Chapter 397: All the Ways to Keep Yourself Fit
"Yup. I never had any idea either" said Kat "I thought I was dreaming until I ended up with my tail… then I still didn't really know what to make of things for a while"
Nira nodded and said. "Yes, it's always that way. I was actually on the auxiliary research department for one of the past nondems. I did it a few years ago…"
"Before I was born" interjected Kamiko with a cough.
"A few years ago" repeated Nira while glaring at Kamiko. "I didn't meet them personally, nor did I record the data but I did get access to the data and could find out some extra behind the scenes thing. Did you know that nobody has ever met a nondem before at least one demonic feature appears? Or rather no other demons.
"Some researchers before me actually tried to look into that. If nondems don't actually pop up unless there are no other demons around. The problem with proving something like that, is if you're around demons you probably have demonic parents and can't be a nondem, and the rest of time just the fact that they are rare prevents them being identified early.
"I honestly wonder why anyone devoted so much time to testing it. It's not like we have nondems lining up at the doors. An example perhaps, is that you Kat, are likely the only nondem in the entire hub. There might, and heavy emphasis on might here, be one more from the older crowd, especially the settlers if they stuck around, but they really are just that rare.
"Oh, and another thing…" said Nira suddenly, turning slightly more serious with her eyes narrowing. "The worst part about studying them, is that you basically can't touch them before they become a full demon otherwise bad things happen. This can range from them draining the life from you as they try desperately to get enough demonic energy for the transformation,
"To people trying to give that energy freely and ending up with an insane nightmare monster powered by demonic energy and ill intent. Neither of them are fun but we get told about them both in very graphic detail before you're allowed in the nondem department. I guess so that you know not to do those things."
Kat just nodded as she gained a realisation. *Nira may talk slowly and carefully, but Kamiko IS her daughter. Clearly I can see where she gets her penchant for overexplaining things. I don't think I really wanted to know about the horrible things that could have happened to me before I became a full demon.*
"Let's move onto… lighter topics I suppose" said Kat. "Kamiko mentioned that you have to exercise your demonic energy or something?"
"Ah, yes" said Nira as she gave a quick glance at Kamiko. "What exactly did she say?"
"Not much, mostly that I should talk to you about it" replied Kat.
Nira nodded, straightening herself up a bit more, and gaining a hardness to her eyes. "Good. It's actually rather serious business if you don't know what you're doing. The general advice, and when I say general, I mean what you will most commonly hear but NOT what is necessarily best for you to exercise your energy well.
"The reason for this, is that most demons' demonic flame is fire aligned. If you don't ensure that you use it sufficiently it starts to get… agitated? I suppose. It's really hard to explain without the appropriate medical jargon which wouldn't be translated well anyway. It's one of the downsides to things that DO translate but are still hard to understand simply because it's complex.
"Anyway, if you have fire affinity and just sat on your ass for a while, somehow skiving off your contracts or taking easy ones, eventually you'll start to cook from the inside out. That is NOT pretty, and because it starts with the energy channels, a lot of people can do semi-permanent damage to themselves without really meaning to."
Kat licked her lips. "Am I likely to be fine?"
Nara gave Kat a wry smile. "I doubt it. You don't have regeneration for your energy pathways, do you? That would truly be a rarity."
Kat used the most deadpan voice possible to say. "I have Succubus Regeneration that works on my energy channels"
"I stand corrected apparently" said Nira looking sceptical. "How do you know that?"
"I was repeatedly stabbed through the heart while regenerating and on low energy," replied Kat.
Nira winced. "Yup that'd do it. I mean, you'd also normally get pulled out before things got that bad, but I suppose your regeneration being what it is, it can't exactly get as bad as it can for anyone else. I can see how it happened though.
"Your energy channels got screwed up because you were stabbed through the heart, but you couldn't take the time or energy to fix those so your body fixed everything else first, because while low on energy, you don't need fully functioning energy channels.
"Then, you got stabbed AGAIN likely sending a shockwave through your system. Even if it didn't fix much, your regeneration was probably carefully making sure your channels didn't get worse and then someone took a sledge hammer to it. It's… it's hard to get people to visual this but…
"This is a bit crude of an example, but imagine if you were holding fine china for a friend. Then all of a sudden someone take a sledgehammer to your kneecaps. By some miracle, you remain standing, but you can't move or do anything else because your kneecaps are broken.
"Then, some idiot walked up with a sledgehammer, and tries to repeat the process but… there is no kneecap this time, so the shock travels through your body, shattering your arms and forcing you to drop the plates."
*That is not where I thought that analogy was going. I'm… I'm not really sure I see where it was going anyway even with the thing finished. Then again, it is still a good lesson. Don't get stabbed in the heart even if you have insane regeneration, get stabbed somewhere else.*
"Right. But the other energy types?" asked Kat
"Oh yes. Sorry. Permanent damage, yada yada, burn from the inside out. Right, good? Ok. After that, we have what you and Kamiko have, and that is a frost attuned demonic flame. Rare, but more in the 'you only know one person with it' rather than 'I have never seen this is it even real' like say… I think the rarest one I know about is pure life demonic flame. I don't exactly have that memory on call despite my perfect memory" said Nira
"What do you mean about the memory thing?" asked Kat jumping in.
"I'll get to that later dear" said Nira with a dismissing gesture.
"So, anyway, with you and Kamiko, my advice is still to use it, but try not to just… unleash everything all the time. Does that make sense? I've told Kamiko this, people with Ice demonic fire shouldn't be going for bursts of power as much as your demonic flame may try to go that way.
"It's actually very unnatural for you both. Sure, doing it once or twice a contract with plenty of rest between means there will be no damage, but certainly don't make a habit of it. I know plenty of firey types that love to start a fight by jumping in the middle and using like half their energy in one go.
"No, you have to treat it almost identically to water aligned demonic fire." Said Nira.
Kat had to jump in. "There is Water… fire?"
Nira nodded and said. "Yes, of course. There is a demonic fire for pretty much every element, though things get really rare after the first two. If say… 99 out of 100 demons have demonic fire, that last person has something else.
"Of that ONE, if we split it into a hundred again, ice makes up like… seventy? Maybe eighty? Of those slots, with earth taking up most of the others, and then going onto the rarer and rarer stuff.
"Things get order of magnitudes rare as you go in that direction, and as I said weirdness. Anyway, back to what you should do, and what your symptoms are. Oh and Kat, you need to be especially careful about this. Because you can heal yourself, you might not notice how bad it's gotten, until it gets really bad. You should notice a drop in demonic energy regen if it's starting to get to that stage so pay attention to that as a very obvious but last resort.
"The actual first signs, are you slowing down. Your demonic energy will decide that… not moving is the best thing for you. Slowly decreasing your speed and sometimes reaction time. That isn't consistent between demons"
*Well, that's certainly something I'll keep in mind then. I felt much better when I used a bit of energy today, so I should try summoning some flames just… when I can.*
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