The Fiend's Creation System

A Dwarf Opportunity

“First on the list is a plague hyena’s heart and then a hollow’s core… elves sure can craft some weird potions...”

Julius didn’t mind staying in his Metamorphosis state, but the problem was that with his energy in its ‘chaotic’ state, it could lead to his death as per Grand Elder Hyacinth’s words. The elder didn’t have any reason to lie to him so he decided to trust the elf’s words. 

He was also feeling it. His body was consuming too much energy in this form and if he didn’t revert back, he could die of energy deficiency which was probably what the elder meant.

There was a reason why Metamorphosis had a duration set by the system. It was so that the skill wouldn’t overdraft on Julius’s lifeforce and energy. If the potion the elves concocted could help him revert to his usual form, it was for the best if he fulfilled Elder Hyacinth’s request.

“Only a few of them are for the potion while the rest are for the fee, huh?”

He took a look at the remaining on the lists but he couldn’t determine if they were extremely precious or not. 

The items were commonly found in the Shifting Hallows and in abundance so Julius couldn’t tell if he was losing out or not.

“Why am I trying to weigh the benefits? This is my life I’m talking about…”

[Notice: If Julius consumes Matriarch Fiend Eisha’s soma periodically, the negative effects of staying in Metamorphosis will be abated.]

“Is giving late information the only thing you’re good at?”

Julius had a disgruntled look on his face. If only the system notified him sooner, he wouldn’t have agreed to the Grand Elder’s request.

“Bah, let’s just keep it as a contingency.”

For the next few days, Julius went out hunting within the Shifting Hallows. He sent Eisha to Redgrove City to manage it while Aria and Proto were tasked with expanding the Second Sanctum. 

His human-transformed mimics were already making their moves under the pretext of executing merchant caravan deliveries and adventurer quests. The other mimics that weren’t merchants, mercenaries, or adventurers had to remain inside the city but that was alright.

Julius didn’t need to send so many mimics out or else it could attract attention. The church already had the means to dispel the mimics’ transformation so he’d rather not have that happen or else their existence would be exposed to the rest of the world.

The previous time when the church had exposed Julius’s mimics back in the city, he had made sure that anyone that left the city was killed to prevent any news from spreading. Naturally, he didn’t just kill them. 

He made sure to replace the people with mimics so that no one would be the wiser that they had actually been killed. 

The mimics he created really made his life much easier and less complicated. The adventurer, merchant, and mercenary guilds would always conduct investigations and look into any missing people that didn’t report to any of the guilds after a set duration had passed.

With the mimics, these investigations wouldn’t happen so it kept the peoples’ deaths in the dark. 

Only the church was aware of their possible existence but the ones that truly were aware of them had been taken care of and any loose ends had been dealt with by Julius’s act of massacring the city. With no loose ends and any possible leakage of his race’s existence being nonexistent, it set Julius’s mind at ease so he was able to complete some other tasks instead.

Julius completed Grand Elder Hyacinth’s request in a week and he found out that he only needed to consume Eisha’s soma once a week to keep his chaotic energy in check.

There were times when he would be out completing a task for days so knowing the limit was a worthwhile find. Naturally, he would love it if he could consume Eisha’s soma daily because it was quite delicious and it energized him. Not to mention the process of extracting her soma was what he enjoyed the most.

He still received the potion from the elves and he kept it safe within his castle. It would act as a fail-safe in case he couldn’t drink Eisha’s soma before his skill began drafting on his lifeforce.

*****

A few weeks later, Julius received news about the church’s actions against the dwarves. It was rather late since it happened nearly two months ago, however, from the info he obtained, Julius was able to determine that he wasn’t the only Fiend Progenitor that appeared throughout the ages.

He didn’t know what the condition was to become a fiend. Was it through the bloodline, some sort of magic spell or curse, he didn’t know. What he did know was that the fiends of the past had been hunted down by the church and snuffed out of existence before they could develop.

His situation was rather unique since he was able to escape. Until now, Julius didn’t know how he was even able to escape from certain death. He just woke up in the middle of the Shifting Hallows in a near-death state along with his wife who practically had a foot past death’s door.

Of course, this was just his hypothesis. He didn’t actually know whether or not the dwarf that had been assassinated by the church was actually a fiend like him. For all he knew, the dwarf was just an unfortunate soul that the church deemed evil using their twisted form of logic.

He had gained quite the juicy piece of information from his newly established intelligence network that was still developing, however, that wasn’t the most important piece of news.

With one of their kin being killed by the church, even though there was no evidence, the dwarves had cut ties with the alliance and decided to stand independent. They closed themselves off from the rest of the world and this was a problem for Julius.

He had wanted to secretly establish a deal with the dwarves but now that they had secluded themselves from the world, it would be hard to hold any sort of negotiation with them.

Especially now that one of their own had been killed, they’d definitely be wary against any individuals from another race.

“Wait a minute… don’t I have Aria?”

Julius was immediately reminded of Aria and her ability to revive people from the dead. He wasn’t sure how important the dwarf who had died was to the dwarves, but by their actions in cutting ties with their alliance, it was undoubted that the person was of great importance.

If he could revive said person for the dwarves…

“Establishing a solid relationship with them would be quite easy…”

Julius’s lips raised in a rather wicked smirk. The land he was living in, the Shifting Hallows, had many untapped mining resources that he could take. There were already a few mines that Julius had his fiends excavate but all the raw ores, gemstones, and minerals were left untouched because his race didn’t have the proper means of refining them.

This was why he wanted to establish a relationship with the dwarves who were very good at handling these kinds of things. It wasn’t just the gold that he mined he wanted to be processed but everything else as well.

By reviving the dwarf who had been killed by the church, Julius would be able to establish a working relationship with them but it wasn’t only that. He wanted to confirm whether his hypothesis was correct about the dead dwarf.

Was the dwarf also a fiend like him or was it of a different race altogether that was only deemed evil by the church? He would get his answers once he revived the dwarf.

The only problem was how he could safely travel to the Aurumfaust Kingdom without attracting any attention to himself. If he went in his normal form, the dwarves would only see him as a human and they’d immediately turn him away...or try to kill him on the spot.

If he went in his fiend form, it would definitely attract attention, and not only that, the dwarves might see him as a monster. Normal demons didn’t look like Julius. They weren’t large or had fleshy wings sprouting from their backs. Not to mention his gruesome face that was much more malevolent than a demon. 

Sending Eisha and Aria alone was his best bet, but Julius was too afraid to send Eisha out on another mission. It wasn’t that he was afraid she wouldn’t be able to accomplish it, but if something unfortunate was to happen, he’d rather have the victim be him than his wife.

She had experienced the trauma of nearly dying twice already. He didn’t want to subject her to that again. Of course, that one time was a unique case because she was undergoing evolution and he didn’t know about it.

The next step in her evolution would be at level 100, according to the system, and that was still a long way away. 

“Damn...is this the only way?”

Julius decided to send Eisha, Aria, and Proto, but he was only going to send them after he upgraded his Sanctum for the third time. Better units would be available then so her security detail would be much better than it is now. 

Eisha had lost quite a lot of her personal guards due to the battle with the church so Julius needed to help her replenish her forces and that required time. The opportunity to negotiate with the dwarves needed to be done as soon as possible because Julius didn’t know if anything might change their current circumstances.

“...A week...I’ll finish everything in a week…”

Julius stood up from his throne and walked out of the sanctum. Since he was still in his metamorphosis state, he was able to command all of the fiends in his current colony. All one thousand Fiend Soldiers, homunculi, and mimics began to move as Julius issued his orders.

“Let’s go kill a few skellies…”

The best source of EXP was just close by and even though the number of fiends was a lot smaller than the undead, Julius was going to bank on their endless numbers to quickly level himself up along with his fiends

[Status

Name: Julius de Ephalerith

Race: Fiend

Class: Creator

Level: 2 (7190/10000)

STR: 85 (A-)

AGI: 82 (B++)

INT: 150 (S)

Partner(s): Eisha de Ephalerith

Skill: [Creation EX], [Pinnacle Mental Resistance S]

Addition: [Creation EX], [Parallel Cognition]

Created Skills: [Metamorphosis], [Weave], [Cause and Effect]

Condition: Healthy        ]

He was only level 2 but was close to achieving level 3. The number of monsters he needed to kill was rather high, but if he was able to defeat those that were at a high rank, he’d be able to easily gain some EXP.

However, since he needed to get to level 3 within a short period of time, Julius was going to make up quality with quantity and that’s where the undead came in. Their innumerable population that was just sitting close by to Julius’s Sanctum was going to be the fuel that pushed his level to 3 and maybe even 4.

Of course, level 4 was a bit of a stretch because from level 1-2 and level 2-3, the EXP required multiplied on itself from 1000 to 10000. If the trend continued, then level 3-4 most likely required 100,000,000 EXP. 

It was quite crazy, but it wasn’t like Julius could change it. His only option was to buckle down and grind. Nothing in life was easy and this fact was something Julius knew first hand.

“Alright, let’s get to it then.”

Julius shot into the sky and started moving in the direction of the undead graveyard, leading his fiends along behind him.