Everyone looked happy as the fences were rebuilt, though far shabbier because of the damage from the nails but it was still reused and mostly rebuilt.

Jade sped up the tilling and marveled how easy the soil was to manipulate as she carefully created the fields while the grass was turned into mulch as the earth was cultivated with magic.

After that everyone began to help plant the tree sprouts for the first half of the morning and then ate lunch and continued to the next to fields for the rest of the day.

At night, Logan headed out and was met with fierce winds as he headed to an inn where he could get proper information and watch the news.

He huffed as he got inside and rented a room but also sat down in the dining room and paid attention to the news.

“The storm in the northern coast of Mortis Desert still rages. There is currently not telling how far or how long the storm will last. A rough estimate judging on rare incidents of similar magnitude suggests that it could go for as little as a week to two weeks. It is uncertain which monster pack has a stronger force so the current situation is extremely uncertain. Most cities along the northern coast have already been evacuated as tsunamis of neary 10 storys have been reported. Major loss of trade ports are likely to happen and a record breaking occurrence happened with nearly 200 km of Mortis desert being covered in storm for more than two days. This massive disturbance is actually causing immense world wide weather changes among which are storms forming in other areas around the desert as well and seem to be moving into that area actually promoting what could be an once in a lifetime event where the entirety of Mortis Desert will be covered in storm. It is still uncertain however as the storm is blocked by the limitations of the sea dragon’s poor mobility on land.” the reporter said.

“Damn, to think this is going to continue for nearly a week.” He complained.

The waitress arrived as he said that, “I know, but we should thank the gods that it is over the desert and not over the mainland.” she said.

He agreed, there was no need for another flooding incident. For the desert, this was a blessing as much needed rain was going to fall but it was sure to cause a lot of problems if it lasted too long.

He finished eating and headed to the room where he entered the orb and called out the children for dinner.

When it was done, he stretched and finally had them sit down, “Alright, since we have mostly cleared the basics of the land, let’s start with what is important.” He said. “Now, what I will be doing is awakening your senses to the presence of mana. Mana is all around us since we are born so you would never notice unless mana of high concentration and purity is channeled into your body. It will also likely hurt because most of you don’t have much talent for it but i will be careful.” He said.

They nodded that said, he didn’t start instantly, instead he began to teach them meditation and the trick to clearing their mind and controlling their breath. He taught them a simple technique that Maxwell forced him to do which actually changed his breathing pattern.

The children all coughed when trying it.

“You all will train this just like we have. This is important because it helps you find your strongest but also the most natural breathing pattern for your lungs allowing them to become much stronger, pull in much more air and increase your lung capacity. This is very important to achieving the capacity of having the physical strength of an F rank.” Logan said.

When they mostly understood and would just need to train, he finally had each of them sit down and start meditation. He let them have nearly half an hour to calm down and try to meditate.

“Alright, one by one i will do the technique I know and you should feel a heat entering your body. It will be much hotter and maybe even burning as it runs through your body but just focus on meditating and trying to get a sense for that heat. When it leaves, try to find that feeling inside your own body.” Logan said, repeating all the world’s Maxwell said when he unlocked Logan’s own ability to sense his mana.

Starting on the first boy he held his hand and carefully channeled a very small bit but his face clenched and his hand slightly tightened. Logan had felt the passage of several creatures. Jade, Jin and Storm have all had their own channels sensed through, though for Storm it had mostly been when he was training with Logan to open his channels. Logan wanted to feel how they were but he did it nonetheless.

The channels of the boy were tiny and very closed. They were like Logan’s closed channels when he forced his mana to channel the mana flow of the sword arts when he discovered Maxwell lied to him.

However, unlike logan that had close to 70% open, the boy had barely 10% of his body opened causing intense resistance against the highly compressed strand of mana. However, what he felt could not compare to what Logan felt.

He had B rank mana pass through his body that time while being unranked and untrained. Logan slowly channeled it along the widest of these closed channels and finally reached the mana pool.

When it finally slipped inside, the boy groaned as if he felt a big weight on his chest and his breathing became harder but Logan smiled as he noticed how the weak flame of his mana pool’s mana was rapidly getting more intense. It was very subtle but mana drew towards him.

He pulled the mana along the ten main channels before finally drawing it out and leaving only his natural mana.

He didn’t say anything as he moved to the next and continued doing one by one until the last was the girl with the mana pool three times the size of their own.

Her mana channels were 90% closed but her mana pool was still big making him wonder.

He was more careful because of how closed it was but what was shocking was as it entered the mana pool, the mana inside was shockingly high quality. In fact, he felt like it was much better than his own mana.

“No wonder the matron said her body couldn’t handle her mana.” Logan thought. Now he finally understood, she was a natural magic genius or someone had put higher quality mana. As he thought about it, he suddenly thought of the poison. “Wait… could this also be regarded as a poison? What kind of person would do this? She definitely has some kind of secret background that she herself might know or not.” he thought.

He still channeled the mana through the ten channels and her body also began to draw mana. “I feel it.” She muttered quietly.

“Don’t try to move the mana. Your’s is a little special so let’s take it one step at a time.” he said.

She opened her eyes and nodded.

He got up and took a step back, “Alright, can feel the feeling of mana?” He asked.

All six opened their eyes and only one other boy could still feel the feeling and pointed to his chest.

“I can feel it all around, almost like it is trying to press into my body.” He said.

“Yes, that is the nature of ambient mana, it is why monsters who live near dungeons are so much stronger, they adapt to the mana and are born with them opened and eventually gather a lot of mana and learn to actively absorb it. We will continue until all of you can fully feel it and then will move on to learning the structure of the human mana channels and learn natural absorption and then the disciples level of mana training.” he said.

They nodded and were released to do as they liked.

Logan left Jade and Storm to take care of them and went out into the inn so that nothing strange happened and slept here.

***

“Ahahaha! Such a weak magical seal!” A deranged laugh came in a locked room.

Exposed and looking extremely demonic, the ex general of the demon lord looked more like a monster than the humanoid demons that even natural Prana with complete mana pools looked like. This was the price of survival which reverted him to near monster form.

“It took so much effort and external mana and this fucking egg is still covered in an equal right’s bond instead of even a master servant bond. I can tell and i know, this is special to that stupid lizard. If only I had even a fraction of my power, I could modify the rates of service but I’m already out of options, the other eggs are already gone so I need this.” He said.

He didn’t give up though as he stimulated as much as possible and while his veins popped and his nose bled, he finally pushed the contract to 60:40 in his favor. It wasn’t perfect but he was now the master. It was similar to a loyalty contract between a king and a knight.

Huffing, he grinned as he took blood from burst veins and slathered the egg. The red glows shined as it absorbed it but his face dropped as he saw the mystical rules of magic affect the egg and all his effort was undone before the contract was complete.

“Fuck! He left safeguards!” He shouted wanting for it to stop but it was done and finally the mana in the shell instantly gathered at the center and compressed into a demon core but it was properly upright and quickly mana formed a mana pool before the egg burst releasing demon mana from the hatchling.

He was scowling but that turned into shock as what appeared was nothing less than a big demon lizard, an animal among demonic creatures.

“T-this… what is this…” He said and quickly ran to get magic tools and identified it. “No… this truly is a Blood fang Demon Lizard! WHY!?” he roared. He began to use very high quality magical tools that humans had made and everything showed it wasn’t powerful or anything but finally he did a soul scan and found an amazing find.

The soul possessed engravings, he watched it through the tool and his eyes shined, “This is it! He engraved the technique into the soul! This must be a reincarnation then so it must have his memories as well. If that is true the body and soul have been altered by a magical spell and only by growing stronger will the following steps be unlocked!” he shouted.

He laughed madly but then it stopped and he looked back with glowing red eyes, “Yes, it will grow stronger and with this contract, neither of us can kill each other but it is possible to break the contract without consequence with a thought. He must be thinking that he can easily escape my grasp as long as he can achieve enough strength for his consciousness to awaken and escape. This beast is too foolish.” He scowled and called for the highest quality slavery ink to be brought to him. This was a spell lost in time and he ordered the dragon’s own blood to be used as the main ingredient. Certain demons were never fond of following the demon lord so they were naturally enslaved to follow his cause. The spells for this were erased unless dangerous people were to use it in mass.

The lizard was a weak newborn, with a few mind controlled servants who minded all the many dangerous demonic features, they held it down and on the exposed chest, he drew out an incredibly complex slavery contract.

It hissed as soon as it took effect and the slits of the lizard’s eyes showed clear hate for all the pain it caused but he did not care as he had true control now.

He had it stay still as it copied the unranked mana development and put it into action.

He made the servants fix his core at last and once it fully straightened, the effect of growth appeared. His body twisted as the magical form became a little more humanoid but he quickly felt the strands released and his mana was finally in his control once more. The rich mana from within the demon core left following the flow required, it was as one would expect from unformed mana channels but he was not a demon general for no reason, he had been a SS rank within the current system of ranking, this was SSS in the old system while his master was beyond that.

The mana began to rapidly spin and lengthen as it circled in a circle from north to south. Mana gathered and started to form a thin film and the line slowly turned as it left behind a fully formed film of mana. The speed was very fast forming countless layers in moments as it moved until it finally connected to the bottom.

The formation of the mana pool gave him a jolt of euphoria and rotating disks of mana began to form and five small ones went to the five exit channels and together, they began to grind the form the mana channels with extreme speed and precision requiring only the main channels first.

That said, the power of this technique could not be underestimated, after the main channels, he started right after on the second layer and finally the third and within three hours, one hour for each layer, he completed the three layers and continued three more to make sure his mana channels had no leaks and problems even if it didn’t do anything his paranoia and thirst for power was there.

He finally turned to the lizard and grabbed it and with his immense store of mana in his demon core, he began to force the lizard through the unranked step and it was going to mature extremely fast.

When it was complete, as you would expect, it instantly began to grow but the result was a skinny lizard.

“Stupid fucking thing, this pathetic bloodline this stupid dragon left is going to cost me so much!” He roared and called for food. He let it eat and it stuffed itself but this allowed the growth to continue and required a great deal of meat to finally satisfy the huge growth. From 10 cm to nearly a meter of length, everything about the lizard grew and when it stabilized, his body glowed for a moment and it stopped with no changes but he knew that it was the soul growing and unlocking the next step.

He instantly got to work extracting it and marvelled at the capacity of the technique but knew it would take long to fully complete it. He would need to finally start grinding through his mana that had decompressed for 1000 years and start to regain the quality of his power he once had. He was no longer bound by mortal bonds.

After getting the full technique of F rank, he placed his cloak on and walked outside.

His presence was much greater and he walked to the meeting hall of the demon leaders.

Inside, they were already presenting the new swords.

“So the swords have been produced.” He said walking in.

“Yes, besides the dragon bones, we added what you said to add.” the leader of the hybrid demons said.

Inwardly scoffing, he grinned as he heard the news and walked to the swords. One was slightly different and he touched it. He felt a powerful rush of power at him and his arm and robes were instantly in tatters but he grinned as black mist and mana left his arm instead of blood.

“Unruly thing.” He said and the black bloody mana surged at the sword as a magical seal began to form and expand down his arm and the wounds sealed.

One final eruption, his cloak burst revealing his red skin and demon appearance, very different from these men who were human skinned and used magic to hide their horns like scared kittens.

“Yes, this power. The damaged legend sword that survived near my grave was well worth the weight to reforge.” He said.

The bloody sword instantly turned blue before a red flame mark formed on the large double bladed sword.

They were shocked as they saw the instant blue legend sword.

Purple mist began to gather rapidly into the sword as it excluded from his body and filled the sword.

Going once through the difficulties, he found nothing hard as he called the new sword’s name. The immense cloud of legend energy reformed into his legend as a general, fallen by the heroes sword but an awakened sword could not hold this power but the bone of the demon lord’s personal mount formed a new modern legend and pushed the sword’s spirit into the realm of orange sword, Sword of Emotion.

The memories of his life as he passed through all emotions flooded his mind and the spirit was submerged into the emotions. Happiness of his youth, rage towards his enemies, Love that filled him with passion, hatred towards her death, fury as he slaughtered those who brought his hatred to it’s limit and more.

Even fear, fear of death that he felt towards the hero’s blade which cleaved his heart and broke his body leaving him to force himself to reform a demon core with what remained of his power and remain absorbing demon mana for 1000 years to revive himself.

The spirit assimilated each powerful emotion and firmly ascended to the sword of honor.

The powerful legend energy was no longer a problem as the long history of the demon general fully reformed with all its glory. All that was lacking was the sword’s mana channels to open and match it’s master for it to be able to accompany his power.

“My blade, a sword worthy of an emperor in human terms. Let the legend of my blade guide us to rule this world! I shall be the one to take the mantle of the next Demon lord!” He said.

“Huh?!” Suddenly the leaders and elders seemed to wake up from the shock.

“What is this?! You had given us hope of reviving the demon lord!” the leader said.

“Fool. The demon lord’s soul was evaporated by the gods themselves. Even in my hibernation I felt his true death with no hope for resurrection, at least in this world. If something survived, it has been sent to other worlds throughout the cosmos. That matters not because with the legend of my blade, I will lead a revolution for the demons.” He said.

“You have just regained your power, do you think you can beat us?” The leader said as his mana began to shake the foundation of the building itself.

That said the general grinned, “You are a true fool to think to compare a hybrid to a pure breed demon. Pure breeds are directly connected to the rules of the world, that is why a demon who learned the art of magic smithing could even create the legend sword. It is supposed to only be a celestial blade which we could still access as all pure demons are connected to heaven even if only slightly. Your impure blood binds you and this limitation does not constrain me.”

He pointed the sword as the gravity in the room suddenly increased by a hundred times and all the powerful men became unable to move. “The magic humans use and the magic i use are different, you still have trouble producing demon mana and have to blend it with dark mana but demons, just like angels, gather pure demonic corruption. Demonic corruption is the energy of the earth and mana is the land’s power, heavenly power and heavenly mana in heaven is what powers them but we are in our element. My power controls the rules of the world given sufficient quantity. Naturally my quantity is immense as I have gathered mana for a millennium. Now, I have no need for your smelly bags, only your faces.” He said.

They were all frozen so he casually waved the sword and suddenly their shirts were torn.

“You will all become my slaves, the face by which I will allow my power to recover fully before I completely take over when I have utter confidence victory.” he said.

A servant walked in with the ink he used on the lizard and used it on them. They all roared in pain as the ink was used on them, the intense power of the blood burned their skins with the demonic energy in them and to an extent, would actually help awaken their demon blood however, their future was to become puppets.

“Good, I can now start my conquest, the safest location is the western coast which is closest to the demon continent. Eventually returning is going to be important or it will require hundreds of years to breed these filthy hybrids to possess a population surpassing those filthy humans.” he groaned.

As for the other swords, they were going to be for those who are loyal servants.

The demon general finally gathered all the information of their forces and the entire population in the city began to move with powerful weapons and many assassins using smaller but faster airships to arrive at their target and begin assassinations of their leadership. Each assassin was extremely powerful and would be able to do the kill to those common figures. They had to secure the nation with as little damage and it had to be instant and a full takeover. For this to be achieved, the army and the government naturally had infiltrated agents in many high positions.

Obtaining power meant killing opposition and obstacles and taking over meant fully controlling the top powers and not giving the weaker ones time to react. The army was the most important force to control and it was where the most infiltrated members were located.

They would in turn not invade but instead cause a coup from inside. When it finally came out that it was an invasion, it would have been a long time already.

The demon general laughed at the luck he possessed. The absolution of any forces the hero had created meant there were no powers that could fully deal with him. Anyone who could would have to gather holy mana just to counter his worldly control. To him, demons were truly the most supreme creature on this plane and his legend was going to spread throughout the world as the true demon lord who formed a true Black blade and ruled the world unlike the failure that the first was.

***

Far into the borders of the demon continent outside any reach of humans, a group of children were sitting and in front of each was a baby dragon no bigger than a lizard and each having a small wing that was undeveloped.

The place they were located was a very tribal place with little civilization development filled with black skinned humanoids who walked around trying to secure even a little bit of food.

This was a tribe of the Prana that had found and taken them in when they were unconscious in the wild. Their aura of demons cause these prana who were sentient but unable to form mana, to regard them as superior demons. They accepted them though the chief still commanded the tribe.

With their swords in hand, the eggs finally hatched a few days prior and each egg possessed an intelligent hatchling who possessed telepathic abilities. It was due to the lack of vocal development at this point.

Each of them taught their masters how to develop their mana which would help the dragons who were similar to the demons and had demon cores. However, they had solid bodies, it is just that all pure demons were born with cores as a limitation factor of the world. Hybrids have a much harder time forming the connection to the world as pure demons allowing them to be born with mana pools.

As such, the dragons needed them and the kids needed them so they had a good trade. The dragons had a normal battle beast bond and were loyal to their masters but they also had knowledge, they were unlike Storm who found pride in Logan riding them. Each child would have to prove their worth to ride their backs.

The prince sighed but his presence was strong, he just finished going through several cycles after opening his mana channels making sure there were no weaknesses and finally reached the peak of unranked.

“Good, you are quite talented for a hybrid yet to achieve full purity.” the young dragon’s voice said in his mind.

“Is there a difference?” he asked.

“As much there is one of a lizard and a dragon yet a lizard can still become a dragon if you properly develop him into one.” it said.

He sighed and nodded, he stretched his hand and the dragon knew he was ready to fix his dragon core’s placement and unlock his capacity and he did just that. The hatchling instantly growled in pain as the crystal was moved inside it’s heart and felt intense pain when it finally achieved it until it started to glow.

It grew a small bit as the mana structure changed in his body but it had a full mana system and it was all opened as a dragon should have.

It growled in pleasure before closing its eyes and channeling mana. Sitting still for half an hour, it stood up and the presence it possessed was no weaker than the prince. “See my good, pure bloodline is.” He said.

“Luck, training and effort are more important. A lizard that rises to a dragon is more powerful than a dragon born with a dragon’s power but never made an effort to learn how to use it.” the prince said.

The dragon grinned as this message was clearly flaring painfully in his mind at this moment. He had done a casual cycle to show off but it was having a painful backlash from his father’s magic spell that had imbued his knowledge.

“Alright, let’s calm down for now.” He said.

“It is best to quickly awaken your bloodline to pure. Any demon who awakens to demon mana will be leagues greater than yourself.” the hatchling said.

The prince looked at him and sighed, “Fine, let’s get to it then.” He said.

It smiled and had him draw the sword and start training the sword whose legend will have a sufficient effect on him once the mana channels are opened.

The prince pushed himself because he felt like he was in a race against time for some reason. Being sent away, he knew the demon dragon had a reason it definitely has to do with whatever was the source of the delusion that had overcome the entire population of hybrid demons.

He needed to save them before it was too late so he closed his eyes, grit his teeth and focused on his training to awaken and filter his other bloodlines out of his body using the power of his sword’s legend.