"Ah!!"
As soon as the evolution began, the vast magicules within Rin's body became restless.
The next moment, an unimaginable, excruciating pain instantly spread throughout his body, causing him to cry out involuntarily.
"Rin!!"
Ogerpon was startled.
She wanted to rush forward to check, but a voice in her heart told her not to disturb Rin.
These were all normal phenomena, a unique transformation belonging solely to him.
The intense reaction was a sign of his monster bloodline awakening!
[Bloodline Appraisal beginning...]
Before this, Rin had always been unclear about his bloodline.
It wasn't until this moment, with the echo of the Voice of the World, that his bloodline was truly activated.
[Appraisal complete. Pseudo-Dragon Kind bloodline activated.]
[Obtained exclusive skill: Stardust Manipulation.]
[Evolution successful. Individual "Itoshi Rin" has obtained the race "Dragonoid (Pseudo)".]
[Skill "Appraisal" has been sublimated, advancing to Extra Skill "Dragon Eye".]
[...]
As the physical pain faded, a series of prompts from the Voice of the World echoed in Rin's mind, causing him, who had just recovered, to suffer the torment of information overload all over again.
Only this time, Rin wasn't uncomfortable, he was ecstatic.
Stardust Manipulation!
It's Stardust Manipulation!!
And Dragonoid. Rin never expected that the demon bloodline hidden within his body would actually be Dragon Kind.
And not just any dragon, but from the Star King Dragon, the apex of the Cardinal World!
One had to understand—"Dragonoid" in Tensura wasn't a race, but referred to a specific individual: Milim, one of the three oldest Demon Lords.
Milim was the daughter of the Star King Dragon the human Lucia. She inherited her father's infinite magicules and Dragon Kind bloodline, thus becoming the unique Dragonoid.
But now, Rin had also been granted the Dragonoid race by the Voice of the World.
Pseudo-Dragonoid was still Dragonoid!
But...
After the shock, Rin couldn't help but wonder, Where did the Dragon Kind bloodline in this body come from?
First, Milim could be ruled out.
She was just a little girl. It was impossible for her to combine with any human and have offspring.
And after ruling out natural reproduction, the only explanation Rin could think of was magicule infection.
In the original story, monsters mutated and evolved after being exposed to the magicules dispersed by Veldora.
From this, it could be seen that powerful magicules themselves could give birth to life, so it was understandable that they could infect an existing being and grant them partial power.
"In other words, one of my ancestors was once eroded by the magicules of the Star King Dragon, or Milim."
"And then, they managed to survive and passed on this magicule factor through their bloodline."
But considering how unique Milim's Dragonoid status was...
Rin felt none of his ancestors had ever actually awakened that power.
This perfectly aligned with the memories of the original body, whose ancestors were all just ordinary people.
"Because the Star King Dragon's bloodline was too high-ranking, those infected ancestors couldn't awaken this power at all."
"Then why did I awaken the power of the Star King Dragon?"
Recalling his own uniqueness, Rin thought of a possibility: his broken-level talent, Traveler.
The power to traverse worlds was the key to awakening the Dragon Kind bloodline.
The faint Dragon Kind bloodline, combined with Traveler's world-hopping nature and the Cardinal World's magicules...
The fusion of those three factors created this miracle.
Hmm. Even if there was still a "Pseudo" tag after Dragonoid...
Rin estimated that he might need to become a Demon Lord Seed, or even a fully awakened True Demon Lord, to remove that "Pseudo" label.
"But that doesn't matter. It'll happen sooner or later anyway."
"Obtaining the Dragonoid bloodline is equivalent to opening an evolution path with an extremely high ceiling."
"Most importantly, I also gained Stardust Manipulation ahead of time."
Even after reading the original novel, Rin's understanding of stardust remained vague.
First, the concept of star particles.
To put it simply, star particles were highly condensed magicules that had been compressed to their limit.
Just as matter is made of atoms and molecules, magicules also had a basic unit: spiritons.
Previously, Rin had been puzzled about the meaning behind magicule values.
For example, 9999 magicules and 10000 magicules. Even though it was just a 1-point difference, why was the former considered B-Rank while the latter was A-Rank?
It's known that an A-Rank monster with 10000 magicules could easily crush a B-Rank with 9999.
So, was that 1-point really that significant?
Shouldn't the jump from B-Rank to A-Rank be a huge surge in power?
But now, Rin finally understood.
That seemingly small 1-point gap was a full-blown qualitative leap.
If magicules below 10000 used spiritons as their base unit, then 9999 magicules could actually be broken down into 99.99 million spiritons.
In contrast, once a monster broke through to A-Rank, their magicules became a unified whole.
The basic unit of A-Rank was no longer spiritons, but simply magicules.
10000 magicules was exactly that—10000 indivisible units.
Unless the A-Rank monster willed it, outsiders couldn't deconstruct them into spiritons.
This transformation massively increased the weight and quality of A-Rank monster in the Cardinal World.
It's not an exaggeration to say that in a clash between A-Rank and anything below, the latter would be instantly crushed.
Of course, A-Rank individuals also had control abilities far beyond what B-Ranks could imagine.
They could break 1 magicule into millions of spiritons and manipulate them with precision to perform effects that B-Rank users could only dream of.
This was the active deconstruction available to A-Rank monster.
In that sense, no one else could touch you, and you could fully control yourself.
Through this give-and-take, the A-Rank threshold was formed.
"Maybe this is the difference between common skills, intrinsic skills, and unique skills."
"Only Special A-Rank monster possess Unique Skills..."
"Conversely, a Reincarnator who possesses a Unique Skill from the start, as long as they grow properly, will naturally reach Special A-Rank."
And Unique Skills were most likely the result of refined magicules.
They were only called Unique Skills after recognition from the Voice of the World.
"In other words, the leap from A-Rank to Special A-Rank is the process of finding one's own path."
"Once that path is found, one can be promoted to Special A-Rank and earn the title of Demon Lord Seed."
Rin had more or less figured out the whole evolution path from monster to Demon Lord Seed.
"I currently have four Unique Skills: Traveler, Leader, Capturer, and Duplicator."
Among them, Capturer and Leader—neither of them, when taken individually, could be considered powerful.
At least, they couldn't compare to Rimuru's practically omnipotent Predator.
Capturer allowed the user to form contracts with individuals possessing potential. Once they became stronger, the Voice of the World could perform a reverse evaluation, allowing the Capturer to ascend.
This sounded nice on paper, but in practice, it was incredibly hard.
Because Capturer didn't offer much in terms of direct combat power.
It was very easy to be eliminated in the early stages.
Unless the Capturer had a high-status identity like a noble or lord, someone that people would naturally follow.
Otherwise, the skill had little future.
Compared to that, Leader was even simpler.
Theoretically, anyone willing to follow the Leader could donate a portion of their magicules.
But the amount given would never reach Ogerpon's terrifying 50%.
At most, each person could give about 3%.
How many subordinates would Rin need to gather enough magicules to reach the Demon Lord Seed threshold?
"Without at least ten or twenty years, it'd be impossible to build that kind of force."
Fortunately, Rin's Leader and Capturer complemented each other.
Combined, he felt they weren't inferior to Rimuru's Predator at all.
Traveler, because of its broken-level nature, had an incalculable ceiling, so it didn't need to be evaluated right now.
And finally, Rin felt that Duplicator wasn't much weaker than Predator either.
Continuously copying abilities and using them to grow stronger.
That kind of power was a cheat in any isekai light novel.
(To be continued.)