Chapter 425: Dark Demon Greed Evolution (52/233)
At half past eleven at night.
Dark closed his book and glanced at the vampire noble sleeping on the small bed beside him. She had already fallen asleep in her drowsy state.
Magical Beasts, in reality, do not need sleep, but the vampire noble obviously retained some childhood habits.
He raised his head slightly and met the gaze of the Lion Beast. The Lion Beast had also put down its reading material and returned half of the blanket to its original position, neatly folding the edges.
Dark pointed at the Mana Summoning Card already set up on the table, and the Lion Beast nodded slightly.
Thus, with a faint flash of light, the Lion Beast was recalled into the Mana Summoning Card.
For Magical Beasts, the environment within a Mana Summoning Card is quite comfortable; as long as they choose to enter a self-induced sleep, they can instantly fall asleep.
During their sleep, their consumption of Mana is almost negligible.
Therefore, most Magical Beasts remain in a state of sleep until awakened by a Magus.
However, after returning to the Mana Summoning Card, the Lion Beast did not sleep.
It sat cross-legged, its gaze penetrating through the card’s surface, aimlessly observing the bedroom.
After the “Craziness” of the Duel Festival, it often found itself lost in thought, pondering the meaning of “craziness,” but always ended up with no clear answers.
It believed this was due to reading too little and thus studied more earnestly.
But now was not the time for such contemplation.
The Lion Beast’s gaze steadied as it looked at its owner, who had taken out the “Greed III” card.
It was quite interested in the evolution brought about by the “Capital Sin Card,” although the level III card was insufficient to cause an evolution for a mature Digital Monster like itself.
Nonetheless, it still held hope for future possibilities.
If there’s a III, there must be a IV, right?
…
After Dark recalled the Lion Beast into the Mana Summoning Card, he glanced at the row of small beds.
None of the Magical Beasts on the small beds were asleep. Eevee and the Trash Slime peeked out quietly. The Solo Sword Sheath hung on Deoxys’ bed.
Among these three Magical Beasts, Dark finally chose Lil’Eevee.
The Imp Beast evolved into an Ice-type “Ice Imp Beast” thanks to “Greed III,” which made him unconsciously associate “Greed” with ice.
He felt that Lil’Eevee might also evolve into an Ice-type “Ice Eevee.”
—He wanted to confirm his hypothesis.
If Eevee truly evolved into Ice Eevee through “Greed III,” then his conjecture would largely be proven.
The emblem of “Greed” bears the astronomical symbol for “Saturn.”
In his previous world, Saturn was a gas giant primarily composed of hydrogen, with small amounts of helium and other elements. Its core consisted of rock and ice, while its outer layers were enveloped by several layers of metallic hydrogen and gases.
In this world, Saturn necessarily has attributes related to rocks and ground.
Additionally, according to the settings derived from the real world, it’s not strange for Saturn to be associated with ice.
“Greed” and the Ice attribute might surprisingly complement each other.
…
“Peep!”
Eevee emerged from the covers, ran over, and jumped onto Dark’s large bed, then naturally burrowed into Dark’s covers, poking out a furry head from his right side.
Dark teased its nose, then simply picked it up and held it, placing “Greed III” under the covers and performing a regular summoning ritual to activate it.
“In the name of Dark DiMont, Mana Summoning!”
The dark blue glow representing “Greed” was enclosed within the covers, but Eevee’s fur was still dyed deep blue by the light.
Dark clearly saw the emblem of “Greed” gradually appear on its forehead, then it was surrounded by the glow of evolution.
Under the effect of “Greed III,” Eevee’s life form visibly transformed.
Just like how a Demon Beast evolves into an Ice Demon Beast, wisps of cold air spread out.
However, this cold air was not as domineering as that of an Ice Demon Beast, merely bringing a slight chill.
“It seems to indeed be an Ice Eevee!”
Dark’s interest piqued, and he saw that the evolution glow had completely subsided. The Eevee in his arms had evolved into a larger individual.
That pale blue body, fox-like appearance, and icy cool feel were undoubtedly those of an Ice Eevee!
The head of the Ice Eevee resembled a double-layer knitted cold-weather hat. There were some diamond-shaped dark blue spots on its inner ears, body, and tail, forming a stark contrast with its pale blue body.
Its limbs also had dark blue areas, looking like it was wearing boots.
Its fur was short and fine, capable of lowering its body temperature to make its fur freeze into sharp needles, then shoot them out.
It could also freeze moisture in the surrounding air to create tiny ice crystals.
Of course, under normal circumstances, Ice Eevees are very docile, just like this one in Dark’s arms. Even under the influence of “Greed III,” it showed no intention of escaping.
Dark lifted it up and examined it thoroughly, then tucked it back into the covers. He retrieved the Mana Summoning Card labeled “Magical Beast: Ice Eevee” and injected Mana to gain information.
[Card Name: Ice Eevee]
[Type: Elemental Card]
[Level: ????]
[Race: Avian-beast Kin]
[Attribute: Ice]
[Mana: 1900]
[Attack: 1200]
[Defense: 1800]
[Ultimate Skills: Mirror Reflection, Ice Shard, Blizzard]
Still a pure four-star Ice-type Mana Summoning Card with three ultimate skills.
Compared to the evolutionary forms of “Sun Eevee” and “Fairy Eevee,” Ice Eevee’s defense stands out significantly.
Only slightly inferior to “Moon Eevee,” but its attack power is quite low, with the highest attribute being Mana.
Since it evolved from a one-star Magical Beast, the stats of Ice Eevee’s evolutionary form aren’t particularly outstanding.
But their ultimate skills always bring a sense of surprise.
This particular Ice Eevee starts with the ultimate skill “Mirror Reflection,” making it an indispensable evolutionary form.
[Mirror Reflection: On top of withstanding damage, it doubles the magical attacks back at the opponent!]
In the past, when Dark watched Pokémon animations, he greatly enjoyed “Machoke.”
The core moves of Machoke are “Double Team” and “Mirror Move.”
These two moves, one doubling physical attacks and the other doubling magical attacks, are practically unfair.
Now that Ice Eevee has learned “Mirror Reflection,” it can be considered somewhat like a Machoke.
Of course, though not shown in the animation, both “Double Team” and “Mirror Move” actually require taking damage.
Afterwards, it can reflect back.
Therefore, if one cannot even withstand a single attack, there’s no point in talking about reflection.
Fortunately, the mana and defense of Ice Eevee aren’t low.
In addition to “Mirror Reflection,” Ice Eevee has two ultimate skills.
One of them is “Ice Shard!”
[Ice Shard: Instantly create ice blocks and throw them at the opponent at high speed, causing damage.]
“Ice Shard” isn’t a very strong ultimate skill; in fact, it could be considered quite weak.
But its launch speed is extremely fast, often allowing for preemptive attacks.
Moreover, the ability to “instantly create ice blocks” is actually quite good.
It could even be said to be a super advanced version of the “Barrier Spell.”
Dark recalled that during his duel with Tom Nixon, he once created a blood platform in the air, forcing mana spirits that couldn’t fly or perform high jumps to watch helplessly.
Now with Ice Eevee around, it can instantly construct an ice platform in the air.
As for throwing it out to attack…
Forcing this to attack might be less effective than a regular attack.
Compared to that, another ultimate skill—”Blizzard”—causes significant damage.
Even though Ice Eevee’s attack isn’t high, it can still use “Blizzard” to deal considerable damage.
[Blizzard: Blasts a fierce blizzard towards the opponent, sometimes freezing them.]
The power of Blizzard is very high, the only regret being it can’t last long.
If “Blizzard” could be converted into a sustainable field spell, it would undoubtedly provide great benefits to ice-type mana spirits.
Dark couldn’t help but ponder.
As Eevee’s mastery over mana deepens, when it evolves into Ice Eevee later, perhaps “Blizzard” could be converted into a field spell, which would be a good development path.
However, at present, besides “Mirror Reflection,” Ice Eevee’s various abilities are not as prominent as those of Fat Cat.
Thinking about this, he suddenly remembered Sister Carrian mentioning “secondary crafting.”
If Eevee undergoes secondary crafting, elevating its base attributes to the five hundred level, and even becoming a two-star mana spirit, would its various evolution forms’ stats increase accordingly?
In theory, it should be feasible.
But the risk of secondary crafting for mana spirits is too great. Unless the mana card itself can be guaranteed not to break, or there’s some method to preserve the mana spirit’s intellect, otherwise, Dark definitely wouldn’t dare to try it.
He shook his head and directly finished his notes on the bed. Then, after playing with Ice Eevee for a while, he waited for Ice Eevee’s degeneration.
Degenerated Eevee squinted its big eyes and snuggled onto Dark’s bed, looking very happy.
Of course, Dark wouldn’t kick a mana spirit off the bed. He held Eevee close to his chest and continued to pet it.
The mental states of other mana spirits at this moment are temporarily not mentioned.
Late at night, time always flies by quickly.
Before he knew it, it was already 12:30.
At this time, Solo Sword Sheath and Trash Slime were ready to attack.
Dark glanced at Solo Sword Sheath and the Deoxys holding it, then looked at Trash Slime and the Ditto holding it. In the end, he chose Solo Sword Sheath from the two options.
Solo Sword Sheath is a four-star mana spirit card, meaning it is naturally second tier.
Although it has two more stages of evolution, the limit of Level III Capital Sin is actually reached, and so far, no second-tier mana spirit has evolved beyond this stage.
So Dark doesn’t have much hope for Solo Sword Sheath’s evolution.
But experiments are about finding possibilities in the unknown.
In plain terms, you have to try to know.
“Decided, it’s you, Solo Sword Sheath.”
Thus, Deoxys jumped off the bed and circled around under everyone’s gaze before crawling into the empty spot in the blankets on the other side of Dark, then handed Solo Sword Sheath over.
Solo Sword Sheath: ??
Regardless, Solo Sword Sheath indeed came over.
Dark pulled up the blankets and placed it inside, then used “Gluttony III” within the blankets.
“In the name of Dark Demon, Mana Summon!”
…
The intense blue light made the blanket transparent, and the scattered blue light reflected off the ceiling like ripples in the sea.
Deoxys and Eevee beside Dark curiously stared at the glowing spot in the blanket, waiting quietly for Solo Sword Sheath to change.
Yes…
It indeed changed.
Regardless of whether the energy of “Gluttony III” is enough, from the current situation, the series of “Greed” capital sin cards can indeed promote Solo Sword Sheath’s evolution.
The handle of Solo Sword Sheath protruding from the blanket twisted vigorously, its entire body wrapped in the light of evolution.
It originally had a different shape from a normal Solo Sword Sheath, and now it didn’t change, only splitting into a completely identical half from its body.
At the same time, an elliptical shadow gradually appeared in the light source.
That is the shield produced after Solo Sword Sheath evolves to the second stage.
At this moment, its shield is still incomplete and cannot use the ultimate skill “Royal Card” to transform itself into a shield form.
But this shield has become an indispensable part of its body.
What slightly surprised Dark was that Solo Sword Sheath’s evolution process was very smooth, without any stagnation due to merely being a Level III capital sin card.
Its eye in the guard ring widened to the maximum, revealing the emblem of “Greed,” and all the light of “Greed” was absorbed into its eye.
When the light of evolution suddenly converged, a mana spirit with two swords and an elliptical shield appeared in the blanket.
“Singleton Sheath” – “Double Sheath”!
After evolving into Double Sheath, as its name suggests, it turned into two swords in an X-shaped cross.
The overall design remained slender and delicate, with intricate hollow patterns on the sheaths resembling the gorgeous patterns of the flower of the afterlife.
The only difference from its previous form is that the color of the eyes and ribbons on each sword changed from the original blue-purple to a more vibrant purple-red.
Its shield behind resembled a sword case, fixing the two swords together.
During battle, the two swords would fly out, with one sword’s ribbon tentacles protecting the shield. Only after evolving into “Resilient Shield Sword” would the shield become complete.
Then, it would not only be able to use the shield to withstand attacks but also transform “Resilient Shield Sword” into a shield form.
Dark carefully explored the blade of Solo Sword Sheath, feeling quite delighted.
“It seems that the promotion of mana spirit evolution by capital sin cards does not entirely depend on their energy levels.”
“There must be differences between Level III capital sin cards and Level II capital sin cards beyond just their energy levels, which cause the effects of the two types of capital sin cards to differ.”
The decisive factor.
“Even with more ‘Capital Sin II,’ it cannot replace ‘Capital Sin III.'”
As DArk pondered, he suddenly furrowed his brows, noticing that the two ribbons of the Solo Sword Sheaths had quietly wrapped around his and Deoxys’s wrists. Then, he clearly felt his mana being sucked away like flowing water.
Originally, after being educated by Deoxys, the Solo Sword Sheath knew how to absorb mana in small amounts, one bit at a time.
But evidently, the greed clouded its vision.
DArk unfastened the ribbon-like bands and tied up the Solo Sword Sheaths tightly.
Thus, the Solo Sword Sheaths could only twitch like a beached fish, making muffled noises.
DArk took this opportunity to inspect its Magic Card.
With the infusion of mana, a large amount of information was fed back.
[Card Name: Solo Sword Sheaths]
[Type: Elemental Card]
[Level: ????]
[Race: Undead]
[Attribute: Steel / Ghost]
[Mana: 3000]
[Attack: 2200]
[Defense: 2200]
[Ultimate Skills: Weaponization, Continuous Slash, Sword Dance, Holy Sword]
“A six-star Magic Golem?”
“But apart from the mana increasing from 1500 to 3000, and defense increasing from 1800 to 2200, nothing else has changed.”
“Hmm, even the ultimate skills haven’t changed!”
“Could this be what they call a surprise?”
After muttering for a while, DArk delved deeper into each ultimate skill.
[Weaponization: The Solo Sword Sheaths can transform into weapon form, changing the type of the Magic Card.]
Subsequent skills like “Continuous Slash,” “Sword Dance,” and “Holy Sword” had the same effects, showing no visible changes.
DArk slightly frowned and said, “Transform into weapon form.”
Upon receiving the command, the Solo Sword Sheaths immediately closed their eyes and swiftly retracted the ribbons binding their blades, transforming into two swords and a shield.
The shield seemed useless, but the two swords, aside from their ribbons and eye colors turning purplish-red, were identical to the Solo Sword Sheath alone.
“Splitting into two, is that what it means?”
DArk held the two swords in both hands and examined them closely.
Soon, he discovered that each sword had the same additional effects as the “Solo Sword Sheath (Weapon Form).”
In other words, aside from becoming two swords instead of one, there were no differences.
“It feels like everything suddenly makes sense now.”
DArk’s frown gradually eased.
The retained ultimate skills of the Solo Sword Sheaths—whether “Weaponization,” “Continuous Slash,” “Sword Dance,” or “Holy Sword”—were all powerful skills, which was undoubtedly fortunate.
The doubling of mana and slight increase in defense meant that the Solo Sword Sheath had not fundamentally changed in essence after evolving into the Solo Sword Sheaths.
Looking back, this was clearly a good thing.
“In that case, Deoxys and Lion Beast each having a Holy Sword would be perfect!”
Thinking this, DArk couldn’t help but look up at the “Lion Beast” Magic Card on his desk. The Lion Beast in the card gave him a thumbs-up: Good Job!
…
What DArk didn’t know was that at that moment, Imp Beast, who had only revealed a pair of eyes from under the covers, was fantasizing about splitting into two.
“If one becomes a black cat and the other a white cat, wouldn’t I be able to fuse and evolve into Bastemon?”
As he thought, Imp Beast drooled dreamily (ˉ﹃ˉ).
…
When the bedroom finally quieted down again, it was already past one o’clock.
DArk rarely stayed up so late, and his biological clock kept alarming him, making him feel somewhat drowsy.
He picked up his book again to pass the time.
Finally, at twenty minutes past one, the CD of “Greed III” was ready again.
The long-waiting Trash Slime was then carried by Ditto and jumped off the bed.
“Slap!”
Ditto excitedly jumped onto the bed, landing on DArk’s face like jelly.
DArk, somewhat helplessly, pulled it and the Trash Slime off his face, then hid the Trash Slime back under the covers and activated “Greed III” using a regular summoning spell.
The Trash Slime enjoyed the light of “Greed” and emitted a content “gurgle gurgle.”
Its form also naturally changed under the influence of “Greed III.”
DArk had done some research beforehand.
Slimes generally have three main characteristics: deformation, fusion, and absorption.
His “Trash Slime” clearly had absorption as its primary characteristic.
Therefore, among the Seven Deadly Sins, it fits best with “Gluttony,” followed by “Greed.”
However, given that “Gluttony” is currently out of reach, the effectiveness of “Greed” is truly wonderful.
DArk brought the Trash Slime out of the covers.
Its transformation had entered its final stage, emitting a faint blue glow around its outline.
Once the blue glow completely converged, a larger, jelly-like Slime appeared in his palm.
DArk felt a slight sinking sensation in his hand and involuntarily lowered it.
At the last moment of evolution, the Trash Slime suddenly expanded, becoming a massive Slime over one and a half meters in diameter!
Compared to the evolution during “Greed II,” the evolution during “Greed III” showed a clear qualitative change just from appearance!
It seemed the Trash Slime had finally evolved into a useful Magic Golem as desired?
DArk momentarily lost focus, and his entire upper body was enveloped by the enormous transparent jelly. Even his head was covered.
Instinctively, he wanted to resist, but suddenly realized that breathing was unobstructed and his vision was still relatively clear.
“It seems its interior has a rich oxygen circulation system.”
So DArk didn’t rush to break free but directly injected mana into the Magic Card.
Soon, information was fed back.
[Card Name: Greed Slime II]
[Type: Elemental Card]
[Level: ????]
[Race: Elemental]
[Attribute: Grass]
[Mana: 3000]
[Attack: 0]
[Defense: 2000]
[Ultimate Skills: Greed Tendency, Split to Win, Photosynthesis]
“Indeed, it skipped straight from one star to four stars, and the mana value… 3000?”
DArk blinked rapidly, revealing an indescribable look of astonishment.
He was already accustomed to his Magic Golems having stats exceeding top-tier full values, but how could it jump by over a thousand points?
This was the same as the mana value of the Solo Sword Sheaths, right?
And it had a full 2000 points of defense!
