He dodged a blow in the last second and shot the second Lithoid, shattering its core. This one was close, he had been too excited and ran into another Lithoid even before shattering the previous one.

Although it had been a close call, it was worth it.

[Souls] - 34 affinity-lithoid(unspent 1) 4 affinity-plant (unspent 4) 63 affinity-none (unspent 13)(borrowed 20)

"Yes!" Frei Galgani almost shouted with glee.

It was here! He was over one hundred!

The smile on his face was slowly fading away.

Was he? Could he still count right? Thirty four plus four plus sixty three should be over one hundred! He observed his body but nothing glorious was happening.

"No, no, no. Do not tell me it has to be of the same type. . ." He rushed to expand the [Souls] tag, but it was showing just the abilities he could buy.

Soul Power 63/34/4 [Black Bullet] - 15 [Soul Sight] - 15 [Stealth] - 10 [Supernatural Physique] - 10

[Demonic Transformation]* - 10

[Mesmerize]* - 10

[Demon Claws]* - 20

[Telekinesis]* - 10

[Strength of Stone]* - 10

[Hardened Skin]* - 10

[Steel Skin]* - 10

[Poison Resistance]* - 10

[Corrosion Resistance]* - 5

[Energy Resistance]* - 5

[Elemental Perception]* - 15

[Merge]* - 10

[Rock Spike]* - 15

[Growth]* - 10

He sighed, but was not that discouraged when he saw that he could at least strengthen himself with some new abilities. Walking a bit further away from the mine, he secured a hidden area for himself where he could test the new abilities, as he would be vulnerable when doing so.

After smashing some imaginary trees around himself, he arrived at the conclusion that [Strength of Stone] was as plain as it gets. With it, he was simply a notch stronger. It was not something stellar, but it was apparent.

"Not bad, next."

[Hardened Skin] did what it claimed, it was a no-brainer as well. With [Steel Skin], he had to experiment for a while. The ability lasted only a few seconds and had a cooldown period of roughly half a minute. Naturally, the protection for that short moment seemed to be much higher compared to [Hardened Skin]. Still, he liked the constant passive ability more.

The resistances could be skipped, as what they did was clear as day and he had no way to test it in his current environment anyway.

Activating [Merge] Frei's eyes nearly popped out, because his perspective gradually changed, until he was gazing up to the sky. He tried to look right and saw some ant-like bug.

It was huge! Well, it happened if something was right in front of your eyes.

He understood that he had merged with the ground under him, but the moment he tried to move in the ground, there was a noticeable wobble on its surface. Clearly, he could move in that state, but all the stealth was lost in that moment. All in all, it was a nice stealth ability.

When he tested [Growth], nothing happened and he was left wondering what was the ability for. It sounded practical, but he was not willing to go to extremes just to try it out.

Throwing a few [Rock Spike] around, he had to smile, finally he had some luck. It took the form of a two meter long spike protruding suddenly from the ground. The cooldown of the ability was a few seconds and it seemed that it was not shared with other abilities, meaning he could use it at the same time as [Black Bullet], increasing his fire power considerably. The ability dealt a lot of blunt damage, with much weight behind it.

The last item was [Elemental Perception], but when he switched it on, all kinds of colors overwhelmed him. Not being able to figure out what all the crazy colors meant, he had to switch it off and accept that he was . .

"Fuck this one, it is obviously for smart people." Angered by what he himself had said, he was about to refuse to give up, when he decided that he had not too many souls of Lithoids anyway.

He bought the abilities that looked the most useful and walked back in the direction of the mine.

Soul Power 63/34/4 [Black Bullet] - 15 [Soul Sight] - 15 [Stealth] - 10 [Supernatural Physique] - 10 [Demonic Transformation] - 10 [Hardened Skin] - 10 [Rock Spike] - 15

"Argh, I have to test [Demonic Transformation] as well. I kind of overlooked that one too much." Part of the reason he was looking forward to it was that if the different abilities could be layered on top of each other, he could end up as an overpowered melee fighter.

After yet another field of virtual stumps, left after he had used trees of the simulation as practice targets, Frei determined that he had roughly three minutes before the [Demonic Transformation] expired and he had to wait the same amount of time before he was able to switch it back on. The difference between his last test and this one was that the [Hardened Skin] really did layer over the natural hardness of his transformed body, making the skin of his demon form harder than a rhino's, but not quite as hard as steel.

"Strange, I thought that it was only an illusion, but now that I look at it . . . " He looked at his transformed hands and noticed differences compared to the last time. His whole figure looked more stocky, his skin rougher, like it was made out of minerals.

"Is it possible that the Lithoid souls are causing this?" He winced when he imagined that he might evolve into some Lithoid elemental monster instead of a fiend if he collected one hundred Lithoid-affinity souls

So be it! It was not like he had an option.

"Well, maybe I have." His gaze lingered on one of the slow moving blue lights.

The question was what would piss off the hell more, killing many off-mission targets, or evolving in a funny way.

He decided to continue the slaughter of those strange elemental beings, filling the night with a new sound of the [Rock Spike] smashing into the poor Lithoids, who were no longer even able to reach him, as the spike was great at shattering their cores that had been already damaged by [Black Bullet].

Frei entered one of the side tunnels and used [Merge], the third Lithoid affinity ability he had bought and the clueless miners just ran past him, probably searching for the source of the increasing racket.

"Not a clue." He smiled, after he had emerged out of the wall.

"I should pause it for tonight and lay low for a few days." Frei was aware that whoever that Duke Ashworth was, he should have people that actually matched those fantasy-like polearms and he did not want to provoke any of those sorts to perhaps go and inspect the mine. Climbing out of the mine in his transformed state, he ignored the spiraling path and used a direct route up the slope. When he reached the edge, he looked again at the gains of today's work and nodded with satisfaction.

Soul Power 63/66/4 [Black Bullet] - 15 [Soul Sight] - 15 [Stealth] - 10 [Supernatural Physique] - 10 [Demonic Transformation] - 10 [Hardened Skin] - 10 [Rock Spike] - 15 [Merge] - 10 [Strength of Stone] - 10 [Poison Resistance] - 10 [Corrosion Resistance] - 5 [Energy Resistance] - 5

Well, more like tomorrow's work, it was the middle of the night.

"So far it is going better than I have expected." It seemed like he had just cursed himself, as in the next moment there was a roar coming from the depths of the mine that almost caused a minor earthquake.

"Well, someone is angry. I might have killed a few of its friends." He quickened his pace in case the unknown monstrosity had a way to track him. He wondered, if the thing was going to try to ambush him the next time he would go into the mine and thought about changing hunting grounds, at least for a while.

"It might be for the best, the monster is pissed and the miners might be too." He continued walking away, making a great circle around the city, moving deeper into the gnarled woods while watching the panicking blue lights moving back and forth frantically.

And then he yawned.

It was completely incomprehensible, but he felt sleepy. He had never imagined something so weird as a sleepy demon, it might be because he was still just a mere hellspawn. He forced himself to continued for some time, he needed to put at least a couple of miles between himself and the mine, the more, the better. He ended his walk by using [Merge] and falling asleep. He had never slept in the ground.

He felt out of place.

He woke up when the sun was already up in the sky, hidden behind thick clouds. He liked the weather, it was good for one's sleep, who needed sunlight? Working in the morning was evil! anyways!

He got out of the ground nonetheless, when he imagined all kinds of bugs that had most likely crawled through him during the night.

"It has its issues." Frei yawned, thinking about where to hunt his daily portion of souls. The question was if it was even a good idea to linger close to the city.

"Mmm, the city seems to be without any kinds of large explosions or other events, so whoever is winning the fight, the situation is stable." Frei began pacing back and forth, trying to figure out the situation on this planet, if it was even a planet.

"That should mean that the rift has been here for some time, the strongest entities are probably ruling the city, or are still busy conquering the region. Which means that after my thorough thinking, I have found out shit." Frei scratched on his head.

Had he forgotten something vital?

"Ok, I will head away from the city as long as I do not see the signs of war. That way I should dodge them either way." He stretched his hands to the sky and tried to shake the mouldy odour that lingered on him after his stay in the ground.

Damn, he felt like a mushroom!

His back facing the blue rift in the distance, Frei walked on. He noticed that he was not hungry, nor thirsty, at least something was in line with all the superstitions about demons. He thought about the time he had and arrived to a conclusion that the hell would probably not miss him up to the point where he would exceed the average time needed for completing first missions. He had no idea what that time was, but it should be at least a few days right?

Although, he did not know the hell's policy for those who took too long. It was also possible that they simply did not care how long it took as long as he did not break any major rules. In any case, he thought that he should have nearly one week to achieve his objective to become a fiend. To collect one thousand souls and become a lesser demon was probably unrealistic. Not that it could not be done, but the danger of encountering someone who would devour him along with his precious souls was too high.

"In the worst case, I will return to the mine. I am actually doing quite good for a hellspawn who is one day old." He giggled in a moment of narcissistic admiration of his achievements.

Of course he understood it was due to him being in a high risk, high returns environment.

Walking for hours, he had been forced to change his direction slightly, as he had encountered rocky desert with absolutely no cover. He opted to go around it along its edge, staying in the forest made of spooky, twisted trees. However, the forest's condition kept improving to an extent, the trees were greener than before and he started to have the feeling of traveling through an actual forest, not just being surrounded by dead trees and stumps.

After another two hours of his quick march, his path was blocked by a wide river. He thought about swimming across, but it was incredibly muddy. He was not mister clean, the problem was that he was unable to see what was under the water, He could not completely rely on his [Soul Sight], not everything had to have a soul, not speaking about various kinds of stealth that could exist. He corrected his course to head away from the city again and continued along the river.

"Well, I guess this had to come sooner or later." Frei watched as the river was slowly meandering into a town. He looked at the sky, it was still before noon.

"Let's observe them for a while before making contact." Frei found a thicket that would hide him for a time and started observing the townspeople. Soon he noticed there was more than one race in there with apparently not equal statuses.

"As expected of the place with a permanent rift leading to some goofy place." He focused on the interactions of the denizens of this world to know how to behave when he would be walking in himself a while later.