One might think that sleeping in such a situation is dangerous—and indeed, it was. However, Asmodeus was not truly asleep. He was merely resting his body, for his mind had long since transcended the need for sleep. His vitality, stamina, and mana were fully drained, and while his body healed, he remained in a vulnerable state.
"If a malnourished, injured young tiger could do this to me, what could a fully capable one do?" The thought sent a shiver down his spine.
The encounter had been a humbling experience. Asmodeus now fully understood that he stood no chance against a demonic entity of physical or mage type. His only real advantage lay against illusion or mind-based creatures, and even that was due to his powerful soul and mind. He had overestimated his capabilities, blinded by the arrogance born of his former strength. Monsters and humans had seemed like playthings, and to a certain extent, they still were—but only when he was in his prime. He was no longer a demon. He was now a half-dragon, and not even one of noble bloodline—just a mid-rank hybrid.
A saying from Hell came to mind:
"Weakness is not a sin, but forgetting your place in the world is."
Shaking off these self-recriminations, he focused on the task at hand. He began working on his skin-veins network. This system's primary purpose was to generate a mana shield. While he could create such a shield easily, it would cause his fragile body to rupture like a balloon if not properly reinforced. Previously, he had managed to use the shield because the trials had temporarily removed his physical limitations. It was the same reason no one had died from falling two kilometers before the trial began—the velocity had been preserved, but their bodies had been magically protected.
Theoretically, the mana shield could reach E or even C rank, but the tiger skin he used as a foundation was too fragile to bear that power. He planned to reinforce it with earth runes, known for their mana-dampening properties. By etching runes on the outer surface of the skin, he hardened it to the strength of steel while preventing mana conduction. This transformation turned the network into mana-conducting tubes—or mana veins. His delicate craftsmanship required precise control over both his soul sense and energy manipulation.
Since the runes barely penetrated his flesh, the mana-related damage to his body was minimized, and his regeneration negated most of the harm.
The night was long—fifteen hours, to be exact.
After some calculations, Asmodeus discovered that from sunrise to dawn, nineteen hours had passed. The trial world's day was thirty-four hours long. Though this information seemed trivial, he made a habit of timing everything he did.
As the first light touched the sky, he stood. He grabbed his makeshift dagger and set about improving it.
He found the tiger's longest bone, made a small notch at one end, and secured the dagger's blade to it, crafting a spear. But he wasn't finished. He took a bone needle he had fashioned the previous day, closed his eyes, and concentrated on his mana core. He drew an infinitesimal amount of mana, barely enough to sting his weakened body, channeling it to his bones and fingertips. Slowly, carefully, he forced it into the needle, forming a faint aura around the tool.
His eyes snapped open, now black as night. He gripped the spear and began etching wood runes into the shaft with painstaking precision.
Five hours passed.
With the rune work complete, he inhaled deeply and pushed mana through his veins.
"AHHH!" His scream tore through the jungle as his right arm broke under the strain. Bone splintered, blood spattered the ground, and his muscles collapsed. For one agonizing minute, mana coursed into the spear, completing the first phase of enchantment.
Breathless and drenched in sweat, he endured the immense pain. While his mind had grown accustomed to suffering, his body had not, magnifying the torment a hundredfold.
After several hours of regeneration, he attempted the second phase.
This time, using his left hand, he infused mana into the needle and etched earth runes onto the spearhead. The process took two hours.
When he finally activated the runes, his left arm suffered even greater damage—nearly torn from his body, held together by skin and the newly crafted skin-veins.
He passed out from blood loss.
The system within his body absorbed vitality from the surroundings at a slow, steady rate. Unlike his desperate state before, where he drained the land into a wasteland, this time, his recovery was gradual. It took two full trial days for him to heal completely.
When he awoke, he found three children standing over him.
"Wow! He woke up, guys!" exclaimed a blond-haired boy.
"Obviously, idiot," muttered a dangerous-looking kid, gripping Asmodeus's spear with fascination.
"Yo, you good, mate?" asked the one who resembled a mini hipster.
Asmodeus's dark eyes scanned each of them.
"Give me my spear," he said, his voice dry and hoarse.
The dangerous-looking boy sneered. "We guarded you while you slept, Sleeping Beauty. The least you could do is let us keep this masterpiece."
After a brief pause, Asmodeus offered calmly, "I'll trade you the tiger's bones for my spear."
The hipster scoffed. "You think you're in a position to negotiate, idiot?"
Asmodeus tilted his head, voice unnervingly calm. "Is that your final choice?"
The blond boy opened his mouth to respond, but before a sound escaped, Asmodeus moved.
He grabbed the spear-wielding boy and drove a fist into his face.
CLINK!
His hand struck iron—the boy's skin had transformed. Still, cracks formed on the metallic surface, and Asmodeus wrenched the spear from his grasp. Without a second thought, he fled into the thick jungle, leaping from tree to tree like a demonic monkey.
That was the beauty of E-rank: the more one was hurt and healed, the stronger the body became. Coupled with his dragon bloodline, which grew in power through time and consumption, he was as strong as two grown athletes—despite being only eight years old.
He covered five hundred meters in thirty seconds before stopping, eyes narrowing in alertness.