- Respite and Rewards

For about 5 minutes, Hevan and Caylin were paralyzed due to extreme fear. Even after they were able to move, the shaking of their hands would not stop. This was especially so for Hevan who had a very high affinity to magic. His mana was going haywire and it was making him sick.

A few minutes ago, the two just arrived when they saw Alzeius looming over the body of Drago. Hevan thought to deal a cheap shot, only to find out how grave a mistake it was. It might seem lucky that they arrived right after Drago was defeated but the reality isn't that way. Alzeius helped Zex a ton without him knowing.

Currently, Hevan was dragging Avegar while Caylin was carrying the 'unconscious' Drago. They were looking for a place to set up camp while one of them could bring horses from the nearest town to make the trip home faster and easier. They were sweating buckets from the ordeal as both Avegar and 'Drago' were extremely heavy. Hevan wished he could use Spatial Storage so he didn't have to carry the great sword, however, it was bound to 'Drago'.

Zex was pretending to be unconscious the whole time as he was spending his time in and out of his Mind Space inspecting his new body and his bountiful harvest.

The moment he entered, he was disheartened to discover that one of his theories was correct.

He did not gain any of Drago's memories.

'This feels like the scene where Lex Luthor and the Flash swapped bodies.' [1] He mused to himself.

Although he considered this possibility, it didn't make it less disappointing.

Despite this, he could do nothing about it and just pushed it to the back of his mind for now and decided to count his gains.

He discovered that aside from the 5 repressed evil fragments he gained from killing the 5 heroes, he was also awarded 2 more after murdering 20,000 people. Now, he held 7 fragments from which he could learn new skills or gain attribute points.

He then checked his character information.

Name: Zex

Level: 0

Race: [Low Purity Dragon Descendant - Human]

Age: 32

Class: [Lord of Evil]

Subclass: [Dragon Warrior - Lvl 8]

[Demon General - Lvl 10](Incompatible)

[Master Farmer - Lv10]

(Expand/Collapse v)

Experience Points Available: 3,468,102

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Faction: Alzeius

Active Skills: [Soul Swap], [Elite Guards - Evil], [Evil Eye] (Expand/Collapse v)

Passive Skills: [Stamina up LVL 10], [Wisdom of The Aged LVL 10], [Knowledge Seeker LVL 10], (Expand/Collapse v)

Buffs: [None]

Debuffs: [Unstable Mana], [Overclocked Blood Backlash]

Primary Attributes:

(795 unspent)

Strength - 334(448)

Vitality - 262(351)

Constitution - 260(348)

Resistance - 112(150)

Agility - 104(139)

Dexterity - 105(141)

Intelligence - 102(237)

Wisdom - 101(235)

Spirit - 198(265)

Charisma - 24(100)

Luck - 40(204)

Secondary Attributes:

Health = 704/704

Mana = 983/983

Stamina = 585/585

Concentration = 116/133

Resonance = 96/96

Zex was underwhelmed by his base stats as they were only a bit higher than his previous body despite [Soul Swap] incorporating the total stats Drago had before they switched bodies. 'A level 0 Human, even if he was a hero, really is leagues below a level 0 Demon'.

He also found out that due to him no longer being of the demon race, he lost the abilities and bonuses from the Demon Noble Class.

The biggest problem was the [Overclocked Blood Backlash] debuff which reduced his pre-modified stats by 90%. It reflected how much damage [Draconian Manifestation] caused to Drago's body was and there was no indication as to how he could remove the debuff. It was a good thing that he had multiplier enhancers from his [Agent of Death] class that somehow curbed the reduction of his stats.

He was now beginning to doubt if using [Soul Swap] was a good idea.

Burying the disappointment deep in his heart as he could not turn back time, he then went on to check on the classes and subclasses he gained from Drago and Arissef.

(Legendary Class)[Dragon Knight]

Dragon blood flows through your veins. Although the purity is low, you are still able to surpass most humans in various areas.

Each level of a subclass under [Dragon Knight] will increase proficiency with dragon blood by 10%. At certain levels of proficiency, abilities will be unlocked.

Subclasses unlocked: [Dragon Tamer], [Dragon Warrior], [Dragon Mystic]

Investigating each subclass, he found out that [Dragon Tamer] was a ranger class with access to abilities in taming creatures with the dragon bloodline; [Dragon Warrior] was a typical melee specialist that maximized the raw might and tankiness brought about by the dragon blood and; [Dragon Mystic] was like a mobile magic tower granting access to draconian magicks.

With [Dragon Warror] at level 8, he had 80% proficiency with the dragon blood. However, since Drago already unlocked the abilities himself and they were carried over to Zex after they switched bodies, he did not know which of the new abilities he gained they were.

He then moved on to inspect the class he gained from Arissef which surprised him when he got it.

(Advanced Class)[Archmage]

You have walked the path of the arcane to an astonishing level. Multiple doors have opened themselves to you.

Mastery of spells starts at Advanced. Spell learning speed increased by 40% and Spellcasting completion requirements reduced by 40%.

Subclass unlocked: [Mage of Diversity]

Can learn any spell including those exclusive to other magical classes. Cannot be leveled.

It baffled Zex when he found out that Arissef did not have a legendary class, unlike Edge and Drago. Despite this, he was able to stand on equal footing with the two. This only increased his respect for the fallen hero. Although, after reading the class passive, he believed the class was close to a legendary one.

However, he gained more skills from Arissef than from Edge and Drago combined among the three monstrous heroes. He could only imagine how Arissef, who was only human, trained and practiced to learn all of these spells. Not to mention that he also learned skills from other magical branches thanks to the [Mage of Diversity] subclass, which was a boon despite it being locked at level 0. He was excited to become an overpowered mage who has access to many elements like Mo Fan[2].

From elemental magic to the duality magic of light and darkness, from space and time magic to the art of enchantments, from forging runes to drawing circles and formations, from charm spells to cursed, from illusions to necromancy... the list goes on. He estimated that just digesting all these spells alone would take him years. He was thankful that he had his Mind Space to retreat to so he could lessen the actual time he needed to do so.

He decided not to level up just yet or else he might alert the two who were around him.

This thought reminded him of the fact that he was having trouble controlling his black flames. He could feel a violent rejection in his body that he needed to spend part of his awareness into calming them down. 'Is this the effect of [Unstable Mana]'? He thought to himself.

Unfortunately, this also meant that he was not able to use the black flames to learn the skills of the two "escorts".

Helplessly, he decided to focus on mastering restorative spells he learned from Arissef, excluding those that fell under the holy elements which he could not use due to his alignment. In other words, he could not use cleric, priest, or paladin healing spells. The trade-off was that he could easily use healing spells which necromancers, poison masters, and witch doctors practice. This made him curious as to how Arissef got to dabble with such skills.

[1] There was an episode on Justice League Unlimited where Lex Luthor, an iconic villain in the series switches minds with The Flash after a series of events. In one scene, Lex rushed to the restroom excited that he will finally know The Flash's true identity...

However, when he took off the mask, he did not recognize who it was he was seeing in the mirror.

[2] Mo Fan is the main character from the Chinese light novel, Versatile Mage. Mo Fan's consciousness, which was from regular Earth, was transferred to an alternate Earth where magic existed and was being widely used as a replacement to various technology, culture, lifestyles, and combat. When he was tested for which element he possessed, he found out that he had an innate ability to have dual elements. Later on, every time he advanced a tier, he would awaken two more elements each time, unlike normal mages who would awaken only one.