"It seems I need to explain the origin of these magical beasts to you, Peng Peng."
During this time, Bai Luo and Egui Peng had defeated many magical beasts, and also some monsters.
But neither of them had dealt a killing blow.
Whether it was killing or defeating, the magic essence that a Growth could obtain was the same.
This made them prefer to defeat opponents rather than engage in unrestrained slaughter.
"First, this magical beast called the Bombing Terror Bear, Peng Peng, don't let its flesh and blood, which we can eat, deceive you."
Bai Luo said, "In reality, its body is entirely composed of magic essence."
"Completely composed of magic essence?"
"This world has three major existences:
One, the Astral Body, which envelops the soul and is the most fragile.
Two, the foundation for accumulating power—the Spiritual Body.
Three, the Material Body, which is directly connected to the world."
"…"
Seeing Egui Peng's expression of 'I don't understand, but I'm greatly shocked,' Bai Luo couldn't help but chuckle, "Alright, alright, I know you don't understand these things, Peng Peng."
"Simply put, the magical beasts of this world, no matter how strong, are products of the fusion of a Spiritual Body and magic essence."
"They do not possess something called a soul."
Spiritual Bodies are ubiquitous, formless, and intangible; you cannot eliminate them using the rules of the physical world.
When the Bombing Terror Bear died, the Spiritual Body that drove its actions had already dissipated.
What remained was just a pile of meat chunks containing magic essence.
"And someone like you, Peng Peng, is called a monster."
Monsters possess souls; they are not essentially different from humans.
"Peng Peng is a monster."
Egui Peng tilted her head and asked, "Then what about Bai Luo? Is Bai Luo human or a monster?"
If judged solely by appearance, Bai Luo would definitely be identified as human.
However, that was not the case.
Bai Luo was a Half-Demon, meaning the product of a union between a Demon and a human.
Here, it's important to distinguish that a Half-Demon is not equivalent to a Demi-Human.
Demi-Human generally refers to a human transformed into a Demon, also known as a Human Demon Race, which is a completely different concept from Bai Luo's Half-Demon.
"Demi-Human, Half-Demon."
Egui Peng scratched her head, still not fully understanding, but she generally grasped some of it.
"Actually, I'm not very clear about this either."
Bai Luo said, "As far as I know, Half-Demons should be extremely rare in this world."
The Cardinal World was not a ghost story, nor was it a Chinese mythical world; there was no situation where a monster and a human could combine and have offspring.
Humanoid monsters were called Demons.
And when Demons combined, if they left offspring, a large portion of the parents' magic essence would be inherited by the progeny through transmission.
This was for reproduction between Demons; if it were between a Demon and a human,
It's no exaggeration to say that the Demon parent would simply cease to exist.
Losing a large amount of magic essence is equivalent to losing most of one's lifespan for a monster; even the Star Dragon King, the ceiling of this world, was like that.
'The origin of my predecessor is indeed a bit strange.'
'Even though he's a Half-Demon, he doesn't know what kind of monster the non-human part of his bloodline came from.'
Fortunately, Bai Luo wasn't particularly looking forward to the power brought by the monster bloodline.
Even if he didn't awaken it, it wouldn't have much impact on Bai Luo.
'Having monster blood is good enough; why ask for more?'
In the Cardinal World, monsters were far more favored than humans and found it easier to become stronger.
This can be seen from the fact that the protagonist of the original novel was a monster.
Because of his Demon bloodline, Bai Luo also possessed the monster's ability to constantly evolve by increasing his magic essence.
The only regret was that Bai Luo didn't have Rimuru's convenient abilities.
If he wanted to increase his magic essence, he could only train himself, relying on accumulation to gradually become stronger.
Besides that, he relied on Egui Peng.
Before traversing to the Pokémon World and obtaining Egui Peng, Bai Luo's Existence Value was only a mere 300, barely enough for an E-Rank evaluation, almost on par with a Goblin in the forest.
And as Egui Peng's Existence Value increased to 7000, Bai Luo's Existence Value also underwent a drastic change.
From 300 to the current 3800, a total increase of 3500 points, which is half of Egui Peng's increase.
An Existence Value of 3000 to 6000, according to the Cardinal World's standards, has already reached the evaluation of a C-Rank monster.
As for specific combat power,
Unlike Pokémon like Egui Peng, who are naturally skilled in combat,
Bai Luo, having lived two lives as a human, had not received professional combat training.
His three Unique Skills did not involve combat-related boosts.
If it came down to a real fight, Bai Luo simply couldn't unleash the combat power of a C-Rank monster; he could only rely on brute force, performing at the level of a D-Rank Orc.
As mentioned before, Existence Value is related to the quantity of magic essence.
The more magic essence, the greater the magical power.
The relationship between magic essence and magical power can generally be understood as the relationship between max mana, current mana, and mana recovery speed.
(The original work does not have magical power; it is still magic essence)
(But for ease of understanding, the settings of magic essence and magical power are separated here)
To give a simple example, 1000 magic essence and 10000 magic essence seem to have only a 10-fold difference.
However, the former can recover 1% of magical power per second, while the latter recovers 5%.
Converted into values, the former can waste 10 points of magical power per second, while the latter can waste 500.
With one increasing and one decreasing, just the basic magical power output has a 50-fold difference, and this doesn't even count the latter's additional magic, inherent abilities, Unique Skills, resistances, and so on.
Of course, the outcome of a battle does not only depend on values and abilities, but also on combat skills and practical experience, which also affect the result of the battle.
The best example is Hakurou from the original work.
Hakurou's magic essence value was not high, around 100,000.
However, he was able to fight enemies far exceeding his magic essence value by relying on his swordsmanship.
This is the bonus that practical experience and skill can bring.
"Crackling ~"
After the firewood was ignited, the flames greedily devoured the dry fallen leaves, making crackling sounds.
The skewered bear meat was placed on the grill, and the aroma of the meat quickly spread through the fresh air.
The meat slices gradually turned from bright red to golden yellow under the heat of the flames, and oil droplets fell into the fire, stirring up bursts of smoke.
"Gulp~~"
Seeing Egui Peng drooling, Bai Luo picked up a skewer of bear meat and handed it to the little one: "Here, eat it."
"Thank you, *chomp*."
Egui Peng took a big bite, and her eyes immediately narrowed in happiness: "So delicious~~"
Bai Luo also took a skewer for himself.
It had to be said that everything in this world, whether mushrooms from the forest or animal meat, was incredibly delicious.
'Is this the change brought by magic essence?'
Bai Luo could only say that things from a high-level world were indeed extraordinary.
While eating, Bai Luo wasn't idle; he took advantage of the break to ponder his future path.
"Combat skills, magic, practical experience…"
"I have absolutely no way to acquire magic and combat skills."
"Practical experience is too dangerous."
"Indeed, the Trainer profession suits me well."
Bai Luo's positioning for himself was very clear: he was a Summoner, the type who just needed to stay behind his summoned beast and cheer them on.
Coincidentally, Bai Luo's Leader and Egui Peng's Growth were the best partners.
Egui Peng could gain Growth, meaning an increase in magic essence, by defeating or killing monsters and enemies.
Of course, this defeat was not without limits.
Firstly, each individual could only be defeated once before they had a major breakthrough.
Repeatedly defeating the same individual would not yield experience points.
Moreover, this magic essence increase had an upper limit and was not endless.
No matter what, Growth was only a Unique Skill.
It was already remarkable that it could allow Egui Peng to grow into a Demon Lord Seed.
And to break through Special A-Rank and reach S-Rank, which is the True Demon Lord level, the Unique Skill Growth would need to advance further.
As for how to improve further...
Bai Luo cast his gaze towards the cooling system: "I wonder if the next world will have a way for Peng Peng and I to become stronger?"