Epic Of The Demonic Sage

While Lucius was quite intrigued by the changes in Baza, he didn't think they would bring about any particular difference in his capabilities.

Lucius watched on as Baza completed his transformation. A couple more hours passed, and it was official night time. Kiana had already asked Lucius to eat dinner, but he passed on it, saying that he'll have it after he was done with Baza.

Doyle on the other hand, was sleeping calmly against the wall while standing. It was as if he had turned into a solid statue. Even his breathing could not be seen, as his chest simply did not move.

If someone walked into the lab right now and saw Doyle, they would be scared at first, but then think that this was just a very elaborate statue made by an expert craftsman. There were many nobles that liked to keep stuffed taxidermy animals and rune beasts in their residences.

So some might even think this was something like that. After all, Doyle looked no less than a rune beast and with the sheer number of weird rune beasts that existed in the world, it would not be hard to confuse it with one.

Lucius did his third infusion of Hell energy into Baza, hereby depleting most of his hell energy. This was the last bit needed to complete Baza's transformation completely.

"Hnggg!!!" Baza's eyes suddenly opened as he woke up.

"Break through your restraints, Baza," Lucius ordered, wanting to see the Lost's strength.

The restraints on his legs were instantly broken, showing the power of his legs while the ones on his arms were still a bit tough for it to break instantly. Baza struggled for about a minute, before finally managing to break the ones on his arm as well.

And with his arms free, the other restraints were far easier for him to break. 

Baza got down from the metal table and looked towards Lucius. His eyes were far calmer than Doyle's and he did not react violently either.

"Hmm… this is certainly an improvement…" Lucius muttered before extending his hand towards him.

The red glow of Hell energy appeared on his hand before flowing out towards Baza and entering his body.

"Now then… follow my ordered closely," Lucius said before directing Baza to follow the same routine as that of Doyle.

Here he could figure out the differences that existed between the two lost. Baza was lighter in weight than Doyle and also had naturally light footsteps. In fact, when Lucius asked him to walk lightly, all sounds of his steps disappeared.

This brought Lucius's attention towards his feet, or more specifically towards the rubbery layer of skin that was on the bottom.

"Huh, this is rather interesting. So his gift directly influenced his transformation by adding the traits of his gift directly to his legs." Lucius muttered.

But this gave rise to another idea in his mind.

"Hang on… Could it be?" Lucius said before squinting his eyes and using Nexus on Baza again.

Gift Name: Wind Gait

Description: Allows the user to gain the assistance of the wind, muffling their steps and increasing their speed greatly.

Rank: Rare

Type: Physical 

Evolution: Possible 

Evolution Requirements: 5x Aether Crystals, 8x Stream Swallow Rune Crystals, 1 Kilogram of whistle weed. 

Other Owners: Sam Aldon… (Total owners: 917)

Hell Energy Corruption: Lesser

Info: The creature will have increased physical strength that can be increased further with the use of hell energy. The creature will also have slightly higher intelligence than before and can understand commands.

Corruption level: Lesser

Corrupted Gift: Unlocked 

Corrupted Gift: Shadow Gait

Description: The creature's body has fully adapted the gift and allows it to walk with almost no sound. Even the vibrations coming from the footsteps well be dampened to a great extent. The creature's speed increases greatly when in shadows.

Other Owners: None

Lucius got a little headache upon using the nexus to this extend and depleting his aether, but upon seeing the information shown by nexus he thought that it was definitely worth it.

'So he actually has a corrupted gift that is unlocked. But this doesn't give an idea about how it is unlocked… what are the specific conditions for it being unlocked?' Lucius thought to himself.

At first, Lucius had the assumption that when the corruption level increased above lesser, the corrupted gift might become unlocked. But now that seemed to not be the case. Lucius even compared the amount of hell energy he had spent on each Lost and realized that it was nearly the same, with Doyle taking a bit more.

"Is it a factor of time, then? No… Doyle has been awake longer and took the same time to transform, too. Keith took far longer than them and still didn't awaken his gift when I checked him back then… although there is a chance he might have awakened later on." Lucius muttered to himself.

Lucius was speaking in quite a low voice such that even Kiana could not hear him. Kiana was also looking at the new Lost Baza and found him to be far less intimidating than Doyle. In fact, the fur that covered Baza made him look more like a fluffy animal instead.

Lucius decided to stop for now and rest. 

'I need to recover both Aether and Hell energy now…' Lucius thought to himself before looking at Kiana.

"Let's go, we'll have dinner." Lucius spoke.

"You finally done?" Kiana asked for confirmation.

"Yes. I'll let these two stay here for the time being. Seeing Doyle didn't move around it should be fine to keep them as it is." Lucius replied.

"Okay," Kiana nodded and the two of them decided to leave.

"Baza, go and sleep there," Lucius ordered while sending out whatever hell energy he could.

It was only the size of single hair but it was enough to transmit the order. 

"Eng!!" once Baza absorbed the hell energy, he heeded the orders and went to stand opposite to Doyle and closed his eyes to fall asleep.

With all that done, Lucius and Kiana went upstairs to eat their dinner. Quickly finishing their dinner in thirty minutes, Lucius went back downstairs to sleep. In the basement, two rooms were prepared right now and one of them was the lab. 

The other room was the bedroom, Lucius had asked for. As of this moment, there was only a bed, and some curtains set up in the bedroom. It was also far colder than other parts of the building and needed a brazier to keep it warm.

Thankfully, there was a fireplace that was built into the sides of its wall that went all the way to the top of the building. Kiana quickly set up some fire in there, allowing the room to get a bit warmer than before.

The dampness was also reduced by quite a bit and allowed Lucius to sleep faster. 

Besides, Lucius had slept in far worse places in his life before and this was nothing to him. In fact, this might actually be a better room than the one he had grown up in the Great Barrom clan and that too all to himself.

In the great Barrom clan, he had his siblings slept in a small room together. The room had no windows or any decorations, built mainly of cold, hard stone. Only those that showed good aptitude and abilities would be allowed to have better living conditions.

Reminiscing the memories of his past life, Lucius fell asleep and had a far better sleep than he had expected. Morning came, and he was woken up by Kiana.

The metal bed creaked under his movement, and Lucius rubbed his eyes.

"Here you go," Kiana brought a large bowl and a jug of water to him. 

"Thank you…" Lucius said before using the water from the jug to wash his face and freshen up.

After about a minute, Lucius was ready to go about his day. Once he washed off his grogginess, Lucius could feel the difference in his body.

"Huh… how did this happen?" Lucius was surprised by the chance in his body.

He looked towards the door and saw that Kiana had left to get the breakfast for now. He quickly sat down on the bed and closed his eyes to check the situation of his soul scape. Appearing in it after a minute, Lucius could see his soul floating silently.

But the biggest change was the hell energy that was surrounding it. The hell imprint was as if overflowing, and all the networks in the soul were filled up. The hell energy leaked out of the hell imprint and floated around the soul, slowing spinning around him.

"The hell energy increased?" Lucius couldn't believe his eyes.

He took control of the hell energy manually to see how much of a difference it actually was and realized that it had increased by almost thirty percent from his initial amount.

"What could have caused it?" Lucius wondered.