Damon's Ascension-Chapter 45: Devour’s Rules

Once he was out, Damon was not swarmed by people. Even though he had been in the instance for about 30 minutes, it seemed that entry into the fort was still closed off to give him time to explore the realm.

Rather, there was a small group of police and well-dressed men who lit up when he came out, walking over to inquire about the details of the dungeon. Damon did not hold back and shared what he experienced, which made these people nod along.

"Would you like to go inside one more time?" one of the policemen asked Damon, to which he shook his head.

Essence instances allowed one to enter as many times as they wanted after completion, with only a small penalty to how many times they could enter if they quit the instance halfway. Damon had already come to realize something about himself from the way he handled that instance and was not keen on experiencing it twice.

He could have resolved that scenario through a multitude of means. When he took the captain’s flintlock, he could have fired it at the man and seized the European men, raiding their goods for his people. He had considered this briefly but discarded it because of the mobility he precisely lacked at the time.

He could have gone down the expected path of selling the slaves as best as he could and then later led a group of warriors to sneak into the fort, kill all the Europeans, and snatch them back. He could also sneak in and free them without harming the relatively innocent European men.

The options were plentiful, and the more special abilities one had, the more options they naturally possessed to resolve the situation.

Rather, he was more interested in exploring his changes, so he bid farewell to the people there and entered his vehicle, noting that the outside of the fort was even more crowded than before. Thankfully, he had a police escort to help him clear the way, or it was unknown when Damon would finally escape this crowd.

On the way to his gym, Damon repeatedly thought about his next steps. According to the gathered intelligence, there were around four unique Essence instances within Ghana—one in Fort James, one at Pra River, and the final one at Kumasi Fort.

Likewise, Damon was aware of the historical events of both locations and could guess what the instances were about. He planned to head there since those places would definitely involve intense fighting but chose Fort James because it should be less about fighting and more about escape, which he thought it would be about.

The young man soon arrived at his private gym and clocked in. He began stretching his body but soon chuckled because his already loosened ligaments and tendons from the upgrade made this negligible.

First, Damon tested his flexibility.

He tried a few gymnastic poses that he never could have done before, even achieving the famous split that all men feared. It was usually easier for women to achieve this due to their constitution, and men who tried this were either unique or wanted to experience pain like never before.

But for the current Damon, it was achievable by about 70% before he began to feel a strain.

Second, he tested his coordination and balance.

He walked over a tightrope set over two benches and was able to keep his balance rather easily, walking across with limited wobbling. He also tried the famous ’perch’ that characterized the assassins of a video game series, standing on a narrow area with one foot atop the other while crouching.

This one was extremely tough, and while he would have instantly fallen over before, he managed to maintain this pose until his legs began to burn, lacking the fortitude to maintain the posture.

Finally, he tested his speed.

Damon hopped on a treadmill and set it to the maximum value of 10 speed, which was essentially 10 km per hour. He began to sprint fully, feeling that this was not enough, so he further raised it to 12 speed, then 14.

It was only when he hit 25 km/h that he felt a strain of being unable to keep up. Not only that, but he had to stop shortly due to the lack of stamina, as his Fortitude had not increased to match his Mobility.

As always, super speed doesn’t come packaged with super endurance.

Damon was panting and decided to take a short rest. While recharging, he checked his character panel to see how much Worldly Essence he had consumed, noting that his first upgrade took 80 units of Worldly Essence—slightly better than the universe average.

He was not sure how it would be for others until a census was done, but Damon hoped it would be better than his. He would rather be an above-average performer across the human race than be the best example once again because even though abilities took the fore, stats were fundamental.

Damon felt his body was ready to upgrade again, which was definitely not normal. The cooldown for upgrading took an average of a day at the early stages to a week at the later stages, so for him to be ready in under an hour either had to do with his exercising or was part of his special talents.

Or it could be a human-wide thing. What Damon knew for sure was that exercise had nothing to do with it, otherwise, the IUAS would make it a rule to exercise after each level-up to speed up recovery from absorbing Worldly Essence.

Damon pondered and then raised a hand, in which an orb of creamy white glowing energy appeared. This was the final product of his Devour ability, when the absorbed energy from any source was processed into Worldly Essence that could be freely used.

Of course, at the first moment after coming back from the negotiations, he pressed his hand to the ground and absorbed energy until his tank was full, causing the land within 100 meters around him to wither and become dead.

As for how Devour worked, it made Damon into a human ruminant. In essence, he basically had three ’stomachs.’

One was the first stomach and the largest, where raw energy from any organic or inorganic source was absorbed and kept.

Two was the second stomach, where the processed energy was moved in small batches for refinement at a rate depending on the grade of the ability.

Three was the final stomach, where the Worldly Essence that was processed was deposited for use.

There were some interesting things Damon found out about this ability while testing its effects. The first was that raw energy absorbed could be freely expelled in whatever manner he chose. This meant that, in a pinch, Damon could fire a ’ki blast’ of raw energy at a foe, emptying his first stomach.

The second was that the processing speed of the second stomach could not be altered at all and was not affected by stats. Its speed solely depended on the grade of his ability. At F-grade, he was able to output 1 unit of Worldly Essence per minute.

The third was that his third stomach had a total capacity of 1,000 units of Worldly Essence at a time, which was what he had just pushed out in front of him.

Looking at it, Damon couldn’t help but smirk. His Devour ability was one of his main capitals for growing faster than others, as well as for making a profit. In the auction two days later, he planned to shock the universe by selling raw Worldly Essence in such a manner.

One should know that Worldly Essence was not directly traded but usually credited because only the Universe Will could directly make it. But that’s not what made the Worldly Essence Damon produced valuable.

What made it truly valuable was that it didn’t care if you entered Essence with your real body or not!

That’s right—even the cowards who chose not to risk their lives could now upgrade their stats as long as they bought Damon’s Worldly Essence and applied it!

The biggest lament of such fellows was that they had almost no rights aside from what the IUAS gave. The Universe Will only cared about those willing to spelunk, and those who chose not to could die for all it cared.

What such fellows craved was the ability to protect themselves and achieve extraordinary power just like those who entered with their real bodies, and now the option appeared!

...but the quantity was limited, and the only source of it was Damon or Felicia.

Damon did not forget that the titled ’Deputy Prime Representative’—which he found amusing—had the ability of ’Empower,’ which was the opposite of his Devour.

Empower allowed Felicia to absorb ambient energy passively and imbue it into any creature in the form of Worldly Essence, acting as a miniature Universe Will. The difference was that where Damon took by force, Felicia took gently.