The Strongest Spellblade

I am Demon Mandaeism.

I write to improve my mind.

My first memories are of the depths. The sweet taste of the soul fruit had past my lips, granting me consciousness. My soul was freed from the cloying embrace of the depths.

Escaping the confines of the depths, breathing in the surface air, was my first taste of freedom. Freedom from the Mana that both fed and shackled me.

My benefactor was the Demon Abaddon. He desired to raise an army to kill the beastkin and claim the surface of this world for demon kind. He awakened many of my brothers and sisters. He gave me my name. The right of the one who awakened me.

I learned many things from the Demon Abaddon. He could be considered my parent. His lessons were harsh and unerring. Controlling our forms. Using skills effectively. Weakness was punished. Many demons did not survive the training.

I had asked Demon Abaddon of where the first demon came from. Since no monster could willingly eat a soul fruit. He said that he was awoken by another demon just like all of us were. If we became strong enough, it was our duty to wake more of our brethren up. To train and continue on our race, least it be destroyed for all time.

Each of us chafed under his restrictions. We knew that we would be disposed of. That is why we banded together and killed Abaddon and shattered his core. That was when the distrust was truly born.

No demon would trust another. We would work together and hunt beastkin. But there was always the fear of betrayal.

I looked up from the book in shock. It was a book written by an actual demon. Demons were created by a monster consuming a soul fruit of the dungeon. They were originally monsters. I looked over at Ozy and felt a sense of unease. That Spark skill was highly concerning.

Was that where the first demon came from? A pet given a soul fruit, and they gained sentience. The thought was disturbing. Would Ozy turn into a demon?

Demon Naberius and myself have decided to investigate crafting skills. Tools seem a powerful force multiplier of the enemies we face. While they are generally weak, their tools give them an outsized ability to fight us.

The book then went into a long dissertation on crafting and how without the skills necessary, the demons struggled to improve beyond the most basic of items. They weren’t able to create higher tier items.

As I quickly flipped through the book, it was about crafting, research into the world itself, and the occasional fight with beastkin.

“You find something interesting?” Lanner asked me.

“Yes. Something that is…hard to measure in worth. The knowledge it contains…I am not sure if it should be spread.”

“Why, what is it?” he asked.

“How demons are created,” I replied.

“Truly?” he asked.

“And it is written in blood,” I said while putting the book away in my spatial pouch. Lanner recoiled at that.

“Are you planning to destroy it?” he asked.

“Maybe. The knowledge is dangerous, very dangerous. I will have to think on what to do with it,” I said but I had already made up my mind. I would read the book carefully and then after learning all that I could I would trade it to the College for a sizable reward.

They wouldn’t publish the knowledge, but could release a fake study that soul fruits would kill a pet over time, causing their souls to become unstable. I had no doubt they had spread such misinformation in the past.

There was no way that someone at the College hadn’t given a monster a soul fruit to see what would happen. Well maybe not, such items were incredibly valuable. To waste one on a pet would be the height of extravagance.

If it was truly new information or even forgotten information, the College would not hesitate to work out some kind of deal. Just a book written by a demon would be a novelty and provide a lot of insight into their thinking.

With The Mathemancer and the other supreme legends being killed by one, interest in demons was incredibly high. That kind of attention would only increase the value of the book. Unfortunately, there were no secret demon skills that were listed.

I felt a touch of regret at the lost knowledge that the demon could have shared with me, but I couldn’t trust it. The moment I let down my guard, it could have overwhelmed me and killed me.

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Once I was at its mercy, there would be no coming back. I wasn’t strong enough to take it prisoner. If I was a legend or a supreme legend, I could have easily kept it suppressed without too much worry.

But its stats were immense. The greatest advantage I had was my versatility and my opponents being unable to cope with the range of options I had. As long as something worked, I could seize the advantage in the fight. Ozy was quite helpful in that regard.

Lanner had also helped, but he wasn’t absolutely necessary. He made things easier and his wands packed a punch, but he was just too weak otherwise. That caused him to be overlooked since I was considered the biggest threat, but it also meant his life could be lost in a single breath.

I liked the gnome, but he just didn’t have the versatility or stats to keep up with me in combat. That’s why I wanted to take him back home and drop him off there. He would do well as a regular adventurer after spending so much time with me.

“And that’s it besides the corpse,” I said as I reached into the spatial pouch and wasn’t able to grab anything.

“Clean.”

After touching that book, I cleaned myself. I had no idea what it was made of besides blood, but I had a bad feeling about it. Clearly the demon Mandaeism had wanted to create some kind of demon culture, or emulate the culture of other races.

I went over and checked the stew. The rich aroma of vegetables filled the room. I got out bowls and Lanner and I had some warm vegetable broth.

“So good. I finally feel warm inside,” he said.

“When you adventurer on your own, you won’t have a cook with you. This is really extravagant treatment,” I said.

“What?” Lanner asked.

“Most adventurers look down on cooking in the dungeon. I find that foolish, since it helps with one’s reserves. But it is what it is. Probably because they don’t want to take the time to learn proper cooking,” I said with a shake of my head and sipped the warm stew.

“Insanity. Absolute insanity. What do they eat then?” he asked.

“Stale bread and salted meat,” I replied.

“Truly? You aren’t trying to trick me?” he asked.

“Nope. They also don’t have a spatial pouch. Only legends tend to have them, or those close to reaching such status. Or you have to have rich parents. Also, the Clean spell, most adventurers don’t know that as well,” I said.

“Clean!”

“You learned it?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes. Not as good as yours, but I can cast the spell skill,” he said.

“Well, it is useful. At least you can use it on yourself from now on,” I said.

“So, this is our new home for the next four months?” Lanner asked.

“Whenever we get past the dark season. Four or five months sounds about right. Ozy should wake up by then. And as long as it is light long enough to make decent progress, we can leave,” I said.

“At least we have this place. If we had to stay in a tiny cave for that long, I would go crazy,” he replied.

“We would enlarge it over time if we had to. But we would survive. It might not be fun, but it could be done. That is the important thing, being able to survive,” I said.

“I never thought adventuring would be like this. I knew…but it is different than what I thought.”

“What did you think it would be like?” I asked.

“Less pain, hardship, cold, and almost dying,” he said, and I chuckled while we sipped our warm stew.

“Welcome to the life. Though it should get better once we get to the Eldarin continent. At least you will be considered quite capable once we arrive. Level 60 would be a good place to be at,” I said.

“You mentioned that already,” he replied and I shrugged.

“It means you will get enough respect despite your stature. And your Gnomish Fencing has improved, so you can handle yourself in melee better,” I said.

“Only Focused Gnomish Fencing, a tier 2 skill,” he replied.

“It is progress. And your wand combat is coming along quite well. You can commission more wands made once we get back. They aren’t that common, but you could get some defensive wands made with Ward,” I said.

“I plan to. But that won’t be cheap,” he said.

“Of course not. But with all the cores we have collected, you will have more than enough money to get yourself sorted out once we get over there. We just need to find a dungeon entrance, which I can do, and then it is simply a matter of going through the dungeon,” I said.

“And you? What will you be doing? Joining another team?” Lanner asked nervously and I shook my head.

“No. I will get my equipment repaired and then come back to deal with unfinished business. It’s going to be expensive to get taken care of. Especially if I want good equipment,” I said with a heavy sigh.

“You must have a lot of cores saved up,” he said.

“Not as many as you might think, since I used a lot of them as explosives. I was using up more than we got in some of those fights down in the 12th layer,” I replied.

“Those fights were awful. So many monsters. I feel weak,” he said.

“That’s why you need to go into the dungeon on your own or with other people. Broaden your horizons. You are capable Lanner, and with the right skills I have no doubt you will reach legend one day,” I said.

Since he had survived this long, he had a good chance of making it in my mind. He would have to put in a tremendous amount of work, and it would be soul crushing. But he could do it.

The real challenge would be getting from level 80 to level 100. He would really have to push himself. If he made it that far, I had no idea what he would do after that. Probably retire and think about his people he could never return to.

It was brave of him to leave everything he knew behind. I don’t know if I could have made the same decision in his place. For that alone, Lanner had my respect. He had taken the first and most important step.

That was why after seeing his courage in the dungeon, I had a good feeling that he could make it legend if he didn’t have an accident. Justin’s Adventuring School had done a good job of teaching him the important things so he knew what he was doing.

Compared to the new adventurers he was a seasoned veteran. He had been to the 12th layer, fought an Abnormal, fought demons, and had survived. That alone made him incredibly seasoned.

His small size would make navigating human society a bit difficult, but he would manage. At the end of the day, being a level 60 made one a professional, granting a certain level of respect and deference regardless of what one looked like.

Not as much as a legend, but once he got his adventurer’s card he could use that to handle most issues in human society.

I could tell he was nervous about leaving me, but there was nothing that would change my mind about this. I liked Lanner, but he wasn’t someone I wanted with me on my team. I was effectively power leveling him and doing most of the hard work in killing monsters. It was unbalanced.