Something interesting happened.

No really! This is an incredible discovery!

So, for the last five days, I've just been here squashing bugs, sleeping in this cold damp camp, and taking the opportunity to shower when it rained two days ago. Though my hair is starting to feel horrible without my hair products… Well that’s it, that’s all I’ve done these last five days.

What about my other bodily functions? Don’t worry about that. Just know that toilet paper is severely underappreciated by modern society.

Oh, I also found a weak mouse in my cave that I killed. Gave me quite a bit of exp, well at least compared to bugs….

The mouse definitely must have wandered in from somewhere. It’s not like there’s a den of mice here that I’ve been too afraid to confirm its existence. Definitely not.

But well, that’s basically all I’ve been doing for the last five days. Kill bugs, sleep, repeat. I don’t have to eat or drink anything. Actually, I don’t need to sleep at all for that matter, but it’s not like there’s anything to do at night since looking for bugs in the darkness is a pain. Not because a *future* Demon Lord is afraid of the night…. So in order to be able to continue looking for bugs to kill, I just go to sleep to fast forward to daytime.

Well, that’s all I’ve been doing. Pretty boring right?

Even I was beginning to lose hope in my Demon Lord ambitions. Although I was getting a little bit stronger, it’s not like my base stats were actually that high. So at the moment, despite having spent all that time grinding, I’m just at the level of your average sedentary youth. Nowhere near where I need to be to become an indomitable Demon Lord.

At least that was what I was thinking until something incredible happened today!

What happened you ask since we’re 322 words deep into this chapter and I still haven’t revealed the ‘interesting’ event that happened?

Well don’t worry, because I’ll tell you now. You see, after I squashed a pretty large beetle with a stick, what felt like a notification went off in my mind!

I’m not sure how I know about it, really, the workings of this world are a pain…

But anyway, as I was saying, I’m not sure how I know about it, but I feel like that notification was informing me that I leveled up.

Which reminded me of something important. There’s supposed to be magic in this world! And that means that I should also have a mana stat! While I hadn’t noticed, there was no doubt that the exp wasn’t just going into my physical stats. What a blunder on my part.

And, just to prove that my conjecture was correct, my brain was suddenly flooded with the names of different skills or attributes! I couldn't actually use them, but I knew that I was being allowed to choose one of them for myself. I immediately became very excited and wanted to choose a powerful magic skill to help me in my grind and to defend myself, but I felt a strong urge against it after I began looking for them.

For some reason, something was giving me a feeling that the skill or attribute I received for my first level up was special and different from the subsequent skills that I would receive. Thus, deciding to trust in this instinct, I began browsing for something else hoping that that something would let me know what my ‘correct’ choice would be.

I mean, I’d be pretty shitty to be level 100 and figure discover that the build you spent all that time grinding on was trash, right?

Thus after… scrolling… I guess? Through the information in my brain, I laid my eyes upon something that immediately drew me in.

Now, the names of these skills and abilities were in a foreign language that I couldn’t make heads or tails of in case you were wondering. But for some reason, I knew what the words meant. To me, it felt as if someone had overlayed a translation in front of the names, making it appear as if I were looking at two different things at the same time.

Pretty trippy to be honest.

Well, not that it really matters anymore. You see, the thing I ended up choosing was the [Veritas] soul ability.

Why did my brain translated into Latin? Beats me, I’m not the one who decides how things work here~

Or am I? Am I actually omnipotent but don’t know it?

No, of course not. If that was the case, I wouldn’t be in such a miserable situation covered in sweat and grime.

I really need a bar of soap and some deodorant….

Anyway, the [Veritas] ability I received allows me to, ahem, ‘Glean into the truth of all matter and creation’.

Quite an impressive description don’t you think?

Well, thanks to this, I suddenly found myself having a much greater understanding of the environment around me. And because of that, it’s actually a reeeeally important ability. Even more than powerful offensive magic!

I’m serious you know!

You see, while I’ve been just idly strolling and living in this forest without a care, thinking that it was a nice and peaceful place, the truth of the matter was that there was a massive formation covering the entire forest all along!

The purpose of the barrier is to keep away malevolent entities, and considering I can see massive amounts of mana deeper into the forest, there’s most likely another even stronger barrier in there to keep EVERYONE, good or evil away!

I’m pretty sure that this formation is what’s been keeping predators away, and I should probably learn from them and get my ass out of here!

Oh yeah, I can also see the mana inside of living beings, as well as the flow of mana through the environment, if that wasn’t obvious from my previous discovery~

Also, I can now understand the intentions behind living beings! Which means I'll be able to communicate with the people of this world!

And yes, I can understand animals to a certain extent. Well, I mean, they don’t really have much in the way of complex thoughts you know~ They just like, feel hunger, or thirst, or are tired, or want to run away from me. Especially bugs.

Wouldn’t know why to be honest….

H-O-W-E-V-E-R, the most important thing that I gained is, and you better be prepared to be excited… ok you ready?

MY EYES CAN NOW TURN YELLOW AND ALSO GLOW MENACINGLY WHENEVER I ACTIVATE MY ABILITY!

HOW COOL IS THAT! PRETTY DEMONIC DON’T YOU THINK!

Makes me feel very confident that I picked the correct ability. After all, it is a MAX LVL ability that helps me in my ambition to become the Demon Lord!

I mean seriously, how is anyone supposed to fear me as a demonic Demon Lord if I look like… well… me….

I just made myself feel depressed.