Chapter 83 - Exploration (2)

Kai ran back to the creature's body and ripped open its chest cavity. He had detected that the cause was not the body itself, but something inside of it. The heat was immense and the light generated was getting to the point where it was almost blinding. Kai dug his hand into the carcass and was able to quickly locate a small red stone lodged inside of the beast's heart.

There were odd symbols that reminded Kai of the symbols used in Talismans. This made Kai wonder if this creature was constructed by someone using the same concept as talismans. Kai grabbed the red stone with his scaled hands and subconsciously inspected it.

[Grade-3][Demon Hound Core(Unstable/Critical)] [1006Qi]

"Create Manual!" Kai yelled while gripping the stone that was starting to burn his scaled hands.

=[Create Manual]=

=[ Base material is [Grade-3][Demon Hound Core(Unstable/Critical)] selected. This will cost [100 Qi] would you like to proceed?]=

The system prompt appeared before Kai.

"Yes!, quickly!..."

The stone rose into the air quietly and then quickly dissipated into little motes of light. In the same breath, the head vanished as if it had never existed. The shaking stopped and Kai was finally able to breathe out a sigh of relief. The stone object had already begun to crack while Kai had it in his hands and he had felt the immense amount of Qi stored inside of it. Kai felt that it could have leveled this entire canyon which was insane.

"Items with over 1000 raw Qi are no joke. No wonder why they're so rare", Kai thought as he sat down on the ground and watched the Manual creation process.

He had already seen it a bunch of times, but he still couldn't help but admire it. Now that he had avoided the major crisis, Kai was curious to see what type of manual would come out of this. The material had more than 1000 Qi, so a D-Rank manual was guaranteed, and Kai had never been disappointed by a D-Rank manual before.

The motes of light combined to create a scroll that had a soft red glow. The scroll floated quietly and landed in Kai's hands. Kai opened it up and inspected it carefully.

"Yup, still can't understand it any of this...System, absorb the information!" Kai said casually. It was a guaranteed D-Rank manual so it had to be good, whatever it was.

=[New Entry]=

>[Unnamed Internal Martial Arts Manual] [D-Rank] based on [Grade-3][Demon Hound Core(Unstable/Critical)]

[The Demon-kin forged their own path in the underworld after having been cast off by the heavens. There they waged their eternal struggle against all who stand on the side of the heavens, defiantly battling with hate-filled hearts for all eternity]

Limit: Peak of Foundation Establishment

[Qi Gather Rate]: 0 (Passive Qi cannot be absorbed by demons as mandated by the heavens)

[Active]: Vengeful: Gain the Demon's insatiable will for vengeance. Absorb the blood of your enemies to recover health and a certain portion of their Qi.

[Passive 1]: Demon-kin: your external appearance will be altered to that of the Demon-kin, granting a boost to physical and Qi-based attack damage + 50%. (This transformation is permanent).

[Passive 2]: Insatiable and Unstoppable: When out of Qi, all Qi-based attacks will use life force as fuel while also dealing increased damage of 100%.

[Additional Trait: Unstable/Critical]: The longer one practices this technique, the more unstable his mental state will become until he is finally driven to insanity and becomes a true demon.

[System Warning, Host's cultivation slot is full. Would you like to forget [Tempest Dragon's Law]?

Kai was both pleasantly surprised and also completely mortified by the result. He was happy that he got another Internal Cultivation Manual since the chances of getting those were extremely low, yet the type he got was what worried him.

"This thing just screams 'evil' no matter how I look at it". Kai thought. He read through the abilities multiple times and found the general pros and cons. The main pro was the immense power that the manual would give him. Kai would instantly gain +50% to all of his damage by simply learning the manual. However, the tradeoff was him having to transform into a demon...permanently.

As cool as this sounded, Kai hadn't seen any non-humans walking around within the city, so he didn't know how the people would react to him suddenly sprouting horns and a tail (assuming that's what Demons looked like in this world).

The other issue with the manual was that he would no longer be able to absorb Qi passively and instead would have to absorb the blood of his enemies to get stronger. This was the manual essentially telling him that he would become a vampire.

Then there was the proverbial 'poisoned apple' disguised as a powerful passive. The manual was enticing him further by saying; "Look how hard it is to gain Qi as a demon, so why even bother trying?. Just fight using your life force and get rewarded with an additional 100% more damage!".

Kai would gain combined damage of 150% in the 'insatiable' state, but then he would be using his lifespan in exchange for the power. Kai felt that this seemed like a trick to get him addicted to the power which would slowly kill him.

Worst of all, was the last 'bonus' trait that would essentially drive him to insanity, turning him into an actual demon...

"This thing is powerful but way too sinister. The drawbacks also seem dangerous and way too unpredictable for my liking. I'll try combining it with my other manuals when I get a chance, but for now, I'll just leave it alone..."

Kai decided not to do anything with it for now and chose to try combing it later. The reason Kai decided to ignore it was because it was just too dangerous to learn it himself. There were just too many unanswered questions and Kai didn't want to take any chances, so he decided to put it on hold. He would first test it out on someone else before he learned it himself.

Kai stood up and made to leave. This trip hadn't been exactly what he had hoped for and so he didn't know how to feel about it. The new D-Rank internal manual was good, but not usable in its current state.

Kai was about to leave when a sudden thought popped into his head. "Wait...why would there be a man-made Chimera just sitting around in this cave? It seems too strong to just be something left here for no reason..."

Kai had a feeling that it must have been protecting something and decided to have a closer look at the surroundings.