Chapter 62 - Transmute
Chapter 62: Transmute
These many souls were actually unexpected to Roy.
Xeron had been really reckless. Had Roy been leading the army, his first thought would have been to retreat right away when facing the powerful elven troops that were three to four times his numbers. But Xeron still wanted to try using magic to reverse the situation. Moreover, he had aimed the Meteor Shower at the densest place on the battlefield. Thanks to Xeron’s magical help, Roy picked up a huge bargain.
The souls of demons usually could not remain in another world. After the demons died, the Ouroborus Mark would pull the demon souls back into the Abyss. As such, all the souls remaining on the battlefield were from the elves. Looking at the densely-packed souls, Roy estimated that there were over a thousand of them. Xeron’s big move had likely damaged one-third of the elves’ military strength.
Of course, Roy was not going to stand on ceremony with this unexpected joy. The souls that left their bodies usually died within a couple of hours or so. Depending on the size of the soul, how long it took to dissipate was different, and it had been quite some time since the battle ended. In Roy’s demon vision, some balls of light had already begun to disappear, so he hurried onto the battlefield to gather these floating souls into the system.
After a while, he finally managed to clean up the souls on the battlefield. He opened the system interface and saw that the number of souls had increased to 1,079!
F*ck! I’m rich!
Not long ago, he had used almost six hundred souls, but he did not expect to replenish them again in the blink of an eye and even exceed the original amount. Roy felt as though he had won the lottery.
Well, I shouldn’t get too excited. I have to first check whether these souls belong to me! Roy quickly calmed down and began to ponder. Xeron isn’t dead yet, and neither am I, so that means the demon contract is still in effect. According to the demon contract, ninety percent of the spoils of war will be handed over to Xeron after winning a battle, but according to the literal meaning, this should refer to a victory… The issue now is if it’s considered Xeron’s lost! I bet Xeron didn’t expect to suffer such a massive defeat.
Generally speaking, it was impossible for demons to have the chance to harvest the spoils of war after losing a battle, so when Xeron wrote the demon contract, he did not consider the situation after a defeat and did not give the corresponding explanation. However, Roy realized that something beyond the demon contract had happened. Because he had pretended to be dead and escaped, despite having lost this battle, Roy had still obtained a large number of souls!
Even Roy was a little puzzled. What is the current situation considered as?
After thinking for a while, Roy finally came to the conclusion that these thousand-plus souls could truly be regarded as his! There was no need to carry out the contract!
Because… Xeron was still being hunted down by the elves. Perhaps in the demon contract, this could count as the battle not being over, so it was the same nature as when Roy secretly snatched souls in battle. Before the battle ended, the souls he collected from the battlefield were all his!
With this thought, Roy finally heaved a sigh of relief. With so many souls in his hands, what Roy feared the most was that it was within the scope of the demon contract’s execution. In that case, it would have been terrible and mean that Roy would have had to hand over more than nine hundred souls.
Roy did not know if the souls stored in the system would be forced out of it when the demon contract was executed. He had never encountered such a situation before, so he did not know if the system was capable of isolating the effects of demon contracts. If it really could isolate the influence of demon contracts, then it would really be a treasure, and he could use this isolation function to cheat demon contracts!
However, he could not use this opportunity to experiment. After all, if the experiment failed and the system could not isolate the influence of the demon contract, he would have to pay a huge price. Therefore, he could only try experimenting with fewer souls in the future.
Now that Roy knew he could use these souls freely, he could carry out his next move.
In fact, be it gaining Xeron’s trust at the beginning, alienating Xeron and Rashka, writing to the elves on Xeron’s behalf, or using the Dark-Dark Fruit to resist damage and escape from the battlefield at the end, Roy’s ultimate goal was to kill Xeron in order to tear apart the demon contract.
With the chaos on the battlefield, Roy had successfully escaped Xeron’s control and did not need to worry about being forced to follow orders anymore. But as long as Xeron was still alive and had not been killed and expelled, the contract would continue to exist and be in effect.
In order to invalidate the contract, one of the parties needed to be killed and expelled, and of course Roy was unwilling to die. The longer he was a demon, the more he understood the importance of the soul. He did not want his soul to suffer damage after he was killed. Since he did not want to die, he could only make Xeron die.
Now was the perfect time. The letter of challenge had angered the elves, and they were hunting the fleeing Xeron. Roy had achieved most of his goals. Next, as long as he could borrow the hands of the elves and dragons to kill Xeron, he would be free!
However, the problem now was whether or not Xeron could escape the pursuit of the elves and dragons. Don’t forget. On another route, there was also the high-rank demon Ignatius, and Ignatius should have many high-level demons in his camp. If Xeron was smart and escaped to meet Ignatius, then the elves and dragons might not be able to do anything about him.
Therefore, Roy felt that he could not place all his hopes on the elves and dragons. It would be best for him to intervene when appropriate.
Thus, Roy opened the system interface and modified his wings using previous settings.
Demon Wings: High-Speed Flight, maximum speed Mach 1!
Yes, he modified the definitions of his demon wings, from the simple one where he could only fly before to the highest speed of sound. To better achieve this, he increased the size of his wings and modified their curvature to become smoother.
Because they were modifications to the original foundation, he did not need to spend too much time. After Roy chose to save and materialize, he paid the price of forty-six souls!
In fact, Roy could have increased the speed even more, but he guessed that the faster the flying speed, the higher the consumption of souls. The speed of Mach 1 was probably enough for now, and the price-performance ratio was also very good.
After the modifications, Roy’s wings quickly changed. The length of the wingspan did not change, but the width had increased. When Roy flapped his wings and flew, he felt that he required much less strength and effort than before. He still remembered which way Xeron had escaped in, so he rushed into the sky and sped up in that direction.
He did not fly at Mach 1 speed for now because he was not in a rush to catch up. Xeron would need a lot of time to completely escape the pursuit of the elves, so Roy still had time.
While flying, Roy drew in the system interface.
On a new, blank page, he drew a cube, then casually drew some patterns on it, and then began coloring it, creating a simple-looking box that opened at the top.
Afterward, Roy started to define the box.
Horadric Cube.
Item Effect: Transmute low-quality souls into high-quality souls!
Yes, this was a design that Roy had thought of recently. To Roy, low-quality souls were easy to obtain, but he could only use them in the system to make static objects and modify his body. He could not use them to create dynamic skills, and the high-quality fallen souls and noble souls used to create skills were not easily obtained. Therefore, Roy had been thinking about whether he could get low-quality souls and high-quality souls to transform into each other.
According to Roy’s understanding of souls, he felt that this transformation was possible. A fallen soul should contain a large amount of negative emotions and energy. When someone deviated from their conscience and race to commit misdeeds, it often caused their soul to generate a large amount of negative emotions and energy. When these negative emotions and energy reached a certain extent, their soul would turn black!
By the same logic, noble souls should possess great love for others and be willing to sacrifice themselves. These were positive emotions and energy.
In fact, low-quality souls contained similar emotions and energy. When any living creature died, they would feel afraid of injuries, fear of losing their lives, hate for the enemy, reluctance to part with their family and friends, yearning for their loved ones, and so on. However, these positive and negative emotions intertwined, and it was impossible to tell which side had more emotions. It could only be regarded as being in balance, resulting in the soul becoming a low-quality soul.
Neither noble nor evil, these kinds of souls were just ordinary…
Since both emotions and energy were in low-quality souls, why not extract them and transmute them into high-quality souls?
What Roy wanted to make was a medium, and it did not matter what the name was. Of course, this box would not be the real Horadric Cube and could only count as a fake. He initially wanted to call it Pandora’s Box, but then he thought about the transmute function and decided that it was more appropriate to call it the Horadric Cube.
This was why Roy only dared to make this item with a large number of souls in his hands. After all, he was more confident. In order to reduce the consumption as much as possible, Roy only gave it a relatively simple definition.
But even so, Roy spent four hundred souls to materialize it. It seemed like it was indeed not easy to improve the quality of souls.
A quaint box appeared in his hand, and Roy began to experiment with soul transmutation.
One, two, three… Only when he put in 198 souls was there a burst of light in the box, indicating that the transmutation was successful.
Roy opened the lid and found two souls floating out of the box! One was a fallen soul exuding thick black mist, and the other was a colorless, noble soul glowing with light!
The reason two souls appeared at once was that the positive and negative emotions and energy of the souls within the box were separated and reassembled. According to Roy’s setting for the Horadric Cube, two high-quality souls would appear every time he transmuted…