Chapter 41: The Demon Badge (II)

Unlike the material world of the main realm, the Abyss and the Celestial Realm both belong to the outer realms, enclosed by the vast cosmic expanse—the Void Star Realm—where energy is many times denser than in the main world.
Although the beings there have flesh and blood, they are essentially more like life forms composed of souls and energy. They can more easily transform into energy forms than creatures in the main material world, allowing them to transfer parts of their power along with their consciousness to the main world to achieve their goals.
For example, the true gods of higher realms can appear in the form of avatars or saints, while abyssal demons can send out soul projections or power clones.
Matter and energy are merely two forms of the same thing, and under certain conditions, they can transform into each other—a fact Donald had learned from school textbooks in his past life.
On a macro scale, every creature born in the Abyss has its soul marked with evil and chaos. Over time, foreign creatures will also gradually be assimilated by the Abyss’s rules. To the will of the Abyss, they are all its possessions, or rather, parts of its body.
Taking advantage of loopholes in the contract rules to hunt demons and completely erase their souls is equivalent to stealing the Abyss’s power. Although the will of a realm has no independent thoughts and can only act mechanically according to its rules, this does not mean that provoking such a will goes unpunished. Especially the will of the Abyss, composed of countless layers of realms—one of the most powerful entities in the universe.
Yet a silver-level demon is not even a speck in the vastness of the endless Abyss realm. With the help of the Book of Truth, if he carefully steals small amounts of power from time to time, it is likely not to draw excessive attention from the Abyss’s will.
Unless Donald seeks death by recklessly stealing Abyssal power on a large scale, even though the Abyss realm is fundamentally at odds with the main material world, its immense power can still be channeled through demons or other creatures into the main world, allowing even a legendary-level warrior to easily eliminate him.
Therefore, although summoning more powerful demons yields greater rewards, Donald still lacks the audacity to be greedy. Silver level is already the limit he can handle. Although such loopholes in the contract can only be discovered by a semi-god, and below that are the legendary and gold tiers, how could Donald dare to provoke such beings?

Most of the demons he planned to summon were only at the bronze level; such mid-to-low-tier demons, whether bronze or silver, were as numerous as drops of water in the ocean. Thinking about those demons who thought they had come to the main world to enjoy themselves and kill freely, only to find that they actually came to provide him with power through their souls and bodies, and that they would never realize the loopholes in the contract even until death, Donald couldn’t help but feel a sense of pleasure!

Soon, the Book of Truth completed the modification of the contract. For Donald, a high-tier artifact without independent will was equivalent to a supercomputer, and he was the operator—though a rather incompetent one. It was still quite easy to command the artifact to do things within its rules. As for summoning or permanently binding such abilities, they fell outside the rules allowed in the main world, which is why energy and soul power had to be offered as a price.

After modifying the contract, Donald observed the two hound demons and found that they hadn’t noticed any changes in the contract. Suppressing his urge to kill the demons himself to absorb their power, he ordered the Magic Destroyer in front of him to act. The two hound demons were killed amidst expressions of shock and reluctance.

The elf warrior’s weapon had demon-destroying properties and was extremely sharp, which was why Donald ordered him to act. If it had been Clinton’s standard infantry steel sword, it would have taken many more strikes to completely kill those demons with tough skin and strong vitality.

“What’s going on?”

Seeing that the heads of the two hound demons had been cut off, the Book of Truth didn’t absorb any soul power, which surprised Donald. He quickly realized he had fallen into a logical error. Previously, the Blade Demon’s demon core had been destroyed by magical energy, exposing its soul, allowing the Book of Truth to absorb it directly. But this time, Donald had ordered his summoned creatures to kill the demons through physical attacks, so their souls remained intact inside their cores.

After realizing this, Donald ordered the elf warrior to dig out the cores of the two hound demons and hand them over to him. However, since he had exploited a loophole in the contract, holding the cores in his hands, at the moment the souls were absorbed by the Book of Truth, Donald suddenly felt an immense, world-sized will force descending upon him. Though it wasn’t directed at him, the invisible pressure still caused him to feel tremors and fear deep in his soul.

However, due to the shielding effect of the Book of Truth, that willpower did not detect Donald’s actions. The death of a silver demon was insignificant to the Abyss and not considered a loss. Constant battles raged in the Abyss, with countless demons dying every second. Soon, forced by the rejection rules of the primary material world, that willpower gave up on investigating and disappeared.

After that willpower vanished, Donald took a deep breath and realized he was drenched in cold sweat.

“I guess that existence just now was the Abyssal Will! It must have sensed something unusual in the contract. But the Book of Truth uses powerful rules from another realm, with no detectable flaws, which is why it turned its attention here. Truly, it’s a being even gods dare not confront. Even a trace of such willpower entering the primary world exudes such terrifying aura. No wonder many gods have perished in the Abyss!”

After this experience and witnessing the horror of the Abyssal Will, Donald began to understand what such a plane willpower was like. If every creature in a plane were a computer, then the plane willpower would be the intelligent system managing the entire local network, while the universe would be like the entire Internet.

As a plane willpower, it has firewalls and antivirus software, monitoring everything that happens within the plane, eliminating internal threats, defending against attacks from external programs, and eliminating invading viruses. In critical moments, it can even refresh the system and restart it. But the plane willpower lacks consciousness and emotions. In some special emergency situations, rigid rules can cause conflicting commands, preventing the system from reacting promptly and correctly, thus creating loopholes. Just like skilled hackers can exploit security flaws to invade and control other computers and networks.

“For me, however, such a powerful and aggressive willpower like that of the Abyssal Plane is too dangerous. So even if I can understand some basic aspects, I can’t use my own strength to act like a hacker and seize benefits from it. I can only rely on the help of the Book of Truth to gain slight advantages!”

Not daring to think further about that terrifying existence feared even by gods, lest it leave a deep psychological shadow, Donald shifted his focus and began to examine what he had gained.

The demons hunted by the Demon Hunter have their souls and all demonic powers in their bloodlines extracted, leaving neither soul energy nor bloodline magic behind. Thus, the Book of Truth did not obtain the soul energy of the Fire-Burning Demon. However, the soul energies provided by these two bronze demons each rank just below that of the Blade Demon. Combined with what the two mages had obtained earlier, Donald’s soul energy reserves are now approaching 3,000 units—only a little over 2,000 units short of having a perfect soul to create a permanently existing heroic subordinate.

Moreover, after the souls are extracted, only the energy core remains, which is similar to a demon core or an elemental crystal. What is chaotic and evil demonic power to others can be directly absorbed by the Book of Truth for various exchanges and summonings.

In a few days, he will be able to conduct a second summoning to acquire more soul energy, and the corpses of demons can also be quite valuable. After some more time, once he has absorbed all the remaining power of the Fire-Burning Demon, he will be able to repeat summonings repeatedly, paying only a portion of his magic power. For him, this method is equivalent to having an additional free source of energy and soul energy.

Since they were not destroyed, the corpses of the two hound demons still contain a lot of magic power, which is even more valuable to mages than the corpses of magical beasts. With the two fresh demon corpses, Donald did not set off right away but entered the City of Giants instead.

When the old mage saw his apprentice walking in with two bloody demon corpses, he was greatly surprised.

“What happened? Donald, were you attacked?”

Donald smiled and told the old mage not to worry, then said, “I was ambushed by that sorcerer, but I was prepared. I killed three of his demons, but unfortunately he managed to escape, and I couldn’t find out who his master is.”

“It’s good that you’re unharmed. Sorcerers are usually very difficult opponents. It’s already remarkable that you were able to defeat them twice!”

“Teacher, you’re too kind. I came here because before heading to the battlefield, I wanted you to conduct a promotion ceremony for me and write a letter of introduction. After all, having some backing will help me get things done in the military camp.”

“You’ve been promoted?”

Instead of being happy, the old mage frowned in concern upon hearing this news.

Donald replied with a smile, “Yes. I originally planned to wait for a while and advance once my foundation was solid, but the sudden appearance of enemies forced me to improve my strength quickly!”

The old mage then said, “Since you understand the principles behind it, I’m relieved. It’s good that the progression to the Black Iron stage is faster and doesn’t pose major risks. Stay in this stage for a longer time, study more spells and alchemy principles, and master more third-level spells and formations. This way, your breakthrough to the Bronze stage will be more solid.”
“Yes, master!”
Seeing that Donald was sincerely accepting his teachings, Messelet took pen to paper and wrote a letter of introduction on behalf of the Mage Association of Giantstone City, detailing Donald’s abilities and identity. This wasn’t special treatment for Donald alone—local mages’ associations usually provided such letters when mages wanted to take up positions or missions elsewhere.
After receiving the letter, Donald brought over the three demon corpses and said, “These three demon corpses are quite a good catch. I’ve already extracted their core organs; I’ll leave the corpses for you to study!”
With Messelet’s extensive knowledge and experience, he naturally knew a lot about demon creatures. Seeing the corpses of two hound demons and one fire demon, even this usually calm old mage couldn’t help but exclaim, “You actually killed a Silver Demon? It seems I need to rethink your training plan!”
Donald quickly explained, “The two hound demons were killed by me along with my summoned creatures. As for the fire demon, with my current strength, I certainly couldn’t handle such a powerful demon. But I found some relics of ancient alchemists among the family heirlooms, including an item that could counteract demon powers. Unfortunately, it was destroyed after use. There are also some puppets and potions left. If you’re interested, I can give them to you to study when I return from the battlefield.”
With this explanation, Donald thought that since Mage Chris already knew about the existence of alchemical puppets, he might as well take the opportunity to reveal some of the creations from the Book of Truth, so as not to arouse suspicion next time he brought them out. Moreover, if the Book of Truth wasn’t so crucial, he didn’t want to deceive his teacher, who had always been kind to him.
Given Messelet’s integrity, he wouldn’t be greedy for his apprentice’s possessions. However, he was quite interested in ancient alchemy-related items. Although he was most skilled in alchemy enchantment, he also had considerable knowledge in pharmacology, and the formations in alchemical puppets offered him many insights as well.

Taking the three rare demon corpses, the old mage said straight away, “I know you’re in a hurry, so let’s keep things simple. I’ll have someone replace your second-level badge for you right away, and you can attend the promotion ceremony when you return. Be careful on the battlefield—though your skills are sufficient to handle ordinary orcs, battlefields are not like one-on-one duels; there are many situations where individual strength isn’t enough.”
“Thank you for your concern, teacher. I’m confident I’ll return with honor! Please wait for good news from me!”
With that, Donald bid farewell to his teacher, took his new badge, and left Castle of Giants at full speed with his two attendants, heading toward the battlefield on the northwest border.