Jas stared at the man towering over him, not sure what was going on. It was Shimour, standing there with his arms crossed. Not to ntion, his expression was clearly annoyed.
"Uhm... is everything okay?" Jas asked, not sure exactly how to react. The house was filled to the brim with Masters at this point so the idea sohow lost value to him a bit, especially after literally going to hell and back the other day. But even so, the vibe that Shimour was giving off was incredibly intimidating, to say the least.
Shimour clicked his tongue, looking at sothing behind Jas, "Your na's Jas, right? Couldn't you be a little more... perceptive?"
"I... huh?" Jas asked, not entirely sure what he ant, when another voice entered the conversation.
"It sounds like you wanted to be spotted," Eiro pointed out, and Jas flinched as he turned around.
"You- Eiro, what are you- How long have you been there?"
Eiro shrugged, "Twenty minutes?"
"Excuse ?"
"Okay, maybe it was twenty-two."
Still not sure what exactly the demon was talking about, Jas narrowed his eyes, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Don't worry about it," Shimour replied, starting to walk off as Jas was left confused. Eiro quickly explained it to him.
"He asked to see my stealth technique, so I was following you around pretty closely. Just with physical techniques, not by suppressing my presence."
"Wait, but I... why did nobody else tell ? I was talking to Krog and Jess for like five minutes earlier," letting out a long sigh, Jas let out a long breath, and Eiro shook his head.
"I was hiding from everyone else too. But I had to stick as close to you as possible and follow you around specifically."
"... That's kind of creepy, isn't it?"
Eiro shrugged, "I guess so. But really, what difference does it make? I can sense everything that's going on in this house anyway."
After thinking about it for a mont, Jas shook his head, "No, it's definitely extrely different... but I get it. Also, if I had been doing sothing I didn't want you to know about, or entered one of your 'blank spaces', then I doubt you'd have kept following , so I guess it's not that bad," he let out a long sigh as Eiro raised his brows.
"Of course not. I do respect your privacy. You specifically told how important it was to you that I didn't watch you all the ti," the demon replied, as his ear perked up slightly, "Anyway, I've got to go. Shimour wants to continue. Oh, and you ntioned sothing about checking up on the main body earlier...
the door is locked right now so that the arcane magic doesn't leak out, but just call out to one of the duplicates if you want to take a look and we'll open it up for you."
Jas scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "Oh, yeah... thanks, I'll do that. Good luck with that guy, he looks strict."
The Stealth-skill duplicate smiled with a quick nod, "He's a lot more easy-going than he looks, actually. But thanks, anyway."
A baffled Jas was left on his own as Eiro made his way back outside where Shimour was waiting for him, apparently annoyed over sothing. Though, Eiro could sowhat tell what exactly he was annoyed about. Shimour completely expected, and wanted, Eiro to be caught. Rather, he was actively working against Eiro while he was following Jas around.
Using his own stealth abilities, Shimour moved around objects, guided around the different inhabitants of the manor into places that would make it much harder for Eiro, and once even actively tried to get Jas to turn around to look at the demon behind him. To an extent, this was of course just to make things a bit harder for Eiro.
Getting him to the point of failure was, of course, the best way to see the limits of Eiro's abilities. And now, Shimour wasn't able to see those yet, so he would have to try and figure out sothing else. Though, sowhere in there, a bit of pettiness was mixed in as well, as if he just kind of wanted Eiro to be spotted.
"Alright, let's move on. If I'm going to be totally honest, your physical movents are... almost perfect. There's a little room for improvent, but they're small things that you will simply adjust over ti," Shimour sighed, as if he was still a bit annoyed, "You said you can adjust your musculature based on others, right?"
Eiro quickly nodded, "Yes, I assu it's an ability that cos from a combination of my powerful senses and the world's abilities. I can hear the flow of blood and see the twitching of their muscles. The way they move, how much air they push away, the exact force they exert.
If I spent so ti doing so, I could probably train myself in ways to attain that exact physique anyway, but that would take ti and would be much less efficient. With my 'physical absorption', my body just reconstitutes itself. If I go overboard, it does overwrite so of my older adaptions, but I luckily also have a mind that can't forget anything.
I can just view the mories again and change my body based on those."
Shimour nodded along with Eiro's explanation, "It even works with mories, huh? Interesting... well, either way, don't rely on that too often. Obviously, my body will develop muscles differently to yours, so if you copy the exact strength and configuration of my muscles, it's going to be inefficient for your body.
It seems like you can already adjust to that pretty well, but abilities like that always have their limits."
Eiro slowly nodded, "I see. In that case, I'll speed up the pace at which this body's musculature adjusts to my actions."
"Right, do that... wait, huh? What do you an?"
"Well, this is an artificially created body. Sure, for big changes, I need to be in contact with the main body or the main body's proxy, but small changes like that can be done by myself from here," Eiro explained, "Actually, all of the duplicates are decently weakened right now."
"...And why is that?"
"Because of the 'Ultimate Agility' card that I took in," the demon explained, while Shimour just raised his brows in realization.
"Right – with the stats your body already has, it sounds pretty rough to deal with," the master pointed out curiously, "So you can weaken your stats?"
"To a degree. I can't ddle with my brain too much if I want to function properly, so ntal stats are a no-go, but physical stats can be changed pretty easily. Though, it's less of a change of the actual stat, but the stat values. I'm basically weakening all the physical parts that are affected by my stats to the needed point," Eiro explained, and Shimour quietly nodded along, until he got an idea.
"Alright... in that case, how low can you go? Can you drop your physical stats to below hundred?"
The Demon raised his brow, "Sure, that shouldn't be too hard. It's probably easier if I completely reconstitute myself into a previous evolution, though."
"Perfect. I've seen what your body can do, so now, I want to see what your perception-manipulation can do. If you can change your physical stats to as low as you can, then it's a sort of pure look at that side of things. Similar to how I could see your purely physical technique just now," Shimour pointed out, and Eiro let out a long, loud sigh.
stories
"Fine. As low as possible, then?" the demon asked, and Shimour imdiately nodded his head, "As low as possible."
With a click of his tongue, Eiro unfolded his wings and flew up to one of the second-story windows, quickly making his way inside. He reached the bedroom in just a few monts, but the way back took far, far, far longer. Especially because he didn't want to be seen.
Though this body now had abysmal perception, he still had his passive perception from all the other duplicates walking through the manor, so he could navigate well enough without being seen, and soon stepped back out into the gardens.
Shimour seed incredibly taken aback as he looked down at Eiro, who had shrunken down to less than half his forr height.
"What the... are you... Eiro?"
"Yes," the demon replied in a voice that sounded like soone scratched their nails on a chalkboard, "This is my body from when I was just born," he explained, slowly looking down at his ugly, shriveled imp body, barely hidden through a set of ill-fitting clothes.
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