Hedgehog

An hour later, and I had not gotten any new answers apart from 1.

I now had a repertoire of districts and some more info on the demonic economy from Aggressors' parents.

She by far had the most normal life and lived in a fairly decent mediaeval household. Apparently, she was the Baron's granddaughter, so they were somewhat privileged.

Demonic society was essentially mediaeval society but focused completely on the title rank of demon.

All the wealth, power, and influence rose to the top, and while high demons could do well in life, they could also turn out like Dante.

Demonic society was run by contracts that were made through mana and were then imprinted on the demon blood. If they messed up that contact, they would get a predetermined punishment.

I had no idea how to make said contracts; they were probably a result of a bloodline technique that I did not have. They looked really useful though, as they could not be broken.

That was an informative 2 hours. Now it was lunch time.

We sat around a campfire, sitting in a circle of wood that people had made in their free time.

In walked the hunters to a minor applause of gratitude. They were the regular demons and Dante. They were carrying weapons made of wood with little bits of stone attached through shabby handiwork.

The tool bench was great at making axes, pickaxes, and even shovels, yet seemed to suck at weaponry.

Looking at their backs, I could see a new creature among them.

I quickly inspected the spiky creature.

[Name: Nameless] [Age: 1]

[Species: Winter spiked hedgehog]

[Agility: 1/2]

[Strength: 5]

[Intelligence: 1/2]

[Mana: 2]

[Wild beast experience: Curl up LVL1]

[Overall grade: F-]

Okay, I look at the creature, but all I see are white spikes in a ball.

Dante comes over to speak about the creature.

"Sure, this thing was there when we got there, and we think the spikes would be good to make weapons, but we do not know what it is."

Wait, did they think this was an object?

"You do know this is a beast, right?"

They all trembled in shock; not even Dante's instinct could pick up the fact that this beast was alive. It appeared that its ability had erased its own presence.

What an intriguing creature! Could we possibly tame it?

It was a beast, but if we had a spike factory, that would do great for weapons and even armour.

"Bring it to an open space and build a fence around it. I plan to make it a permanent member of our society. If you find any more, drop them into the pen. Also feed it some meat and herbs you find, and whatever it eats, feed it that. "

"It will be our weapons and armour manufacturer!"

They all cheered at the words "weapon and armour", but they all had no clue what "manufacturer" meant, but it did not seem important.

So, while a few lower demons moved the hedgehog, we all began to eat our fill of winter wolf.

It tasted like meat. Not much else. My teeth could make the worst cuts tender, so at least the sensation of eating was nice.

After lunch, it was training time.

I grabbed a wooden stick and started running at the closest armed person. It was Drez. He quickly got into a stance and stared me down.

For such a depressed kid, he sure had some murderous intent, but I was the lord. I could not falter, so I ran straight at the guy with a horizontal slash.

He moved to block my attack but found my strength to be massively better than his own, so deciding he would always parry or outright dodge my attack, he backed off again.

I moved to do another slash, but this time he parried my weapon and brought his weapon to my shoulder. He hit me with the wood. I realised my dumb move and quickly repelled his weapon upwards.

With my strength massively outdoing his, the weapon went flying in the air.

Now I needed to find another opponent.

This was my training regimen; battle on, battle on, battle was what I called it. It gave the user battle experience and ignored all safety precautions. To be fair to myself, I designed this for a VR game for NPCs, so I was not an animal for putting real humans through this, but I was mean to an AI.

My regimen made the soldier ready for war and worked on muscles actually used in combat. The only question was if nobody improved, and the fighting never changed. People were meant to continuously get better and better, and if they slowed down, a beating would occur, which was meant to motivate them to improve. If they didn't improve, that was the issue; they would just be beaten all day.

That did not appear to be an issue for demons, who were barely damaged by wooden swords and had plenty of battle talent.

Moving from opponent to opponent, I started to see patterns in their movements and utilized that to beat them.

By the end of the 2 hours, though, they seemed to have fixed that problem and were now constantly changing their tactics to seem unpredictable. I myself learnt how to swing from repeated efforts and got a massive workout from just running around for 2 hours more efficiently.

Usually, when you are beaten, you would get a break, but due to my superior strength, I was never beaten, so I had no break at all.

Okay, what was next on my schedule? Ah yes, I was meant to explore the icon some more, but I have already completed that, so what should I do instead?

I should have another mission today. I was planning to delegate it, but I might as well do it myself.

Today's mission was to collect furs, wood, and vines to make some makeshift clothing benches.

We were collecting furs from wolves, so I had that. We had plenty of wood, but we were low on vines, so I gathered some of those.

After getting the mission done, I started to make the bench.

I made the bench next to the tool bench, and after 2 hours I was done.

Looking at the stuff I could make at the bench, it was just some trousers and coats. Perfect for winter and easy to make were my thoughts at the time, so I made myself a coat from the wolf fur.

Grabbing a knife, I made the outline and, after poking some holes through the fur, I put the vine through the gab. After that, making sure no meat was left on the inside of the coat and it had died of blood, I had myself a very makeshift coat.

Now it was dinner time, and they found another hedgehog and added it to the pen.

So now it was meditation time, but I also had cultivating to do once the sun set, so after an hour of regular cultivating, I moved to the icon and looked out onto the splendid moon.

Getting out the manual and reading how to cultivate, I realised it was essentially what I was doing anyway, just focusing on the moon with my eyes open.

Trying to see the moon, I focused on what the moon looked like.

It casts a warm milky glow high into the gloomy night sky. It's light reflecting down on the ever-present snow around me. For a being that was only ever borrowed, it looked graceful in the night sky.

A soft white glow enveloped my body as I pondered over what the moon looked like. It warmed my heart and seemed to make my head feel lighter.

Demons were the embodiment of sin, yet the moon did not care. The moon was a being that dealt with it and moved on. It was a being that protected the earth and all its beings countless times and never received any of nature's warmth.

It did not need fulfilment as it was mighty in its own way.

As I was enlightening myself on the moon, I realised the moon had set.

Huh, how? It only felt like a second.

I looked at my stats to see if they had changed at all.

[Name: Alex] [Age: 28]

[Species: Unique Demon (low Baron rank)]

[Agility: 4]

[Strength: 4]

[Intelligence: Before 3]

[Mana: 1.08]

[Magic: Moon Magic, Stage: Infant]

[Bloodline techniques: mental clarity, LVL 2]

[Overall grade: F+]

Wow, a 0.08 increase. I am so amazed.

What is this unbelievably slow pace? I know it said it was slow, but I was not expecting it to be this slow.

Ah, alas, I need to move on.

In... and out. In... out.

Okay, now I need to move on with my day. I have a daily mission to do.

Yawn. Hmm. I'm tired.

"Oh, yeah, I didn't sleep."

My eyelids waver.

"I think I'll just lie down for a bit."

He was so tired he did not notice he was speaking aloud.

Alex slept on the side of a mountain that night.