[1.16] Imp (Part 2)

With Scrying Eye active, her view of the world skewed, as if she was hyperfocused directly on what was in front of her with the peripherals blurred. Angelica was bombarded with a slew of information when she looked at her demon self in the mirror.

[Scrying Eye attuned to Gnostic]

[Gnostic Attunement unlocked]

[Tongues attuned to Gnostic]

To make it worse, besides that little verbal update, all the information presented to her was reversed, stupidly reflected as well. So she looked away, glancing down at her own paw, err, hand, causing it to show itself the right-way-round.

Conveniently, it displayed itself as a slightly translucent screen she could read, though the information wasn’t as much or as detailed as she would have liked. For most of it, she’d have to go based on conjecture. Not to complicate things, she decided to evaluate the sheet from the top.

So the power she had now was called the Demon Growth System afterall. There was comfort in knowing that the book had gotten that right, hopefully meaning the rest was accurate, too. What was inaccurate, though, was her name. Why was it almost entirely censored? She counted the blurred marks to confirm it. Everything but the last “a” in Angelica was blocked out.

Thinking back to what Garvin had claimed, Demons couldn’t say the word Angelica, or more specifically, “Angelic.” That seemed to extend to the Demon Growth System, as well. It couldn’t even display it. Was the word that bad to them? Apparently her last name, Hallow, was just as taboo. That was good to know not to go around spouting those words, assumedly anything tied to holy aspects. Did that mean Vissiem was off-limits, as well?

Not that she should actually go around saying her own name, as she learned. Angelica didn’t want to get caught up in Named Contracts if she could avoid it, so it was best to keep her actual name far from any Summoners. She’d need to come up with an Alias, not that it should be too hard. Perhaps when she did, it would fill the unregistered slot.

For her species, it claimed her to be a Puffball Imp, which, looking at herself, fit her pretty well. Then further down, looking at her Demon Rank, it also called her an Imp, as had Garvin, so there was no point denying it. She was Angelica the Imp. But why was she only level 1? Angelica had been a Demon for a little while now, so she would have thought some progress would be made. Perhaps it was far slower to level as a Demon. And it was listed as one out of twenty. What happened at twenty? Was that the cap? If so, it made sense why it was so slow.

Moving on, seemingly tied with her Demon Rank, or at least grouped with it, was Essence. She had thirteen, apparently, which she did distinctly remember getting from the snake creature, the Malignant thing, now that she thought back. But what did Essence do? It also had a cap of thirty, or maybe it said she needed thirty. Had she made a mistake not asking for Essence if it was important? No, she definitely needed money more than anything else right now. Maybe she could find a way to get some more Essence later if she found she needed it.

Next to Essence was just the letters “GP” which she had no idea what that could possibly stand for. Gangly Pictures, Grubby Porches, Gold Panties? It could be anything! Whatever it was, she currently had zero of them with no idea how to get more. What Angelica needed was another book that explained the Growth System in more detail. But she doubted she could find “Being a Demon for Dummies” at her local bookstore.

Down to Summoner Rank, it was at seven out of twenty. Again, she wasn’t quite sure what would happen at twenty. Maybe that was what ranked her up? She had to assume it would move past Initiate at some point, and being more than a quarter of the way to the cap didn’t make sense, so she felt it was a safe assumption that the change would happen at twenty. Garvin called himself a Novice. Maybe that was a rank rather than just a self-deprecating adjective. And then for Experience, she could guess what that meant, the percentage she was at toward her next level. Summoner Rank was nice compared to Demon Rank, clear and concise progression.

Back to unclear messaging, however, was Health. She had to guess it was a representation of how well-off she was, but why was it a percentage? Even stranger, why was it only at 62%? She felt fine, having exercised earlier that day, but didn’t really feel fatigued. She’d eaten earlier too, even had a smoothie, so that was extra calories. While she was a little hungry, Angelica didn’t see how it would relate to such a staggering loss.

Maybe the little puffball was still suffering injuries from a week ago? Her hands and muscles weren’t sore anymore, but they still might not be at peak condition. Now that she was no longer transformed, she could check her actual body for injuries, but she wouldn’t really know how to spot them yet, since there weren’t any obvious ones. Perhaps it was just a general gauge of her overall healthiness? She didn’t lead the optimal lifestyle by any means, so maybe she should read it as a general score she’d get from a doctor. The better question was, though, what would happen if it hit 0%?

Not wanting to worry about it too much, Angelica moved on to MP. She knew this one! It was like Mana Points or Magic Points, right? That’s what her friends would tell her when she watched them play games. So she really did have magic, not that she could doubt it any longer with all she’d seen, especially Reprint and Transfiguration.

It was at sixty-five out of sixty-six, so only one point was missing, assumedly from using Scrying Eye. To confirm this, another point vanished right at that moment, bringing it down to sixty-four. MP must replenish at a fairly decent rate, since she’d completely drained it a few times before, but now it was near full. That was something she’d need to keep a good eye on, so she could get an understanding and proper gauge. And just by the many minutes she’d been using the Skill now, it apparently had a very slow MP drain rate.

From there, the screen moved onto grouped sections, first being “Worth.” After quickly scanning through the selection, she understood the intent. It was the properties that would be valuable to a Demon, what they’d care about. Malice was the only one on the list she hadn’t seen yet, or rather heard mentioned in her mind. Apparently, she hadn’t been wicked enough. And while its descriptor of goody-goody would sound almost positive in human society, since less Malice would be better, to a Demon, it was certainly a flagrant insult.

As were most of the stats. Might, Vigor, Lucidity, Obstinance, and Beguilement could only be deemed as offensive negatives that directly attacked her as a person, or well, Demon. Frail for Vigor stung, especially, because she’d been doing her best with exercises to improve it. Blinded for Lucidity didn’t come across as scathing, but it undoubtely meant there was so much in the realm of truths that she didn’t know about, so it definitely made her feel a little dumb.

Angelica didn’t mind Mediocre for Competence. As a student, she’d been in the top percentile, so she could definitely take it as a slight. But in the past years, Angelica would have deemed herself an utter failure when it came to dealing with life, so to be deemed as mediocrely competent by this system felt like a huge step up. Then for Creativity, Ardent was good, right? Her literary skills were a bit rusty, but she vaguely remembered the word. She was honestly surprised Creativity was included at all, not feeling like something Demons would pride themselves on. Perhaps they valued it more in a sense of trickery and schemes.

Next section down was Attunements, and they all showed the same… proficiency? If that was the right word. Aware. Well, that about summed up her understanding. She was aware that she’d gotten some Attunements, but didn’t really know what they did. The only time she could recall getting them or having them increase lined up with when skills did the same, but not all the time.

No, wait, didn’t she get some Destruction Attunement after defeating the Malignant with no other increases at the time? And she’d just unlocked Gnostic Attunement after looking at herself with Scrying Eye, even though she supposedly had the Skill all along. Tongues had immediately changed to that Attunement as well after unlocking it. So the ponderer had to assume that other currently unattuned skills like Transfiguration could potentially become attuned. Could she pick the Attunement, or would it do it automatically like it had this time?

Also… what exactly was Gnostic, again? The word sounded familiar, but it wasn’t self-explanatory like the other Attunements. Even Fabrication, which the artist still had problems with the choice of verbiage, at least made sense. Angelica thought back to her Religious Studies course that her mother made her take during the very first semester of college, recalling encountering the word there. It had something to do with the pursuit of knowledge, right? Especially special, potentially even forbidden knowledge. In that case, it suited Demons, and both Tongues and Scrying Eye made sense to belong with it.

Down to Skills, there were no surprises there. She had been doing a decent job keeping mental track of what Skills she had. Unfortunately, besides Scrying Eye, there were none she didn’t previously know about, having been slightly hoping for a few more bonuses. She did like that they were conveniently split between Active and Passive.

Obviously, Active were Skills that required MP to use, while Passive were ones that just sort of always existed, it seemed, or triggered on their own. Wouldn’t that make them definitively better, since they had no usage limit? Maybe they were generally considered inherently weaker as a result. Inspiration looked lonely down in Hybrid Skills. At least she understood what hybrid meant already. She could activate it whenever she wanted at the cost of MP, but if it triggered passively, it would last for much longer. So in that regard, it definitely worked better as a passive skill.

But compared to the Skills category, which had nothing unexpected, the literal Secrets category was definitely a surprise. Soulbound, that was the circle she’d used and the type of Summoning she’d performed on herself. Humanborn was obvious, since she was born human. And she was technically a Summoner, though having only achieved one Summoning thus far. Then Self-Summon, well, she’d summoned herself. It almost felt like it was mocking her. Angelica could only take the nomenclature of Secrets quite literally, meaning it was probably for the best that she didn’t tell anyone about them. Why did they need to be specifically listed, though? Did they have some effect?

While she wondered about implications, her eyes wandered down to the last section on the sheet: Achievements. Not much to see there. It was still just the two Achievements she’d gotten on trash night. Apparently, she’d done nothing noteworthy since in the eyes of Demon Lord Ferrul, who was the only known giver of such things.

Just when she was about to wrap up the study session of herself, she received a new notification.

[Scrying Eye Lv.2]

[Lucidity increased]

[Gnostic Attunement increased]

With the level up, would she be able to glean even more information? First off, she noticed right away that MP had increased. She didn’t recover any, actually having dropped another point, but the maximum had bumped up from sixty-six to sixty-eight. So increasing one of those things had improved it, maybe multiple of them.

And then as if by instinct, she focused harder on the letters of “MP.” A new screen popped up, explaining the concept of it in more detail.

[Manifest Points]

Dang, so it hadn’t been Mana Points, but damned close. Hell, she could even still shorten it to that if she really wanted. But just the explanation of the abbreviation wasn’t the whole note.

[Manifest Points are the actualization of Demon magic and abilities, manifesting them into reality. Spend Manifest Points to perform Active Skills and impart your will. Manifest Points capacity and rate of recovery scale with Competence, Lucidity, and Creativity. The base value will also increase with each Rank level and receive an exceptional boost upon triggering Evolution]

Evolution? Now, that was another new concept Angelica had to worry about. If Demon Ranks worked like how she imagined Summoner Ranks worked, then maybe when she got to the next rank, that triggered an Evolution? Garvin had mentioned Gremlins and Succubi. Were those ranks or species? Frankly, she didn’t want to become either one, content with her cute puffball self.

Maybe it was her Gnostic Attunement, but all this new information made her hunger for even more knowledge about her situation and the Demon Growth System. She could spend hours going through her screen again, exploring this new pop-up info feature, and it would undoubtedly take a while to do so thoroughly. But she decided to save it.

Also increased was the annoying throb of her Contract with her friend from Strocaster. Her itch to hurry up and poison Mart Hucklebain was starting to shift toward an ache. There were still a few more things to confirm and prepare before she went off and did the deed. So Angelica deactivated Scrying eye and hopped out of the chair, bounding to the bathroom door, undoing the lock and letting it open as she flopped to the ground.

But as the mainroom appeared before her, she quickly regretted her decision, realizing there was one thing she hadn’t accounted for. How was Cherub going to react to her Demon form?