Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Lucius checked the energy flow between the two points and sensed that it was rather smooth. 

"Hell energy and Aether are working in tandem and are rather synchronized," Lucius said.

Lucius knew about the properties of Hell energy very well and knew that it could react violently with other types of energies. It needed an expert mage to make it harmonious with other types of energies. 

But Aether seemed to be naturally conducive to hell energy, such that it was actually the highest level of natural compatibility that Lucius had ever seen till now. 

"I haven't channeled any demonic mana yet, but if the hell energy can work so well with Aether then it should do the same with Demonic mana too." Lucius reckoned.

While it seemed like hell energy and Demonic Mana were similar, they were actually different. Hell energy was the natural energy that was present in various hell dimensions. While Demonic energy was something that was produced by demons.

For a member of the Great Barrom Clan, they would be able to use hell energy as soon as they were able to form a hell imprint, but if they wanted to use Demonic Mana, they needed to have a true name of a demon.

This was the difference between the low-born and true blood members of the clan. Demonic Mana was a higher, more refined form of mana that could be produced by the Demons after processing natural mana or hell energy.

They could be used for demonic magic and other things. Even Lucius could not use Demonic mana directly in his past life and needed to use special demonic mana crystals, which acted like batteries for demonic mana. Most of his spells were powered by Hell energy or normal mana that was reinforced with hell energy.

Having learned this, Lucius couldn't wait to see how this new combination would work.

'There is still some time before I can take up a True Name, but I should still be able to use the hell energy for some spells.' Lucius thought.

"Enough of this, let's see how it actually works…" Lucius said before leaving his soul and returning his consciousness to his body.

Lucius then tried to sense the Aether within his body and discovered that he could use it the same way he was able to before. In addition to this, Lucius also sensed some slivers of hell energy that were present in his body.

"Hmm… this should be the current limit of the hell imprint. This is all it can channel at once." Lucius muttered to himself.

He then lifted his palm and make a sliver of hell energy appear on it. 

The crimson red energy slithered around like a snake above his palm and looked to be unstable.

'Seems like handling it openly like this, so early might not be a good idea.' Lucius thought.

He then absorbed the hell energy back into his body and decided to try out something different. He tried to channel the Aether out of his body just like he had done with the hell energy but found it to be impossible.

"The innate characteristics of Aether are quite different from hell energy or even normal mana in that sense. Once it enters the body, it is hard to make it leave. The only other way seems to be using it in activating a gift or an Artifact." Lucius hypothesized.

He then tried to use the combined form of hell energy and Aether that he had seen within his soul, wanting to see its new properties.

Aether and hell energy mixed within his body before forming in a new light red form. This energy was like smoke and moved in a different manner than the hell energy. It slowly moved out of his body and came out of his hand.

It collected over his palm in the form of a red mass of smoke. 

Lucius poked it with his other hand's finger and saw that it moved just like smoke. Once he withdrew his finger though, it gathered back up into a single mass of smoke.

"Hmm… peculiar… while it is stable… it also seems a bit inert in the outer environment." Lucius muttered.

Still, this could be considered to be good. If the new red energy was volatile instead of inert like this, Lucius would have had to be way more careful when using it. 

"Well then, time to see how it works with Nexus…" Lucius muttered to himself.

He sucked the red smoke back into his body before using that to active Nexus. The target of Nexus was nothing but himself. Lucius knew he could use nexus on itself and reckoned that this should be the best method to test it, since he knew both the control and sample.

Lucius felt his vision flicker a bit before a string of words started to appear in front of him.

Gift Name: Nexus

Description: Access the records of the divines and peer into the gifts of all that exists.

Type: Analytical

Rank: Unranked

Evolution: Not possible

Other owners: None

There wasn't much difference in the info that was shown to him, except for one single line that had been added at the end.

"Other owners? Didn't expect this…" Lucius said with surprise in his voice.

At first, Lucius didn't think much of this and found it to be rather underwhelming, but soon the cogs in his mind turned and he realized the implications of this.

"If it can show the other owners of a gift, then… the uses for this can be way more, especially in intelligence gathering and tactical advantages," Lucius muttered to himself.

On the surface, this one line seemed quite simple. But its true complexity was massive. Lucius knew how much intelligence and spy systems were important for great powers to sustain themselves and get rid of enemies.

What could be terrifying than knowing that your enemy had the same weapon as you? Not know that they did. One could fall to illusions weaved by the enemy if they kept you in blind and used the very weapons that you had.