yeah... Yeah, I'll be fine..." Eiro muttered. But at the same time, he knew.... the evolution would only get much, much worse than it was now.

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