Demon's Virtue
chapter-201

Eiro looked at his hand with a rather curious expression. He wanted to see what else would happen if he infused himself with the different types of magic that he had skills for. First, he got rid of the fire magic that he used to infuse his left hand with just now, and then pulled out his flask from the satchel he was carrying with him at basically all times.

He opened it up and pulled out the highly refined water that was inside of it. With a quick flick of his wrist, the water streamed out of the open flask and moved around the Demon's hand. Eiro made sure to properly infuse the water with his mana, and then pressed it onto the skin of his hand. Slowly, Eiro took a deep breath to calm himself down a little, and tried to go through the normal process of infusing himself with something.

It was very different to when he was infusing himself with magic from magic stones, since he was able to create it in its raw 'magic essence', it was like it was just elemental mana in itself, rather than the physical element. With fire it was a different deal as well, because Fire in itself was just something like an energy, much like mana was. Simply creating heat without flames could also be considered fire magic, so he could rather easily infuse it into his body.

But when it came to water... Right now, it merely felt like Eiro was going to pierce his skin trying to push it in any further. And then, Eiro thought about what it felt like when he fused with Nelli or Gondos. It was a very different feeling to infusing himself with magic through a magic stone as well.

"Just slowly..." The demon whispered quietly to himself. He tried to simply take the water into himself, as if he was drinking it through his skin. He wanted to mix it with every fiber of his being. Slowly but surely, the water that was touching Eiro's skin started to disappear after being absorbed by the demon that was controlling it.

And soon, Eiro could open his eyes, "It worked..?" He muttered quietly. Eiro moved his hand around, and was rather surprised to see this actually rather... confusing thing happen. It was like Eiro's hand was some bag filled with water. It was creating small waves with every motion of his hand. It was a rather weird feeling, really, and Eiro wasn't entirely sure if this had any sort of use to it. And then, he slowly noticed something else.

Eiro took up a simple hand-to-hand combat stance, forming his right hand into a fist right underneath the side of his chest, and stretching his open hand forward, facing in front of him with the flat palm. Slowly, the Demon then changed the positions of his hands, moving his right hand forward as a fist, and his left hand to the side of his body, the palm still open. He slightly twisted his body to the left side as he was at it.

And then, with a swift motion, Eiro rapidly pulled his right hand back and pushed his left hand forward while twisting his body to the right to give an extra boost to the speed of his hand. Of course, nothing happened directly, but Eiro was able to realize the perfect use for his hand being in such a state.

Because of the quick movement of his flat, left hand followed by the rapid stop, it was like all the 'liquid' making up his hand moved forward all at once in small waves, gathering in the center of his palm, creating a bit of a 'spike' right there. Those waves didn't only carry Eiro's water-like flesh with them, but at the same time also his mana. All at once, it gathered there on his palm and was propelled forward, as if forced out of his body in a small, compressed lump. And at a speed that was rather hard to achieve normally, even for Eiro.

With a bit of curiosity, Eiro placed the spark-snapper onto his right hand and created a small flame, that he then gathered in front of the center of his left palm using magic, before starting to repeat the same motion as he did just before.

He had gathered his mana in his left hand for this so that even more mana would be used for that 'compressed lump'. And so, after Eiro pushed his palm forward again like before, the mana was pushed out of his palm through the flames. But of course, Eiro was anticipating that, and at the right time made his mana the 'fuel' for the flames. And before he knew it, an incredibly fast, albeit small, ball of magic flames shot forward in front of the Demon.

"...What did you just do...?" Jess stepped down the stairs she was standing on toward Eiro. Her, as well as James and Krog, had been watching Arc practice a little bit and were trying to help them out, but the only one that had an affinity for the fire element was Jess, the mage, so none of them were really able to help out beyond showing Arc what they could do with their own elemental magic skills and weapons, which didn't seem to be of particularly much help. So after noticing that, they simply held back a bit and watched Eiro try and teach Arc, but this was simply something that Jess could not ignore.

"Did you... just cast a Fireball spell without drawing a magic circle?" She asked from far away. Jess knew that Eiro was capable of drawing magic circles at immense speeds, but this was definitely way too fast for even Jess to see through. But Eiro simply turned toward her with a light grin on his face.

"I didn't. That was physical casting, Jess." The Demon pointed out, but the young mage just stared at him in disbelief, "No way in hell was that physical casting... That was way too fast for physical casting!"

"I know, but that's just because of this new technique." Eiro explained smugly. He held his hand forward toward Jess and showed her what exactly he did to create this effect. If he was able to get enough practice in to get through the infusion process within a few moments, then Eiro should be able to properly make use of this ability in combat.

Even James and Krog understood how amazing the things this opened up were, "Isn't that considered cheating at this point...? What the actual hell is this?" James asked, and Krog slowly extended his finger toward Eiro's palm and slowly poked it, just watching it wiggle.

"Hm... Ain't that like... you know, like a slime? Those guys are pretty much immune to blunt damage, right? If you do that to your whole body, it'd make your defense go up, right?" Krog asked. Eiro thought about it for a few moments, and then slowly nodded his head.

"I think it might... But well, really only when fighting against people using blunt weapons, if they have swords or spears, that would make me easier to injure. Although..." Eiro thought about this kind of use for this ability as well, and then started to activate the ability he received after bringing resistance to 100, the 'Rock Skin' ability. To Eiro's surprise, it seemed like this heavily-altered and rigid skin didn't really change anything about the way Eiro's hand worked right now. He should rely on this ability more often, there was literally no reason not to do so in the end. It made him a bit heavier and slightly slower, but it wasn't by much.

"Interesting." Eiro thought about what exactly else he could do, and in the end just chose to take this ability a step further. He deactivated the rock skin ability and then started to infuse himself with highly-refined water completely, from top to bottom. It was a rather... interesting sight, to say the least. It seemed like the others had a lot of fun just poking Eiro's body in different places and watching the ripples travel all over him. Even Arc took a little break in his training.

Either way, Eiro tried what he did before again, this time much more intense than before, however. He created a condensed ball of hot flames in front of his right palm and took on the proper stance. The water infusion worked perfectly fine with the wooden hand as well, which is why Eiro figured he should try it with this one now. After all, as the wooden hand could act as a wand or staff, it might end up increasing the potency or amount of the mana.

And then, with his right palm pulled back and his left fist pushed forward, Eiro started. He pulled his left fist back, twisted his upper body to the left side, took an extra step forward with his right foot, and pressed his right palm forward all the whilst controlling the water magic that he infused his body with to increase the strength of the waves.

Before Eiro knew it, a small lump of very compressed mana was created through this and shot through the flames at high speeds. It was too fast for the others to even follow at first, as they didn't expect this speed. But that wasn't all, as the ripples had continued traveling over Eiro's body. There were a few more lumps of mana afterward, but the speed and power at which they were travelling went down considerably each time. It was a bit disappointing, but it wasn't an issue in the end either.

In the end, Eiro still managed to find a new technique that only he was really able to make use of, a new technique based off of combining martial arts with magic that may have never been seen before.

Eiro was satisfied, extremely satisfied really. And shooting that ball of flames forward wasn't all that this would be useful for. At the same time, it should also be possible to control his own body in a way that was practically impossible compared to before. In general, Eiro's movements were weird now. It was like a part of his movement was delayed compared to before. He moved his hand to the side, and the water infused into his body would then flow in that direction and make his hand move further over there. It was possible to move in ways that may have no been possible before. This was a chance that Eiro simply couldn't let up.

"Oi, you damn doll. Come over here!" Eiro said with a broad grin as he stepped over to a more empty area of the garden. But at first, it seemed like Jess became rather upset.

"Wait, he's not calling me 'doll' right now, right?" She asked with a wry smile as she looked at James and Krog, but a few moments later, Arc reassured her that this wasn't the case, "Nope. He's talking about a literal doll. Well, it's a puppet technically, I guess."

James, Jess and Krog seemed rather confused at what Arc was saying, but they were even more confused when they all of a sudden saw a wooden doll with the exact same build as Eiro make his way over toward the Demon.

"What... is that?" James asked with a wry smile, and Eiro extended his hand forward and pulled out the 'Stealth' token out of its body so that only the hand-to-hand combat one would remain.

"My training partner. Jura made it for me before he died. I don't know how he made it at all, but it seems to be able to completely match my stats and even grows in height alongside me. This way, I can practice different techniques with my mirror image, basically." Eiro explained, and Krog slowly took a step closer and leaned forward toward it.

"This thing's supposed to be able to face off against you? You kiddin'?" He asked, and extended his finger forward to poke at the puppet's face. But before Krog knew it, his whole body was flipped upside down and was thrown a few meters behind the puppet. Of course, Krog wasn't damaged by it at all, it just hurt him a little without decreasing his health by much.

"Well, yes. It's what taught me all my techniques. You see, I have some tokens that I can put into its body, each representing a skill. Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery, Dagger Mastery, Freerunning, and Stealth. They're hold techniques stemming from people who reached the Master Grade in those skills."