Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Mark absorbed Yuri into his World Space and she immediately began her checkup of the savage corpses. At the moment, she didn’t have much of any scientific equipment, so her research was limited to what she could make out with her eyes.

What she already had was enough to see how flexible the average savage body was, to see how its strength and structure compared to an average human or a demon’s body. Luckily, Mark could make a scalpel for her easily using Alchemic Shapeshifting, which made her job easier.

What she truly wanted but couldn’t have was a microscope. Sadly, even though Mark could transform rock into glass, he couldn’t create magnifying lenses. He just wasn’t aware of how they worked. And Yuri didn’t want to particularly focus on creating that for now.

She knew how pushed for time Mark was.

After noticing that Yuri was busy dissecting one of the corpses and jutting things down in her notebook—while Dona watched from the side—Mark nodded to both of them and teleported away.

Inside his World Space, he could teleport anywhere he wanted.

He appeared beside Reol’ran, who was sitting with her eyes closed in the middle of a moderately sized island village. On top of a simple hut’s roof. Under the almost starless night sky, she seemed to glow with an otherworldly charm.

The woman opened her amethyst eyes to stare at him, ripples in her gaze calm.

An awkward silence stretched between them.

Mark remembered what she had told him some time ago; after Yuri spoke to him about using Alchemic Shapeshifting to clone the currency of different worlds.

Reol’ran’s words, filled with emotions, were still crystal clear in his mind...

"Until this very moment, I had no hope in you surviving the First Suffering." She had said. "You can’t blame me. The Sufferings of Misfortune are the tribulation of Tier 5 Beings and you are just a Tier 2 Being."

"Tier 3 surviving Tier 5 level threat, that just doesn’t make sense and you are not even Tier 3 yet. But I never told you because I didn’t want to dash your hopes as well..."

"I’ve always thought you would die, and because of that, I might have unconsciously bound myself from truly loving you. But now, I can see a chance, it might be small, but it is still a chance. So you better know it, you are mine before anyone else’s and I am no longer letting anything that is mine get out of my grasp. Ever.

"You are not allowed to die."

Mark stared at Reol’ran’s eyes again, the awkwardness bounding. She had changed, Mark realized. Reol’ran was somehow more... confident. As if she was in her element.

"That new woman. Yasna Tigerbone, was it?" Reol’ran said, and for some reason, Mark felt a weird chill in his back. "She is quite capable. Made all the panicking villagers calm down quite easily, she is a brawn more than a brain but is not an idiot." She yawned. "And now, the villagers you abducted from the savage world are all waiting for your, the lord’s, arrival to remove their doubts."

Mark squinted. "You seem sarcastic."

Reol’ran glared at him, her poise abruptly shifting. "Yeah. You have limited time—less than a year. And what do you do with that time? Train? Scheme? Grow stronger? No, you have to go fuck around. That’s the most important thing." Her glare became mocking. "Go fuck around more, why don’t you? I am sure there will be more women out there, waiting for your lordship’s arrival with spread legs. Surely, the Suffering would deal with itself." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Grimacing, Mark came and sat down beside her. Didn’t Yasna go to sleep?

Reol’ran rested her face on her palms and stared at him.

She had a point. When every moment mattered, he shouldn’t be playing around.

"It just took like an hour to do what I did with Yasna. And it was my desire to bed a virgin woman I just met," he said and waved his hand, making a part of the Violet Screen appear in front of them. Reol’ran looked at it with a squint.

==•==

[Demonic Heart: You can follow your desires and gain more lifespan.]

[Soul Longevity: 39 Years.]

[•> Current Desires: Fight a Colossal Giant (100 Years of Lifespan) (Incomplete).]

[•> Life’s Great Desire: Become a meaningful existence in the world, experience the greatest pleasures that life has to offer, and be capable of attaining all that can be desired by becoming a Tier 10 Demon. (∞ Years of Lifespan) (Incomplete)]

[Completed Desires]

[Bed a virgin woman after just meeting her. (3 Years of Lifespan [claim]) (complete)]

==•==

Reol’ran clicked her tongue. "You and I both know you didn’t do what you did for that lifespan."

Mark cleared his throat. True, but it was a great stress relief, and that made his thoughts clearer.

He had a feeling that she wouldn’t care about his excuses, so he clicked [claim], and a warm feeling washed over him. Momentarily, all his worries vanished, his anxieties emptied, and his mind became as still as a frigid, ancient pond.

Sage, he became.

Then, he came back to being a living, emotional being once again and breathed out a puff of cool air.

[Soul Longevity: 42 Years.]

The woman just watched.

Mark looked at his stats in passing.

==•==

[Marcus Haeligarth Armanteuil Véxillarius Nócturnâ Aërglothur]

[Tier 2—Middle Demon]

[Physique: 1000 (Pinnacle)]

[Mind: 1000 (Pinnacle)]

[Soul Spheres: 367/10000.]

==•==

He hadn’t gained any Soul Spheres after he killed the silver savages, he realized. But that made sense. Groaning, he looked for the Kill Messages in his system that he had learned to ignore and they popped up into his sight.

[Killed a Silver Savage—Soul Sphere had been automatically absorbed into your Soul Space. Lower Quality Soul Sphere than your own Soul, the Soul Sphere had been used to strengthen your foundations.]

He himself was a Tier 2 Middle Demon while the Silver Savages were merely Tier 1 beings themselves. And thus, their souls couldn’t be used as improvement material for him. Even then, they still were quite hard to kill.

At least, I don’t have to kill too many of them to leave this world.

[Mission 1: Kill 100 Silver Savages.]

[Killed: 2/100]

[Rewards:

Entry back into the Demon World.]

Out of the 5 Silver Savages, one of them had been killed by Dona. Another was killed by Yuri. Mark himself had killed two, and one of them was still being held—alive—inside his World Space.

98 more...

He groaned inwardly.

Reol’ran brought attention to her by clearing her throat. "How much... time remains, exactly?" she asked.

Mark sighed. At least, she didn’t seem fixated on him taking in another woman. But he didn’t know what was going on in her head anyway.

[Sufferings of Misfortune]

[1st Suffering—Suffering of Man]

[Remaining Time: 0Y/11M/17D/2H/5M/1S]

Eleven months, seventeen days, two hours, five minutes, and... zero seconds. His life itself, his dreams, was ticking closer and closer to a bad place.

Mark sighed. "No more fucking around till this whole thing gets fixed, I am going to lock in."

Reol’ran stared sharply at him. "Are you sure?"

Mark nodded.

"Good. Then have you a plan for the Savage World?"

"I do."