Chapter 8: The Self-Cultivation of a Little Demon

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Roy carried a strange creature the size of a rabbit on his shoulder as he ran on the hot ground and carefully observed all around.

Walking through a dark forest, he carefully passed by the twisted branches of distorted trees. These trees were demonic trees, and once any living creature touched the branches, they would immediately wrap around and frantically capture the prey.

Among the dark trees, there were many places with dense white spiderwebs. These spiderwebs were things that he had to be even more careful about, for where there were spiderwebs meant he had entered the hunting range of a spider demon.

Suddenly, a peculiar cry came from the sky above the forest. Roy quickly fell to the ground and put the strange creature he was carrying on his shoulder onto his back and lay motionless.

A giant shadow flew over him, but luckily, it did not seem to discover Roy lying on the ground and flew straight over him.

Roy was fortunate. He had already made plans to give up his prey. If that dark shadow were to swoop down on him, its first grab would have been the prey on his back…

Finally, he avoided all sorts of danger to come to a huge tree at the edge of the forest. This huge tree was already dead and decayed. However, there was a naturally formed hole at its roots, which had become Roy’s residence.

After arriving at the tree hole, Roy did not head into it immediately but first carefully observed the camouflage he had set up. Only when he found that there were no traces of it being disturbed did he pick up the rotten branches and leaves of the hole and go in with the prey.

In the cave, Roy put down the prey on his shoulder and then let out a long sigh of relief.

It had been more than a week since he came to this underground world, and he had finally adapted to life here. Although there were many dangers to him in terms of environments and other predators, he could avoid them if he was careful.

Over the past week, Roy’s greatest progress was learning how to hunt. He had no choice since all living creatures needed to eat to survive, and Roy was naturally no exception. However, even now, the prey he could catch was limited.

In addition to the demons, there were many other monsters living in the underground world. These monsters were equivalent to the wild beasts of the human world. However, to be honest, it was difficult for Roy to distinguish between the low-rank demons and the monsters by appearance alone. From his observations, most of the low-rank demons were basically following their physical instincts to hunt, kill, and destroy. This behavior did not show much wisdom at all and was not much different from that of the monsters.

In other words, they had low intelligence…

Nonetheless, it did not mean that they were pushovers. In fact, the demon race was the master of this world. Even a low-rank demon’s body would become stronger and stronger as they gradually grew into adulthood. If they could survive for a long time, they would gradually move up to the top of the food chain.

The infant demons were existences only at the low rank, and they would slowly upgrade to the middle-low rank and finally the top of the low rank when they matured. If their bloodlines were not too complicated, they might even have the chance to promote to middle-rank demons…

Roy did not know what a middle-rank demon looked like because he had not encountered one so far, so he had been wondering if there was a world deeper than where he was that he could enter through some entrances. However, Roy’s scope of exploration was limited, and he had yet to find these entrances.

These were the conclusions that Roy made while observing coupled with some educated guesses. Even if there were deviations, it seemed like he was not too far off the mark…

At the same time, Roy’s body was growing, becoming slightly bigger and taller. He might not have passed 1.2 meters yet, but his strength attribute increased by two in the system interface. His speed also increased a little, although his magic energy did not move at all. The one with the most change was his activity, increasing a whole five to eighteen

Strength, speed, and magic energy were easy to understand, but the activity attribute baffled Roy slightly. According to his experience during this period, he realized that it might be referring to his vitality!

A strong vitality represented the degree of injury he could withstand and the amount of time he would need to recover after his injury…

After putting his prey down, Roy started preparing his dinner.

Roy did not know what to call this strange creature he caught, but it should be some kind of monster, and an infant one at that. This was because Roy saw it drilling out of the ground and caught it when it tried to climb onto a tree. In his memory, only certain insects would have such behavior.

This strange monster looked like a fat worm, but it had four claw-like legs, resembling an ant without its pliers, and a big hole on its head made by Roy’s gun.

Roy had not upgraded his revolver, but he had spent some time adding some details to the body of the gun. It now resembled the Colt Python revolver in his memory. After modifying the barrel to make it straighter, he realized he had a certain degree of accuracy at long-range shots, unlike how he only dared to fire at close range with the fifty cents special effects before…

As for why he did not upgrade this weapon, he realized that it was not cost-effective to do so!

During this time, Roy had encountered several adult demons. Although he only saw them from a distance, he realized that the defense of these adult demons had improved greatly. In particular, the insect-shaped low-rank demon covered in a carapace with a shiny metallic luster made Roy feel that even bullets would not be able to penetrate it.

Unless Roy were willing to consume a large number of souls to add some attributes such as Break Armor and Penetration, he would die horribly with such a gun when he met such defensive-type demons.

After realizing that external weapons would be limited in the future, Roy began to put his efforts into the transformation of his body.

His own strength was true strength, especially so for creatures like demons, but Roy needed time to become an adult. According to the system’s evaluation, it would be difficult for him to become the top of the low rank in this life. Promotion had nothing to do with him at all because his bloodline was simply too complex. Not only him, but even most of the other hatched demons could only become the top of the low rank.

However, Roy had another option now due to the existence of this system.

Roy could draw and exchange for human food such as braised beef and Dongpo pork knuckles through the consumption of souls instead of taking risks hunting like what he was doing. However, he did so without any hesitation because he was accumulating souls, and his plan for the transformation of his body required a large number of souls.

His prey had souls as well, though their quality was lacking. The quality of the souls seemed to be linked to the intelligence possessed. The higher the intelligence and the richer the emotion, the higher the quality of the soul formed after death. The quality Roy could obtain now was low, so he could only hope to obtain more of them.

Over the past week, he had caught four prey and obtained four souls. However, these souls were smaller than that of the four-eyed demon previously. Even so, Roy felt that it was an adequate amount.

Roy ate this insect monster while resisting his psychological discomfort. He did not even dare to set a fire to cook it because he was worried that the smell would attract powerful enemies. He did not need to worry too much about the smell of blood since it permeated the entire forest…

He had to do what he had to do to survive before he could protect himself…

After sating the hunger in his belly, Roy summoned the system interface and began his first physical transformation.