The Damned Demon

"I guess I thought too much…" Asher mumbled as nothing happened after opening the grimoire. He saw hellish scarlet letters inscribed on the pages and carefully read them,

[ "A part of the souls of the six fallen beings exist in this tome. Only the one who carries the blood of the Fallen Maiden can call upon the power of these six souls. But beware…holding the power of any one of these souls will not only bestow upon you their strengths but also their weaknesses ]

Asher felt he didn't have to worry about the first half of the paragraph since the Hell Maiden mixed her "blood" with his, which satisfied the condition to let him use this grimoire.

However, he was slightly concerned about the rest of what he read. Will he see an overall benefit or not?

Still, he decided to read further first,

[ Girgal, the Nefarious Imp. Known for its agility and trickery, call upon his power to evade the impossible or trick the gods ]

"Trick the gods? What does that mean?" Asher didn't get what it meant, but one thing he realized was that, apparently, he could bestow himself with the power of one of these souls, with the first one being Girgal.

He could see that the rest were locked, but he was looking forward to seeing how the powers of the imp would be of help to him.

He saw paragraphs of complicated runes, which were nothing but primary spells he had to learn and engrave in his mana circuit. Engraving these runes would help him gain passive abilities and talents.

This was how everyone gained power from their personal grimoires. Otherwise, who would spend hours or days or months drawing the runes to use these powers each time they wanted to? It was best to engrave them in one's mana circuit so that they could use it anytime and would be permanent.

This was one of the most difficult parts since it was one of the most delicate processes which involved the lifeline of a person. Just a small mistake during the engraving process, and they could cripple themself or, worst case, explode into bits and pieces.

But what was even more difficult was to engrave these runes perfectly, which required a sound understanding of the runes being engraved. More powerful the grimoires were, the more complicated the runes would be, making it harder for the person trying to learn.

This was one of the important cases where the INT stat came into play. The more one's 'Intelligence' increases, the more one would be able to understand the language of mana.

But most importantly, the capacity of what kind of grimoires one can learn was judged based on their bloodline class. Just having high INT didn't mean that their bloodline would be able to handle the power of the runes of a higher grade or even have the capacity to contain them.

Someone with an Epic Class bloodline can, at most, learn from Epic Grade grimoires. But if that person tries to learn from Legendary Grade grimoires, then there would be a good chance they might kill themselves in the process.

This was why he realized demons gave so much importance to bloodlines since they valued strength the most. Those with a higher class bloodline would naturally be able to learn from higher grade grimoires and thus have more potential to be strong.

Still looking at his mysterious stone ring, he by now realized it was like a grimoire but not in the form of a book. He had theories of how grimoires need not look like a book, but he had never seen any grimoire that didn't look like one, except for the one on his finger.

But he was damn sure that no grimoire existed that could let him gain powers without even consciously learning the runes or if there were any. This ring granted him abilities the moment it activated, not needing to do anything at all. It was as if he had learned them already. It just didn't make sense at all.

However, he never expected his bloodline to be of the mythical Immortal Class. This made him even more curious about his origins and who abandoned him in this hellish place to be tortured for most of his life.

But he already had enough things to deal with and pushed this aside for a different day.

He took a deep breath as he closed his eyes and began to learn and understand these mystic runes before carefully engraving them into his mana circuit.

A few hours passed when Asher finally opened his eyes and sighed in satisfaction upon seeing some messages pop up in his head,

[ New Passive Ability Learned ]

[ New Talent Learned ]

[ New Skill Learned ]

Passive Ability:

[ Power of Fallen Souls - You can temporarily call upon the power of any one of the six fallen souls ]

Asher had never felt this excited in a long while, realizing the potential power he could gain through this grimoire. He had learned by now that if he completely learned all the spells in this grimoire, then he could call upon the power of any of the six demon spirits he fought in the chamber.

Even if the first few spirits were weak, their strengths can't be underestimated, especially if those strengths become a part of his power, temporarily, of course.

He could only imagine the damage he could do with each of their powers. He had already seen how overpowered Hell Maiden was, who was able to use all their strengths at the same time while he could only use the strengths of one spirit at a time, though that was more than enough for him. He had only unlocked Girgal's soul for now and still had yet to unlock the power of the rest.

Now he understood why this grimoire was Immortal Grade. It was simply too powerful.

Talent (Active: Girgal -> -25% DEF | -20% STR | -30% INT ):

[ Diabolical Speed - You possess Girgal's speed, increasing your DEX by 50% instantly (0/10) )

Asher immediately took a look at his stats,

HP : 1165 -> 875 / 875

MP : 2585-> 156 / 1810

STR : 444 -> 355

DEF : 233 -> 175

INT : 517 -> 362

DEX : 168 -> 252

…

"Should I be feeling good about this or not?..." Asher winced upon seeing the significant decrease in most of his stats upon activating Girgal's soul, though his DEX did increase significantly.

With such a high DEX he could potentially dodge attacks and react fast enough to perhaps even save his life. So he felt like he could activate Girgal's power whenever he needed to be fast enough to get out of a tight situation.

This was one of the greatest ability of the Power of Fallen Souls. He can activate and deactivate the power of any one of these souls whenever he wanted, though there was a small cooldown before he could activate it again. So it was not like he had to endure the decrease in his stats all the time.

He couldn't wait to awaken the power of other five souls as well. He then looked at the Skill he learned as well,

Skill (Active: Girgal):

[ Never Look Behind - Teleport yourself right behind the person you look at instantly (Cost: 800 MP) (0 / 5) ]

This was the thing he felt most great about. This was absolutely a broken skill. And the greatest benefit he got from learning this skill was he awakened a new powerful pathway…an Arcane pathway!

If it was a day ago, he wouldn't have expected his bloodline to have the potential to possess such a powerful pathway.

But since he now knew he had an Immortal Class bloodline, he wasn't that surprised.

As far as he knew Arcane pathway had three subpaths -> Space, Time, and Gravity

So based on the skill he had just learned, he awakened the Space pathway. If anybody else realized the royal consort now possessed three major pathways in his mana circuit, their souls would shudder in sheer fright of his bloodline.

Even having a single major pathway was considered to be lucky. Having two was something only powerful nobles could have. But having three would make people consider that person a monster.

"Heh, this is going to be fun," Asher chuckled at himself after imagining the faces his enemies would make once he used this skill.

Its MP cost was absurd but worth it. And by the looks of it, it seemed like this skill would evolve in such a way that it would lower the MP cost as it jumps to higher stages.

Asher got up with a pale face as he was drained after comprehending the contents of an Immortal Grade grimoire for hours.

However, he had no idea that people would be stumped seeing him easily comprehend a part of it in hours when some of them would take days or weeks to comprehend a Common Grade Grimoire.

He felt he was done for today and got up. The moment he did, Merina came running towards him with a clean cloth to wipe away his sweat and help him put on fresh clothes.

Based on his expression, she could see that he comprehended something from his Immortal Grade Grimoire, which made her feel like she couldn't begin to grasp how much of a terrifying genius he was.

Asher was used to looking after himself. But over the past month, he realized that as a noble, his maid would help him do everything, no matter how trivial.

Even though he wasn't particularly fond of letting others do these simple things for him, he let Merina do her maidly duties to get used to his new life and also to not let her get rusty with her duties.

After she was done, he opened the door, only to see a 6 3" tall figure of a woman clad in armor from head to toe with a huge double-handed sword holstered on her back.

Who could it be other than Eradicator, who seemed to have been waiting for him outside all this time.

"Your Highness, will you stay here or return to the castle?" Eradicator asked as she immediately turned around while subtly bowing her head.