Demon King Ascension System

?Chapter 1: Prologue

Sitting at the back of a huge classroom was a 14-year-old boy with jet black hair and healthy-looking white skin, decorated with a few scars here and there. The class was still going on, but the boy wasn’t paying any attention as he held his chin up with one hand while his eyes were dozing off onto the clear, blue, cloudless sky behind the glass window right beside him.

More than a dozen pairs of eyes were staring at him, but the boy couldn’t care any less as he kept clicking his pen while having his eyes focused on a bird, flying freely tens of meters away from him, seemingly free of any kinds of burdens as it used its wings to fly wherever it wanted to go.

“Mr. Blake, can you please help me explain to the class about how the gate first appeared and what changes it brings to our world?” The teacher suddenly said with a loud voice.

The voice was loud and clear enough that it finally snapped Blake out of his daze as he turned his head to the front and spoke,

“According to the general history book page 6 paragraph 9, the gate first appeared 15 years ago, in 2010 in the center of the unified states. And from page 7 until page 25, it was explained that the gate was the thing that first brought mana into this world and started changing the world that we know of before. People all over the world then awakened the ability to wield magic to cast spells, strengthen their bodies, have a longer life, and also apply them to tools and equipment, opening the magical engineering branch of study.” He explained without a single stutter.

“However, according to the later chapters on page 420, the biggest change that the gate brought was certainly not mana, it was the humans from the other side of the gate and the ability for us to cross over into their world. The other world was filled with magical beasts, demihumans, treasures, and magical technology. And that was the actual main reason for our magical engineering to be propelled forward.” Blake added before staying quiet once again.

The teacher asking him had already expected Blake to answer the question perfectly, so when he heard the textbook-perfect answer, he could only sigh before saying,

“Thanks for the detailed explanation, Blake. But I would appreciate it more if you don’t make noises in the class.”

.....

“I’m sorry sir, I dozed off a little, I won’t do it again.” Blake shortly replied.

“Heh, duds. Even staying focused for 15 minutes is a hard task for them,” someone snickered from the other side of the classroom.

Blake ignored the voice completely as he already knew where it came from, but the teacher seemed to have another idea and said,

“Then Mr. Jake, can you please explain to the class about the basis of magical engineering?”

Jake, the boy who snickered earlier, suddenly turned silent as not a single word came out of his mouth.

“What’s wrong Mr. Jake? I’m still waiting for your answer.”

But even after a full minute, there were still no words that came out of Jake’s mouth as he kept his mouth shut.

“What’s wrong? Can’t seem to answer the question?” The teacher spoke once more.

“Now, Mr. Jake, I believe you are unable to utter even a single word while Mr. Blake here was able to give me a perfect answer to my question.”

The bell that signaled the end of the class resounded throughout the whole school, but no one was standing up from their seats as the teacher had not dismissed them yet.

“I don’t want anyone in this class to use the word duds anymore. It was degrading and you should not use that term to refer to others. Whether you are able or unable to use magic, any one of you is equal and no one is higher than the others. Please remember that, Mr. Jake. Alright, class is dismissed now.”

Right after the teacher ended the class, all the students stood up and went outside of the class, including Blake who grabbed his lunchbox from his bag before also going outside to eat his lunch. Nobody seemed to care about what had just happened before the class ended, nobody, except for a boy named Jake who was fuming with anger as he threw his pen across the room, breaking the body of the pen due to his overwhelming strength from training his body using mana.

***

“Just because you can answer some questions you think you are better than me!?”

Swinging his legs towards the boy lying on the ground in front of him, Jake was barely able to hold his strength so that he wouldn’t fatally injure the boy he was kicking.

Although the boy had some muscles on his body, without being able to use mana, his muscles were way weaker compared to someone who had trained to use mana. And a single good full-powered kick from Jake would be enough to send the boy to the hospital and make him stay there for weeks if Jake didn’t pull his kicks and punches.

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After giving the boy several more kicks toward the boy’s arms and thighs, Jake finally stopped hitting as he knew that if he did more, he would break the boy’s limbs which would make the teachers question the boy and possibly get himself into trouble.

“Such a weak and frail body.” Jake spat to the side before leaving the boy who stayed silent from the start even when his body was battered by Jake’s kicks.

He knew that fighting back or even just talking back would only get him more kicks, so Blake decided to give Jake no reason to hit him more than he needed to vent his anger and hoped that it would soon end.

He had been used to being kicked and punched every time those other kids who could use mana wanted to vent their anger out onto him, who was a perfect target considering his good looks that make them jealous and photographic memory that made him excel in almost every class, yet he was unable to fight back due to his weaker physique and inability to utilize mana. And after so long, Blake had already grown numb to the pain.

“All of this is bullshit.”

He knew quite a lot of history since he didn’t have anything better to do in his free time, and reading books was one of his favorite pastimes if he wasn’t playing outside with the other kids in the orphanage.

And from learning history, Blake learned about how human society was before the gate appeared. And honestly, Blake hoped from the bottom of his heart that the gate would have never appeared in the first place.

Without the existence of mana, he would have a much better life. He would still not know who his parents were and he would still be an orphan, but with his photographic memory and his above-average physique, Blake knew that he would certainly succeed in life.

Not only would he not have to deal with bullies, but if mana didn’t exist, he might have been the bullies instead!

But he knew that all of that was just his wishful thinking, and thinking about them was just a daydream that would make his life more miserable than it already was, so he shook his head and buried the thoughts back into the depths of his mind as he released a huge sigh from his mouth.

Blake silently stood up from the ground as he dusted off his dirtied clothes before walking out from the school’s rooftop.

Since school had ended, Blake went straight walking down the stairs to the ground floor, ignoring the stinging pain from his bruised thigh every time he took a step down the stairs.

People noticed his haggard look with his dirty uniform and a couple of buttons missing from their place, but the people there didn’t say anything as they already knew what happened to the poor dud.

Most of the people pity him, and not a small amount of them also disdained him for being a dud that can’t use mana, but not one of them gave single care to him as they didn’t want to have anything to do with the powerless dud.

About 30 minutes later, Blake finally reached his home, the rainbow orphanage.

And the first thing that he heard when he arrived at the gate was,

“AAAAAHHH!!!”

A little girl’s scream was heard, and just from the tone of her scream, Blake was able to feel the fear that was carried behind the voice. And more importantly, he knew whose voice it was.

“AMY!”

Blake moved forward, quickly went past the orphanage’s gate, and ran towards the source of the voice as soon as he could, completely ignoring the pain that assaulted his whole body from being put under more stress.

Seeing Blake’s face appear from the gate, the little girl once again shouted, “Brother! Help me!”

Blake then arrived at the little girl’s side, panting his breath as he gritted his teeth to ignore the pain in his body as best as he could.

“What happened, Amy!?”

“Save me!” Amy screamed once again as she pointed to the ground not too far from her.

Blake’s eyes followed Amy’s finger and found out that the culprit that made the little girl scream was none other than a small caterpillar that was minding its own business, crawling to the nearest tree that it could find.

“Amy, you don’t have to scream like that, you gave me a heart attack!” Blake half-shouted as he scolded the little girl.

“But... but that thing is very scary!” she firmly refuted.

“Haa....” Blake sighed before grabbing a twig and carefully moving the caterpillar as far away as possible from the little girl.

“There, it’s gone now. Don’t be afraid anymore.” Blake said, patting the little girl’s head.

“Thanks, brother!” Amy smiled at him.

Amy was genuinely afraid of the caterpillar that she might have not noticed it before, but now that the caterpillar was gone, she finally realized that Blake’s clothes were an utter mess and there were even some cuts on his face and bruises on his hands.

“Brother, what happened to you!?”

“I was fighting with an army of scary caterpillars and they were very strong! But of course, I was stronger so I won against them. And these are the battle scars that I got from defeating them.” Blake replied with a proud heroic smile on his face.

‘Brother...’

Although Amy was a little girl, she wasn’t exactly little as she was already 13 years old, only a year younger than Blake. Of course, she would know when he gave her a very poor excuse.

She also knew Blake’s circumstances being someone who couldn’t use mana at all, and even at her school, bullying against the people who couldn’t use mana was very common. She tried to help those people because they reminded her of Blake, but even she could only do so much and the bullying was still happening.

So there’s no way she couldn’t guess what had happened to Blake.

But she played dumb and instead said,

“No matter how many caterpillars you defeat, you still need to be treated for your injuries!”

Amy then ran inside the orphanage to grab some ointments from the orphanage’s first aid box before running back to Blake’s side.

Upon the magical arts that boosted earth’s technology, the medical departments on earth were also improved by the use of herbs and health potions from the other world. However, only the rich and people who have money could afford them, hence why the orphanage still uses the traditional ointments in their first aid box.

In the middle of treating Blake’s wounds, Amy noticed that they ran out of band-aids to patch up the cuts on Blake’s face and said,

“Brother, wait here for a minute, I will buy some band-aids first.”

She was about to run towards the gate, but Blake grabbed her hand and also stood up before also walking towards the gate,

“Let’s go!”

“Brother, you are still injured! You need to stay here!” Amy shouted.

But Blake ignored her as he continued walking towards the gate, making the little girl give up as she soon followed after him.

The two went into the nearest convenience store and bought a pack of band-aids before walking back to the orphanage. However, in the middle of their way back to the orphanage, the two were suddenly stopped by a group of people.

“Well, well, who do we have here? The dud walking with his girlfriend?”

Seeing who had talked to them, Blake remained silent as he grabbed Amy’s hand tight and looked around to find an escape route for both of them. Amy, who didn’t know what was going on, blushed a little when she heard the person in front of them talking, but her expression soon turned serious as she felt Blake’s hand tightening around hers.

“Hey, hey, I’m talking to you dud, why aren’t you saying anything?” The boy once again asked.

“What do you want, Jake? Leave us alone.” Blake talked back for the first time since a long time ago.

“Oh!? Just because your girlfriend is here, you dare to talk back to me now? Good! Good! I’ll make you remember your place!” Jake said as he cracked his knuckles and stretched his feet.

As soon as Jake said that, Blake quickly followed the escape route that he already had in mind as he dodged a kick that he had already expected from Jake.

Jake was quite surprised that his kick had missed and quickly stepped forward to send another kick. However, before he was even able to raise his leg, Blake suddenly threw away the pack of band-aids that he just bought straight towards Jake’s face, which caused the latter to flinch and cancel his kick.

Using the moment where Jake was caught off-guard, Blake once again tightened his hands around Amy’s as he shouted, “Run!” before pulling Amy as fast as he could away from Jake.

.....

Seeing that the powerless dud was about to escape from him, Jake quickly muttered some incomprehensible words before his body glowed slightly.

The moment his body was covered by the slight white glow, Jake quickly kicked off the ground as he aimed another kick toward Blake’s body.

What Jake had just used was an enhancement spell that raised the strength of his body, and with that spell, he was able to catch up with the running Blake using only a single jump. And of course, the kick that was also enhanced by the spell hit its target on the target’s back, sending Blake’s body crashing onto a brick wall at the side of the road.

The kick was so quick and powerful that Blake wasn’t even able to react when his face crashed against the brick wall, breaking his nose and painting the red brick wall redder with his blood.

A feeling of slugginess and severe headache attacked his body as he felt his body slowly crumbling down, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to get back up again before saying to the little girl that was looking at him with shock and extreme worry painted on her face,

“Call the police and ambulance, please.”

He said it with a smile on his face as he ignored the pain that even made it painful for him to use his facial muscles to smile, just so that he could convince the little girl to leave him alone here.

“But brother...”

“Please! Amy! Call the police here, quick!”

Hearing Blake’s screaming at her for the first time in her entire life, Amy finally turned her body and ran away from the place as fast as possible, leaving Blake with Jake and his group.

‘I could at least go out with a bang...’ Blake thought before he forced his entire aching body to run straight toward Jake.

With his bloodied face and eyes so sharp that they could have killed a person, even Jake felt fear start creeping up in his heart when he saw Blake running towards him.

And when the slight fear in his heart appeared, he completely forgot about the fact that his body was currently under the enhancement spell and kicked as hard as he could towards Blake’s body that was only a foot away from him.

And the result was clear. Without being able to use mana, Blake’s body was as good as a flimsy paper in front of Jake’s kick. And although Jake was not strong enough to blow a hole through Blake’s body, it was definitely enough to rupture Blake’s internal organs.

Soon, Blake’s body fell down lifelessly onto the ground without even creating a single sound other than a thud.

Realizing his grave mistake, Jake was finally woken up from his fear as he and his group quickly ran away from the area, leaving the half-dead Blake lying on the ground, vomiting his own blood.

He saw his life flash before his eyes, every day the bullies would kick and hit him, the looks of disdain, and mockeries that he has to deal with every single day that he breathed came to him as he remembered the moments in his life. Almost each and every single memory that came to him was the moment where he had to deal with the fact that he was a powerless dud in a world where the ability to use mana determined everyone’s life.

Almost every memory reminded him of that fact except for one, one where Amy was in them. All the kids in the orphanage called each other brothers and sisters, but the little girl was the only one that he treated as his own family. Not a single memory that he had with her was a bad memory. It was always a happy memory that made him want to live a little longer in the world where he certainly didn’t belong.

He felt his head getting heavier and heavier as more memories came to him, and his eyes threatened to close any second now as he felt as if he was lifting a steel table just to keep his eyes open.

But he refused to close them.

Instead of feeling free after finally being given the chance to leave the cruel world, Blake felt hatred instead.

Hatred for being an outcast, hatred for being bullied, mocked, and hatred for being born in a world where he was destined to suffer.

Hatred, pure hatred filled his very being as he finally lost the tug of war and closed his eyes.

However, even though his body was shutting down, something deep inside his soul woke up.

[Conditions Fulfilled.]

[Awakening System...]

[...]

[Demon King Ascension System Awakened.]

[Transferring host back into the demon realm...]