The school year passed without much controversy.
Mike and his classmates were taught a few more spells, but the focus was not on learning new spells but on improving their casting speed. They were also taught about magic, spells, energy, and the underlying theories.
Demons are said to be born from pure energy; their physical shape and physique are a façade. In fact, beneath their physical form lies only dark and chaotic power; their entire body, internal organs, and blood are nothing more than dark chaotic energy that was forced into those shapes. Demons don't have a father or mother; they are born from wandering dark energy that naturally wanders outside the Great Wall.
There was no magic power in the world until the first demon appeared; there was only technology and science before that day. But after the first demon was hit by a nuclear weapon and was split into countless pieces, it disintegrated; its body was transformed into chaotic dark energy and spread throughout the world.
Some magicians believe that chaotic dark energy will eventually unite and resurrect the first demon, but those theories are unconfirmed. However, chaotic dark energy gravitates toward itself.
The chaotic energy that creates demons is considered permanent, indestructible, and unsealable. After a demon dies, its body gradually disintegrates into chaotic dark energy, which spreads around the world. When the chaotic dark energy concentration in one area reaches a certain point, it fuses together and gives birth to another demon. Due to the laws of the world, even very powerful demons can live at most 100 years.
Demon-borns, like demons, have access to immense but not endless energy. Every time they cast spells, it reduces the concentration of demon blood in their body. However, the consumption is so low that it is impossible to use up even 1% of their blood concentration in 100 years.
Demons are made of Chaotic Dark energy, which means that, in theory, after overusing their energy, they can consume it all and die; however, in practice, no demon has ever consumed all of its energy.
Chaotic dark energy is extremely powerful; even tiny traces of it contain unimaginable energy. Moreover, even after being used to cast spells, it still won't disappear completely; it only temporarily disappears from the world and returns after a set amount of time. Using it to cast a spell is only the most superficial use of it; some more powerful demons can use it to create magic weapons and even living creatures.
When casting spells, demons don't draw any outside energy; they are unlike cultivators who absorb pure energy. They use their own personal, internal energy. The same is true for demon-borns; they cast spells by carefully drawing energy from their demon blood.
This is one reason why only demon-borns can cast spells, while normal humans have no way of doing so.
The chaotic dark energy cannot be stored outside the body of a demon or a demon-born. Inventing devices or robots that use this energy to cast spells is impossible; there is no way to absorb the wandering, chaotic dark energy for one's use, either.
There are some energy crystals that contain a very diluted form of energy, but those are only useful in formations. That diluted energy cannot be used to cast spells; it's like pouring one drop of alcohol in 100 liters of water. Even though it's still there, it might as well not be.
Many researchers have worked on the exact mechanism of energy crystals, but until now, they have failed to uncover the whole truth; one thing is certain: the crystals don't actually keep the chaotic dark energy stored in them; it's the chaotic dark energy that keeps energy crystals together; the crystals disappear every 100 years, like any other living creature, they can at most live up to 100 years; one theory is that energy crystals are actually failed demon embryos; they failed to transform into demons because of insufficient energy.
Having pure demon blood means having pure energy with no conflicts in it. Demons with very impure blood are weak because, even though they have 100% demon blood, their energy is extremely inconsistent and cannot be mobilized to cast spells.
The chaotic dark energy is called chaotic for a reason; it is already unsuitable for casting spells. To have a chance, one must be very lucky and get parts of it that have more cohesion and are less conflicting. Most people aren't that lucky; they would most likely get chaotic blood, which leads to them only being able to use a small part of their total potential. But some demons and demon-borns actually get lucky enough to get pure blood.
Most demons have so much conflict in their blood that they may barely be able to use 1% of their total power.
If a demon can use 10% of its total power, it would be considered very powerful.
Demons that can use over 80% of their power are big bosses and leaders of higher echelons in demon cities.
The very lucky few who can use 100% of their potential usually become leaders of big cities, lords of demonic armies, etc.
Among humans, it's already very lucky if a demon-born can use even 0.1% of their total power.
Those with 1% usable power are considered geniuses.
Those with 5% usable power are the best of humanity and future leaders of a generation.
Those with more than 5% are so rare that only one such person has existed in the last century.
That person is Mike.
There are two ways to cast spells: one is to use Blood Spells that everyone with demon blood inherently has; the other is to learn artificial spells that magicians invented over the last centuries.
Every demon and demon born has the ability to cast spells from the moment of birth. As long as they allow their bloodline to take over, they can cast powerful spells from their bloodline.
Bloodline spells differ from person to person and demon to demon.
However, using bloodline spells is absolutely prohibited for demon-borns for one simple reason: drawing on bloodline spells increases the chance of demon-born magicians becoming chaotic and succumbing to their evil nature. This is taught to demon-born children from their first week in school.
The second way is to cast spells using spell models developed by magicians. These spells are generally weaker, but there are many types of them, and they are safe to cast. These spells are much harder to cast and require a lot of training.
To cast spells using spell models, one must first read and memorize the entire spell, then try to imagine the model in their mind. If they manage to do it once, the second time would be much easier. As long as they practice enough, eventually, their speed will be comparable to bloodline spells. The difficulty of learning spell models lies in doing it the first time.
It's said that demons also developed their own exclusive demonic spell models. Spells of blood magic, dark magic, curse magic, and Soul were mostly developed by demons. As Max looted demon settlements, he also obtained those spell models. Some believe that the entire foundation of human magical art is based on the demonic spell models obtained by Max.
Demons shouldn't be thought of as dumb; they are actually very smart. It's just that they are too chaotic to form solid groups across cities. Still, there are groups within demons; each big demonic city has leaders and commanders.
Many human-mage intellectuals have been theorizing and worrying about the day when one powerful demon unifies demonic cities. That would be the end of humanity.
That, however, hasn't happened.
Mike was very curious about magic. He visited the school library regularly and read a lot about history. He was curious about how the world reached its current state.
What surprised him was that there were copies of many books in unknown languages. He asked about them and found that these books were discovered during missions outside, but because no one could read or translate them, they were just put there, hoping some genius magician could decipher them.
These books weren't accessible until the fourth year of school and only became available after he reached the fifth grade.
Eventually, Mike put away the unreadable books and started browsing the spell books.
The students of S-Grade schools were blessed with a massive spell database covering many different subjects. Most of the books were freely available to every student, with only a few, such as blood spell books, being unavailable to the public.
A student must get approval from one of the school's deputy principals to learn blood, dark, soul, and curse spells, among a few others. These spells are very evil and may negatively affect the brains of these children. Of course, once they become adults, even those categories will open up to them.
"These spells are really like the ones in my previous world. I wonder if the spells in my previous life can be replicated here?" he thought. The energy source is different; in the previous world, they were casting spells using mana, while here, they are casting spells using chaotic dark energy. However, the underlying theory is still the same, so bringing the spells of his previous life into this world with some modifications may be possible.
He turned his attention to another pile of books that had only recently become available to him. These were old books about the times before the creation of the wall. They were all translated and ready to read.
The reason they weren't available before is that many of them contain age-inappropriate content. Now, however, the students are 8 years old, which, from the eyes of the government here, is old enough. After all, they aren't ordinary children; they can already cast spells that can easily kill people. They are warriors.
The government mostly stopped treating them like children, even though they were still 8 years old.
Mike picked one and started reading.