Reborn in hell with a skill creation system

Chapter 5: One Skill....No, Three Skills

"Well then," he said with a large grin appearing on his face, "let’s get to creating then, shall we?"

The skill creation tab was as he was and he got right into it.

"First skill," he said, "I want a skill that lets me grow stronger by consuming other demons."

Since it seems his new body had decided that demon flesh was a delicacy, why not get stronger whilst eating it?

Though he had no interest in cannibalism, so he’d stick to demons that looked remotely similar to Earth’s livestocks....and weren’t sentient.

Well, except if said sentient demon decided to eat him first.

[Skill concept received: Consumption-based growth transference.]

[Calculating viability...]

[Viability: Confirmed.]

[Calculating soul cost...]

[Full version soul cost: 89 souls.]

[Current souls: 1.]

[Full version unavailable.]

[Downscaled version available. Would you like to create skill?]

"Yes."

[DEVOUR (Stage 1)]

[Type: Active]

[Effect: Upon consuming the flesh of a defeated demon, a minor portion of its physical energy is transferred to the Host. Gains are small and accumulative.

Soul cost: 0.4 souls.]

[Evolves with Host level and accumulated soul investment.]

[Accept?]

He read through the description of the skill taking note of a couple of words.

Minor, small and accumulative.

A very polite way of saying nearly useless right now. But the last line was the one that mattered, evolves with Host level which meant the skill would grow with him.

Or rather, it seemed he had to also spend souls to upgrade it.

Whatever it was at Stage 1 was not what it would be at Stage 4, or Stage 7.

He was planting a seed with 0.4 souls. What it grew into was up to him.

"Accept," he said.

[DEVOUR — Stage 1 acquired.]

[Remaining souls: 0.6]

He felt his body suddenly go hot as a new instinct was engraved into it.

But he wasn’t done just yet.

"Second skill," he continued, not pausing, "I want two actually. One that speeds up my healing, intelligently, worst injuries first."

"And one that passively absorbs ambient souls from the dead around me, even if the kills are not mine."

The last skill was going to be his biggest investment yet and he wondered by how much the system will downscale it.

[Two skill concepts received.]

[Calculating viability...]

[Viability: Confirmed. Confirmed.]

[Calculating soul costs...]

[Accelerated Recovery — Full version cost: 45 souls.]

[Void Skin — Full version cost: 312 souls.]

[Combined full version cost exceeds available souls by a significant margin.]

[Down scaled versions available for both. Offer?]

"Yes."

[ACCELERATED RECOVERY (Stage 1)]

[Type: Passive]

[Effect: Healing rate is marginally increased. Priority is given to critical injuries, preventing rapid deterioration. Does not accelerate healing significantly at current stage — primarily functions as injury triage.

Soul cost: 0.35 souls.]

[Accept?]

For a hatchling in The Pit, this skill was worth a lot more than it sounded, even when one considered it wasn’t regeneration.

"Accept."

[ACCELERATED RECOVERY — Stage 1 acquired.]

[Remaining souls: 0.25]

[VOID SKIN (Stage 1)]

[Type: Passive]

[Effect: Host passively absorbs trace amounts of ambient soul energy from the dead in the surrounding environment.

Current absorption rate is negligible, equivalent to roughly 0.1% of one soul per demon per day in a soul-dense environment.

Soul cost: 0.25 souls.]

[Accept?]

He stared at the numbers for a moment.

0.1%.

He did the math.

If the skill considered a single soul 100% then that meant he only got 0.01 soul per demon.

At that rate, in a soul-dense environment, it would take him approximately....

A very very long time to get enough souls for anything meaningful.

"You’re not even slightly embarrassed to offer me that?" he said aloud.

The system, of course, chose not to respond to that, but he let out a sigh as he reminded himself,

’Seeds, you’re planting seeds.’

"Accept."

[VOID SKIN — Stage 1 acquired.]

[Remaining souls: 0]

[Skills Active: 3]

[Souls: 0]

The interface dimmed slightly, the skill creation prompt greying out, an indication that he couldn’t use the tab right now.

Not until he got more souls again.

But that was fine for now, all that remained was testing...which was the hard part.

He moved to the cave entrance and looked out.

The red sky stretched endlessly above the rocky terrain, unchanged, indifferent.

Somewhere beyond the ridge, the bird was still at work, he could hear it distantly, the occasional screech breaking the silence.

Definitely not the direction where he was going to head, after all, he wasn’t interested in finding how fast it’d take the bird to tear him to two.

He picked a direction away from the bird and started moving.

The Pit, from what little he’d seen of it, operated on one rule, eat or be eaten.

Which meant souls were everywhere.

He just had to take them.

He hadn’t gone far when a sound suddenly snapped him out of his thoughts.

He slowed down and crept towards the sound, keeping himself as hidden as he could behind a rock.

Peering around said rock, he found the source of the sound.

It was a demon, roughly his size but built differently.

It was wider, with a hunched posture and a thick plated back that seemed like a natural shield. It was crouched over the remains of something smaller, tearing into it with grinding jaw rather than fangs.

It hadn’t noticed him just yet, since it was busy with its meal, so it gave him enough time to assess it.

[0.1 soul received.]

Well that confirmed the [Void Skin], now he just had to confirm two more, but he wasn’t just going to rush in like that.

He needed a plan.

The armor seemed hard enough for his claws to basically do zero damage, so he had to find another way.

The hunched posture meant its center of gravity sat forward and the armor only covered its back, leaving its front and sides completely exposed.

And that’s when he realized what its weakness was.

The joints.

If he could catch it off guard and manage to slice through its joints with his claws, then it would be his win.

He gave himself one second to reconsider.

Unfortunately, his urge to test his skills was too strong, so he said in whatever garbled language he currently spoke,

"Let’s just hope I don’t get eaten instead."