What was going on here, why isn't Appraisal working, shouldn't my status window appeared by now, the place can't be the problem, after all i had used it when i woke up here and there was no problem at all .
APPRAISAL, APPRAISAL, APPRAISAL .
Nothing happened, there was a problem with appraisal, let me use Transmutation, i can't seem to be able to activate Appraisal as well, now i was really beginning to panic, wait maybe those two were the ones that have a problem let me try to use the other skills before making any assumptions .
Not even a single active skill of mine worked, now i was really beginning to panic inwardly, outwardly i kept acting tough as to try and fool the guy in front of me, but that too failed miserably, i looked at him who seemed to be quite happy about something, wait a minute he was the one who asked me to use Appraisal in the first place was what going on with me and my skills be his doing .
As i was about to interrogate him, he surprised me by saying :
Your Aura seemed to be much weaker than before, did you get injured while trying to open the Mythical Gate or something ? .
He found me out, but he also gave me a quite good of an excuse, for now i will try to play along, hopefully i will be able to understand what exactly was wrong with me from him .
I nodded my face and acted as if i was angered by what he did and asked forcefully, saying :
" What did you exactly do .
Him sensing that i was angry put both his hands in front of his face as if already expecting what i will do to him, he was shielding his already swollen and bruised face, before saying :
I helped you open the Mythical Gate in your mind using a secret technique that was taught to me by my mother, normally the process required you to fight your inner demons for a certain period of time before the Gate automatically open, but this secret technique gave those who weren't able to do so before for whatever reason another chance, but it raised the level of difficulty to another level, they were now required to win against their inner demons .
This was the initial test to those demons with superp potential have to go through, opening the Mythical Gate will allow them to be able to start refining the Mana circling through the atmosphere, demons can still advance their strength mainly dependent on the Mana Stones, but the amount needed will be quite huge, not to mention that even if they used that method to increase their strength, they will still be much weaker compared to those of the same level of strength but had their Mythical Gate opened .
So most of the Demons will try to open their Mythical Gate earlier in life, for the chance to be geniuses in there own right and this for those who came from a poor background was a massive opportunity, since if they were catch the eyes of any of the nobles demon families, main families or even the branch ones, if they were to successfully join any one of the above mentioned type of families, will result in them gaining both fame and wealth .
There was also the fact that the more time that passed without the person opening their Mythical Gate, the more difficult will it be for them to open it later on their life, so most tends to spend everything they have so that they have the opportunity to open it as early as possible in their life .
But the result won't always be a success, even with enough preparation the process of opening the Mythical Gate could end being unsuccessful, in the best case scenario and if the person who was trying to open the Mythical Gate was lucky, he will end up being injured slightly and his potential might get slightly or massively affected .
But in the worst case scenario the results of unsuccessfully trying to open the Mythical Gate were either cripple him from increasing his strength this way any further, it may also result in that person death due to failing to defeat his inner demons or even stalling him until the gate open, another result would be the person body falling under the influence of his inner demons which if discovered will also result in that person death by other, the inner demons of demons are creatures born of corruption and masters of destruction, so the moment they are discovered, they are to be mercilessly killed .
So it was a high risk, high reward kind of situation, but this kind of situation can only be done once normally, but due to the spirit race uniqueness they were able to come with a secret technique that allowed themselves to even increase their strength by absorbing other people inner demons and other secret techniques related to the opening of the Mythical Gate and Awakening one own Mental power .
One of those techniques was given to my mother by my uncle, yes uncle, it was through this same technique that even after being labeled as enemies by the Demon Emperor still allowed us to have a wide circle of allies and connections, but also after news and rumors about this secret technique made us one of the main targets of the Demon Emperor, but luckily my family was back by the spirit race .
So we were able to flourish and recruit a lot of demons and other races to fight for our family's sake, allowing us to stand firmly to whatever the Demon Emperor throw at us .
As he began to talk more and more about how great his background was or how powerful was the secret technique he used on me, i couldn't help but wonder if that guy hadn't spoken enough when he was a little demon child, why was he so talkative i only asked about what he did to me, even while i was thinking about how talkative that guy suddenly become, he was still saying :
Normally if i was to use that technique on someone, i will need to make that someone adjust himself to his peak state, then ask him to calm his mind to the point of becoming serene or at least as close as possible to that state, to increase the chances of him successfully opening his Mythical Gate as much as possible .
But you were able to do so while you were already consumed by rage, making your inner demons much stronger than the norm, the gains you will began to gain any second now will be huge, i really envy you .
As for your injuries, don't worry they will heal after you got baptized, probably .
I was once again surprised by everything that happened, but i wanted to confirm that he was indeed the one who talked me through the severed head, i was curious about if he was really able to help from the start why he didn't just help me get out of that weird place from before, so i asked him about it and his answer once again shocked me to the core, he said :
I tried to help you and i did help you in every opportunity that i could, but in that place even i won't be able to affect the result much, if you were asking how i helped you, then i will remind you that everytime you lost yourself or was close to lose yourself, i was there to remind you of who you were .
You really had me worried here for a second, you lost yourself 8 times and was able to conquer your inner demon in the ninth time after you were so close to once again lose yourself, i was beginning to think that we will both were going to die, but luckily that wasn't the case, i won't sign anymore binding contracts even if my life was depending on it .
9 times, now that he mentioned it i seem to recall listening to those words 9 times, but the time span between each time i heard those words were actually quite huge, how many years had i stayed in that place for, i wonder, he didn't even give me a chance to ask, about him wanting to help in the last minute before i got back to reality and directly continued to say :
Nothing would have be able to save you, if you hadn't save yourself, you finding the answer that you seek was what gave me the impression that you have already succeeded in passing this hurdle .
I could have forcefully stopped the process, but neither you nor myself will be able to escape the consequences of doing so, you will most likely end up dead and i due to the effect of the binding contract, i will soon follow after you, luckily i have already opened my Mythical Gate or with my current doubts that i was having, i believe that my inner demon will materialize as a binding contract .
I was began to become amused listening to what he had to say, the last part of his words had me even chuckling a bit, after this bit of laughter, i still asked him about how many years did i approximately spend in that place, i thought the answer would be somewhat clear to him, but surprisingly he just shook his head on my inquiry and began to say :
That was one of the few things that i can't give a clear answer to you about, the time spent in that special dimension is completely irrelevant to the actual time outside .
Meaning that you may have stayed in there for a few decades or even a few centuries, but you may not have been inside for even an hour, some of us demons believe that time in that dimension was completely still, due to the fact that you come back the moment you entered, but there were a few special occasions where the process will began to take actual time, but all of those occasions ended in failure .
I see, it did seemed to me that i have stayed there for quite sometime, but when i returned not even a second had passed, huh, this was completely irrelevant now .
I almost slapped myself at the fact that i forgot to ask about the most important thing to me right now, but wasting no time in indulging myself in a meaningless talk with him, i directly asked about the question that i currently wanted an answer for the most, i said with anger starting once again to creep on my face :
" You told me to use Appraisal and i tried to do so but neither it nor my other skills were working and i believe you knew the answer to why things are like this, so spill it already .
His face began to twitch slightly but enough to tell me that whatever he will say next, won't probably be to my liking and i was indeed correct to think that, he said :
Well, the thing is from what we demons were able to understand was that the moment, humans from this land were either to open their Mythical Gate or go to the Real World, their connection to the Shard and the influence it had on them get severed, even if the humans were to go back to this land where they initially originated, the connection won't come back, they might even be treated as us demons and be killed almost instantly, not to mention that if they were to go to the Real World, their strength will become invalid the moment they passed through the rapture .
Just so you become aware, not all the skills will vanish, most of the passive skills will transformation to become something like traits, but most wasn't all, some passive skills might still vanish .
You are one of those who got rid of the influence that the Shard had on them, by opening your Mythical Gate, you have severed your connection with the Shard and soon you will have your own Mana core and start refining your Mana like how the humans in the Real World do .
Your strength from before will remain, of course this under the premise that it was was your real strength to began with or it stemming from some of your passive skills, but from now on your ability to level up and learn skills via the so-called skill books have become invalid, all the active skills together with any of the other features that the Shard system gave you had become both ineffective and unaccessible .
He said this and made a distance between me and himself, i was still shocked of what was he saying that i didn't realize what he did until later on .
What kind of reaction should i be shown after finding out about this new shocking turn of events, i was determined to take this step in the future, but now that it came, i completely understood that it wasn't the right time to take such a huge step .
At least i should have kept my previous strength until i cleaned this land from the influence of the demons, even though i had now changed my mind about just exterminating the entire race, it was still quite reassuring to have enough strength to deal with any problems that may arise .
But now what, not to mention dealing with Ruler level Demons, even SS adventures might be able to kill me without much effort, my strength depended mostly on Active Skills like Obsidian Armor and the likes of it .
But now that they are gone, if my calculations were right, i'm at most at the level of S Rank Adventurers, i have readied myself to the fact that i will have to start from the scratch, so this could be counted as a great advantage, but that was before i get to know how tight our situation was .
He think that the drop in my Aura was due to the fact of being injured, if he were to know that my Aura dropped as a result to the drop in my strength, i have no doubt that he will take advantage of this and took off out of here, so i currently need to not think deeply about this and calm my agitated heart, at least until i'm able to find the best way to deal with that guy .
I was conflicated about whether to be wrathful or grateful for the existence of that binding contract, i really wanted to kill that guy Ludo, but i don't have neither the strength nor the opportunity to pull something like that off now, all thanks to him and his idiotic mind .
I tried to be as collected as before, but being much weaker than the guy in front of me was a new kind of experience for me, one that i didn't want to experience ever again, but here i was .
Luckily he was too under the binding contract so that made dealing with him and everything else a lot easier, i didn't continued to ask about what he did to me anymore, in try of not raising his suspicious of me, so i decided to shift the subject of conversation to something else completely .
I asked him about the plan he said that he had in mind, i suddenly saw him smiling smugly in the distance and he buffed his chest up and said :
You are going to become a Demon,
Iwas about to react to what he was saying, but suddenly a wave of fatigue washed over me and i sensed my eyes became heavy and i collapsed to the floor .