First Step of Evolving

Kantan began the process of cycling his chi out toward his hand, which was hovering over the corpse of the imp he had slain. He felt his reinforced channels expanding to their full capacity as half of his core was rapidly depleted. It surprised him to know that the sensation was oddly comparable to being overly full after a large meal. His channels seemed to dislike being used this way, but Veri assured him that his body could handle it safely.

Chi quickly filled the cells of his arm and hand, before he exerted more pressure from his core. He needed to push the chi out through his skin at a steady pace, while focusing on controlling. Once the chi had left his body he would have significantly reduced control over it, so he needed to basically be touching the imp at his level. As long as he kept all of the chi connected Veri would be able to help him control the cloud of their chi. If he pushed to much or too little out though, it could either fail to work or the chi could disperse.

"You are almost there, you just need to be careful once you move past the skin though. Chi tends to group together like water, so once some escapes it will try to bring more with it." Veri was nothing but supportive as the chi began to blend out of his channels and into the surrounding tissues of his hand. A muted grunt of exertion left Kantan's lips as he clenched his core with his will, putting more pressure on the chi in his hand. It began to move much faster than he expected it to, and it swiftly pulsed out of his open palm. "Too much! Reel it back in by maybe half."

"Trying" Another grunt, but this time more due to the strict control he was trying to have over his body. He was not practiced in regulating chi flows yet, and he swiftly found that he lessened the pressure too much. The chi that was flowing out of his hand rapidly stopped entirely, severing the connection he had to the gray cloud. "Shit!" Kantan could feel that a fourth of his core had been emptied, and Veri's presence weakened slightly. It wasn't enough to be dangerous, but he could tell it was affecting her.

She did not seem angry or anxious though, her words coming calmly. "It's alright, we have plenty of time for this. Even if we can't absorb it right now, more will spawn in the future." It helped that she wasn't poking fun at him when it really mattered, but he couldn't help but blame himself for the failure. Manipulating the chi to such a fine degree was not as easy as he had expected it to be. He had compared the exercise to the times when he had swamped his body with chi to fight and move, but he could now tell that it took considerably more control and discipline to achieve the effect they wanted.

The attempt hadn't taken long, but recovering would take almost double the time of each attempt at his current level. "Lets give it one more try, and if we can't make some form of progress than we'll revisit later. If I really can't get it, than you'll need to make some more appetizing demons appear. I'd really rather not have demon steak if I can help it."

Veri laughed at his antics, "I'll have you know, that I have charbroiled more than a handful of pesky adventurers. I am sure that I could make a mean steak, assuming I had the hand to cook it with atleast."

The lightening of the mood helped Kantan to relax slightly as he recollected and began to cultivate with his new technique, which he wanted to name the Demonic Star technique. He wasn't the best at naming things, so he simply slapped some relevant words together. The pattern reminded him of a star, and he was a demon now. Thus, Demonic Star technique. Kantan didn't expect to tell people the name of his technique, but the act of doing something considered normal brought his mood up.

After a few minutes of collecting the ambient demonic essence, his core was refilled. This time, he tried to approach the problem logically. Kantan started with a light pressure, and then began to slowly increase how much power he was putting behind his chi. The same feeling of power came to him from his flooded arm, but he ignored it to focus on the process. Steadily he increased the pressure until a slow fog began to drift from his hand onto the bloodied torso of the imp.

"Very good, just maintain that rate, and I'll take care of the rest." While his core had lowered in its current chi quantity, he found that Veri's weight in his mind had not shifted. If anything it felt like when she had split a piece of herself off to focus on manipulating his chi internally. Though this time he felt no presence from her, as if she was very distracted. It was about this time that he noticed the body of the imp changing, his eyes widening in surprise and shock.

The imp's body seemed to be disintegrating before his very eyes, the particles of ash floating up through the mist in a pulsing fashion. It almost looked as if a dark cloud was funneling around another, even darker cloud. He was slightly worried that he would run out of chi, as he had to keep pushing more out of his body to sustain the connection. Briefly after he had that concern though, he felt his chi return to his hand, going through his meridians again and rejoining the channels in his body.

At the same time a tingling sensation began to spread out throughout his hand and arm. It felt like his arm had been asleep, and had just now begun to awaken. The sensation was almost enough to upset the balance Kantan had created, but he caught himself before he could mess up. Slowly that tingling sensation spread to the rest of his body, lessening as it covered more area. Once his whole body was covered in that tidal wave of stimulation, it was significantly less intense compared to the start.

By the time he had reached this point, he was sweating under the effort of sustaining the chi flow. It was not easy to exert such fine control, especially through his tissues and skin. They resisted the flow of chi, unlike the empowered chi channels Veri had given him during their transition. He inspected the imp, which at this point was mostly unrecognizable.

Most of its body was gone, only the skin and bones of its back remained as it was turned into genetic ash from the top down. The overall process had only taken a few minutes thus far, which surprised him. Kantan had expected it to have taken significantly longer to break down a demon like they were.

After another couple of minutes, the only thing that was left of the imp was a shard of one of its claws. Veri quickly broke down and absorbed it before the funnel of chi began to invert itself and flow back into his hand. When he saw it was done he stopped pushing his chi outside of his body and began to cycle it through his channels to purify it. The sensation had grown over time, even though it was evenly spread throughout the different parts of his body. A few beads of sweat dripped from his forehead as he closed his eyes and focused on dealing with the odd tingling.

"Looks like I was right! Not only can we absorb other demons, but your cells have entered a state of forced mutation. Imps are not known for any one specific trait, but they are good all rounders at this level." Veri was happy to see them making progress, and a sense of pride flowed into Kantan's mind at her words.

Kantan thought distractedly for a moment before responding, "That would explain why I feel it all over my body. It isn't enhancing a specific feature of my body, but the whole thing equally." He took a few moments to reflect on the fight, and found that attacking with his claws was very enjoyable and effective. "I should find some demons that have stronger and sharper claws. This last fight was almost trivial because of these."

He examined his claws with a slight smirk on his face. He couldn't help but think of what he would be capable of once he evolved his body another time. Demonology stated that demons evolve to suit their strengths, which explained why he had received claws as a hand to hand fighter. "We definitely need to absorb some more demons that can improve my claws. As well as ones that can increase my defense. If I am going to be fighting so close to the enemy, I will need some form of protection."

Veri was happy to respond, "Well isn't it a good thing that you happen to have someone who can program in some powerful demon's for you to fight and absorb? Don't forget though, I am not going to stay here forever. No matter how much you plead and beg, I have already spent thousands of years reaching emerald. I will not spend thousands more waiting for you to reach it as well."

Kantan sighed as he thought about what she was asking him to give up. With her ability to create new monsters, she could help him create the perfect demon body. Not only that, he could also utilize the demonic chi in the dungeon to rank up his soul. As much as he wanted to ask her to let him stay longer to get stronger, he knew that what she wanted was reasonable. She had saved his life, and made it possible to practice chi at the same time. She had also given up the one thing that she had spent the last couple thousand years hand crafting. "Alright, alright. After we hit the stone rank of our soul we will go out and explore. Until then though we are too weak to handle most of the people we will encounter outside of the dungeon. There are just too many people that would take one look at us, and assume the worst."

"Its too bad that no-one else appreciates the fine qualities of a bloodthirsty brutal demon like I do." She seemed genuinely disappointed in the lack of peers among the visually challenged.

Kantan finished purifying his chi, and the sensation of his cells mutation quieted down until it eventually vanished. Once he was in tip top shape, he set out through the door of black mist that had formed soundlessly at some point.