[1.18] Self-Evaluation (Part 1)

Once again, Angelica stared at her hand, and the Demon Growth System screen appeared. She started at the top again, but there were no prompts for her name, alias, or species when she focused on them. That made her panic for a second, thinking something might be wrong, either with herself, the power, or maybe her understanding. But when she got to Demon Rank, the expected pop-up, well, popped up.

[Demon Rank. Your Rank in the Demon hierarchy, obviously, stupid Imp]

Apparently the Growth System had some sass, mocking her for inquiring about something meant to be obvious.

[The higher it is, the stronger you are, the more respected, and the more useful you will become to the cause]

What was “the cause?” It seemed Demons were organized, somehow, possibly part of their own society. Hopefully, Angelica wouldn’t get in trouble for not contributing to whatever it was. But thus far, no one had come looking for her or made any attempts to reach out. Ideally, it would stay that way.

[Upon reaching the Demon Rank threshold, Evolution will become available. No further Levels may be obtained until Evolution is triggered]

So if she understood it correctly, when she reached Imp Lv.20, she would be able to trigger an Evolution. And that would make her no longer an Imp? While the idea of giving up her cute puffball self was a bit sour, maybe she could revert to it with Transfiguration. It sounded like leveling up was a good thing, but it didn’t describe any of the benefits, nor did it actually tell her how to accomplish this. Hopefully something else would, so she moved on.

[Essence is the physical form of raw magical energy emitted from each world. When the energy stagnates, it gives rise to Malignants. Defeating Malignants grants the Demon their Essence. Additionally, living beings will naturally filter the energy into Essence. Those with high Magical Proficiency, especially Summoners, may convert the energy into Essence manually. Demons have been cursed and cannot create it themselves, and thus must rely on other sources to obtain it]

Okay, wow, that was a lot of information, Angelica’s head reeled a bit. Alright, alright, break it down. So her world had magic energy, apparently. That alone was a bit of a surprise. But the description specifically said “each world.” As far as the former human knew, there were no other planets with life out there, unless their scientists had been shady with sharing information. Perhaps it just meant the inhospitable planets in her solar system also had some energy.

At least she now had a better understanding of the ecosystem and transactional nature of Demons, Summoners, and Contracts. So Summoners would make Essence. Demons want the Essence. They complete jobs for the Summoners to get Essence. Okay, that was pretty simple. But didn’t that basically just make them day laborers? Even Demons had to work to make a living, huh?

Sounds like they could also kill Malignants like the snake thing, but since she hadn’t seen any more around, it seemed like it was slim pickings. Either there just weren’t a lot of them to begin with, or they were hunted down quickly to get the Essence. As for what Essence actually did, well, there was a bit more to the description.

[Essence is spent to increase Demon Rank. When the required amount of Essence is consumed, the Rank will increase. Multiple levels may be achieved at once if Essence is sufficient. Essence may also be traded to other Demons as currency]

Currency, huh? So there really must be a Demon society with its own economics. Part of her kind of wanted to see it, if nothing more than to sate her curiosity and get inspiration for her webcomic. But becoming entangled at all was probably a bad idea.

Angelica also got the gist a bit better now. She had 13 Essence. If she got to 30, she could spend, or “consume,” it to become Imp Lv.2. Repeat that many times until Lv.20. Trigger Evolution. Was that it, though? She kind of wanted to get to Lv.2 just to see what would happen, if there’d be any noticeable difference. She should have asked for some Essence after all. Oh well, money was still better for now.

[Growth Points]

Okay, now that she knew what the GP acronym stood for, it felt obvious.

[Growth Points are the representation of a Demon’s dormant power. They may be spent to unlock new Skills, increase Skill levels, or increase base Worth. One Growth Point is awarded with each Demon Rank Level. Growth Points may be obtained through other methods on rare occasions]

And of course it didn’t tell her what those methods or occasions were. But the whole thing made a lot more sense now. Growth Points were the real prize and incentive to gain Essence and level up. Up until this point, she’d solely gained Skills by completing relevant actions or experiencing certain things. At least that’s how it seemed. Now it sounded like she could buy them, too?

Which Skills, though? If she knew what was on the line, maybe she’d have more motivation to unlock them. There wasn’t a convenient list she could see. Perhaps that came when she had GP to spend, or a higher Scrying Eye level.

[Status as a Summoner has been forcibly incorporated into the Demon Growth System to prevent any errors]

Angelica had moved on to the next section and already got an interesting message. It sounded like the Summoning stuff wasn’t a native part of the System, more like an add-on it tacked on just for her. Apparently, it was pretty adaptable.

[Summoner Rank is the representation of status as a Summoner. When reaching the Summoner Rank threshold, you will advance to the next Summoner Rank, unlocking new abilities exclusive to more advanced Summoners. Whether other Summoners will recognize your ranking is another matter]

[Current Abilities: 1 Bound Demon]

Alright, so if she understood it, the System basically made Summoner Rank work like Demon Rank so it wouldn’t cause any problems. But by the sounds of it, that wasn’t how Summoners usually progressed. If Angelica ranked up and went out declaring herself with said title, it might raise eyebrows, good to know. What could those additional abilities be, though? More Bound Demons was obvious, but was there anything else?

[Experience is gained when performing actions as a Summoner. Examples of this include Summoning Demons, Binding Demons, issuing Contracts, giving Orders, Converting Essence, casting Linked Skills, and utilizing Runes]

The gist was about what Angelica expected. Doing Summoner things gave her Experience to become a better Summoner. But she’d gotten more info than she could have hoped. From the earlier Essence prompt, she knew about Summoners converting it, but that was scratched out for her. That was something she had already assumed she would be unable to do so as a Demon, but now it was confirmed.

What were Linked Skills, though? By the sound of it, maybe they were Skills cast in tandem with the Demon, or possibly other Summoners. And then there were Runes. Garvin had said the word a few times, and boasted that his fancy rod had some Holy Rune, or something like that. Maybe Runes let them cast magic or Skills, similarly to Demons. If so, she was a bit curious about how to get them, sounding like she could possibly cheat the Growth System a bit by getting power from other sources. More thoughts for the future.

[Health is the representation of a Demon’s lifeforce as a percentage. Damage, status conditions, illness, and weakened constitution will all lower the percentage. If the percentage reaches zero, there will be no chance for recovery by any means, and the Demon’s soul will be destroyed. Health capacity and rate of recovery scale with Might, Vigor, and Obstinance. The base value will also increase with each Rank level and receive an exceptional boost upon triggering Evolution]

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Alright, pretty simple overall. If bad stuff happened to her body, the number went down. Still, she had to speculate why it was so low. It mentioned status effects. Since she had both Cold and Hunger Resistance, maybe those counted. Things like that would certainly explain most of it. Fatigue, both mental and physical, was likely another big factor. Weakened constitution was probably the rest. Her body was still relatively poor compared to that of a healthy human. Speaking of Cold Resistance, though, despite being essentially naked, she wasn’t really that cold in the winter, even with the sun starting to set. It must have been all the hair she was covered in.

And actually, she was up to 64% from the earlier 62%, so the apparent steady recovery was doing work. She fretted about how low her percentage must have gotten on the night of the trash incident. But thankfully, it had never hit zero. Soul destruction sounded unpleasant. It went against the afterlife teachings of Vissiem, so she didn’t want to dwell on it too much.

Angelica skipped over MP, since she’d already read through it previously. She did note, though, that the description had been quite similar to Health, especially the scaling and capacity parts. The way they were presented, they almost seemed like a symbiotic pair of equal importance to a Demon.

Now it was down to the Worth section. For the prompt of the title, it was fairly simple, and again, mocking.

[Worth is how useful you are, duh!]