Magic crystals could be used to power large scale spells and other special manifestations. A mage at the adept stage who knew the correct manifestation formulas and etheric codes can cause hell to local powers. The only limit was the skill of the one in possession of a crystal.

Seeing a rat playing around with such a treasure stunned Raiken for a moment. This world was that rich, to where even low level beasts could get a share of it's resources? From what he knew, mighty entities usually monopolized areas that yielded natural treasures. Trespassers were killed on sight, probably only their mates and descendants could share in the bounty, otherwise it would be jealousy guarded.

Whatever the case here was, it didn't change the fact that such a resource was of enormous use to Raiken as well. He finally understood why his honored ancestors were in a frenzy to get back to the worlds outside. Latter generations deemed they'd gone mad in their captivity, they never experienced the outside world personally, the only image they had of it was depicted by these very ancestors. To them it was a distant thing, so they weren't able to share the same feelings as their predecessors, who even sacrificed their very existences to make a way out.

At around the age of 5 Raiken discovered the pleasures of reading. He was always at the clan library, feeding his mind with the knowledge his ancestors left behind to give their successors a shot at freedom. While everyone else halfheartedly thought about breaking out, thinking 'If our awesome ancestors who were uncountable times stronger than us didn't succeed, what can you expect from us'? Raiken continued to learn the arts, laws, and refinement methods his ancestors favored.

He quickly gained advanced level comprehension in fields like Hel magic, transformation arts, star travel, as well as star communication. The other Optic Demons didn't see the need for abilities say for example, that located hidden planes or opened gates which created bridges that could be used to cross over to those spaces. They were on a prison planet, space was sealed tightly around it, any bordering dimensions that were around would be inaccessible as a result.

All hope was being placed on someone getting strong enough to break through a single point of the manifestation central which supported the sealing effect. Sooner or later some monstrous bastard would be born, the more laid back Optic Demons had to admit that their family was outside common levels of understanding. Being imprisoned on a planet for millions of years had to have effected their collective psyche in some way.

Everything all boiled down to the Optic Demons being unwilling to spend time on techniques which didn't deal with destruction. The new clan developed into something much different than it was in the past. Where majority of Optic Demons loved to dabble in all kinds of fields, wanting to learn the different ways spirit can be manifested and put to use. The current generation discarded everything else in favor of more aggressive methods, they aimed to create something that could smash through all obstacles, even the very heavens!

That normally wouldn't be a problem, except they tried to force their meathead ways on Raiken. He wanted to walk the way of a magical terror, with minions on hundreds of worlds, wielding the planet's, stars, suns, and moons as weapons in his arsenal. Using the spirit just to merely empower yourself didn't seem like the way to Raiken, although he could see how those techniques could be useful among a broader skillset.

His eyes landed on the crystal the rat was holding, thoughts alive with possibilities. There had to be more of those. These rats seemed to have come up here together with the caterpillar thing. There was a good chance the rat that could use magic had more information in it's memories, seeing as it was already in possession of one.

Reaching out a silver claw, it was as if Raiken grasped onto a physical object. To the staff toting rat's horror, it lost all control of it's body. It's body turned into a blurred line as it flew up towards Raiken, it came to a stop with him palming the top of it's head. He raised it's head, looking directly into it's eyes. At the exact moment of contact, everything related to the crystals was being extracted from it's mind.

As the Blast-Foot was in the middle of powering up to crush it, the staff holding rat abruptly flew off, shocking the beast till it froze. With an expression of disbelief in it's normally fierce eyes, it slowly craned it's neck upward. Although it's kind was cursed to never fly again, they still had the eyes of raptors. A silver gleam immediately came in it's sight, it's eyes couldn't help but widen seeing a little lizard holding up the rat's head.

Caught off guard, the beast stared, standing there looking quite lost. Perhaps it needed time to process this.

After a few breaths it's beak snapped closed, it's sharps eyes seemed to come back to the present, focusing more clearly on the lizard in the sky, standing on some kind of clear ground. The monster bird tried to make sense of the sight.

"Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh. I'd like to

thank you in advance for saving me the trouble of having to go far to look for you". A sinister cackle came right from inside of it's mind, causing the beast to snap it's beak together as their kind did when agitated. Numerous foes that were brave enough to face it were crushed by the bird, it's usual ferocity amounted to nothing with the one it was faced with this time.

Blood vessels throbbed in it's eyes, a visible sign of the strain it was under right now. Like a prisoner in it's own body, it could only look on helplessly as a silver light twisted into existence before it's eyes. A silver needle began poking out of the twisting light, looking exactly like Raiken's own nail, just made of pure light. With a flicker, it flew at the Blast-Foot, piercing into different points of it's body.

Creatures of the Blast-Foot and raccoon's caliber pretty much dominated their opponents unless they ran across someone with better inner potential. The Earth-Child wurm was a perfect example to use here, with it's strong Earth element powers, it could kill either the Blast-Foot or raccoon one on one. Though it wouldn't be a one sided slaughter, they would still lose.

This was the first time for the Blast-Foot to ever be pushed to the brink. When it expected the embrace of death to wrap around it, like it had done to many unfortunate ones to come across it's path, it started blinking in a daze upon not feeling anything. Looking down at itself there were no wounds, there were no signs of harm wherever it looked on it's body as well.

It didn't like spending too much time questioning why things were the way they were, or why they happened how they happened. Facing a problem it couldn't solve with it's deadly kick, the Blast-Foot became haunted by indecision.

While it was stuck with that, Raiken grasped hold of a blob of blood. Still gripping the rat by it's head, he hopped off the screen of air and landed on the ground. The Blast-Foot snapped out of it's pause at the motion, looking at the creature who was clearly stronger than it, but the bird wasn't one to cower in fear.

Now that he'd gotten what he wanted, Raiken paid no further attention to the beast. He was more occupied with what he'd learned going through the rat's mind. Shuffling through images and subconscious impressions, the baby demon learned of more than a dozen areas in the underground world that were crystal deposit spots. The rats fought against other species of monster groups in fierce competition over who had sole right to harvest the energy crystals.

Living amongst hordes of bloodthirsty killers, the Dire-Rats were able to remain in the game because of the brood mothers who mated with the strongest among them, giving birth to hundreds of little baby rats a week. Every so often, a great daughter would be born, they were of a more superior stock compared to common males and females who hadn't reached the 10th layer of refinement, or higher.

This particular rat who Raiken had nabbed was valued by the brood mothers and their great daughters because of it's ability to use magic. Of the thousands of Dire-Rats within the horde, it was the only one that could do so. Perhaps because of it's superior quality, it was able to command the other rats, even some of the ones that were stronger than it would follow it out to the battlefield.

Everyday the fighters among the horde went out to raid for food, anything else that attracted the great daughter's interest would also be brought away. A staggering number of rats died on these assaults, the magic using rat pummeled it's own share of foes to death, living to eat and shit again another day.

In battle, it's signature technique was creating balls of magical energy, it would fire them at the enemy until they were beaten nearly to a pulp, the corpses were dragged away and added to the feed pile. That was what it had in store for the Blast-Foot, except the bird wasn't some rabble that could be easily swept away.

Even with the power of it's trusty magic on it's side, the end result would still be it getting trampled beneath the Blast-Foot's talon. Because Raiken wanted something from it, the rat was able to stick around in the world of the living, defying death even in this pitiful moment of terror where it felt the weight of a huge gaze beaming down on it like sunlight through a magnifying glass.

"A rat that could use magic, now I've really seen it all. Heh, heh, heh, heh." Releasing the rat from his grip and watching it flop on the ground, Raiken shook his head, actually tripping out off of the idea. Magic was his favorite field of study, with the right spells in their arsenal, a magic user could be a one man army on the battlefield. Warriors had to spend way more time on fine spirit manipulation and the discovery of etheric codes. Their manifestation formulas also had to be beyond mastery to achieve the same results of a mage who was at a lower energy level.

Knowledge was the determining key factor here though. Things might become difficult to predict if a warrior from an ancient household, who's family had been passing down the things they'd learned about spirituality since the times before their region was stabilized, were the one inserted into that scenario. Those kinds of families were the ones who had cut a place for themselves out of it back when the land was still savage, they stood the test of time, going from preserving against waves of hostile entities, to overseeing nations.

Raiken found it funny that a rat had better prospects than the humans he came across. There were thousands of more rats crawling around underground, which Raiken had the fledgling idea of a plan to take control of to gain greater coverage over the area. Taking control of some rats wouldn't trouble him at all, he didn't even need to be there. First, to kick off his master plan, he needed to make an adjustment to the magic using rat. With that in place, he wouldn't have to bother with troubleshooting personally, he had an art that was perfect for the job.

The rat squeaked in fear when Raiken lifted his hand, performing a series of seals in a blur. On the final seal, he opened his fingers, letting the energy in the surroundings flood into them. Spiritual signs materialized in front of them, directing the energies towards various points to perform separate tasks. He closed his fingers to stabilize and set the manifestation seals, powerful vital essential was condensed inside them.

Raiken even added in some of his Optic Demon energy so the thing he created would possess high comprehension and application skills.

"Third Hymn, the wayfarer treads the pineal! Let the children of darkness hear me and know that a sovereign has arrived! I call forth the Witchling Worm"! He casted the art, causing a black fog to build up, gradually curtaining the area. This scene was actually quite creepy to the Blast-Foot. Taking a look at the silver lizard, it saw that a while had passed since the creature even bothered to look in it's direction. Now was as good a time as any to slip away, it didn't want to give the lizard second thoughts, maybe it would change it's mind and decide to kill and eat it.

In a sneaky shuffle which was quite unbefitting of it, the Blast-Foot moved towards the closest cover of trees. Feeling a tingle down it's back the further it got, the bird picked up speed when it felt it'd reached a safe enough distance. By the time it's tail feathers dissapeared, the flat area where Raiken was looked like a forbidden zone.

The rat laid fainted in front him, pinching a black worm with crimson eyes between his thumb and index finger, he wasn't bothered about the creature's state at all. Whether it was conscious or not wouldn't effect what he had to do.

As he looked down indifferently at the rat, the worm dangled between his fingers without a fuss. After quickly getting a measure of it's surroundings, it also set it's eyes on the rat. Just a glance was enough for it to tell that this was a trash host, the worm looked at Raiken accusingly out the side of it's eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, this is only temporary. I promise to find a host worthy of you to inhabit in the meantime. There's something I want you to take care of for me". Flicking his tail in helplessness, Raiken tried to appease it.

Turning it's face away, nevertheless the worm still jumped down, gliding towards the rat. Landing on it's face, the worm looked back at Raiken with it's bright eyes, as if it was saying it would hold him to his promise, don't think it'll forget!

When it was satisfied it had gotten it's point across, it turned back to crawl into the rat's nose.