Chapter 7162: Innate Demon Ves froze for a long time as his mind, body and spirit underwent major transformations. It became clear that the dark but glowing enlightenment fruit was anything but normal. The amount of knowledge and fighting skill imparted by the enlightenment fruit was so great that he had lost all awareness of his surroundings! As he rapidly internalized the contents of the enlightenment fruit, he finally knew what he had gained from the Wishing Fountain. [Demonic Possession Spearmanship] Imparts the theory, skills, affinity and a starter vessel needed to practice Demonic Possession Spearmanship, a forbidden art that combines spearmanship with demonology. Demonic Possession Spearmanship centers around the dangerous art of nurturing the innate demon inside yourself. This innate demon is the dark side of most existences, and sustains itself through the power of malevolence. Not all organisms possess an innate demon, and it is possible to remove it in advance. The practitioner of this art must persistently feed the innate demon in order to increase its strength. The practitioner must also direct the growth of the innate demon so that it can offer greater assistance when called upon with the help of specific methods. Care must be taken so that the growth of the innate demon does not surpass the practitioner’s ability to maintain control. By mastering the right spear techniques, the wielder can call upon the power of the innate demon while maintaining separation between oneself and the dangerous being. More profound and difficult spear techniques can even manifest the innate demon in its entirety, enabling it to act independently, or facilitate complete possession, where the innate demon completely overlaps with the practitioner. At an advanced level of mastery, the practitioner can attempt to channel the power of other demons, such as those locked in artifacts or summoned from a different locations. These power manifestations are more difficult to sustain, but can produce new manifestations that are not possible with the innate demon. This can enable the wielder The combination between the skill of the wielder and the power of the innate demon can enable the spear practitioner to defeat most fighters and demons at the same level due to lacking the same advantages. The difficulty in practicing Demonic Possession Spearmanship lies in placating the demon and preventing it from taking control. The practitioner must always stay on guard and not let the innate demon overpower him. The innate demon can be banished at the expense of invalidating much of the techniques of Demonic Possession Spearmanship. Requirements: Strength must be 5 or higher. Endurance must be 8 or higher. Concentration must be 10 or higher. Spirituality must be 20 or higher. The System was not kidding when it described Demonic Possession Spearmanship as a fusion between demonology and spearmanship. Ves needed to develop a considerable understanding and mastery in both fields before he could effectively practice this advanced fighting method. The consequences of losing control were great. This business about nurturing the innate demon did not come without risk. It was flirting with danger. Although it was a lot better than outright getting possessed by a demon, containment still remained a persistent issue. In order to make sure that Ves knew what he was doing and gained everything he needed to properly nurture and manage his so-called innate demon, the enlightenment fruit dumped a huge amount of knowledge related to the forbidden field of demonology into his head. This was incredibly valuable by itself. It should constitute an entire enlightenment fruit on its own, but Ves had no complaints that all of this dense theory was included in the current package. What mattered was that Ves gained much greater insight into the true nature and workings of demons! He not only learned where they came from and why they existed, but also understood a lot better why they were so universally hostile and even how to best gain their obedience! Ves learned many different clues and techniques on how to summon demons, how to create them and how to strengthen them, how to weaken them, how to banish them and how to kill them completely if possible. When he looked back on how he and Helena managed their demons, he wanted to palm his face. They were so ignorant that they had ignored very clear risks and dangers. Their methods were also painfully crude. From the effort it took to turn souls into demons to trying to upgrade them by putting them into the self-developed Demon Mixers, every part of this process was flawed from beginning to end. Now that Ves gained a surprisingly comprehensive foundation in demonology, he already gained a lot of ideas on how to redesign or start over those aforementioned processes. Doing so would enable him to produce Middle Demons faster and a lower cost than before! The Middle Demons would also end up stronger and master more comprehensive abilities when they emerged. There were major differences between different demons, much like there were differences between different humans. Humans that grew up in a third-rate state were naturally less capable than humans who grew up in a first-rate state. What Ves needed to do was to upgrade his own treatment and facilities for demons so that they conformed to a higher standard. The Middle Demons that he could produce under advanced conditions would definitely help him get more out of his new fighting method! And what a fighting method he obtained. Unlike the previous enlightenment fruits he ingested, Ves gained a much more complete foundation on how to wield and fight like a spear. He felt much closer to becoming a serious warrior! Although he did not think he had attained the mindset and dedication of a swordmaster, a Demonic Possession Spearman was still a legitimate fighting profession, though it was largely based on qi cultivation and contract cultivation as opposed to willpower cultivation. Qi cultivators were much weaker than willpower cultivators in direct confrontations, but one of the advantages of the former was that it was much easier for them to draw power from external sources. That was the entire premise of Demon Possession Spearmanship. There was inherent acceptance in the weakness of oneself. Only by acknowledging the truth could a spearman embrace a fighting method where he leveraged the strength of potent demons in order to enhance his combat techniques. In order to achieve the best results, the practitioner could not afford to neglect his spearmanship. As weak and flawed as it may be, it was still important for the cultivator of this fighting method to master the basics and build up a solid foundation. It was not necessary for the spear wielder to excel in any single move or technique. In fact, it was better for the practitioner to possess a rounded fighting style because that meant that he was able to channel the strength of any innate demon. The enlightenment fruit imparted him with a solid foundation, just as he desired. His skill in wielding a spear surpassed that of a staff. He understood the nuances of different moves much better. He particularly gained a lot of confidence in exchanging blows with humanoid weapon wielders. Demonic Possession Spearmen were largely expected to fight and win battles against swordsmen, spearmen and other martial cultivators. That did not mean that Demonic Possession Spearmen were weak when they attempted to fight against exobeasts or other monsters. The biggest difference was that brute force mattered a lot more than finesse. It was a good thing that the enlightenment fruit imparted Ves with a fairly basic but complete collection of ’templates’ that allowed him to leverage the power of his innate demon in useful ways. Ves called them templates as opposed to extraordinary spear techniques because he needed to fill in the blanks himself. Every innate demon was unique, and the most optimal way to draw from their power was also different in every circumstance. The best the creator of this fighting method could do was to create the broad strokes of offensive techniques, defensive techniques, movement techniques and other weird techniques. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂 It was up to people like Ves to adapt the templates to his own unique input and experiment until he was able to produce the output he desired. That was a very simple explanation of a very long and dangerous process of developing effective power moves for this forbidden branch of spearmanship. Every individual expression of Demonic Possession Spearmanship was unique! It was impossible for two people to fight in the same way because they had to adapt to the variables presented by their own innate demons. An innate demon that possessed an insidious and scheming character was more likely to promote a form of spearmanship that relied on traps and sneak attacks. An innate demon that constantly raged and possessed the mindless desire to destroy everything was more likely to facilitate a form of spearmanship that strongly emphasized offense and launching continuous attacks. An innate demon that wanted to conquer everything and subjugate as many slaves as possible would probably develop a more exotic form of spearmanship that could demoralize those that got struck and mobilize the power of minions in a fight. In short, Demonic Possession Spearmanship was open-ended enough to accommodate a wide variety of circumstances. Ves definitely needed this because an unexpected mutation had occurred as he was rapidly assimilating the bounty from the potent enlightenment fruit. When it came time to nurture his own innate demon, the ’starter vessel’ mentioned by the System got stuck and did not know where to go in order to do its job! "What...?" "It felt as if the starter vessel suffered an unexpected error as it encountered a situation that it had never accounted for in its programming. While Ves did not know whether he possessed an ’innate demon’ that he had yet to discover, the starter vessel could not decide whether to approach Blinky or the Dark Apostle! Neither of the two met the definition of an innate demon. With his new mastery of demonology, he understood quite well that so long as either of them still possessed positive traits, they remained positive life forms more or less. However, Blinky and the Dark Apostle just so happened to share enough traits with demons to be able to substitute for them if possible. Ves was reminded of a similar instance where he was able to mutate his expression of the Dark Apostle Self Defense Manual by redirecting the worship of a dark and unfathomable existence to Blinky. Since Blinky’s Imaginary Universe contained plenty of darkness energy and other negative energies, he could technically moonlight as a dark god. A similar situation applied in this case as well. Blinky possessed greater elemental compatibility, but the Dark Apostle was much closer to matching the definition of his ’dark side’. Given that the starter vessel apparently mistook the two for potential innate demon candidates, that left Ves to choose who to treat as the innate demon for his new fighting method. "Heh." He smirked. "That is an easy choice." He would always prefer to rely on a friendly source of support as opposed to a more adversarial one! Besides, Ves questioned whether it made sense for the Dark Apostle to ’possess’ himself when he tried to channel any power moves. It was much simpler to draw on Blinky’s power even if he did not technically meet the definition of an innate demon! Another reason why he settled on this choice was because Blinky was a much more powerful source of E energy. That was important as Demonic Possession Spearmanship was heavily reliant on negative E energy to power all of its moves. In fact, Ves wondered whether it was possible to channel positive energies through the same spear techniques. Although this was very much not intended by the original developers of this remarkable fusion fighting method, choosing a companion spirit as his ’innate demon’ theoretically made this possible! Ves had essentially jailbroken an advanced fighting method before he had even begun to practice it in earnest! "How exhilarating!"