Demon's Virtue

With a light smirk, the Demon opened his status.

[Name – Eiro][Race – Elemental Imp][Level – 1]

[Health – 116.925][Mana – 317.925]

[Strength - 100][Const.i.tution - 100][Resistance - 100]

[Agility - 200][Evasion - 100][Dexterity - 150]

[Intelligence - 300][Wisdom - 300]

[Perception - 150][Willpower - 161][Charisma - 100]

[0 Stat Points Available]

"This is..." Nelli muttered with a wry smile as she looked at the large, blue, translucent pane in front of her, "Incredible?" Gondos finished for her, "I can just agree. Double the health, and nearly triple the mana compared to before the evolution." The Golem pointed out, and James, Jess and Krog couldn"t help themselves but wonder.

"Wait... How high are those for you now exactly...?" Jess asked, and Eiro slowly turned toward her. "Health around 100 thousand, mana around 300 thousand."

"I despise you..." Jess replied instinctively, while Eiro just looked at her with one of his brows raised, "Oh?" Eiro laughed lightly, "It"s not my fault that I-"

"Just die already..." The young mage groaned in disbelief, "I literally can"t believe that this is happening..." She muttered quietly, staring at the ceiling with a blank expression, while Eiro just kept looking at his status. He had 125 stat points to a.s.sign as another bonus for his evolution. There were two things that he was going to put them into first. First, Eiro put 44 points into Charisma to bring it to 100, as well as 20 points into wisdom so that it was at 300 alongside Eiro"s intelligence. 

[Your Charisma has pa.s.sed the 100 point mark! u003cEloquent Tongueu003e Ability unlocked!]

[Your Intelligence has pa.s.sed the 300 point mark! u003cSpeedier Learningu003e Ability became u003cQuick Learningu003e!]

And then, the leftover 61 points were put into willpower, because it was one of the other stats that Eiro needed to be a fair amount higher for now.

Just like that, all of Eiro"s bonus stat points disappeared. He took a quick look at the "Eloquent Tongue" ability, but it seemed like it was really just an ability that made it easier for him to speak in a convincing and eloquent manner. That would hopefully come in pretty handy in the future.

Either way, for now, Eiro stretched himself out a bit and looked out of the window, "The sun"s setting soon, huh? I guess it"s about time for us to head to town. I"ll let the children know and properly show them my evolution first, though." Eiro suggested, and then slowly made his way toward the door. The others quickly stood up and followed him.

Eiro made his way through the hallways toward the place where everyone seemed to be gathered at the moment, luckily. They were just eating a bite together. And so, Eiro interrupted dinner by stepping into the room with his new body. A few moment"s later, the clattering of the silverware hitting the plates could be heard.

"You have wings?! How awesome is that?!" Arc exclaimed with glittering eyes, "Can you fly? If you can, can you lift me up once?"

"I can probably fly, yes. My wings seem bat-like in structure, so if I copy those, I can probably manage it relatively easily." Eiro figured, and slowly stretched the leathery red wings on his back out completely. Either of those wings was at least 2 meters long, so Eiro now had a reach that was roughly 4 to 5 meters long. If he used magic as well, he would probably be able to manage this pretty easily.

But it seemed like one of them paid attention to something else. In a slightly awkward, but more fluent than usual, way, Felix pointed at the tail waving back and forth behind Eiro"s back. "More importantly... Can you... use poison now?" He asked, and Eiro slowly turned around and had his tail move in front of him, and the Demon just took a closer look at the stinger.

"It does seem that way, right? If I do, then I haven"t started producing anything like it yet." Eiro muttered, slightly pressing onto the small bulbous growth at the end of his tail, "It does seem like there"s something like a venom gland, though. I"ll have to test that out as well. Thanks for reminding me." The demon said, slowly following along with his words using sign-language for Felix as well.

"You become weirder and more dangerous every single day, don"t you?" Rudy pointed out, and Eiro simply smirked in response, "Hey, I was always dangerous. It"s just that my body is following along with that now." The Demon laughed a bit.

He made his tail wrap around his waist agains and pressed his wings onto his back. He placed a small shadow magic-stone into a small indent on his new stinger, that seemed to be just made for this, and then made mana flow through it and into his stinger and wings.

At first, Eiro thought that something was wrong, simply because it felt off... But then, he tried to reach out and ran his fingers through the black mist forming his wings and stinger now. There was no resistance. None at all. They had turned into complete black mist now. This definitely wasn"t how it was when Eiro infused them just yesterday. There was still always a little bit of resistance. Maybe it was because the evolution was now officially over?

It was pretty surprising, but in the end, it seemed to be pretty useful. It was still weird though... And so, Eiro tried to open the list of all the abilities that he currently had. His new racial ability was just marked as u003c???u003e at the moment because he still didn"t "awaken" it, but...

"What the actual...�� Eiro muttered quietly. He stared at the screen in confusion.

[Racial Abilities]

u003cMemory of a Scholaru003e

u003cThe Collector"s Treasuryu003e

u003c???u003e

u003c???u003e

[Stat Abilities]

u003cGladiator"s Strengthu003e

u003cVigorous Bodyu003e

u003cRock Skinu003e

u003cSwift Feetu003e

u003cAdrenaline Rushu003e

u003cSkilled Handsu003e

u003cQuick Thought Processingu003e

u003cQuick Learningu003e

u003cKeen Sensesu003e

u003cIron Willu003e

u003cEloquent Tongueu003e

[Special Abilities]

u003cAbsolute Perceptionu003e

u003cBasic Elemental Fusionu003e

"What"s wrong?" Sammy asked with a slightly concerned frown, and Eiro simply ran his hand through the information screen, "Well, for one... The ability I had called u003cMinor Elemental Fusionu003e became u003cBasic Elemental Fusionu003e, so that would explain this on my back, but most importantly, it seems like I have two new racial abilities instead of just one." The demon explained to them, and the next moment, Eiro felt someone tap his shoulder. Without turning around, he said, "Yes, Jess?"

"Die in a fire." She replied bluntly, before turning arond and making her way to the couch standing in the corner of the room. Ignoring her, because Jess was acting a lot weirder than usual right now, Eiro slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Well, we"ll see what"s going to happen with this, right?" Eiro pointed out, and then slightly thought about how he could best figure this out, and then scratched the back of his head, "Well, double the new abilities should half the time it takes me to figure out one of them, right?" The demon figured, and then slowly pulled out his cloak out of his treasury. He pulled it over his body, and because of the state his wings and his new stinger were currently in, they were basically fully pressed against Eiro"s skin and there was no clue on them outside of the cloak at all. With a satisfied expression, Eiro placed another shadow magic stone onto his head, trying to make sure it was properly attached to his horns there, and then filled his horns with shadow magic as well. This was pretty bothersome, so Eiro really hoped that one of his new abilities would make life easier for him with his new body parts.

But for now, everything worked out alright, and after Eiro pulled his hood down, his horns weren"t a bother anymore either. The Demon placed his mask onto his face and looked at the children.

"I"m heading for now. As an exception, you guys can stay up a little longer and sleep as long as you want, so that you can stay up longer tomorrow night. Use the carriage to drive to the castle with Jess, James and Krog as escorts. If everything went well until then, you can head off into town with these three and take a look at whatever stalls you want, but be at the large square in front of the castle"s gates when the Daughter of Winter gets there with me. Afterward, we"ll spend the rest of the night together to celebrate as well, alright?" Eiro explained to everyone, and they quickly nodded their heads rather excitedly. They never really had the chance to celebrate the Winter Solstice together with Eiro, after all. Or celebrate it officially in general, since they were never at town during the celebrations.

"I"ll leave everything to you guys, then." Eiro said with a smile on his face as he looked toward his party members, "Oh, and take Gobo with you, but have the slime disguise him somehow and keep him under control. He"s not as wild anymore, but it"s still a good idea to have something to make sure. And if the slime says something about a promise... just ignore him." 

"We get it already. Just go." James sighed, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. He quickly hugged the children before leaving and then made his way out of the manor with Lugo. The demon jumped onto his familiar"s back and then quickly started to ride him toward town.

While Eiro was on his way, he actually tried to take a look at his body. The thing was that evolution worked in weird ways. His physical body changed gradually over the time of the evolution, but there was something else that changed rather rapidly over the last few hours of the evolution. It was what made Eiro"s mana and body way harder to control because it kept fluctuating around. They were the things hidden behind the stats, the stat values.

You could quite literally see them as the value of a single stat point. Of course, more things went into their performance. Let"s say two people had the same strength stat at 100. One of them had a strength value of 0.5, and the other had a strength value of 2. The one with the strength value of 0.5 spent his life honing and training his muscles, while the one with the strength value of two had physically thin, frail arms while never trying to increase his muscle ma.s.s or definition. The one that trained his body, despite effectively only having 50 "full" strength stat points would be able to exert more strength than the one that effectively had 200 "full" strength stat points.

But nonetheless, the value was still important, and Eiro"s stat values increased rather rapidly whenever he evolved, as far as he could tell. That meant that despite his physical stats not changing in the slightest, Eiro was still physically stronger than he was before his evolution, and that by quite a lot. 

It probably wouldn"t be enough of a change to be able to easily defeat Evelyn all of a sudden, but it was definitely closer to him now. That"s what he figured out during this ride, at least. He compared the way he could move his fingers or his mana, or how much strength he could exert to before his evolution, and had a rough idea of how much the values changed. Not by too much, but it was still an incredibly positive change.

As long as Eiro did his best to level up, the future in which he could painfully slaughter Evelyn wouldn"t be too far away.