"I have committed it all to memory, sister."
I smiled happily at my mother. Even though she didn't remember me, her attention was still the most precious thing in the world.
I waited until she had left the library before putting the book back in its proper place. The daily routine that my false consciousness had established was complete. It was time to return to my room.
"Goodnight, young master," the librarian said with a nod as I left the treasury of knowledge. I knew I would be spending many more hours here in the future.
Unfortunately, my false self had only been interested in myths and fairy tales, of which this strange demon society had a surprising number.
Still, even from those, useful information could be gleaned, if one knew how to read between the lines. But that would have to wait.
The first, most important thing was that my mother was here, alive, even without her memories. I refused to believe this was just a demon who looked like her.
My Black Heart, the gift she gave me, allows me to absorb the evil from the hearts of others. Sadness, anger, hatred, envy… all of it nourishes me.
And the stronger I become, the more powerful my gift grows. There is no such thing as absolute evil; it is different for every person. Just like their feelings.
And the specific shade of sadness I had felt from Grayfia for that brief moment was identical to the sadness I sometimes felt from my mother in my old life.
That single fact was all the proof I needed. My judgment was correct. She was here. And I would serve her.
The second, and equally important, conclusion I reached today was an assessment of power. I know next to nothing about the true combat capabilities of the powerful demons in this world.
The few training spars I've seen among the House guards were unimpressive. They involved crude manipulations of their demonic aura, similar to what a cultivator at the Qi Condensation stage might do.
None of them used the demonic magic that, according to the books, made their race famous.
Perhaps that is a skill reserved only for high-ranking demons. I will have to find out.
Fortunately, even with this lack of information, my soul's keen perception allowed me to gauge the approximate strength of everyone I'd met. I could feel their presence, the spiritual weight they exerted on the world around them.
And according to that sense, the most powerful being I had encountered here was not Rofocale Lucifuge, the ancient demon who fought alongside the Morning Star himself.
No. By a vast and overwhelming margin, the strongest was my mother. Which, of course, was only to be expected.
The third conclusion was an evaluation of myself.
My current combat ability is practically zero. I have this new demonic power, but my knowledge of it is limited to parlor tricks like the piece of ice I created earlier.
It takes too long to form to be useful in a real fight. As for my cultivation, it is, as I suspected, barely at the first level of Qi Gathering.
I am only a sliver stronger than a normal human.
But the most frustrating part is not my weakness—I have rebuilt my power from nothing many times before.
The most frustrating part is that since awakening, I have not been able to draw a single wisp of qi into this body.
My soul should have reshaped this vessel, granting it a first-class talent for cultivation. I needed to know why it had failed.
I walked slowly to my bedroom on the third floor and opened the door.
The room was simple, decorated in shades of purple, brown, and red, with only the essential furniture.
I closed the door behind me and slid the lock into place. It was more of a symbolic gesture than a real barrier; nearly any demon in this mansion could have kicked it down.
I removed my strange, tight-fitting clothes, folded them neatly, and sat on the large double bed, which felt enormous for this small body.
I settled into a familiar meditative posture, and my consciousness slipped into a deep trance.
Eight hours passed. A new day had begun, though it was impossible to tell by looking at the Underworld's eternally unchanging purple sky.
I opened my eyes and stared at my palms, summoning my demonic aura. It glowed a dark, crimson red, so different from the silver energy of the Lucifuge clan.
My soul's reconstruction of the body was incomplete. The spiritual root my soul had tried to create was malformed, not even strong enough to qualify for the ninth and lowest grade.
Worse, the spiritual meridians that should have been pathways for qi were instead choked and clogged with this demonic power.
That explained why there were no qi practitioners among the demons. A different power had taken root here, blocking the path of spiritual arts.
It was a dead end. I needed qi to repair the meridians, but I couldn't gather qi without working meridians.
It would have been a dead end, if I were a righteous cultivator.
I played with a small, concentrated ball of my demonic aura, then absorbed it back into my hand. My mind focused on the tiny specks of life energy I had drained from the garden during my brief outburst yesterday.
What is the true difference between the righteous and demonic paths? Their beliefs? Their goals? No.
We all have the same desires, the same instincts, the same grievances. The righteous path is no stronger than the demonic one. The only real difference is how we use the world around us.
Righteous cultivators limit themselves. They are afraid to use "impure" energy, claiming they must preserve some mythical "balance."
Yet they will slaughter entire races without a second thought to claim lands rich in natural treasures that can help them advance. They are hypocrites.
We demonic cultivators do not hide behind such false ideals.
We take everything.
We revel in the pain and the raw, emotion-tainted energy of the world. We burn our own lives and the lives of others to gain more power.
We break and reshape our bodies to achieve what is normally impossible.
We have more tools, and therefore, more risks. Our lives are like small boats in a raging ocean.
My boat may have been sinking before, but now, with my mother here, I am ready to capsize this entire ocean once again, just as I did before.
A faint black ripple pulsed from my body, a sign that I was using the forbidden technique, "Life Burning."
It took the foreign life energy I held within me and began converting it, refining it into the familiar, potent energy of Death Qi.
I felt the power settle within me, solidifying my position at the first level of Qi Gathering. I let out a slow, hot breath and stood up.
There was much to be done.