Reborn in hell with a skill creation system

Chapter 6: A Name

[Soul acquired: 1.1]

The little demon stared at the tab before him for a while, just after defeating the demon that was munching on the corpse by catching it off guard.

He finally understood one thing, the souls being given to him in percentages only applied to demons he didn’t kill.

He gained the full soul of any demon he kills, whilst the soul of the ones died without his involvement would be granted in percentages.

Hence the one and a single percent of a soul.

But given the fact that he had gained a Soul from both the demons, did that mean they were as strong as his larger sibling?

There was one way to find that out and test a skill at the same time , though he really didn’t want to.

RUMBLE~

Well, it seems not wanting to was only his opinion, his stomach was very ready for a snack and it made that known.

"Now then," he muttered in his garbled language, something he was determined to fix when he had enough souls, and stepped towards the corpse, "let’s test out the other skill."

He then sat down and started digging into the demon, his claw cutting the unarmored part of it with ease.

The moment it reached his mouth, an interface popped up before him again.

[DEVOUR activated.]

[STR +1]

He stopped chewing for a second as he physically felt the point being added , though it didn’t feel that impressive, so he resumed chewing.

’One point,’ he thought again, turning it over, ’from a whole demon.’

It was laughable by any reasonable standard, but then again, he’d just gained a measurable, concrete increase in physical strength from eating something.

He didn’t have to train or fight, he gained a free stat by just eating a demon.

Just breakfast.

He could work with that.

He finished what he could manage, sat back against the nearest rock and pulled up his status screen properly for the first time since the system had activated.

[HOST STATUS]

[Name: Unnamed]

[Tier: Lesser Demon — Stage 1]

[Souls: 1.1]

[STATS]

[STR: 11]

[AGI: 10]

[VIT: 10]

[END: 10]

[INT: 14]

[Skills Active: 3]

[DEVOUR — Stage 1]

[ACCELERATED RECOVERY — Stage 1]

[VOID SKIN — Stage 1]

He looked it over quietly.

The INT being the highest didn’t surprise him, after all, it seems that, whatever the system had carried over from his human life, his brain had been the only that made the cut.

He also noticed he had no name on the screen and the system also registered him as unknown.

Something that greatly bothered him.

Couldn’t it have just used the name from his previous life?

Speaking of which,

"What was my name again?" He let out as he tried, and failed, to recall his name.

It wasn’t as if it was a missing memory, it felt as if he truly didn’t have one all his life. His colleagues, friends, parents, he remembered none of them calling him by a name.

Which was ridiculous.

After all, which parent wouldn’t name their child?

Noting it as weird, he continued looking at the interface, before muttering, "then why not give myself one."

There was no one else to give him one anyway, so he might as well.

Going through his memories, he tried coming up with something, but they either felt too generic or unfit for a demon.

But he finally came upon one,

"Mael," he muttered, the name smoothly rolling off his tongue.

Yeah.

That worked.

He focused on the Unnamed field and mentally commanded the unnamed to be removed and replaced with Male.

And it worked, because the next second, his status screen glitched and a new message popped up.

[Name updated.]

[HOST STATUS]

[Name: Mael]

[Tier: Lesser Demon — Stage 1]

[Souls: 1.1]

[STATS]

[STR: 11]

[AGI: 10]

[VIT: 10]

[END: 10]

[INT: 14]

[Skills Active: 3]

[DEVOUR — Stage 1]

[ACCELERATED RECOVERY — Stage 1]

[VOID SKIN — Stage 1]

He looked at it for a moment before muttering, "better."

With that, he stood up and looked around.

He had a name now, stats that were laughably low, three skills that were even more laughably weak and exactly two and a half souls to his name.

Not the most impressive start.

But it was a start.

Mael closed the screen and looked around at the Pit stretching endlessly before him, all he saw was the red sky, an uneven ground and the sound of demons either killing or getting killed.

Meanwhile, he had one soul and he needed more, which meant he needed to move, which meant the Pit was about to become his hunting ground whether it liked that or not.

Mael then picked a direction and started walking, hoping that he would come upon a soul rich field.

The terrain changed gradually as he moved further from the egg field, the flat ground giving way to uneven clusters of rock formations that cast long shadows across the ground.

This was good since it would provide him easy cover if he ever needed, but it also meant that other things could be waiting behind those covers....

Which, thinking about it now, was definitely not good.

The thought had barely finished forming when a soft chime rang through his head.

[VOID SKIN — ambient absorption: +0.3 souls]

Mael stopped walking.

He looked at the notification, then looked around at the completely unremarkable stretch of rock and red sky surrounding him.

+0.3.

That was a significant jump from the +0.1 he was supposed to be getting, which meant the soul density in the air had spiked somewhere nearby without him noticing.

He checked his total.

[Souls: 1.4]

He turned slowly, trying to feel where it was coming from, though he wasn’t even sure feeling was the right word for it.

It was more like a pull, faint and directionless at first, but there.

He started moving again, this time deliberately, testing each direction to see if he could figure out where it was coming from.

Left felt the same.

Straight ahead felt the same.

Right,

[VOID SKIN — ambient absorption: +0.5 souls]

There it was.

He turned right and kept walking, watching the Void Skin notifications tick upward with every hundred meters or so, small at first then climbing steadily as the rock formations grew taller and the ground beneath his feet started sloping upward.

[+0.4 souls]

[+0.6 souls]

[+0.8 souls]

[.....]

[Souls: 4.1]

Whatever was up ahead involved demons that were a lot, lot stronger than the ones that were supposed to give him 0.1 soul in a day.

So he continued climbing.

The ground kept rising and the slope was getting steeper until his claws were gripping more than his feet were walking.

He climbed without stopping, pulled forward by something that wasn’t quite curiosity and wasn’t quite hunger but sat comfortably between the two.

Then the slope leveled out abruptly and Mael found himself standing on the edge of a cliff and he couldn’t help but let out as he looked down,

"What the hell?"