Gestation by John Gold (love books to read .txt) 📗

the boat, and the wings taste something like that, just juicier. The blood is delicious.

You ate imp wings

Strength: +26

Agility: +17

Duration: 59 minutes, 59 seconds

Demonification: 0.2%

Your soul is tied to this world, and your flesh is restructuring to match the new world order.

∞ ∞ ∞

Ah-ha, got it. So, I need to eat demons in order to…become one? I don’t feel any revulsion, and am actually kind of intrigued. Let’s do this!

But I’m still eating raw wings, and I can’t boil them. What about smoking or drying them?

Over the next three hours, I eat thirty imps, building my resistance to fire in parallel. The last imps I eat don’t boost my demonification, however. I focus on my fire resistance, gradually moving closer and taking more damage.

Three days later, I’ve figured it out: I can’t boost my demonification more than 1% per day. Each imp I eat gives me another 0.1%.

In a week, I can get just ten meters from the lava. Any closer, and the heat is too much for me.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 4100 (ignored: 2207)

77/1970

Weak healing! Better not go any closer. The fire is bewitching, the flow of lava and puffs of gas. Oh, and a new imp! I step back to a safe distance, kill him, and enjoy a couple of wings.

∞ ∞ ∞

Demonification: 10%

Your soul is tied to this world, and your flesh is restructuring to match the new world order.

Passive ability unlocked: Dual consciousness

You can now think and do two things at once.

Note: If you accept this ability, you will lose 100 intellect and wisdom. Those points will go toward creating your mental body and the energy channels your second stream of consciousness needs.

Accept: Yes/No

I’ve only ever read about things like this. There was something about it in the book on the mental body, something about how superior mages and all grand masters can use several spells at once. It didn’t say anything about how they achieved the ability, however. But I found a way. Two hundred attribute points is forty levels, but that dual consciousness is only available to superior mages. In that same book, I read about how Level 200 mages enjoy an enhanced ability to work with their energy channels. That’s the fifth level of magical mastery or something like that. But whatever - they lose levels, and I’m just losing intellect and wisdom. My limit is 200, so I’d be fine with making eleven additional streams of consciousness. But do I need it? Eh, whatever, I want to see how it works anyway.

Accept!

Oh, right, my healing isn’t as effective now. First, I want to see what I have.

“Attribute window!”

Name: Sagie

Level: 0

Experience: 0/100 (100 left until the next level)

Race: Human

Class: None selected

Basic attributes

Strength: 200

Agility: 179

Stamina: 197

Intellect: 45

Wisdom: 24

Available attribute points: 0

…

Weak healing is so much weaker now. Did I really used to be like this? All it heals is 1127 health, though my survivability cheers me up: 30 health a second. I can completely heal once a minute without even touching my healing. Okay, let’s try my two streams of consciousness.

It isn’t that simple. Using two different spells at once takes incredible focus, though doubling up on one spell is easier. I’m going to have to practice. I want to max out my healing before I really start experimenting.

Healing with both streams, I give something a try.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 4100 (ignored: 2207)

66/1970

Weak healing! All I have to do now is think about it. I don’t even have to cast the spell with my hand. I concentrate on healing one part of my body and watch it glow, my hands now free. Getting into a battle stance, I tense up, move my center of gravity, and throw a strike. I throw another one.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 4100 (ignored: 2207)

107/1970

I just about missed that, but it’s possible. My hands are free to fight with. I’m faster, too, especially since I no longer have to point at the body part I want to heal. You can’t really tell when I’m fighting imps, but it’s glorious when my muscles fill with blood, my ligaments tense up, I feel the power of my blows, and my fist cuts through the hot air. I need to train, remember everything father taught me, remember everything Finx taught me… Oh, that hurts. Galboa, father… How are they? People are so weak…

∞ ∞ ∞

A month later…

It took me a whole month to make it the last five steps to the lava. A few times, I was a hair’s breadth away from death, though I used one weak healing as my main weapon and another as a backup. When the situation gets out of control, I activate the second spell with a half-second delay. I was right: it just took skill and focus.

∞ ∞ ∞

Demonification: 30%

Your soul is tied to this world, and your flesh is restructuring to match the new world order.

Passive ability unlocked: Quadruple consciousness

The next imp I eat gives me a fourth stream of consciousness, though my intellect and wisdom have been 200 for a while now. I got what I was looking for. Ah, and there’s my lunch. Another imp comes hurrying at me.

∞ ∞ ∞

Demonification: 40%

Your soul is tied to this world, and your flesh is restructuring to match the new world order.

Passive ability unlocked: Quintuple consciousness

You can now think and do five things at once.

Note: If you accept this ability, you will lose 100 intellect and wisdom. Those points will go toward creating your mental body and the energy channels your second stream of consciousness needs.

Accept: Yes/No

Passive ability unlocked: Demon possession, Level 1

You can strengthen one part of your body by 40%. Using this ability will cost an equal amount of health and stamina.

∞ ∞ ∞

I’m starting to like this whole becoming a demon thing. There aren’t any external changes, as far as I can tell, but I know what a demon body can do. One ritual in demonology is possession, where a demon is placed in the body of the victim and can do what it wills with it. In most cases, humans use just a