As the line dwindled, the witches were beginning to get over the oppressive aura of the room, and it was time for the strongest of them to take their turns.
That brought a bunch of the crowd back, as there was a chance that some of the twenty who had sworn themselves to Wolfe for the longest would reach the Second Rank tonight. The original five, especially the twins, Jenna and Mollie, were very close to the tipping point.
"Alice, you're up first," Cassie called to the smallest of the five dark-haired servants who spent all their time together.
She bounced over in a happy skipping walk that reminded everyone of Mary when she found something new and soft and stood in front of Wolfe.
"I have a good feeling about this. I am so close to making the Second Rank, I just can't quite push through the barrier to solidify my aura." She declared.
Her happiness through the bond was infectious, and soon everyone was smiling and laughing as Wolfe began his work. Her veins had long since been cleared, so Wolfe got straight to expanding her veins and adding mana to her aura in an attempt to solidify it.
With a swirling vortex of absorbed power, her aura collapsed in on itself, then reformed as a much more powerful but thin layer next to her skin as she broke through to the Second Rank.
"That's one down. Here's some extra mana to get you started." Wolfe grinned while Alice's knees trembled with the sensations of pleasure running through her whole body, combined with the surge of power from the breakthrough.
Her new aura stabilized, and Cassie led her to the bed to sit down for a while until she recovered.
The twins were up next, and they came forward at the same time, identical in every way that Wolfe could tell, right down to their aura. They'd even taken on the same haircut lately, and if it wasn't for the bond, he wouldn't be able to tell them apart at all.
"Jenna, Mollie, are you ready?"
The twins shared a rueful look with each other. "We should have known that you could still tell us apart. Alright, let's do this. If Alice can break through, so can we."
It didn't take much this time. They were already most of the way through saturating their auras to break through on their own, so it only took a nudge from Wolfe to push them through. Once their advancement had stabilized, he gave them the same extra dose of mana to stabilize their new auras, and they joined Alice on the bed.
"That's three. Who else feels lucky?" Ella asked the witches in line.
Mio and Nia, the last two of the original five servants who had come to the camp as workers, shared a smile and stepped forward together.
"We're not going to fall behind the others. We're always together, and no little advancement is going to mess that up." Mio announced on their behalf, while Nia nodded silently.
Nia rarely spoke, but she was always with one of the others who would speak on her behalf. Wolfe could tell that she had her own opinions on everything, she simply didn't like to speak up, and she wasn't willing to open up to anyone enough to say why.
Like Stephanie, her personal issues were her own, and Wolfe wasn't going to pry. At least, not much. So, he began to work on them both at once, the same as he had done for the twins, and the witches in line cheered as both advanced at the same time.
[Suitable Candidates for a Second Pentacle Confirmed.]
[First Pentacle is at Rank Two, with five additional candidates at Rank Two.]
[Form Pentacle Now?]
Wolfe stared at the runes forming in his inheritance spell markings for a moment in shock before confirming.
Black aura poured from Wolfe, dimming the lighting in the room before soaking into the mana absorption spell and sending a surge of mana through the Den that was so intense that it brought even Cassie and Ella to their knees with its pressure.
Wolfe could feel the Demonic Curse being forced out of his body by the formation of the Pentacle, and the remainder of the curse changed from something that was simply part of him to a layer on his cells that he could move around if he worked hard enough.
He could sense that everyone had questions, but the witches would wait until he was done with his work before demanding answers. They were good girls that way, so Wolfe focused on removing the Demonic curse and found that it was too firmly attached to him to remove it. It wasn't part of him, but it didn't feel like it was intended to be removed.
Something about it resonated with the Inheritance Spell, and it wouldn't lift off, so instead, Wolfe decided to press it into a ball so that it wasn't interfering with the rest of his body.
As he was forming it, an idea came to him. It was so attached to him and couldn't be separated, so perhaps it was meant to stay. Demons were cursed Magi, to begin with, so perhaps he just needed to reshape it into something that he was missing, some aspect of his heritage or personality that the Demonic Curse was supposed to have mutated to turn him into a proper Demon.
Wolfe took the ball of Demonic Energy and forced it to the surface of his body, then pressed it flat and released his hold on its shape but not its location.
Keeping it as a solid object seemed to be the right call, and the Demonic Energy rapidly reshaped itself into a huge tattoo that covered his entire right arm and half of his upper body, stopping at the point where Wolfe recalled the full Inheritance spell reaching when it was visible.
When the two collided, the Inheritance spell sprang back to life, lighting up the faded runes and stopping the advance of the Demonic Runes. Power flowed back and forth as the two balanced and then faded again, leaving Wolfe with the smaller Inheritance runes on his left arm and his full right arm covered in faint gray demonic runes.
[Unholy Affinity Increased] Adept
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