Chapter 50

Chapter 50 - Daily Life and Research on Growth

After bringing the hydra into its own private space, the Mage Alice clone then proceeded to hurry along within its own private research space that she made on her own.

"How wonderful, getting things done in such a short time. I think that I deserve a desert."

Since I had decided that, I went through to a certain private location that I had made earlier. It has been a while since I have been given free reign to travel around and with a convenient tool like subspaces, it is no wonder that I decided to make a bunch of mini bases wherever I went. 

Humming a tune from an unknown I place, I headed into the unmanned base only to find a rather uninvited guest located within. 

"Hey Maggie! Long time no see!"

"Don't call me MAGE-gie just because I am a Mage Buffoon! And how dare you raid my snack drawer again!"

Lounging on the couch like a potato, a figure similar to me was laying there all relaxed. Unlike me, she wore a more flexible and form fitting outfit as she was the Martial clone of Alice. Of course, as she clearly shows her emotions she can be considered both a sister and colleague of mine begrudgingly. 

It has not even been a year since our birth and she already has learned to slack off. I don't know who she gets it from, but at the very least the Alchemist, Main Body and I don't have such traits. She must have absorbed it from the outside world. After all, Martial Arts can't really be trained in solitude. 

Although I understand that, that does not mean she gets free reign over the bases I make and get to steal the snacks that I make!

Rushing over to drag her off the couch only resulted in further humiliation as she blocked and parried every single one of my pounces and strikes with a single hand. She even yawned and mocked me further!

"Is this all that the *prestigious* little Maggie can do?"

"That's it! You made me do this!"

Sensing danger, the martial clone attempted to bolt out of way from the accompanying punishment, only to find herself entangled in the blanket that was originally wrapping her. 

"Wait, hold on a minute! I didn't mean to-"

"You thought that I was playing around for jokes? Well, that gave me the perfect opportunity to get revenge! For my cheesecake!"

In a burst of chaos, a void appeared in the air above her and while she was still struggling under the sheets, vines emerged out of the aerial void and quickly wrapped and restrained the offending muscle brained idiot. 

Complaining back and forth to each other has almost become second nature for us clones at this point.

So as usual, the play fighting and struggles between us clones continue unabated. Of course, I would not really deal a lethal blow for just the cheesecake that I had been saving up for a week...

"If you want to convince me, then stop crying and sniffling over there."

"Shut up!"

Now wrapped up and tied to the ceiling by a bunch of vines, I headed over to the kitchen to make my time to bake for a moment. 

In fact, I didn't really care much about the cake at all. After all, I can quickly use various methods to obtain that cake again through magic. Rather, it was both to punish that lazy bones since she has not been training her instinct. If she had, that would have been quite an easy trap to deal with. 

Blanket Spatial Corridor. 

Applying a spatial trap spell on to a common household item like a blanket costed quite a bit of brainpower, but it was enough for me to relax while cooking for a few seconds to make up for the lost mana. After all, this space has specifically been concentrated with above average levels of mana circulating through it. 

If compared to the outside world, it would be a density of magic around five times the value. That was part of the reason that I could tell that she arrived here. After all, even though she has spells in her arsenal she prefers to fight first rather than to think. 

That is why, rather than making a personal space to carry around with a high concentration of mana, she prefers to simply 'borrow' my own. As a demon, our race naturally prefers a more magic filled environment. It is due to this innate attraction to higher concentrations of mana as well as our natural talents and lifespans that we had once controlled around 80% of the landmass on this continent. 

We found the best locations with the highest concentrations of mana first and occupied them giving us a higher limit and speed for growth. Then, after growing faster we could take stronger and stronger spaces while constantly growing and developing till we took over so much of the landmass of the world.

It was only after the eventual growth and rise of humanity that led to such an advantageous situation gradually developing against them.

As for the reign of the current Demon King? Well, although he had defeated his generation's Hero his record could be considered quite shameful. What could you expect out of a meat head type of race like us? Besides Alice and us as her clones, it is hard to find a demon who does not overly worship the purity of strength. 

Even the original Demon King was no exception. Why else would the throne be passed down to the strongest Demon? 

But in his generation that kind of thinking would have made more sense. 

After all, according to tree simulation both sides had ended up reaching the max level. Last time I checked, the current Demon King is still a while away so I can only assume that this one happens to be weak as Alice had also slowly reached that level. 

But then even that was debunked due to the records in the forbidden library. 

More specifically a roster of Demon Kings and the status that they had died with. Looking through them all, if the records are correct then the decline in power after the first was slow and gradual. Some generations had bigger drops or rises in power than others. But it was only till Alice and the original that had ever reached the limit of the world. 

The so called Demi-god level. 

Level 100 is referred to as the domain of the Gods for a reason. Unless you can forcibly study all kinds of magic till you attain enlightenment in a way through knowledge like Alice did, you would have to do something like blood bathing an entire race.

Why do we know? Because it already happened. And it still did not work for them. Mainly because most Heroes and Demon Kings who do such a thing would be stopped before they could wipe them all off. In addition, for the races that had perished they would usually either not have enough members or not have high enough quality of members to let them reach the max level.

After all, it takes more than just killing to grow. It takes challenges and striving to grow in order to become strong. That is why there are so many meat heads around. If strength did not require studying, then why would you study?

That's how most natives here think. But that path is both barbaric and inefficient. 

Alice had long discovered the mechanism for growth and artificially developed methods to fast track growth in a safe environment. Due to gaining inspiration from tree simulated training grounds within the Demon King Castle, she had raised a thought. If learning could gain levels, could training? If so, what exactly counts as training? And how can I maximize the system for my own benefit. 

Following this thought, she made plenty of experiments and made quite a shocking discovery. Let's say for example, if training physically for a day could net you 100 exp points, what if you tricked your mind to do that same labor in your own head? What if you left your consciousness studying while your body was forcibly moved to training all day and night? 

Of course, this is a massive oversimplification as Alice could not find a substance within our bodies that grew constantly that helped us break through levels. Closest match was mana, but mana is not all for levels. 

Anyways, it turns out that training the mind and body separately was possible and each one grew at a different pace than the other. So she was able to exploit this growth gap to easily attain heights that others could only dream of. 

However, such a situation was only ever even a thought due to the level that she was able to develop her Mind Magic. In addition, her own talent in spell knowledge and research would also help to support her growth in this direction.

For most others, such situations would generally be much harder as information on spells and magic would usually not be made readily available to most as knowledge is kept tight knit among the higher ups. 

And for those higher up, the strive for growth is usually stunted or cut down due to either lack of talent or lack of motivation. That is not to say that those with talent and motivation as well as resources don't exist. Looking at the Hero party you could guess that. It is just that it is difficult for people to attain all three when there are so many desires and distractions abound among the nobles of various countries. 

But when the option of growth through slaughter existed, why would someone genius even bother? Simply grow strong enough to fight and overwhelm and then start to fight and overwhelm. 

That could be a contributing factor to the stagnation of growth in demon kings and heroes all this time. After all, what was similar between Alice and the Original Demon King was their wisdom. How else would the subsequent demon kings have castles with so many hidden functions? 

Even the simulated training grounds was likely due to the demon king themself mastering mind magic in some sort, or having a close aide who did. Either way, knowledge is the difference that led to the vast gap in strength between those two demons and the rest of demon kind. 

But that conversation ultimately does not matter. The original is dead. Now Alice has taken the crown of strongest demon in known history. 

As for current history, we still worship strength simply due to the fact that the system that governs the selection of the Demon King is strength based and not blood based. 

That is part of the reason that our Demon Territory is so disunited and cumbersome. After all, the main force that fought the demons was merely the human race. Although some hero parties have members of other races, the races themselves usually do not participate in these conflicts. 

This is partly due to the fact that they do not want to be targeted and retaliated against by the demons, but also partly due to most races distrusting humans in general. After all, the church doctrines who covers most of humanity does not speak highly of other races. 

So most humans are naturally prejudiced against all but a select few races like the witches who are similar enough to humans to blend in easily. 

If demons were united, it would take more than just humans to be able to take them on so far. As I was thinking that, a certain shuffling sound was heard and so I refocused my attention over to reality and quietly casted a mind reading spell in the vicinity.

"Umm, I guess I will leave then while she is distracted."

Somehow finding a way out off of the vines trapping her on the ceiling, the mage broke out of her thoughts to glare at the warrior who was trying to tip toe out of the room. But her thoughts to leave rang clearly in my ears so a quiet and peaceful escape was an impossibility.

With a sigh, I prepared to put down the pot of stew I had finished making while putting my body on automatic while daydreaming and pulled out a wand to aim at her directly. 

Gaining wisdom through adversity, the martial clone quickly fled before she could get caught before running into the door as someone was entering right in and slamming into each other.

"Wah! Get out the way! I gotta run!"

"Huh?"

Quickly slipping past through the confused Alchemist clone, a thunderbolt quickly shot out of the wand in the mage Alice's hand which Alchemist Alice barely dodged with a yelp. 

"Gyahh!"

But someone happened to be much more unfortunate to get zapped by the spell into numbness. 

With a sigh, the Alchemist quickly knocked the mage on the forehead before heading out to drag the charred martial artist back in as the meal was finally completed with a sigh. 

"Will you two ever learn to be mature? Mage, at least you could pretend when I asked you to help Felicia."

Pouting and turning her head to the side, Alchemist knew that she had heard and simply did not agree to do so and so she could only turn to the martial artist who was even more hard headed with a headache. 

"Anyways, let's eat while the food that Mage prepared is still hot."

Sprinting back to life, the martial artist quickly ran to the table and started downing dishes it a rapid pace like a hurricane. Not to be outdone, the mage used her spells to create phantom hands to help her compete to finish more of the meal. 

With a regained sigh, the Alchemist took a plate and quietly watched the two's antics at the table with a doting smile on her face. 

"Well, looks like this is simply another day here-"

Rudely interrupted with splattered remains from their messy eating on her face and plate, a twitch could let others clearly understand that even if she tried to hide it, she really is just like the others. 

"Both of you!"

Pulling out her flask, the other two also pull their weapons and resulted in the descent into further chaos going on at the dining table tonight. Tonight was once more quite the exciting sight among the Alice clones who were free and around.