"AAAA!??"
Azel abruptly woke up in cold sweat, as if he just had a nightmare.
"H-how long am I unconscious for!?" Azel held both of his ram horns in a state of panic. "Why am I wearing different clothing!?"
Not to mention, he woke up in a rather nicely crafted makeshift bed complete with a sheet and a blanket over his body. The interior walls were made out of wood and were surprisingly nice to look at, as if a master carpenter was the one behind it.
The 'neutralized' flaming flower that was potted on the top of a drawer table beside the bed was comfy to look at, even with the sunrise illumination that was entering through the small paneless window on the right wall.
"Where in the world have I gone to?" Azel questioned, although he was no longer in the state of panic thanks to the friendly atmosphere that the room gave out. "Why are there so many stitches in my body!? Actually, what is even happening in the first place!??"
And just like that, he went back to panic mode.
Then suddenly, he heard a thudding sound beyond this room. Followed by a dimmed creak, the wooden door on the left opened, revealing a familiar gorgeous face of someone.
"Ah, you're awake."
That deep and lascivious voice.
It was Yroa!
"HIIKKH-!!"
Without skipping a beat, he approached the confused and frightened sheep boy. Despite the big danger sign that was blaring inside Azel's mind, Yroa's movement and appearance was barely threatening. It was amicable and approachable, actually.
"Can you stand on your own?"
Azel couldn't decide whether to stay in panic or submit to the willingness of this heavenly creature. So he just nodded while his mouth was still gaping open, screaming from the inside.
Before he knew it, Azel was already sitting on a dining table essentially connected with the living room and the kitchen, where Yroa was currently at.
"You woke up at the right time," Yroa said with her usual smug. "I've just finished making breakfast. Coincidentally, I foraged too many ingredients and you just happen to be an extra mouth to feed."
Still in the state of conflicted stupor, Azel looked around the interior of the whole building. All of them looked recently made, but polished enough that a person can comfortably settle in.
The amount of details that needed to be swallowed was also overwhelming. From the shelves full of all sorts of herbs and harvested fauna of the nearby biomes, to a small wood carving of a hamster-like creature that could be found living near the sloped hill of the Reversed Lake Mountain.
There was even some alchemical apparatus made from wooden material laced with unknown substances on the corner. From one of the paneless windows, numerous hangers could be seen alongside the variety of dried and processed ingredients and materials that Yroa probably hunted and foraged.
"H-how long have I gone unconscious…?"
"Just a mere two weeks." Yroa said it casually while mixing all sorts of meats and mushrooms on top of a grilling stone slab right above a burning batch of flaming flower stove.
The ingredients were skillfully handled on the polished stone slab by either a wooden spatula or direct hand contact as if the scorching heat didn't even exist.
"Two weeks??" Azel eyes were wide open. His head still felt the pain of having awoken after such a long time, but it was superseded by his baffleness. "Also, why is my body full of stitches and scars?"
"Don't worry much about it~" Yroa then proceeded to continue his progress on the yellow sauce on a homemade wood mortar, adding some herbs and chipping some bits off what appeared to be a saltrock before grinding it with a pestle. "This is my first time meeting a demon, so I just want to see how your organs on the inside look like~"
"YOU WHAT!?" Azel was taken aback in pure unadulterated fright, covering his body with his hands.
"Be at ease, you're pretty much unconscious while I'm doing it." Yroa gave his homemade sauce a taste before licking his lips. "I administered anesthetic concoction directly into your venous system before doing all of the operation. That's probably the reason why you slept that long."
Azel could barely understand what words Yroa was saying in those sentences, but he said in a rather relieving manner, enough for him to take a breather and stop being tense.
"At least you didn't kill me in my sleep…"
"The first concoction stopped you from breathing though. I'm surprised that you're still alive." Yroa playfully placed his index finger on his cheek.. "Maybe demons are much more resilient even with low stats."
"So you almost killed me!" Azel exclaimed, as if the punches that he got directly to the skull wasn't a killing attempt in the first place. "Also, what is with this house?"
"I built it." Yroa went back to his grilling station. "I haven't found any better place to live in this region outside of here, so I just made myself at home after two days of hard work."
"You are crazy…"
"Ah, right." Yroa raised one of his eyebrows. "Apologize for looking at your stats without your permission, by the way. To make up for it, you're free to cast a Basic Appraisal on me, since I want to ask you some questions about it later."
"Out of all the things you've done, that was the one you're apologizing about?" Azel pouted, as he cast his Basic Appraisal spell onto Yroa.
[Name: Yroa Ingram]
[Lvl: 25 Malkuth]
[Domain: Physical]
[STR: 2.9]
[DEX: 3.4]
[CON: 7.9]
[INT: 58.2]
[WIS: 14.1]
[CHA: 41.7]
"..." It wasn't the first time, but Azel was shockingly taken aback once again. 'What with this person's stats!? He is barely the same Lvl with me but he is toppling my numbers on all fronts! Also, what with those numbers on INT and CHA!?? Is he a Demonic Professor?? Is he a Qliphoth incarnate?? No wonder he performed those shady operations, he is probably thinking of making me into one of his primary test subjects if he's still keeping me alive until now!'
Azel could be seen shriveling, quivering, and drenched in sweat with every passing moment. Yroa didn't realize that his numbers turned out to be much that of a deal, then again, he thought that it should be a big deal, since he trained hard for the past weeks on increasing those numbers to take advantage of his Living Vessel's unique attribute.
It was those kinds of adventurous and game-like excitement that kept Yroa from taking sleep and any rest. From the experimentations on all sorts of things visible on the open plain for increasing his INT and WIS stats, to perfecting his handiwork for DEX and training his strength by lifting and putting things together into a house and the likes for his STR. At least, those were what he believed since it did result in the increase of the corresponding stats values.
"Breakfast's ready!"
Still wearing the leather gloves he found on the ruined shrine of Value Goddess., Yroa casually picked up the stone slab containing the mashed main entree. He then went back and forth hauling the side dishes and condiments without decelerating.
The main course appeared to be a fantasy-version of a high-class teppanyaki restaurant with all of the vibrant colors and viciously charred and seasoned aroma penetrating the environments. And as if it wasn't enough, there were also local salads and meat tartar made from an unknown beast and the egg of one of the avians that was nested on the Reversed Lake Mountain.
The salt rocks and all of the minerals that were visible in this living room were probably coming from there too.
"C-can I eat this?" Azel could be seen drooling.
"Sure." Yroa placed both his and Azel's plate with pieces of the main course. "I'm not even sure if you need physical sustenance like nutrients and minerals and stuff, but please enjoy yourself~"
"Well, we can live without eating anything, but that doesn't mean that we can't indulge in fine gourmet food!". Azel ecstatically prepared his first bite. "Thank you for the food!"
The Dream Devourer devoured his first meal of the day.
"How is it?" Yroa asked in anticipation.
"This is the best thing I have ever tasted in my entire life." Tears started to stream down from his goat-pupils eyes. He then went on for another bite, and another, and another! "This is heavenly!"
"And it won't take a long time until it takes you there~"
"..." Azel abruptly stopped his feast of jubilation after he heard those words. "Is there poison in this?"
"Yep, and you will definitely die in less than five hours after this," Yroa said as he happily munched on his own portion of the food. "There won't be any sensation until the third hour, where you will feel extreme nausea and stinging pain in most of your organs." He then takes another happy bite out of the food. "After that, it will be the worse two hours of your life~"
"..." Azel could be seen panicking and visibly breaking down as he tightly grabbed his own horns. "Wait, you're also eating the same food, doesn't that mean you also want to die with me?"
"Nah," Yroa cheekily replied. "I'm already 70% resistant to it. This concoction will do the same as how it will affect you, but unlike you, it won't end up killing me."
Azel broke down once again, wondering how in the world that his life led to this moment.
Meanwhile, Yroa could be seen indulging in every Azel's moment of despair. In his case, he had already tried a lot of local poisonous plants and their various amounts of concoction. His incredible pain threshold allowed him to function as he tanked down five different poisons in one go, while his Living Vessel surprisingly allowed for a hastened progress for his body to reach immunity to those said poisons.
This resulted in him being capable of identifying what plant does what, alongside all of the possible mixes and experimentations, enough for him to even create a concoction to counteract the poison!
"Fufu~" With a mischievous smile, Yroa pulled out a small carved wood canteen, dangling it in between his thumb and index finger. "Luckily for you, I have the antidote for that poison-"
Before Yroa finished speaking, Azel cast some sort of magic spell that resulted in a golden contour on his overall silhouette, boosting his dexterous prowess that allowed him to snatch the antidote away from this wicked sadist.
Without skipping a beat, Azel immediately gulped down the content of the small canteen.
"Hahaha! I will no longer be subjected to your cruel tomfoolery!"
"You didn't let me finish my sentence before gulping it down."
"Don't need to!"
"Well, you definitely want to." Despite the snatched antidote, Yroa undauntedly still donned the same mischievous expression. "Because it's not wrong that I have the antidote for my poison, that canteen however, contains an even stronger poison that I haven't tasted. It does the same but it possibly possesses an even more painful effect than the one you ingested earlier."
"..."
Azel broke down once again.
"Mmm~ I will give you the antidote, only after you give me the best explanation about what the Lvl and its value means."
"Y-you mean the 'Lavil' and the Floors of Emanation?" Azel sheepishly said as he sniffled.
'Lavil, huh, is that what Lvl actually means? Not Level? Interesting. I assume that the Floors of Emanation refers to the word Malkuth beside the value of the Lavil.' Yroa deviously snickered, before playfully gesturing his fork forward. "Yep, explain all of it to me like I'm a toddler that knows nothing of this world."
Hearing those words, Azel began to take this matter seriously since his life was dependent on whether he successfully appeased this little devil or not.
"Y-you see, it's said that every sentient and non-sentient existence exists because we're the result of the very end of 'Emanations', a process that created everything that exists and all that lives and travels forward through time.
"No one really knows what it actually does and how it actually works, but it's definitely something behind all of the gears that resulted in our existence.
"A-and uhm, with this mysterious web of creations, comes 'ohr', the light that emanates from the very source of these unknown Emanations.
"Ohr is precious, and it can be drawn from our very own existence with a certain threshold, depending on how strong our existence is in the grand scheme of Emanations.
"S-so, uhm, aaaaah—to progress and become a higher level of existence, an individual of all kinds must go through the opposite order of Emanations! Or in other words, replicating the reverse phases of how existence came to be, through ten level of elevations within the Tree of Life—otherwise known as Sefirot—like climbing through the stairs of each 'Floor'!"
"Huh, so that's why it's called 'Floor'." Yroa attentively listened as he enjoyed his fine breakfast. "And I'll assume that every individual possesses this Tree of Life in one way or another."
"It's basically a smaller replica of the grand process of Emanations, kinda like a pillar that kept our existence intact within reality, and it's also culturally hypothesized that at the very ends of our Tree of Life, also exists a smaller Tree of Life that supported our existence."
'Reminds me of the Mandelbrot set,' Yroa uttered inside his head, before verbalizing his next sentences, "So basically, this Sefirot or Tree of Life is a vital component to interact with the Grand Emanations.
"I'll assume that in one way or another, the little roots of Emanations on every individual also draws from the same well that the Grand Emanations came from, despite them being two completely different things."
"T-that is kinda spot on."
"Continue~" Yroa gestured his hand once again.
"Uhm, well, to put it in layman terms, a mortal can cultivate and improve their elevation of existence, and this height of existence can be defined into an absolute numerical value referred as Layered Vitality, or Lavil for short." Azel could be seen nervously trying his best to construct his sentences. "Before moving on further, do know that there are ten orders of Emanations for our reality to truly exist.
"I don't know what their meanings or what they actually do, since my knowledge for it is still in the basic level, but the ten Emanations in order are Keter, Chokhmah, Binah, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and then Malkuth, the very end roots of the Emanations, and every beings' starting point if they want to climb them up!
"And because they are something that we must reach and comprehend individually, mortals started to refer to them as Floors, like Malkuth Floor, for example."
'Hmm, I feel like hearing them before, but can't really remember since I'm not into all of those things. Then again, this is another world, it might possibly be different from the one I heard on Earth.' Yroa slightly tilted his head. "Then what does the 'Domain' section of the stats refer to?"
"It refers to the Four Realms that harbor the ten Emanations, with every being starting within the Domain of Physicality, where the Malkuth Floor exists." Azel raised his finger in reflex. "The Four Realms in order from the bottom are Physical which harbor only Malkuth Floor.
"Formation which harbor Yesod, Hod, and Netzach,
"Creation, with Tiferet, Gevurah, and Chesed under it.
"And then finally, the highest of them all, the Domain of Archetypes, which harbors the last three Floors: Binah, Chokhmah, and Keter!"
Yroa gestured to the warm food, suggesting Azel to just eat all of the available meal before cleansing the harmful poison with the antidote later. "And every time our existence reaches a higher level of Domain, we get substantially stronger, better access, and control over the universal emanation of ohr, yes?"
"Y-yes!" Out of fear, Azel began chowing down on his meal again as he cried from how good it was. "Uuu… Every being started their Lvl from somewhere within the Malkuth Floor, and then aimed to reach Lvl 1000 with a small bottleneck every 100-lavil, to climb into Yesod Floor, where they will trigger a personalized event known as the Qlipha Manifestation, something that they need to overcome before finally climbing to the next floor.
"And then you will go back to being Lvl 1, albeit in a much significantly higher level of existence than before...!"
Conceptually, the Layered Vitality or Lavil acts like staircases that allows its individual to reach a higher height of existence and reach the next Floor of Emanation.
"And how does one increase their own Layered Vitality?" Yroa curiously asked.
"There are many ways, a lot of them," Azel said with a sour face. "From stealing others' Lavil to straight up selling your lifespan to a devil, but there are two primary ways of reliably increasing your Layered Vitality.
"Those methods are Cultivation and Actualization!"
"Oooh, explain them, then."
"Cultivation method, in my honest personal opinion, is boring and slow," Azel said while being cringed. "It involves you finding the perfect spot with great natural ohr reserves and beginning using those to create the Layered Vitality to achieve a higher level of existence.
"It's popular in many places since it's one of the most reliable ones, and learning how to do it only took 6 months of training if I'm not wrong.
"The civilization that supported this method also tended to have an individual of higher domain to produce what is known as Ohr Crystal that can be used to do this specifically if the place isn't high in natural ohr.
"But despite all of this, it will still take a very long time just to increase your Lavil by one...
"To make up with this slow pace, Cultivators tend to put 50% of their cultivation effort at tempering their body directly alongside their lifespan, so they can have quite a high stats while doing it after twenty years or so.
"Many of them also followed this method with a proper and specialized form of Martial Arts. So despite my biased take, the world of cultivation is actually very rich and full of wonders."
"Oho, that actually reminded me of a certain genre of literature in my hometown." Yroa said, implying that he didn't just pop out of nowhere into this place. "Then what about the other one?"
"Hehehe, the second method is Actualization! Just like its name, it involves an individual to actually achieve their goal, ambition, and the manifestation of their ideas." Azel put on a cheeky smile when it comes to these bits. "The amount of Lvl gained corresponds with the difficulty and how meaningful one aspiration can be, so it actually depends on the individual themselves.
"Not to mention, this method can also be paired with cultivation since it's basically the most natural way one can attain a higher level of existence." Azel puffed out his chest with pride. "I, for one, used this method mainly to reach where I am now, allowing me to harness more ohr thanks to my innate aptitude as a Dream Devourer!"
"Yeah, so you gain your lavil by molestation and performing the 'deed' without your victim's consent," Yroa snickered. 'I see, so it's like that. No wonder I gained Lavil by just doing my own things as I wished them.'
"I-I mainly do torture instead of that!" Azel's cheeks reddened out of embarrassment. "B-but yeah, you can just naturally reach a higher level of existence by having a successful and ambitious life, that's how the Actualization method works.
"It's fast, and it's more engaging than the Cultivation method. But, unlike Cultivation, Actualization revolves around you actually, you know, actualizing your aspiration and ideas." Azel shrugged. "You also need to do what you actually 'want' to do which can be somewhat conflicting since not everyone can do what they actually want to do.
"Not to mention, a naturally sadistic person needs to do sadistic and horrible things if they really want to go down this route…" Azel murmured the last sentence.
"Pardon me?"
"Anyways, that's my whole explanation of this whole Lvl thing!" Azel put down his cutlery as he finished his meal, before placing both hands on the table and began putting down his head as if he was kneeling. "Please, I'm still young, and I want to live! I beg you to give me the antidote!"
"Alright." Yroa casually tossed out the mini canteen that contained the real antidote.
Azel then proceeded to desperately catch the antidote. He began to uncontrollably stream tears of gratitude.
Yroa grinned. "It won't actually dismiss the pain, but at least you'll stay alive with all of your organs intact, since the antidote works as a counteragent that fights off the poison when it's starting to take effect."
"Huwaaa! Thank you!"
Azel chugged down the potion like there was no tomorrow.
"Ah right, you want to observe me farming my EXPs?" Yroa said with a rather sinister smug.
"EXP? What's that?"
"Well, remember how you said that you primarily need to suck out someone's lifeforce instead of consuming nutrients and biomass to stay alive?" Yroa began leading Azel outside of this house. "EXP is like that, but for me~"