Chapter 184: DemiDevimon's Life Without Regret
"Here, this is the wine you wanted."
Simmons shook the three bottles in his hand and then placed them on the table one by one.
"What kind of wines are these?" Dark asked curiously.
Simmons chuckled and picked out one of the bottles, saying, "Let's take it slow. First, this one is [Morning Dew]."
"Morning Dew?"
Dark examined it carefully.
This wine, named [Morning Dew], was in a transparent bottle. The liquid was a pale green, reminiscent of green apple juice, but clearer and more translucent in color.
This gave it a somewhat dreamlike quality.
"Stop staring. No matter how much you look, you won't understand it," Simmons said nonchalantly. "Anyway, this bottle is for little Lily. A bargain at 1000 credits."
Dark: "Uh..."
He instinctively felt that Simmons was joking.
After all, the fairy wine he had bought here before only cost 100 credits.
Who could handle a tenfold increase in price?
But Simmons ignored his astonishment and continued, picking out the second bottle. "This one is [Eight Desolations]. Only the Sage of Beasts is worthy of it."
The so-called [Eight Desolations Wine] was a bottle of fiery red spirit!
Even without opening the bottle, Dark could feel the raging fire hidden within. It was likely something that not just any wine lover could handle.
Simmons added, "This bottle of [Eight Desolations] hasn't found a buyer for many years. Since we happen to have met today, I'll consider it a free gift to you, for 2000 credits."
Dark: "Huh?"
What kind of free gift was this?
Simmons paid him no mind. He finally picked up the third bottle and set it down again, a hint of softness flashing in his eyes. "This third bottle is called [Qingzi]. It's just a fruit wine made from qingzi fruit."
The qingzi fruit was a green fruit, very similar to a plum.
It was sour and sweet and could be used to make wine.
Among the three wines, only this Qingzi wine was very common and quite cheap.
Placing it together with the other two gave it a sense of being out of place.
But for that very reason, it stood out all the more.
Dark realized at once that this was the main character among the three bottles!
And sure enough.
Simmons picked up the Qingzi wine and said solemnly, "I know it's hard for a first-year to come up with three thousand credits, but if you promise me one thing, all three of these bottles are yours."
Dark asked curiously, "Let's be clear first."
Simmons tapped the table with his middle finger. "Since you're giving wine to two professors, adding one more should be perfectly normal, right?"
...
Leaving the tavern, Dark hesitated, wanting to say something but stopping himself.
"Forget it, I'll just consider it a favor."
He carried the three bottles of wine and walked down the street.
Just having the wine wasn't enough; he needed gift boxes to put them in, and each box had to have a Christmas card tucked inside.
Dark wandered around Traveler's Street for a long time before he finally found suitable gift boxes for the wine.
After that, he went to a candy store and bought thirty-six boxes of chocolates at once.
To carry all these chocolates back, Dark had to summon DemiDevimon to help.
He finally made it back to the dormitory before dusk.
The huge number of gifts piled up in a corner like a small mountain.
He packaged the three bottles of wine in his dorm room, feeling a slight sense of relief.
"Next up are the gifts for my mother and my senpai."
Dark thought for a moment.
He decided to sit down and write a letter home to Alvit.
He wrote about his first time away from home, the kindness of the professors, the friendship of his classmates, the compact and fulfilling life at the academy, his thirst for knowledge, the thrill and danger of the Moon God incident, and the joy of his first duel.
And, of course, the daily routine of raising the Cat Grass.
Finally, he enclosed the Red Star medal as a bonus.
The most precious gift for his mother was complete.
...
"Finally, there's only Pandora-senpai left."
"What does she like? What does she need?"
"..."
Dark suddenly realized that he knew nothing about his senpai.
He was only particularly interested in her because of a preference for her appearance.
No different from those shallow nobles with nothing but nonsense in their heads.
"Let me think, let me think."
"Fourth-year, Magus House, top of her year, excellent grades, part-time librarian... raises a Chinchilla Grass..."
"Is that really it?"
Dark leaned back in his chair and zoned out for a while.
The original reason for his deal with his senpai was because she promised to guide him in the creation of the [Fusion] magic card.
But in reality, during his spare time over the past two weeks, Dark had been almost entirely focused on learning the prerequisite knowledge for creating the [Zoo] deck, and he wasn't even finished.
As such, the research on [Curse Cage] and [Fusion] had naturally been put on hold.
The good news was that "Advanced Magical Language: The Resurrected Characters" was also part of his current studies.
So, his grasp of the magical language was deepening daily, which was beneficial for the creation of both [Curse Cage] and [Fusion].
"[Fusion] is not feasible for now, but I can actually try to create [Curse Cage]."
"Also, since I have the time, I can create one or two first-tier magical spirits to fill out my deck."
"Tomorrow is Sunday, so I'll use one night to prepare!"
"As for senpai's gift... I wonder if she'll be free next week?"
...
Once he made a decision, Dark displayed terrifying efficiency.
That night, he first reviewed the creation steps for [Curse Cage], identifying and re-familiarizing himself with the various materials he had already prepared.
Finally came the most important step: relying on his own understanding to write a unique spell in the magical language!
Spells were generally divided into general spells and exclusive spells, based on their versatility.
From this, general spell cards and exclusive spell cards were derived.
Due to the creation process of spell cards, the vast majority of them were exclusive spell cards, as they were filled with the creator's personal imprint, and only the creator could use them smoothly.
If one wanted to sell them on the market, they needed to undergo a "generalization" process.
"Generalization" was a more advanced production process and was very difficult to popularize.
So, for now, Dark could only write an exclusive spell.
The "exclusive" limitation of an exclusive spell was mainly because the writing of the spell was not done stroke by stroke. It involved using one's own magic to allow parts of the magical language that made up the spell to evolve naturally, making the final spell compatible with the mage's own magic.
In short, it was very difficult.
It wasn't until one in the morning.
Dark had only just succeeded in writing a preliminary version, but it was not yet perfect.
However, his brain, which had been forcibly stimulated with apple juice, was already running on overload. He had to rest for the night.
...
Seven in the morning on Sunday.
A light drizzle began to fall outside the window.
After washing up, Dark temporarily skipped his morning exercise and went straight to further adjusting and refining the [Curse Cage] spell.
Around seven-thirty, DemiDevimon returned with breakfast and today's morning paper.
But he didn't pause until eight-thirty, trying to empty his mind while eating and then flipping through "The Great Sage Daily."
The weekend edition of "The Great Sage Daily" always had some big news to boost sales.
This time, the headline belonged to the Holy Church's Twin Paladins.
The Twin Paladins in the photo were very young, seemingly top students who had just graduated from the Holy Church's Secret Rite Academy last year.
They were a pair of twin siblings.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, and unparalleled beauty.
The Holy Church seemed intent on shaping them into the banner of the new century, having promoted them extensively since their time at the academy.
This time, they were in the papers for jointly annihilating a heretical cult.
According to the newspaper, it was a terrifying cult that was trying to resurrect a vile demon on Christmas Day.
And as Christmas approached, such organizations were becoming more and more numerous.
Humans always seek comfort in chaos and plot chaos in stability.
The demons had indeed been wiped out, but demons with demonic blood still existed, as did humans who leaned towards demonic beliefs, and even the Demon Kings were not all dead.
As the saying goes, a centipede does not collapse even in death.
The reproduction of demons was different from that of humans; they could be oviparous, or reproduce by fission, spinning silk, or even by corrupting and demonizing others.
It was just that the strength of the demonic bloodline generally decreased with each generation; the lower the rank, the weaker they became.
In other words, low-sequence demons were not a major threat, but as long as even one high-sequence demon existed, it was a huge threat!
And the Demon King was, without a doubt, at the apex of the demonic sequence!
Once a Demon King was truly resurrected, it would not take long to revive the demon race.
"If the Demon King here is benchmarked against Voldemort, then is it really a Demon King split into seven parts?"
...
Dark put down the newspaper and shook his head slightly.
What damned Demon King? What's the use even if it's resurrected?
The ten years it had spent lying in its coffin was a period of high-speed development for the new era. Magitech had grown explosively and was incomparable to the wartime era.
Ten years ago, the Hero had to sacrifice himself to seal it.
Ten years later, it probably couldn't withstand a single kick from the Valkyrie!
In the original work, it was even eliminated by a hero's son who hadn't even graduated yet, which showed how weak it was.
As the saying goes, knowledge is power.
Unless it "learned from the barbarians to control the barbarians," diligently studied magitech, and became a new-century [Demon King Magitech-Type], it posed no major threat.
For the past two years, the Holy Church had been promoting the "Demon King Threat Theory," frequently leaking prophecies of the "Demon King's resurrection," but it was all just for the sake of seizing power across factions.
...
Dark saw this aspect very clearly.
After all, although he didn't know the process, he knew the ending well. He knew that the final boss of the game was not the Demon King, but the Demon God.
A Demon King who wasn't even the final boss was only good for bullying students.
"Hey, wait a minute!"
"Aren't I a student?"
Dark fell into deep thought.
...
Around nine-thirty.
Dark resumed his research, continuing to compile and refine the [Curse Cage].
It wasn't until ten-thirty in the morning that he finally had a satisfactory result.
He calmed himself, finished lunch first, and only then began the creation of the [Curse Cage].
Although [Curse Cage] was a magic card, it needed to be compatible with the creation methods of magical spirit cards.
Like [Fusion], it was an extremely special magic card with the base of a magical spirit card.
Using [Curse Cage], one could temporarily seal pseudo-lifeforms like familiars and golems, using them as magical spirit cards.
The first half of the [Curse Cage] creation process was basically creating a magical spirit card.
Only in the second half did it gradually begin to change.
Thanks to his experience creating the [Blink Spell], Dark didn't mess up the second half of the process.
So, learning was a step-by-step process. If you wanted to get fat in one bite, you had to be fat in the first place.
...
Considering that one set of materials for [Curse Cage] cost a whopping 1500 credits, Dark was more serious and cautious than ever before.
He spent a full two hours preparing and another hour and a half on the creation.
When he finally succeeded, even he himself found it incredible.
Success on the first try!
This meant that his learning of the magical language had already reached a high level among second-year students.
...
The completed [Curse Cage] was a magic card with a wooden cage as its face.
A talisman was attached to each side of the cage, with several key magical characters written on them.
Dark picked up the [Curse Cage] and looked it over carefully several times before raising his head with an excited expression, searching everywhere for his AIBO.
Five minutes later, the DemiDevimon that had snuck out was summoned back by the compulsory command of the house card...
"DemiDevimon," Dark said, shaking the [Curse Cage] card as if showing it off. "From now on, you can be my magical spirit and fight alongside me on the duelist's stage. Aren't you happy?"
DemiDevimon shook its head violently.
"Good," Dark narrowed his eyes. "So happy you've lost your mind."
Then he abruptly activated the [Curse Cage]!
A strong light shone, and the base of a cage instantly appeared under DemiDevimon's feet. Then, wooden bars descended from the sky, nailing themselves to the base with a "thwack, thwack, thwack," and a wooden lid sealed the top.
Golden magical characters appeared on every face of the wooden cage.
Finally, they merged into a huge character for "Curse"!
DemiDevimon was instantly trapped in the curse cage, and then, along with the cage, it turned into light and shot into the magic card in Dark's hand.
The card's face quickly changed, and a world-famous painting—"DemiDevimon in a Cage"—was unearthed!
Dark extended a finger, infused it with magic, and poked the cage on the card's face.
The cage shook slightly, and the DemiDevimon trapped inside covered its head with its wings and shrank into a corner of the cage.
Dark couldn't help but laugh.
...
[Card Name: DemiDevimon]
[Type: Spirit Card]
[Level: ★]
[Race: Demon]
[Attribute: Dark]
[Magic: 100]
[Attack: 100]
[Defense: 100]
[Special Ability: Small Darts]
...
After being converted into a magical spirit card, DemiDevimon could obtain a special ability even without using [Pride I].
And the advantage of having wings allowed it to fly into the sky to evade most attacks.
"In the name of Dark Demon, come forth, DemiDevimon!"
As the standard summoning was completed, DemiDevimon materialized in a flash of light.
Appearing as a normal magical spirit for the first time, DemiDevimon flapped its wings and tried to fly away.
Dark grabbed its claw and pulled it into an embrace, coaxing, "Be good. As long as you're good, I promise I won't lock you up outside of a duel!"
DemiDevimon: "Ahhhhhhh!"
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