Max
Max exhaled slowly, letting Kairu settle back onto his cushion. "Alright. Step one: scrub the signature."
He centered himself, closing his eyes and reaching inward. His Demonic Power thrummed beneath his skin—a steady pulse of crimson energy. He visualized it as a river, trying to filter the flow, to separate the pure mana from the destructive taint.
But the moment he tried to isolate the PoD residue, the whole current destabilized. His concentration fractured, and the energy snapped back into its natural chaotic state.
Too complex, Max realized, rubbing his temples. This isn't something I can brute-force in one night. I need practice, time, and probably a better understanding of how my Devil physiology even works.
He opened his eyes, frustration simmering beneath his skin. Meditation and mana control exercises would take weeks to refine—time he didn't have if he wanted to start building his alternate identities soon.
But there was another angle.
His gaze drifted to the stack of parchment on his desk—the contract circle prototypes he'd been preparing for his teleportation anchors. Those circles, when activated, flared crimson. The exact color that screamed "Murder Location" to anyone with half a brain.
I can't fix my magical essence yet, Max thought, standing and walking to the desk. But I can fix the external signature my magic leaves behind. If I can mask the color of the circles...
He picked up a sheet, examining the inked sigil. The crimson glow was part of the problem, yes, but it was also a simpler problem. He wasn't trying to fundamentally alter his nature—just the presentation.
Start small. Fix the circles first. Then tackle the aura.
At that, Kairu began bouncing in joy. The little slime had successfully divided his mass into four distinct parts, maintaining their separate forms for a solid few minutes—a massive improvement compared to the instant dispersion of his previous attempts.
As the three clones finally lost their cohesion, melting into puddles of gelatinous residue that looked like a jigsaw puzzle made of blue jelly, an idea struck Max.
He moved to his desk, liberating a stack of parchment he had "borrowed" from the library. He had originally intended to use these to draft his new teleportation anchors, so there were already hundreds of sheets prepared with the basic geometric foundation of his contract magic.
Max knelt by the puddle of clone-residue. He took a sheet of parchment and carefully applied the goo over the ink of the magic circle. The reaction was immediate; the parchment absorbed the dense biological matter, the paper gaining a heavy, translucent blue tint that felt cool to the touch.
He repeated the process for several sheets, applying varying amounts of the slime residue.
Turning around, he saw the original Kairu trembling with effort. The slime had reformed his three clones and arranged them in a triangle formation. The main body had sprouted two tiny, pseudopod "arms" and was waving them frantically, gesturing at the clones like a drill sergeant motivating recruits during Hell Week.
The scene was so absurdly wholesome that Max let out a chuckle.
"Kairu," Max called out, getting his attention.
He held up the slime-infused parchment. "Can you sense these?"
Kairu turned to look, nodding his main body. But the momentary lapse in concentration shattered his control; the three clones instantly lost their shape and splattered onto the carpet again.
Ki... Kairu drooped, radiating sadness.
Max scooped him up immediately. "Hey, don't worry about it. You held them for way longer than before. You're doing great, buddy. I don't know any other slime who can multitask like that."
He gave the slime a gentle pat. "You're literally one of a kind."
Kairu perked up, looking at Max with a hopeful Ki!
Seeing his spirits lifted, Max pointed to the modified contract circle again. Kairu focused on it, tilting his body, but gave a confused Ki? He could sense it, but he wasn't sure what it was.
"Let's test it," Max muttered, the spirit of experimentation taking over.
He moved to the side of the room, away from the clutter of goo and spare paper. He positioned himself facing the window, double-checking that the heavy blackout blinds were fully drawn—secrecy was paramount in Folkvangr.
He placed the blue-tinted parchment on the floor and channeled a small pulse of mana to activate it.
Hum.
The circle lit up. As expected, the base activation flared in his familiar crimson red—the signature of his Demonic Power. But as the light projected upward through the layer of slime-infused paper, a change occurred.
The deep, aggressive crimson filtered through the blue essence of the slime. The sharp edges of the light softened, the color shifting from blood-red to a muted, cloudy tone. The magic circle that spread out from the paper carried these new attributes, losing the "ominous" feeling of his raw magic.
Since there was no target for the one-time summoning, the circle dissipated harmlessly after a few seconds.
"PERFECT," Max hissed, clenching his fist in victory.
It wasn't just a color change; the magical signature felt different. Less destructive. More neutral.
Max immediately grabbed more parchment and began adding more of Kairu's goo, testing different densities. He laid them out in a row and activated them one by one.
The first few were lighter shades of crimson. As he increased the slime density, the light shifted to magenta, then deep violet. Finally, he reached a saturation point—a 50-50 split of paper and slime.
He activated it.
A brilliant, royal purple light filled the corner of the room. It was stable, distinct, and carried absolutely zero trace of Red (Devil) or Blue (Monster). It was a completely new signature.
"Stuck at purple," Max murmured, examining the paper. "The parchment can't absorb any more than this. But... this is good."
Purple was a cool color. It felt arcane, mysterious, and dignified. More importantly, it didn't scream "Enemy of Gods."
"I can use the different shades for different tiers of service," Max plotted, a mad scientific glee taking over his expression. "Red for VIPs who know me, Purple for the public 'Uber' service..."
He turned to his familiar, holding up the purple-saturated parchment—the master copy.
"Buddy," Max commanded, pointing to the sheet. "Tommorrow take this and analyze the composition. I need you to process the raw materials and make all of them like this."
Kairu looked at the purple sheet, then at the pile of blank parchments, and finally at Max. With an eager Ki!, the slime surged forward and devoured the prototype.
Max watched as Kairu's translucent body shimmered faintly, processing the material. "Take your time. I'll need a few hundred of these eventually, but we've got time."
He glanced at the clock. Nearly midnight. His body ached from the day's training, and his mind was buzzing with possibilities—color-coded contracts, multiple anchors, a whole network of teleportation points across Orario.
But tomorrow was day six. Only two days of Baptism left.
Then the real work would begin: his first dungeon dive, stress-testing his purple-circle "Uber" service, and seeing if Orario's adventurers would actually trust a mysterious teleportation network run by a madman.
This is going to be fun, Max thought, finally letting exhaustion pull him toward the bed.
-◈ -
The next morning, in high spirits at his successful solution to the teleportation problem, Max made his way to the dining hall. Kairu had his task and the slime was relentless once he began the assignment. Max didn't need to micromanage.
And so Max ate in silence. The mess hall felt strangely empty without Trent's boisterous presence and the rowdy table of Dwarves.
Maybe the old man finally needed a rest day, Max thought, finishing his meal quickly.
He headed to the training grounds. The sun was already high, baking the packed earth, but the atmosphere was different today. Instead of Hedin's cold, calculative presence at the boundary, four small figures stood in the center of the arena.
The Gulliver Brothers.
They stood in a loose formation, identical in appearance but radiating distinct, crushing pressures. Surrounding them was a sea of Pallums—members who usually stuck to the fringes were now front and center, looking at the four executives with undisguised aspiration and hero-worship. The other races stood off to the side, minding their own business, clearly sensing that today was not for them.
Most notably, there wasn't a single Dwarf in sight.
This feels like a faction meeting I wasn't invited to, Max mused, adjusting his grip on his training rapier as he tried to skirt around the edge of the crowd to find a warm-up spot.
"Not so fast, loony."
A figure blurred into his path, blocking him with the suddenness of a wall appearing out of thin air.
Max looked up—and down, slightly. Standing in front of him, unarmored but holding a spear with practiced ease, was one of the brothers. Max couldn't tell which one; to the uninitiated, Alfrigg, Dvalinn, Berling, and Grer were virtually indistinguishable.
Max stood his ground, remaining quiet. He waited, his face a mask of polite neutrality.
"Cat caught your tongue?" the Pallum taunted, his eyes narrowing. He leaned forward, the tip of his spear drifting dangerously close to Max's chest. "I've heard you are bullying some of my kin here."
He gestured vaguely at the crowd of Pallums behind him. Several of them were wearing wicked, expectant smirks, clearly enjoying the show.
Max almost sighed. Bullying? I've been the one getting ganged up on for five days straight.
He knew it was useless to reply. Any defense would be twisted; any apology would be seen as weakness. It was futile to engage in verbal sparring with someone looking for an excuse to break him. So, he waited.
The silence stretched.
"Awfully quiet you are," the brother continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "Don't you have any manners to respect your betters?"
Finally having enough of the posturing, Max locked eyes with the executive. His gaze sharpened, his amethyst eyes flashing with irritation.
Get to the point. What unnecessary drama.
"Name's Alfrigg," the Pallum said fuming, seemingly reading the dismissal in Max's eyes. He pointed the spear directly at Max's nose. "And I'll be your opponent today."
Guess he's decided, Max thought.
He didn't waste time with warm-ups. This wasn't Trent, who was testing his grit. This was a Level 4 executive who ostensibly wanted to hurt him.
Max stepped back and exhaled slowly. For the first time since the baptism began, he lifted the self-imposed ban.
Hummmm.
The air around him vibrated. Crimson-black energy began to leak from his core, coating his body in a thin, menacing aura. He channeled the Power of Destruction into his rapier, the steel blade turning pitch black as the annihilation magic enveloped it.
Alfrigg's eyebrows rose slightly, a smirk touching his lips. "Decided to finally grow a bone?"
He fell into a low spear stance, his center of gravity shifting perfectly. There was no opening. Just a fortress of skill compressed into a small frame.
At an invisible signal, they moved.
BOOM.
They charged simultaneously. Max, boosted by his Devil physiology and the PoD aura, moved like a blur. Alfrigg, suppressing his status but wielding the experience of a Second-Class adventurer, met him head-on.
The clash sent a shockwave ripping through the training grounds.
CLANG-CRACK!
The ground beneath them shattered, chunks of earth flying into the air as the black blade met the spear. The sheer force of the impact created a wind that forced the nearby Level 1 spectators to shield their eyes.
-◈ -
On the sidelines, the other three brothers—Grer, Berling, and Dvalinn—watched with arms crossed, their eyes tracking every micro-movement.
They assessed the "Loony" with cold, predatory calculations. Beneath their stoic masks, a burning envy simmered. They wished to strangle him. To drag him into the dirt and end this farce of a rookie stealing their Goddess's attention, her bed, her favor.
But Freya's command was absolute. No interference.
They were the bringers of war, the Goddess's most fearsome warriors. They would not disobey. But that didn't mean they had to like him. And as Alfrigg spun his spear, deflecting a destructive slash that would have vaporized a lesser adventurer, they watched with bated breath to see if the "Special One" would break.
Since Hedin was absent, the brothers had decided it was time to personally assess this new and dangerous contender for their Goddess's affection. Alfrigg, being the eldest—by minutes, perhaps, but eldest nonetheless—had stepped forward, his advantages in experience and technique ready to dismantle the rookie.
But honestly speaking, none of them were truly interested in testing him for his sake. They would rather be training their kin, the Pallums who looked up to them as gods of war in their own right. It simply disgusted them to think what this 'loony' would do to their Goddess if given the chance. They were sure that, until now, he hadn't made his move, playing the part of the humble recruit. But it wouldn't take long for a foul creature like him to reveal his true colors.
And that was the problem.
Watching him fight, they couldn't ignore what every instinct as warriors told them—the loon adapted under pressure. His counters grew sharper with each exchange. The way he positioned himself, the way he read Alfrigg's feints... it wasn't luck. It was skill.
A parasite they could crush. A skilled warrior with unearned favor? That required vigilance.
They would watch. And when he inevitably revealed his true nature, they would be ready.
Their gracious Goddess had shared some information about him during the executive gathering after the duel—how he was targeted by some third-rate dark Familia and that she wished to keep him safe at all costs. Fortunately for them, they had expressed their disdain for babysitting duty very clearly. They were joyful they were not the ones burdened with the daily care of this loon; let him deal with the headache.
As they continued to observe the spar, their critical eyes picked apart Max's performance.
Physically, he was not that impressive. For the first few minutes, half of the attacks Alfrigg made hit their mark. The spear butt slammed into critical joints, bruising muscle and rattling bone. Max's footwork was sloppy compared to a Second-Class adventurer, his guard full of holes that Alfrigg exploited with ruthless efficiency.
But he definitely had an unfair advantage in terms of magic.
As they observed, they began to see the true properties of his magic. Though it wasn't potent enough yet to cut through Alfrigg's toughened body or his high-level defenses, they could see it chipping away at his spear. The blackened steel of the weapon hissed where Max's rapier touched it, matter simply ceasing to exist. There were a few near-misses where Alfrigg had to contort his body violently to avoid a swipe that would have taken an arm instead of just a scrap of fabric.
It all came back to their one flaw: all of them lacked any ounce of magic. They relied on artifacts and brute force. Seeing a rookie wield such dangerous magical properties with melee weapons grated on their pride.
As the spar progressed, Max adapted. His resilience was unnatural, and his counters grew sharper. Alfrigg, realizing that standard suppression wasn't working, was forced to ramp up his output to Level 3 stats.
That was the signal Max had been waiting for. The madman began casting the wide variety of magic he had displayed against the Warlord.
"Carriage of thunder...!"
The chant was rapid, weaving into the melee. Rods of yellow light slammed toward Alfrigg. Though the eldest brother managed to breeze past the first few with his spear, dancing through the gaps, the sheer volume of them eventually caught him. A rod clipped his shoulder; another slammed into his hip.
They could see Alfrigg struggling to break the bind, his movement halted for precious seconds. It was a jarring sight. Usually, the brothers fought as a single organism—one bound, three attacking. But here, fighting alone, the lack of synergy left Alfrigg exposed. It was the perfect spot for Dvalinn or Grer to intervene, to shatter the magic and punish the caster.
But Dvalinn was the one who had made the decision to observe, and now he decided they had seen enough.
The novelty of the "Madman" struggling against Alfrigg had worn off. Max was strong for a rookie, dangerous even, but he was still just a recruit flailing against a master.
Dvalinn turned away from the duel, ignoring the cracks of thunder and the clash of steel. He faced their kin, the scores of Pallums watching the fight with rapt attention and open admiration for their brother's prowess.
"Alright! Eyes front!" Dvalinn barked, his voice cutting through the noise of the spar. "The show is over. You're here to become warriors, not spectators!"
He began breaking them into their usual groups, barking orders with practiced authority. He pulled the hammer and club-users to one side, while his other brothers followed as Grer took the swordsman, while Berling took the axe-men. While the bulk, who are spearmen, deprived of Alfrigg, began practicing the forms their eldest brother had taught in the previous session, moving in rhythm to the distant sounds of Max's struggle.
-◈ -
Max
Meanwhile, he was doing his best simply to keep track of the agile Prum.
He didn't know what had triggered the sudden eruption of anger—perhaps a missed block, a lucky graze, or just Max's face—but Alfrigg had transformed into a real madman. The executive began to unleash his true stats—or at least, what Max perceived as his true stats—slashing with more power than was necessary for a spar.
To Max, it felt like his Kidō was wet paper in front of the mighty spear. Rods of lightning shattered on impact, barriers crumbled before they fully formed.
Finally, seeing an opening in the frantic barrage, Max cast without a chant, sacrificing power for speed.
Bakudō #61. Rikujōkōrō.
The six rods of light slammed home, pinning the little squirt to the spot.
"Got you," Max hissed, lunging forward with his black-coated rapier to deal the finishing blow before the executive could recover.
But as he closed the distance, he felt the air around Alfrigg change. The Prum's aura flared, violent and dense.
CRACK-SHATTER.
Alfrigg broke free of the restraints not with technique, but with sheer muscular and stat explosion.
Why do all of them feel that overpowering the bindings is the only solution? Max thought, frantically aborting his charge and diving to the side as the spear whistled past his ear. First Ottar, now this guy. Does brute force solve everything in this familia? What if they fought someone with infinite regeneration? Or someone like Kairu who absorbs physical impact? They'd be helpless!
The rest of the day passed in a blur of violence.
Alfrigg was technically holding back, but "holding back" for a Second-Class adventurer still meant lethal speed. Max tried his best to bind the small Pallum, but the size difference was a nightmare. Alfrigg was a small target moving at high velocity; pinning him down was like trying to catch a fly with chopsticks while the fly was shooting bullets at you.
In retaliation to a failed binding spell, Alfrigg spun his weapon and hurled it.
WHOOSH.
The spear became a blur, nearly hitting Max before he dodged with a burst of magic. Impossibly, Alfrigg was already waiting at the landing spot, catching it like a boomerang returning to hand.
Honestly speaking, despite the terror, it didn't feel half bad. Max was gaining invaluable experience on how to deal with a master spearman. He was honing his magic timing against a faster, smaller opponent. Sure, there was a touch of genuine madness in Alfrigg's attacks—and for all Max knew, the guy actually wanted to kill him—but surviving it was its own reward.
After cleaning up and practically inhaling dinner, Max retreated to his soundproof room. He ignored the soft bed for a few hours, poring over his anatomy books, trying to grasp the elusive theory of healing before exhaustion finally claimed him.
The last day of his Baptism came and went in a similar fashion.
Alfrigg, still not yielding, continued his assault. But on the seventh day, the dynamic shifted. The Prum stopped relying on brute force to break spells. Instead, he deployed a strategy that was infinitely more frustrating.
He dodged. As if it just dawned on him he could do that.
Every time Max lined up a shot, Alfrigg made a micro-adjustment—a shift of the hips, a tilt of the head—dodging the attacks at the absolute last moment. It was a masterclass in evasion. It forced Max to burn through his magic non-stop, trying to catch a ghost.
It was exhausting to keep up with the stamina of what Max assumed was a Level 4 equivalent. His lungs burned, his magic reserves dipped dangerously low, and though he had gotten used to skipping lunch to maximize training time, it didn't mean he was happy about the hunger pangs gnawing at his stomach.
Finally, the sun set.
"Done," Alfrigg muttered, grounding his spear. He didn't offer a nod. He didn't offer a handshake. He just turned and walked away to rejoin his brothers.
There was no announcement. No congratulations on surviving the week from hell.
Max stood in the center of the scarred earth, heaving for breath, his eyes scanning the perimeter of the training grounds. The crowd of onlookers was thinning out, shuffling away toward the mess hall. Many of them actually looked... disappointed?
Sorry I didn't die for your entertainment, Max thought dryly, wiping a mixture of sweat and dirt from his brow.
His gaze lingered on the edges of the grounds, searching for a specific, grumpy silhouette. There was no sign of Trent or his rough-and-tumble crew of Dwarves. It seemed odd for the old man to miss the finale of the torture he had so enthusiastically started.
Maybe they went on a deep dungeon dive, Max reasoned, rolling his aching shoulder. I guess I over-expected. I forgot this is Freya Familia; if you aren't bleeding in front of them, they lose interest.
"Hey Max! You made it!"
A familiar hand slapped his non-injured shoulder. Max turned to see Van grinning up at him, looking genuinely pleased amidst the sea of indifferent faces.
"Congrats on surviving, Max. Not many make it through a Baptism against the Gullivers without needing the healers to carry them off."
"Thanks, Van," Max replied, managing a tired smile. "I think I'm going to sleep for a week."
"Hah! Don't get too comfortable," Van laughed, steering him toward the mess hall. "The real work starts now. You're official. Best of luck on your adventure."
Max nodded in acknowledgement.
Instead of joining others, Van paused, then grinned. "And hey—when you make it to the Middle Floors, bring me back a good story. I'll buy the first round."
Max managed a tired smile. "Deal."
Dinner passed in a blur of exhaustion, and soon Max began the long climb up the stairs.
Each step felt heavier than the last, weighed down not just by physical fatigue but by a nagging emotional hunger. As he reached the upper landings, his gaze drifted involuntarily toward the spiral staircase that continued up to the top floor—to Freya's sanctum.
He knew she was likely there. He could almost picture her lounging in that chair, bathed in moonlight. God, he would love nothing more than to burst into that room, drop his guard, and vent all the pent-up frustration from days of failing to grasp healing magic. He wanted to relax, to lose himself in those silver eyes and let the stress of the week melt away under her gaze.
But his foolish pride stood guard like two adamant sentries blocking the forbidden fruit, crossing their spears to bar his path.
I haven't figured it out yet, he thought bitterly. I haven't cracked the healing magic.
To go to her now, empty-handed and frustrated, felt like seeking comfort for failure. His ego simply wouldn't allow it. And it wasn't just the magic—he still hadn't made the decision about the Grimoire. He had shelved it, postponed it day after day while focusing on the Baptism, but now he was out of days. Tomorrow, he had to make a decision.
With a dejected sigh, looking like a man denied entrance to paradise, he turned away from the stairs leading to the Goddess and trudged down the corridor to his own suite.
He pushed the door open, ready to collapse into a chair and brood.
The sight that greeted him made the tension in his shoulders drop instantly.
Kairu was in the middle of the room, sitting atop a stack of the contract circles he had mass-produced —thousands of them, glowing with a cool, rhythmic purple light. But the slime wasn't just sitting; he was vibrating with intense focus.
He had flattened himself out, thinning his edges to a razor-sharp degree, trying desperately to imitate the texture of the parchment beneath him. Apparently, Kairu had decided that since he helped make the paper, becoming a paper was the perfect innocuous disguise for their future expeditions.
The effort involved was hilarious. Kairu was straining so hard to change his gelatinous surface into dry fiber that his "face"—or the general area Max associated with his face—was scrunching up. He looked like a man trying to solve complex calculus while simultaneously being incredibly constipated.
Max felt the dark cloud over his head dissipate, replaced by a bubble of laughter.
"Easy there, buddy," Max chuckled, closing the door behind him and letting the soundproofing seal them in. "Don't pop a blood vessel... or whatever the slime equivalent is."
Kairu let out a strained Ki... before snapping back into his normal, squishy blob shape with a wet thwack sound, bouncing once as if relieved to be liquid again.
"Rest up," Max said, walking over to pat the slime's head. "We've got a big day tomorrow."
Beside the tired slime lay neat stacks of thousands of purple contract circles—mission accomplished.
Happy that his familiar was safe and productive, Max settled into his chair and opened the final chapters of the anatomy book.
He breezed through the descriptions of Elves, Pallums, Dwarves, and Beastmen. Interesting for combat—knowing exactly where a Dwarf's liver sat or the precise weak point in a Boaz's thick neck—but useless for his current dilemma. Finally, he reached Human anatomy. It was a near-perfect match for his Devil physiology, give or take a few reinforced bones and the wings hidden beneath his skin.
He closed the book with a snap. Anatomy wasn't the problem. Control was.
Or rather, the nature of his control.
He leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The Power of Destruction was, by definition, chaotic. It was erasure. Entropy given form. In the anime lore, even high-class devils often struggled to contain their trait, leaking aura or causing collateral damage when emotional. Yet, Max realized with a start, he rarely lost control. Even when pushing his limits against Ottar, the magic went exactly where he wanted it to.
It's not me, Max realized, holding up his hand. He let a small sphere of crimson destruction hover over his palm, perfectly stable. It's the body.
He was inhabiting the vessel of a Devil Noble who had clearly been trained to the ground from childhood. The muscle memory—or rather, the spiritual memory—of disciplined mana control was ingrained in his very cells. While his mind was Max the Weeb, his hardware was an elite-trained Devil. It explained why he hadn't blown his own arm off with an Ignis Fatuus yet.
But that's the trap, he mused, extinguishing the sphere. This body is optimized for Destruction. It has spent years learning how to unmake things. That's why healing is so hard—I'm trying to teach a wrecking ball how to perform surgery.
His gaze drifted to the bedside table, where the empty space reminded him of the offer awaiting him tomorrow: The Grimoire.
Originally, he had planned to reject it. He already had Ars Magna, the Power of Destruction, and a superhuman physiology. Taking a 100 Million Valis item felt like overkill—greedy, even. He had enough hax; he didn't need to rely on handouts.
But then, a treacherous idea crept into his mind, unbidden and seductive.
Grimoires respond to the user's deepest desire and nature...
He paused, his heart skipping a beat.
And I have 'Otherworldly Luck'. It's basically a protagonist staple. What if... what if the Grimoire gives me a Healing spell?
The thought was so enticing it made him lightheaded. If he pulled a high-tier healing spell from the book, the game changed completely. He wouldn't need to rest for days. He wouldn't be reliant on Heith or potions.
He could just go.
I could grind non-stop, Max thought, a giddy smile spreading across his face as the daydream took hold. I could push straight to Rivira on the 18th Floor without stopping. Hell, I could dive to the entrance of the Lower Floors in a single run. The amount of loot... the drops... it would be unimaginable.
He saw himself swimming in a pool of Valis, fully leveled, decking Kairu out in adamantine armor. It was the ultimate gamer fantasy: the infinite sustainability glitch.
Max shook his head violently, physically dispelling the image.
Stop it. That's a daydream.
It was a gamble. Grimoires were notoriously fickle. If he accepted it and got something useless—or worse, just another destruction spell—he would be in debt to Freya for a tool he didn't need. Relying on RNG to solve his problems was a great way to end up dead or disappointed.
No shortcuts, he told himself firmly, his gaze hardening. If I want healing, I figure it out myself.
That's when the insane idea he had shelved earlier came back—using the Power of Destruction for healing.
It sounded counterintuitive, bordering on suicidal. Destruction was the antithesis of creation. But Max's mind, fueled by anime logic and desperation, spun the concept differently. What if it wasn't about creating new flesh, but about selective erasure?
"Think about it," Max muttered to himself, pacing the plush carpet of his suite. "If I get cut, the problem is the gap in the flesh and the blood loss. What if I treat it like an advanced amputation with fire? Fire cauterizes to stop the bleeding. PoD could theoretically erase the wound itself."
He paused, frowning. "But if I erase the injured tissue... wouldn't that just leave a bigger gap?"
He imagined it: a sword slash on his arm. He applies PoD. The damaged flesh vanishes. Now he has a crater instead of a cut.
"But my body has high magic resistance to my own power," he countered. "Ideally, I wouldn't be erasing me. I'd be erasing the state of injury."
It was a semantic leap, approaching magic like a conceptual editor, but with his Ars Magna converting will into reality, semantics mattered.
Max looked at the clock on the wall. 11:06 PM.
He decided to give this one last attempt. If this failed, then—and only then—would he consider the Grimoire gamble.
"Guess we do it live," Max sighed.
He sat on the edge of the bed and extended his left arm. He hesitated, looking at his pristine skin. Self-mutilation for science.
For science, he repeated mentally.
He dragged his right thumbnail across his left forearm. A shallow white line appeared, barely beading with blood.
"Too weak."
He gritted his teeth and dug deeper. This time, skin parted, and red blood welled up immediately, sliding down his arm. The sting was sharp and hot.
"Ow. Solid 3.2 out of 10. Would not recommend."
Focusing past the pain, Max called upon his Demonic Power. He didn't shape it into a sphere or a blade. Instead, he visualized it as a sealant—a layer of "non-existence" that would reject the reality of the wound.
He pressed his glowing hand over the cut.
Erase the flow. Deny the damage.
The reaction was immediate. The crimson-black energy met the red blood, creating a momentary disorientation of color that made Max dizzy. But then, the blood flow simply... stopped.
It wasn't clotted. It was gone. The PoD had erased the blood leaving the body and formed a pressurized seal over the break in the skin.
"Okay, step one success," Max breathed, sweat beading on his forehead. "Now don't erase the arm."
This was the tricky part. He held the destructive magic in a static state—creating a wall that prevented blood from leaving and bacteria from entering.
Then, his Devil physiology kicked in.
Usually, his diluted regeneration took about ten to fifteen minutes for a cut this deep while resting. But now, the body didn't have to waste resources on clotting or fighting infection. The wound was sealed perfectly by the magic.
Max watched, fascinated, as his natural healing flooded the area. But it felt different—amplified? The pressure of his own regeneration pushed against the "plug" of the Power of Destruction. As the skin knit together from the bottom up, it slowly squeezed the destructive magic out of the wound, layer by layer.
Max saw the magic dissolve gradually, matching the pace of his healing.
In exactly sixty seconds, the wound was gone. Only a faint pink line remained, which faded seconds later.
"Holy shit."
Max stared at his arm, then jumped up, pumping his fist in the air.
"Yes! It works! It actually works!"
It wasn't true "Healing Magic" in the clerical sense—he couldn't cast this on someone else without risking vaporizing their limb because they lacked his specific resistance. But for him? It was a game-changer. A combat-medic solution that cut recovery time by ninety percent.
"I can act as a tank," Max realized, the adrenaline dumping into his system. "I can take hits, seal them instantly with PoD, and regen mid-fight without losing blood."
High on the success of his breakthrough, the exhaustion of the Baptism finally seemed distant. He had a plan. He had a familiar. He had a new technique.
"I need to tell Freya," he decided, a grin splitting his face, looking at the clock...
"First thing tomorrow morning."
He flopped back onto the bed, burying his face in the silk pillows. The books sat on the bedside table, untouched for now, but that could wait. Tonight, he slept with the satisfaction of a scientist who had just cheated the laws of physics.
As his breathing evened out and the room fell silent, moonlight touched the balcony, deepening the peace and quiet...
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
And Cut! That's the end of Max's baptism. And he was successful in circumventing the limitations and creating a 'healing' magic, however crude it might be. Now he wouldn't need the Grimoire, right? Let's see what happens about that in the next chapter.
Do share your thoughts on how the final days were and ideas for the Grimoire in a review/comment.
If you'd like to read 4 chapters ahead, support my work, or commission a story idea, visit p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m/b3smash.
Please note that the chapters are early access only, they will be eventually released here as well.
Next update will be on Tuesday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.