Demon King Ascension System

233 Evolution Catalyst

“So, there’s this voice in your head telling you everything like what you should do, your strength converted into numbers, and giving you quests?”

“Yes.”

Blake had just revealed the existence of the system that somehow appeared in his body ever since he had opened his eyes as a demon.

And of course, with him telling her that the system only appeared after he became a demon, Blake also told her about the fact that he used to be a human, which led to him explaining to Vera about what he did when he disappeared.

Vera had a lot of questions earlier when she heard from Cyra that a black portal suddenly swallowed Blake, but now that Blake had explained more and more of his circumstances, the number of questions that Vera had had grown instead of diminishing.

“So before you were mysteriously teleported to the island where we lived before, you lived in a human world, as a human?”

“Yes. That is somehow the truth. I also don’t know what happened.”

“But it would make more sense if you were a demon from birth, but your system had disguised you as a human before you were teleported back here.” Vera had thought about the things that Blake mentioned when he was living in the human world, and when the so-called system told him to bring back the locket pendant that Blake currently wore on his neck.

“It would explain why you’re not able to manipulate even an ounce of mana. We, demons, are the bane of mana since nether that had become the center of our existence had a tendency to corrupt mana wherever they go. Only if the amount of nether was minuscule that their corrupting property could be suppressed, like the case with most worlds that didn’t have a direct connection with the demon realm, like your world.

.....

If you are a demon from birth, then it would only be correct that mana would not want to listen to you, no matter how hard you tried.

And that necklace you wear, you said it was an evolution catalyst?”

“Yes. Well, at least the system said it was one. I don’t even know what this evolution catalyst thing is before the system told me about it.”

“Evolution catalyst is a real thing that demons in the deeper realms use to make sure that they would evolve to be the best version of themselves. Evolution was a very rare chance that not all demons had the chance to do.

And by using an evolution catalyst when their evolution process is commencing, they would be able to maximize the opportunity they had from the very rare occasion of an evolution.

For example, if there’s an evolution catalyst for Robus, he might have already become 1 and a half times taller and bigger than he currently is. And of course, much stronger.”

“Then why don’t all demons wait until they have an evolution catalyst before they evolve?” Blake genuinely asked as he imagined his best friend becoming even bigger than he already was, which was something that his best friend would love to happen.

“Don’t you even see the evolution catalyst that you have?” Vera beckoned Blake to take a good look at his evolution catalyst, the locket necklace on his neck.

Blake took a good look at the necklace that he wore. He turned it upside down, sideways, and stared intently at it, trying to look at something that might catch his interest.

However, even after doing anything to it, Blake couldn’t see anything special about the necklace with the exception of feeling a faint feeling of nether in the necklace.

“I don’t understand, Vera. There’s nothing that looks special with the one I’m wearing.” Blake shook his head before turning to look at Vera again.

“That’s exactly the reason.”

“Huh?”

“Can I borrow it for a second?”

“Sure.” Blake then grabbed the chain and pushed it out of his neck before giving it to Vera.

Then just like Blake, Vera took a very good look at the locket necklace, turning it around and sideways, before opening the locket in the middle and muttering, “There it is.”

Curious about what she meant, Blake moved closer to see the inside of the locket. He had also opened it, but he found nothing worth mentioning other than an unknown-looking shape in the middle of the locket.

“Look at this rune right here.” Vera pointed towards the unknown shape inscribed inside the locket.

“Rune? Isn’t that just a random drawing?” Blake genuinely asked as he had never seen a rune that was shaped like that.

Of course, Blake didn’t know all the runes that the demons used. But the shape of the ‘rune’ in the middle of the locket was way too simple to look at any other runes that Blake had seen before. It was even simpler than the runes that were used to create a basic earth spike spell.

“No. It’s definitely a rune. An advanced custom one at that.”

“Huh?” All of Blake’s knowledge so far only consists of the knowledge of runes in the first demon realm and some runes from the second demon realm. And even though Blake knew there was a custom set of runes that demons used to create new spells or a rune formation, Blake had never heard of a custom single rune.

“How is that even possible? Making a custom rune? Isn’t the only thing we can do is to use the available runes to create our own spells?”

“Yes, that would be the case with actual spells. But this rune,” Vera once again pointed at the rune inscribed on the middle of the locket, “This rune is here is what I mentioned back then about a defense for your rune formations.” Vera stayed silent for a few seconds, making sure Blake understood her explanations first.

“The one that prevents the rune formation from being dismantled by another runemaster? This little small rune is that? Which means… this little necklace contained a rune formation?”

Vera smiled as Blake quickly understood what she meant. “That’s correct. And to use such a simple design which reveals little to no flaws at all for other runemasters to exploit…”

“Moreover…” Vera then dangled the necklace in front of her, then used her other hand to cast a darkness bullet spell.

“Vera? What are you doing? A silver is definitely not strong enough to stand against a darkness bullet spe-”

Blake’s words were cut off as he saw the spell manifested, shot itself towards the locket part of the necklace, seemingly about to destroy the cheap silver metal to pieces, but only to be deflected away easily as it didn’t even make a single sound when the two collided with each other.

“Wow! It even has the ability to deflect attacks!” Vera’s half-surprised voice resounded as she returned the necklace to Blake.

“You didn’t know it had that ability yet you still shot it with a darkness bullet??” Blake raised one of his eyebrows as he reached his hand forward to grab the necklace back.

“I know it’s made out of a high-quality material, but I didn’t know it could deflect attacks as well.”

As Blake wore the necklace again, Vera spoke once again.

“Blake, your parents might even be from the realms deeper than where I used to live to be able to give their child such an impressive piece of work.”

“Even people in my realm wouldn’t want to give their child this kind of high-quality rune formation as they would definitely use it for themselves if they have one.”

‘This could mean his parents possibly live in the same realm as father does…’

‘But why did they send him to a human world and even disguise him as a human to live in a human world? Is there something going on in that realm?’

Despite her usual carefree attitude and lack of care about matters involving her family, if there was really something going on in the realm where her father resides, then something big that might affect the entire realm of the demons, deeper or higher, might actually happen.

‘Come to think of it… humanoid demons ascending from the deeper realm to this first realm is already an anomaly that very rarely happened before.’

‘I need to find out more about this… Depending on the result, I might have to return there…’ Vera then looked at the jet-black humanoid demon beside her. She didn’t say a word, but a lot was happening in her mind as she looked at Blake.

Despite all the explanations that she had done, Vera kept these certain thoughts to herself.

“Brother! Sister! Is that where we are going?” Cyra’s voice broke the silence that resided on top of Robus’ back as she shouted from on top of Robus’ head.

Hearing her voice, Blake and Vera then looked forward, following the direction that Cyra pointed with her finger.

They were currently walking, or more accurately, Robus was currently walking on the same grassy plain, with the three other demons in the group sitting on top of him.

And in the direction where Cyra had pointed, they could see the expanse of green grass had stopped expanding, and instead, a barren grassland filled with infertile land where not a single green grass had grown and filled with rocks all over entered their vision.

But the most eye-catching part was not the barren lands or the sudden change of environment. Instead, it was the lack of colors that the barren land had.

Despite the red sun shining above their heads, even giving the grassland that Robus was currently stepping on a shade of red when they looked at the grass, the barren land in front of them didn’t have a single other color other than the color black.

The ground, the boulders, even the mounts of earth, everything visible there was all black, the same color as Blake’s skin.

“Well, that’s something not unexpected considering what I came to get there.”

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Quest:

+(Evolution) Acquire A Condensed Darkness Elemental Stone

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