DEMON'S VIRTUE

"It's pretty old, and I'll have to see to repairing the furniture a bit, but it should still be better than nothing at all." Eiro pointed out as he stepped further into this space, tryint to take a closer look at everything. The last time he was here, he didn't really have the time to look around this place at all, but now that he was really in here and could take a look at all the carvings a bit more, he was completely convinced that the person that used to live here was the one that created that mana-collecting slab out front.

"Damn... This is lookin' pretty nice. Who'd have thought we'd find a place like this in a goblin village?" Krog asked with a slight wistle, and Eiro just sighed in response, "I'm pretty sure this place is the reason this village even exists. Whoever built this place built the slab out front, and it's pulling mana toward it. That most likely was meant to strengthen the growth of the magic stones out there. Most monsters are attracted to large amounts of mana, and coincidentally the ones that got here first were Mountain Goblins." The Demon explained, "It would have been more surprising to see this area be completely abandoned."

After a bit of thought, Krog just shrugged, "Sure." He replied. Eiro slightly rolled his eyes and then started moving over toward the outside, "Nelli, Gondos, watch the kids. Slime, figure out what exactly you need to seal the monstrosity for all those goblins. And you three, just settle in and take a bit of a break. Lugo, you come outside with me." With those words, Eiro made his way back to the front of this small cave, before he used magic to quickly get rid of the snow that was on and around the carved slab of rock.

Eiro sat down cross-legged on the slab and then looked at Lugo as he sat down right in front of him, staring at the Imp's face.

"Come a bit closer." Eiro told him, and Lugo slowly pulled himself closer toward the slab until Eiro could easily grab Lugo's antlers, something that Eiro quickly did.

"Alright, Lugo. I'm going to be pushing nearly all my mana into you now, alright? I want you to circulate it inside of your body like you did before. Since you're my familiar, you should be able to do that as if it was your own mana." The Demon explained, and Lugo slowly tilted his head to the side with a quiet bellow.

"For one, to help your flow of mana. If you're some kind of Magic Beast, that's how you should be able to level up, after all. And, I need to get rid of my mana to open up space to completely infuse myself with the Nature Magic. Got it?" Eiro asked, although he quickly turned out rather annoyedly and looked at the cave entrance, "Jess, anything wrong? I don't want to be interrupted."

Slowly, the mage girl stepped out of the cave with an awkward smile, "Hehe... sorry about that. Just... what do you mean? You want to infuse your body with Nature Magic? But why..? And why after getting rid of your mana? And especially, how will you even create nature magic with the magic stones without your mana?" Jess asked, seemingly just incredible, incredibly curious about what Eiro wanted to do.

"It's pretty simple." Eiro said, slowly letting go of Lugo's antlers for a little while to turn toward Jess properly, "I have a special constitution, so my body can fuse with magic pretty easily. I'm doing this so that I can awaken my Nature Magic talent into the proper skill more easily." Of course, this was a complete lie. Eiro didn't have a talent for Nature Magic to begin with. Rather, he was trying to gain exactly that talent right now. And there was a pretty different reason for this all as well.

"So, the thing about infusing yourself with magic is... Hmm..." Eiro said, trying to think of a good way to explain it. "Let's say you have a bottle filled with water. The bottle is your body, and the water is your mana. Usually bottles like that aren't completely filled, right? There's still a little bit of air in there."

"Mhm?" Jess slowly nodded her head after listening to that part of the explanation, and Eiro quickly continued, "And then, let's say you have some juice from a berry. That juice is a sort of elemental magic. You fill up the empty space in the bottle with that juice, and then you mix it with the water. That's normal infusion. Now, just think about what happens when there are only a few drops of mana in the bottle to begin with?"

"The bottle gets completely filled up with the juice?" Jess asked quietly in thought, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.

"Exactly. By getting rid of your mana, you can fill your body with even more elemental magic. But since you can't mix your own mana with mana of other people, you can't ask someone else to pump magic into you. But rather coincidentally, I found that my body can indeed take in ambient mana somewhat safely. So, I will make the surprisingly refined, clear ambient mana gathering in the slab below me create nature magic with the magic stones that I will then pull into my body."

After a bit of thought, Jess just nodded her head and scratched her cheek, "Can I... maybe watch?"

"Sure. And in case anything happens and I go out of control or something, make sure to help Lugo push me off the slab and take away the magic stones. Alright?"

"Yup! Will do!" She exclaimed excitedly, while Eiro once more grabbed Lugo's antlers. Slowly, the Demon started pushing his mana into the stag's body. His headache grew stronger and stronger until he was able to barely concentrate or even open his eyes properly. But then, Eiro pressed one of the nature magic stones onto the slab beneath him and tried to use the little bit of mana that he could still use before he would be in danger to create a starting-flow between the slab and the magic stone.

From then on, the ambient mana that had nowhere to go, actually had a new path leading through the magic stone. Immediately, Eiro tried to make it flow into his arms, and just watched as his skin became slightly wooden, although his right hand didn't change too much.

Since such strong mana could jump short distances like this easily, Eiro slowly started lifting the magic stone off of the slab and then pressed it against his chest so that he could actually properly make it flow into his heart. And the moment he did, nature magic started flowing through his whole body.

[Your body has been infused with Nature. Your mana will flow more smoothly and your understanding of mana rises]

Eiro could feel things all over his body change just so sligthly. It was harder to move his body because his skin became thicker and bark-like, and his crystal-like horns started growing out like branches. But soon, the changes slowed down. There were still some constant, miniscule changes going on through growth all over Eiro's body, but it wasn't anything that would be visible to the eyes of a normal person.

That very moment, something else happened as well, though. The 'Mark of the Devil' had absorbed part of the ambient mana that gathered in Eiro's chest after he tried to use his tree as a staff, but it didn't absorb all of it.

There was still a small 'lump' of it in his chest. A lump that simply continued to grow now that Eiro brought more ambient mana into the play. And at some point, a new notification appeared in front of the Demon.

[Your mana is mixing with foreign mana]

[Due to an overwhelming amount of foreign mana, your body is slowly changing]

'Good'. Eiro thought as he slowly closed his eyes. This is basically exactly what he wanted. Eiro was aware that last time the situation was rather dangerous, but it wasn't because of the foreign mana, but rather because it was too much mana for his body to handle. The changes that his body underwent were positive ones back then, really.

The flow of his mana slightly increased, he felt a bit more agile in the long-term, and it felt like the build-up his muscle-memory was supported much more than before. Of course, the changes were miniscule back then, because Eiro didn't do it for a long time. But now, it was different. Now, Eiro specifically wanted to get as much of this ambient foreign mana into his body as possible and make his body change even more.

And why he was doing this while also infusing his body with the nature element? Well, it was quite simple. It wasn't the only element he would infuse his body with, just the main one. He knew what the nature element was good for. It increased how well he could control mana in the first place.

Nature Magic was a kind that was more connected to the essence of mana as any. Simply because it increased the flow of mana this well, Eiro wanted his body to be influenced by it. It would surely passively increase how well Eiro could control his own mana.

That, and he figured that it would also help him gain an affinity for the element if his body was directly influenced by it like that.

The Demon felt the flow of the mana like never before while not fused with Nelli or Gondos, so he knew that it worked pretty well to an extent at least. Sure, the fact that the 'lump' of foreign mana was increasing inside of his body wasn't perfect, mostly because it felt a bit uncomfortable, but Eiro was pretty sure that he could make use of it in a few interesting ways.

And like this, Eiro now continued to meditate like this. Instead of having mana flow through his body, he made the nature magic flow through him in a circle.

More and more, the wood on his body kept growing. The branches atop his head grew longer and thicker, and roots grew out from his limps, crawling along the ground like snakes.

Eiro continued this for a few hours, until he felt someone tap his shoulder, "What?" Eiro asked with a light growl, although he already immediately noticed what was wrong. On top of the cliff were a couple of monsters gathered. They were spider-like, and Eiro noticed them a couple times while they were on their way here in general. They probably followed them all the way here.

"What are we going to do with those? We don't have an archer, and they should be too quick to safely cast magic." James pointed out, "And I can't reach them with my throwing knives either."

With a light groan, Eiro sighed deeply and stood up, having to pull away his overgrown body from the slab, "I'll take care of it." Eiro said as he breathed out deeply and slowly got rid of the elemental mana inside of his body.. But even then, his body had changed a fair bit over the past few hours of absorbing foreign mana while circulating nature magic inside of his body.