DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro was laying in his bed, he was violently convulsing and sweating rivers. His muscles bulged up, blowing up like balloons just to deflate again a moment later. He just entered the peak of one of the first waves of strong change that his body was going through.

These were always a thing that he had to deal with during his evolutions, but they were never this painful this early on. And considering how long this whole evolution would take, and how quickly the first wave came, it was clear that this evolution would be a tough one.

But nonetheless, Eiro made some choices. Choices that could break him if he wasn't careful. But more importantly, choices that would make him much, much more powerful once this evolution was over. He had manipulated his personal chaos similarly to how he did with Jess, James, and Krog's, just that in this cse, he manipulated it to strengthen the growth of every single aspect of his being. His muscles, his mind, his senses... everything was completely on fire at the moment.

And on top of all that, something else would be happening now. Koperia walked up to Eiro's bed, where he was laying half-naked in preparation of this, and sat down on the bed's edge, "Shall we begin?" She asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, keeping his eyes squeezed shut.

With a smile on her face, Koperia climbed further onto the bed, sitting down on his lower abdomen. She pressed her hands onto his chest, running her fingers along the patterns created by Eiro's blessings, intricately running across his skin. And as her fingers grazed Eiro's flesh, they suddenly dug into it. And it wasn't that she was physically pushing her fingers through his skin, but her hands were turning into something new, something ethereal. They were being pushed through Eiro's physical body, and instead interacted with his own ethereal body, his soul.

She grabbed his soul and slowly interacted with it. Eiro was basically able to feel it translate to his body. His skin was bulging up and down right where Koperia pushed and pulled on his soul. And then, Eiro could start feeling something change on his chest. His flesh was feeling... weaker. Sponge-like, basically, as Koperia tried to subtly adjust the shape of the soul to properly fill out Eiro's body. There was little to do along Eiro's torso and legs for the most part, but even then there were aspects that needed a bit of Koperia's influence.

In these early stages, Eiro's soul was still more 'solid' than during the latter parts, so this was a great chance to get all of these things out of the way. And later, when the soul was reshaping itself some more along with Eiro's body, Koperia would take care of other parts of his fomr, like his head, wings and tail.

But at the same time, since Eiro's soul still was quite solid, this part was probably a lot more painful than the rest would be. Or so he was hoping, at least.

"We will continue this for an hour or two, and we will do the same each night until these parts are solid. It should take a week or two to get these basic forms out of the way, and then we will get to the rest of your body. At that point things should proceed a lot more quickly. After we fixed everything in that regard, I will simply support your physical changes. Help your soul move into its proper space." Koperia explained to him, and Eiro simply nodded his head. His throat was feeling weirdly sore, so he wasn't able to speak that well at the moment.

Was something going to change about his voice as well? That was the only reason he could think of why he wasn't able to properly speak right now. For now, Eiro tried to get through everything without convulsing too much, so that Koperia didn't accidentally push something in his soul around the wrong way. He turned parts of his skin into metal, thickening it around his joints to make it basically impossible for him to move some parts of his body around, just to make everything a bit easier.

A few hours later, Koperia slowly pulled her hands back out of Eiro's chest. The ethereal glow and translucency slowly faded away, and she climbed off of him, "I think that worked out pretty well for today. Tomorrow we'll work on parts of your lower abdomen." She explained, rubbing her hands with some cloth, as if she was trying to dry them off.

"You're being pretty quiet today, huh?" Koperia asked, and Nelli soon appeared next to Eiro, and the Demon chose to speak through her. They were able to communicate telepathically, after all.

"His throat is being affected as well, so he can't properly speak." Nelli explained, and Koperia slowly shrugged, "Well, it's not a big deal. You usually speak enough to make up for this. But won't this be a bit bothersome when you start to teach again?"

"It will be, but Eiro said he would figure something out." Nelli explained, and Koperia actually seemed rather curious.

---

"Welcome back. I hope your short vacation was fun for you all." A voice echoed through the classroom, "In today's returning class, we're going to be doing something a bit more fun, something without any pressure, to slowly get you into classes again. And what I am talking about might be rather clear with this small trick that I'm demonstrating to you right now." The voice explained next.

The voice was one created by magic, through complex manipulation of air magic and combining it with arcane magic. Arcane magic was able to be used to create plenty of complex magical effects like these, "Also, before we begin, I want to apologize that I am using this magic to speak to you. I injured my throat casting some new magic I wanted to try out." Eiro explained, "But again, it's a great chance to teach you these sorts of things. I have told you all before that magic has different, unique uses outside of what is usually discussed. Being able to come up with unqiue uses for magic will help you in any situation. Just having that capability will give you access to new uses for your combat spells, or new applications for utility spells."

The kids in the class started muttering to each other about the content of this class, as Eiro smiled and continued, "For the next few weeks, each of you will be working on a project. If you want to, you can form small groups of two or three people, but I am expecting the scale of the project to reflect the amount of people involved. The goal of this project is simple. Create a unique, creative new spell."

The students looked back at Eiro confused, since they were aware of how much such a task entailed. One of them raised their hands to ask a question, and Eiro pointed at him to signal that he should speak.

"Can't only really experienced mages create new spells? And ones with really high stats and skill levels..?" He asked.

Eiro quickly responded, "Obviously, I'm not asking you to fully create a new spell, I'm not some maniac. I'm asking you to create the concept for a new spell. Think of a new theoretical application. If you want to, you can go as far as you want with this, of course. I don't even mind if you manage to get a more experienced mage create prototype magic circle or something like that, you can take it as far as you want. Flesh it out if you wish. But all that's required is to give me a concept. This project will be graded, but it's only a small part of your final grade. Even then, you are required to hand something in to pass. But if you have situations that make this harder for you, feel free to come and talk to me about it, and we can make arrangements."

The Demon was using this complex magic, but he needed to concentrate on it much, much more than he thought. Much more of his mana than normal was used, considering the complexity of the spell. This was one of the drawbacks of reducing the time that it took for him to evolve.

"Go ahead and start working on this now. Form groups if you want, just brainstorm with yourselves, just go ahead. You have a late deadline for this anyway, two months from now." Eiro explained. Quickly, the students began talking to each other, and noise started filling out the room while Eiro was able to use this time to relax a little bit more. Surely, the changes to his throat were going to be over relatively soon, so he should be able to talk again properly when it came to that.

While the students were working, Eiro started observing his own body again, although he had a tough time properly concentrating. Since he was influencing his own mind by manipulating his chaos, he had a bit of trouble keeping up his concentration, especially after he had to concentrate on that voice spell just now.

But even then, Eiro was able to see what changes were happening to his body right now. The muscles in his torso were being moved around for some reason, and even his skeletal structure was changing somewhat. He wasn't sure what exactly was going to happen, though. Maybe just some changes to his wings that would make them more powerful. But even then, he was in quite a lot of pain.

It was just something that he had to deal with for now, though.. It would definitely pay off.