Demon's Virtue

The proxy original duplicate sat in his office, taking care of some matters related to the monster town, such as shipments for provisions or materials for construction, clothes, tools or weapons. The different aspects were engaged in their training regimes outside. After three months of training with them, their movements had become so much more refined and their understanding of these different skills skyrocketed. At this point, all that had to happen was that the system needed to work again properly so that Eiro could level up again.

But the aspects weren't the only ones that managed to make some progress. Finally working together, the duplicates in the towers managed to unlock three more books following the original Morgan la Fey's, so that also helped the demon evolve his understanding of quite a few fields in the process. Though once again, the last thing that was needed now was for the original Eiro to wake up and make his way to the Divine Mountain Range to reach the access point that would lead him to the moon, where the central material plane's tower was located.

Eiro glanced over at the clock and then stood up. He walked through the door and made his way down the hallway, stepping in front of the door where the others were already waiting. Ariella seemed to be the most anxious. She had been quite distance for the past few months, and all the duplicates certainly understood why. The duplicates shared a mind with the original, but you would most certainly be justified claiming that they weren't truly Eiro. Especially on an emotional level, the way Ariella was feeling was understandable.

Some of the other duplicates were taking care of Avalin and Leon right now, but Rudy, Sammy, Clementine, and Arc were also here to meet with Eiro after his evolution was complete.

"... How long until..?" Sammy asked, and Eiro looked down at his wrist watch. Experience more tales on empire

"Just a few more seconds," he explained, and the five of them anxiously turned toward door. The proxy original stepped up to it before them all, deactivating the magical array to completely stop the room from being flooded with arcane magic. It was all absorbed into the original Eiro's body as the evolution came to an end.

And then, the duplicate unlocked the door. It would usually open inward, but it was blocked now. So, Eiro quickly took off the hinges and pulled the door away as a whole. As he did, tendrils of coloured crystals were shattered like spiderwebs being torn. They fell to the ground, soon fading away into pure elemental magic. The proxy original stepped aside, making way for Ariella and the kids as they stepped inside the room. Every single surface was covered in a translucent crystal layer that grew in a hexagonal pattern around the massive crystal pillar standing in the center of the space, connecting the floor to the ceiling. But filling the actual room were those thin crystal threads that were falling apart like a chain reaction starting from the door. They turned into magical glister that soon disappeared as the magic faded.

"Are these..?" Clementine muttered, and Arc squatted down, running his hand over the visually smooth surface, feeling the deep and complex patterns that naturally formed as the crystals grew.

"The whole room is basically a massive arcane magic stone," he pointed out, glancing over at the pillar, "Is dad even going to be able to get out of there? Do we need to break it from the outside?"

Though, before anyone could answer that question, cracks formed on the surface of the pillar, quickly spreading throughout the rest of the room. The 'arcane magic stone' as Arc fittingly called it, fell apart into small fragments, revealing the cocoon within the pillar. A large crack had formed on its surface as well, and was only growing larger.

A pale, ice-like blue hand pushed its way through that crack, followed by one more, and then another and another. In total there were six hands, out of which a single one was made of wood. They grabbed onto the edges of the cocoon and pushed it open the rest of the way, and Eiro stepped outside. At first glance, he looked similar to how he did before, but at further inspection, there were quite a few parts that were different.

For one, the icy blue pattern that until recently only reached from the center of his chest up to his shoulders was now covering his whole body, fading into the blue of his arms and legs. Of course, the fact that he now had two more arms was probably the first thing that one noticed after he stepped out of the cocoon, but that wasn't the only thing he had more of either.

Instead of just one, he now had three tails. They were thinner than before, and soon coiled around each other to be practically the same size as they were before the evolution, but instead of a single stinger there were now three dagger-like needles attached to the end of each tail. Two pairs of wings were on his back now, the larger pair that he usually had, and two smaller wings spreading out from the base of his back, right above where his tails started. Eiro flapped them slightly, getting rid of some of the milky white slime stuck to parts of his body.

His face was mostly the same, with just one major difference. He had a third eye on the middle of his forehead. Different to his other eyes, that were a deep blood red, this one was a soft metallic golden colour. Though, looking more closely, his other eyes were a bit weird as well. Like three eyes had been stuffed into each socket, Eiro had three irises and pupils, and the irises pressed against each other, still forming a circle while being clearly distinct from each other. His eyes appeared normal at a glance, but when you looked closer there was clearly something off.

The last thing of note, his horns, hadn't really changed that much. They were thinner and more interwoven, in more than a dozen colours and sitting on his head like a crown. With every evolution, that comparison became more and more obvious.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Eiro opened his mouth and tried to speak. His voice was rough and sounded... wrong. It was clearly Eiro's own voice, but it was like he was speaking a dozen times at once in slightly different pitches and intonations. He still only had two mouths, but it was like his voice box could produce multiple overlapping voices at once, which might come in useful for certain types of chants.

"Ah... Aaah..." he let out, trying to clear his throat, "This is a rather... interesting experience."

Looking down at himself, Eiro took note of all the changes that happened to him. Of course, from his point of view, many more things were different. For one, the perspective from the third eye being added into the mix felt a bit unusual, but luckily not too bad. The three eyes in each of his two 'normal' sockets acted a bit wonky still, but he had an almost telescopic control over them. He could always view things at a distance, but now, it was like he could make his eyes twist and adjust them as you would... well, a telescope.

His third eye held a few new qualities; for one, the lens made from the mirror of duplication had migrated there and had been strengthened and fused perfectly with his eye somehow. But all three of his eyes gained a new ability in general. He could now see mana almost perfectly. Eiro could sense it for a while now, infusing that quality into his sight. Then there were the times he fused with a spirit, letting him truly see it. But now, he had that sight innately. He would have to get used to it, but it definitely wasn't a bad experience.

And then there were all the changes to himself internally... his body was barely recognizable. The cardiovascular system was reinforced in the way that Eiro had altered it. While he didn't have a heart, his body was still propelling his blood throughout him and producing new blood as a passive magical function. In the first place, his veins had fully fused with the bloodstone. It was like his veins' individual cells were encased in a thin crystal layer now.

He also had some new organs. Bags for storing excess venom, which was produced many, many times faster through his three tails. He could even combine the function of two or all three tails to fuse the venom automatically as it was being created, or create more complex types. He could create more of those bags whenever he wanted to, basically letting him store however much he wanted. They seemed to be affected by the same space-altering effects of the overeating skill as his stomach was, maybe because they were made from his stomach originally.

All of Eiro's other organs seemed to have improved in function quite a bit as well, which the demon was rather glad about. And then, he took a closer look at his bones and skin, which had also become a bit different. Eiro's bones were made of crystal structures similar to his horns now, and were many, many times stronger than before. Similar to his veins, Eiro's skincells seemed to be encased in a thin crystal layer, allowing him a much greater control over his skin magically. Not only could he make it as hard as the chitin around his tails in an instant, but he could even change the color of his skin to some degree by letting different magics flow through him.

These changes were all substantial, but frankly, they were incredibly worth it. But there was something that was much more important for now than looking at the changes of his body. He quickly approached his kids, and pulled the four of them, together with Ariella, into a hug.