After lamenting for a while, Ru sat down a bit dispirited.

“I cannot take your spirit crystals everyone, I am deeply gratified for your encouragement, and even though I will do my best to help achieve the unification of the demon race, we should not try to put someone on a pedestal, we are all equals!”

Everyone blinked and looked slack jawed at Ru, for demons making a choice was something they did with great fervor, their intelligence had been greatly undermined and been suppressed since they escaped for many years to a rural place.

...

“Ru, we said that all of our spirit crystals would be given to you, why do you refuse them?”

Baba looked anxious as he asked Ru. Both were standing next to a cliff-size like pile of organs and decaying skin soaked in blood. After the discussion earlier, Baba had brought him here in a hurry, fantasizing about his yet-to-be conquest of the demon village.

Ru shaked his head helplessly. Unknowingly, he had somehow lit a fire in the patient hearts of these friends of his. It was unexpected that these adults would act so childishly.

“Baba, I have already told you, only grown demons can eat old spirit crystals. If you force me to eat them, I will probably become weak and die. You wouldn’t want your prodigy to die prematurely, now, would you?”

Ru realized just how easily he could speak their language now, it was as though he had always spoken the demon language. It was all thanks to these special skills of his.

Baba took a step back and viewed the pile of bones, the ground beneath was a deep dark color from the dried blood. Smiling at his thoughts he shook his head slightly as he looked back at the ruminating Ru.

“Okay Ru, I will take back the spirit crystals and divide them between everyone. We will hunt for fresh spirit crystals for you, if we are equals then you should equally benefit from your own discovery.”

Finishing he picked up some ragged cloth that was bound as a bag, in it was a few dull yet still sparkling round objects, allegedly the spirit crystals belonging to the skeleton pile.

The sheer amount was amazing, Ru and Quan had spent multiple hours scurrying through the dirt and moving the skeleton pile to fish up as many spirit crystals as possible. After moving the whole pile, they had had to dig through the dirt and some hard surface beneath to find most of the sunken spirit crystals.

Due to the time they had been in cadavers, they had of course fallen out and onto the ground as time passed, only a few was still stuck between the bones or was between rotten organs and flesh from the more new cadavers.

Ru was slightly perturbed that so many spirit crystals was useless to him, luckily the other would benefit greatly from them, since his skill to absorb spirit crystals was an actual skill, he was able to tell that if he had not gained the taotie skill, he would have gained the same benefits as the others, however his progress from eating fresh spirit crystals was tantamount to jumping levels and gaining exp boosts while grinding.

Delight also overtook some of him, as he stood on the slightly secretive spot of the cadavers home. Currently what was on his mind, was that while he was practicing his swordsmanship on the smallest tree he could find, it is also said that this so called small tree would still need several human people to hold hands to surround it, his sword had broken.

Upon further inspecting his other swords he noticed the problem, animal hide would not be intact forever, it was a temporary solution because without tanning the hide and other stuff he had once heard about from his teacher at random, it would rot.

Rotting hide would not be able to keep together the sword, and thus he was contemplating on how to solve this issue, or in particular if he should just abandon the sword since he was currently confident to become very strong without it.

But, there was still the enigmatic pull on his mind, as warrior and knight was his favourite class, he really thought just practicing a sword to look majestic would not be such a poor idea.

Taking in a deep breath, determination showed in Ru’s eyes, first he would need to get a more firm grip on some material and workshops, his knowledge on this world was too sparse. If humans existed, which by the stories from the girls, it sounded like many races exists, there should be opportunities to come into contact with blacksmiths and other professions.

…

As time passed, the sun rose many times as Ru gathered his knowledge and developed his strength, he was at a kind of an impasse at unlocking skills at the current, but with his taotie skill he had already greatly strengthened himself.

…

*PLOP*

“Ahh, how refreshing, Zuo you should jump in, this water is just the right temperature for a good wash. Truly refreshing!”

Ru laughed heartily as he calmly used his legs to move around the lake while being on his back, resting himself.

Two months have gone to the wind, the present Ru was a completely new person, and was not classified as a demon seedling anymore. He was as tall as the other demons, although he was more lean and not as bulky, he was the strongest of them and could even win against Lon and Baba in a one versus two fist fight.

Mostly their training was wrestling and fighting with themselves, but after eating a lot of beasts, a few weeks after unlocking spirit taotie, Ru had already unlocked something else beyond the strength boost, and even his defense had taken a major turn.

[Spirit Taotie]

Skill Level: 1/1

Experience: 1/1

Description:

Consume Fresh Spirit Cores to gain increase in strength. Eating the resting Spirit Energy in beast meat and muscle, will endorse your body in a tempering state to increase your defensive bonus.

Current Strength Bonus: 137,7%

Current Body Defense Bonus: 48,1%

[Mental Awareness skill]

Skill Level: 6

Experience: 621/5000

Description:

The Mental Awareness skill increases all of the user’s mental abilities. I.e. maintaining focus and concentration, controlling emotions, encouraging oneself, visualisation and imagery. The skill is trained by using and practicing your abilities, as well as assessing your proficiency.

[Basics of a Carpenter (+)]

Skill Level: 13/50

Experience: 103/10.000

Description:

With intelligent constructions you can defeat the enemy you hold dearest, your time. Surpass your imaginative restriction of what wood can do, and build the most effective constructions.

[Demon Language]

Skill Level: 5/5

Experience: 250/250

Description:

You fully understand and speak the Demon Language proficiently.

Ru had been resting on some thoughts together with the others, it was almost time to take over the demon village, being stuck hunting beasts was not going to help them improve steadily at the moment, normal beasts already gave little to no benefit to Ru, except eating the beasts was still very good for him as it would temper his body, but it could be done everywhere beasts lived.

With a goal in mind, Ru swam to land and walked up, his naked and lean muscles gleamed as he gave a vicious smile to Zuo. “I think it’s time now Zuo, let’s go and pack up our things, I am tired of living in a cave!”

These words put a sleek grin on Zuo’s face as he immediately turned around and threw some cloth at Ru, with his back to Ru he walked as he grinned foolishly, his direction was clear as it was finally time to test some of his strength, time to sleep in a bed!