James woke up, finding himself in a bed. From everybody’s reaction to his demonic flames, he was almost expecting to be tied up.

Helios noticed him waking up and walked up to the bed.

“Rise and shine sleepy head, that fireball must’ve drained all your mana. You gave us quite the spectacle.” Helios was grinning and laughing, he seemed proud.

“What happened? From the reactions I received, I thought I’d wake up in jail or something.”

“No, no, no. You've got it all wrong, friend. Those weren’t gasps of fear you were hearing, they were gasps of amazement. Everybody was excited! Well, all right, there may have been some fear and confusion, but it was mostly excitement.”

James was relieved. This world is entirely new to him, and he ends up doing something weird and passing out on the first day. But apparently the people of Hedonia are very accepting. More so, they’re even excited? Isn’t demonic stuff supposed to be bad?

“It said I unlocked the trait [Half-demon Soul], what does that mean? Why did everybody react like that?”

“Hmm, how can I put this? You’ve already been informed that our goal at Hedonia is to create a utopia through researching the arcane and progressing our magic, right? Well, we try to research all possible fields of magic. Destruction magic, healing magic, divination, warding, necromancy etc… they're all the same to us, nothing is off-limits, we study everything. The problem is that inevitably, many types of magic require at least partial use of the Darkness.”

“And my half-demon soul has something to do with that?” James still had the fear in the back of his mind that they’ll use him as a guinea pig for magical experiments or something of the sorts.

The people at Hedonia were very nice so far, but James was a bit paranoid. The guy was an asocial recluse for most of his life. The only life experiences he has are from books and movies. Can you blame him for being a bit paranoid? In every other story, the good guys who want a better world turn out to be evil maniacs.

“You wouldn’t know since you’re new here, but this world of ours isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. With the combined efforts of all the experts at Hedonia, we’ve managed to carve our little slice of paradise, but we’re still in a constant battle with the Darkness. You could say that the Darkness is a metaphysical force, a natural part of the universe. It governs a lot of the magic of our universe, many schools of magic are deeply tied to it, at least partially.”

“And you still use them? I thought you said you battle Darkness.”

“Aye, we believe all magic is worth using. The Darkness is a corrupting force, but it's also a part of nature. Yes, it is responsible for most of our troubles, from the existence of monsters, curses, to even governing death. And our greatest enemies, which have turned a significant chunk of this world into an apocalyptic wasteland, are essentially agents of the Darkness.

"But we must not fear the Darkness, we must understand it. A big reason why our world has suffered so much at the hands of the Darkness is that for a long time it was a feared force, its usage was shunned and banned. But over time, reason has prevailed. Now, knowledge is our most powerful weapon, we must understand the Darkness rather than avoid it.”

“And so where do I come in?”

“A demon is a creature born of Darkness. Demons themselves aren't all that rare, we often capture some and study them, though they don't really cooperate. Now, what is really rare is a half-demon. Perhaps studying a half-demon can further our understanding of the Darkness quite a bit. Or at least of magic fields adjacent to the Darkness.”

James couldn’t help but gulp instinctively. So they did want to study him! But these people have been nothing but nice to him, he relaxed right away.

Sensing his apprehension, Helios reassured him. “Don’t worry buddy, we’re not going to dissect you or anything.” Helios was suppressing a laugh. “You'll just do what you would’ve done anyway. You’ll train, we’ll observe you, we’ll see how your magic reacts to various stimuli, how it develops.”

Helios seemed like a fun guy. James didn’t really have friends in his past life, but this time around he promised himself he would change his ways. Making friends with the people of Hedonia could be pretty nice even for a solitary beast like him.

If James had a chance to redo his life on Earth, he’d probably end up being a recluse all over again. There were many reasons why he used to be a recluse. But one of the main ones was that life on Earth was just boring.

Even beyond just the drudgery of work and study, Earth just isn’t an exciting place. He literally spent more time reading and watching fantasy than actually being out in the real world.

This time around he’s not on Earth though. This world is exciting. There’s so much to see and do, to discover and learn. And there are no limits, anything is possible.

As such, James’s life now had a purpose. He wanted to become as powerful as possible. Power means freedom, power means pleasure. If he had power, he could live every day to the fullest.

Hedonia was just the place for that, everybody had this goal.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in!” Helios seems to have invited somebody over.

A rather short, bespectacled woman walked in. Her hair was disheveled, which reminded James of his own hair from back when he still had some. Of course, the recluse had lost his hair by now, that’s what the lifestyle of a recluse can do to you. They both wore glasses too, but that’s where the similarities between the two of them ended.

Healing magic exists in this world though, why do they still need glasses?

Anyway, the woman was the same age as the two guys, somewhere in her mid twenties. She wasn’t what you’d call gorgeous or cute, she was just a normal human being. Which was a relief for James because standing near Helios for too long had started making him feel self-conscious.

Seeing this normal looking person was refreshing. James had feared that everybody in this world looked like Helios and his father Cadmus, who Helios seems to have inherited his looks from: fit, sharp features, head full of hair. James thought he'd be the ugly duckling of this world!

“James, this is Lunaris. We're friends, but she's also currently researching the Darkness. When she heard that you possessed a half-demon soul, she immediately wanted to join us.” Helios laughed.

Lunaris seemed excited, giving a small bow.

“Could you tell me what the status screen says about your Half-demon soul? I want to see if my guesses are accurate.”

James complied, Lunaris was clearly very curious.

[Half-demon Soul. Half of your soul has demonic qualities. It increases your affinity with Darkness-related magic, increasing the learning speed, potency and any special effects of the Darkness. Can spend Darkness essence to imbue darkness into spells, if enough has been gathered.]

“That’s amazing, it basically guarantees your spells will be more powerful than average. Although they will probably consume more mana if they are imbued with Darkness, so you’ll have to do something about that limitation. It must be why you passed out earlier. Also, you'll have to gather Darkness to actually use it, which can be dangerous. You probably don't have much left.” Lunaris theorized.

“Lunaris, since you seem to know your stuff, do you know why I have a half-demon soul? There were no demons in the world I’m from.”

“There’s no way to tell for sure, I haven't seen any half-demons before, this whole field of study is quite esoteric. But I believe it may have something to do with your reincarnation. Or at least with the way you reincarnated.”

So neither James nor anybody else had any idea of why he possessed a half-demon soul, but time will tell. For now, he has to get settled in, relax and let his mind digest all of this.

James was tired, but his mind was still very interested in finding out more. He felt like he was a kid again, excited about everything. Every little thing was a mystery.

“How about I show you where you’ll be living from now on? I bet you want to rest, even though you had a nap after your fireball incident.” Helios grinned and then pulled out what looked like a wooden cube.

“This is your welcome gift from father and me to you. It’s the most basic housing unit available at Hedonia, but you’ll find it plenty comfortable. You take it with you and you find a place that you like, anywhere not occupied will do, Hedonia is basically the size of a small country at this point anyway so there’s plenty of space, not even including the pocket dimensions. Then you place this cube on the ground and put mana into it. It will grow to the size of a small house, furniture included.”

James was speechless. Coming to this world was definitely the right choice, the things they can do with magic are amazing, it’s like magic consumer technology.

“Wow, thanks a lot Helios! I’m in your debt.”

“Don’t worry buddy.” Helios gave him a beaming smile. “This is nothing, depending on how fast you progress you could buy yourself a house a thousand times as big in no time. Oh, by the way, how much mana do you have?”

[Mana: 100/100]

“Hmm, that’s not enough to activate the house. Well, since you need to activate it with your own mana, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way. The hard way would be to level up a bit.”

“And the easy way?” James didn’t like the sound of a "hard way", the last idea Helios had was to blast him with a fireball.

“Well, I can just overload you with mana. It’ll hurt but it would only take a few seconds.”

James would need to level up anyway. But he really wants to see the interior of that house right away.

“Wait, I’ll do it, you don’t know your strength Helios. He might just explode if you give him your mana.” Lunaris took some pity on James, she knew just how overly eager Helios is.

“Thank you, Lunaris.”

Lunaris then placed her hand on James’s shoulder, infusing him with mana.

James then collapsed to his knees.

[Mana: 500/100]

Collapsing a second time since he got to this world, James vowed to never collapse again, this was starting to get embarrassing. He’ll become overpowered in no time, no more collapsing for this guy. The time to be a strong and brooding hero has begun. Or at least so he hoped.

At least he’s still conscious this time.

“Do you know a good spot where I could place my house?”

Lunaris had an answer right away. “If you like rivers, you can put it down next to mine. There’s also a market nearby so it’s pretty convenient. But it’s a quite a long walk away from here, especially since you don't know any magic.”

“That’s all right, I’ve got this.” Helios intervened. “You learn things fast due to your innate skill, right? Use this scroll to learn [Arcane sprint]. You only need 300 mana to activate the house, so use 200 to [Arcane sprint].

James used the scroll, immediately learning the spell. Whether it was his Jack of all trades skill, or just the fact that he had read too much fantasy in his life, and so he he spent a lot of time thinking about all kinds of magic. But he learned the spell right away.

“I’ll lead the way.” Lunaris activated [Arcane sprint].

Using 200 of the mana Lunaris gave him, James infused his legs with mana. As he started running, his legs felt like feathers, and he was basically gliding across the ground. This kind of experience was exactly what he came to this world for. Even running is fun here, back on Earth it was a chore. This was as fun as going to an amusement park.

Meanwhile, Helios was running next to them without using [Arcane sprint] at all.

Lunaris rolled her eyes. “You meathead, you’ll tire yourself out.”

“No pain, no gain.” Helios was grinning.

Five minutes later they arrived to Lunaris’s house. [Arcane sprint] was quite convenient, it saved quite a bit of time. Surprisingly, Helios kept up with them.

Except he was now collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily. Everybody’s collapsing today, at least this time it wasn't James.

Lunaris rolled her eyes again. “I told you this would happen, you do this all the time. Why can’t you be normal? Anyway, James, pick a spot quickly and use the mana to activate your house, before your mana dissipates.”

James used up all his mana to activate his house. No collapsing this time though, although he felt a little lightheaded from depleting his mana.

The wooden cube quickly grew to the size of a small house. It was a breathtaking sight to James, but Lunaris and Helios didn’t even blink.

“All right, why don’t you step inside, it’s your house after all.” Helios gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Wait, this is safe, right? I’ve never seen a cube turn into a house before.”

“Oh yeah, it’s totally safe. The worst thing that could happen is it turning back into a cube when you’re inside it and crushing you, but that’s unlikely.” Lunaris said this with a poker face.

Helios started laughing, and Lunaris couldn’t stop herself from smirking as well. “I’m just kidding, go inside, it’s entirely safe.”

James enjoyed the company of these two. Perhaps he won't miss being a lonely recluse after all.

Later that night, as James was lying in bed, he was contemplating his current situation.

He'll have to train and work harder than he ever did in his life. But with levels and skills to motivate him, it might even be a pleasure. The lazy part of him must die, because soon enough he'll be embarking on his journey of chasing power like a madman.

Hopefully James won't go overboard with it though. Once he finds something he likes, he tends to overdo it. And the only things he really liked on Earth were reading fantasy and playing games. This world is basically those two things combined, on steroids.