Chapter 209: Baptism

"No, the power of the imps is not truly yours. Do you want a power that'd be truly yours? That you use and control... as a Blessing?" Noah asked something that shocked both Carlos and Maggy inside the car.

"What do you mean by that?" Carlos asked Noah in a serious voice.

"If I can give you a part of my Blessing, would you accept it?" Noah asked Carlos.

This was something that Noah had discovered a long time ago. In that Fortress where Noah had met the dwarves, before saying goodbye to Mufag the little dwarf they saved, Noah made a contract with the little boy. This was essentially a test contract where Noah would offer Mufag a "sub-system" that functioned basically like Noah's system but with many limitations where Mufag could only level up and have his stats increased like in a video game, but without Noah's skills.

For a dwarf this was a good thing, since their races were basically defined by physical strength. From what Noah realized from the corpses he burned in that place, it would not be a very strange thing for Mufag.

And as the [Hell's Contract] skill description said that this was only limited by the user's imagination, just as Noah had imagined it would happen, Mufag actually received a system from Noah which worked exactly as Noah wanted it to work.

The only drawback of this was that Noah felt that this type of contract had a limitation. It was as if he got very tired after doing this. Since the last time they had just left the Fortress after completing the contract, no one thought it was strange for him to act that way.

It simply made Noah have a strange assumption: to make this kind of contract, he should give something very valuable such as his life force or some of the remaining time from life that he had. If that were true, it would be too high a price for anyone to normally pay.

But as much as that price was high for anyone else, for Lucifer's Descendant it was not that high. Lucifer lived for millions of years, even doing that kind of thing, so Noah was sure he had some ability that allowed him to live for about as long.

This meant that Noah would at least need to find a way to increase his lifespan urgently, that is, he would need to level up very quickly.

This opened up a new worldview for Noah, especially when he thought of Carlos and Maggy, who still had no Blessing from any god to interfere in this.

Since no god had Blessed them, Noah felt that he could also "Bless" them both through a contract, and that was exactly what Noah was offering now.

"Noah, what do you mean by that?" Carlos asked, concerned and interested. As much as he was very happy with his family's business, he always had a small spark of disappointment within him for not having a Blessing in a world where part of the population had it.

"Exactly what you are imagining. Just as I signed a contract with you to give you permission to use the imps, I can also make a contract to give you a Blessing. It may change your perception of the world a little, but I don't want to have to leave you when I get stronger or something. My goal is to have reliable people by my side, just like you always have been," Noah said sincerely.

Carlos was shocked by this. Being able to control imps was already unimaginable for him, and being able to have his own power never even crossed his mind, except for the times he dreamed of being a powerful Blessed One.

Before Carlos accepted, which Noah knew his friend would accept, Noah decided to first explain to him that his power was "demonic" and if Carlos accepted this, he would practically become a "demon" too.

"Noah, do you think I didn't research the imps when you showed them to me? There were never any red goblins in history. The only thing closest to them that mankind has ever seen were the little demons that the Christian religion believed, besides the Onis that ancient people were also afraid of. Ever since I learned this, I already imagined that your power had some demonic relationship. But who said that I care about that? As long as I don't have to do anything bad to cultivate my powers, then how bad is it? Fuck yeah, let's do it!" Carlos said excitedly, already imagining himself using powers.

Meanwhile, Maggy was looking at Noah with a little fear, since her brother had also offered it to her.

"Don't worry Baby Sis. If you don't want to, you don't have to accept it. I'm just offering this to make you more secure in the future," Noah said in a calm tone.

After thinking about it, Maggy nodded at Noah and replied, "It's okay Noah. I accept it! I don't want to be a burden on you anymore!"

"You were never a burden to me, my princess," Noah said, feeling bad for making his sister think that.

The process for this was not as complicated as Carlos and Maggy imagined. In a few minutes the two already had their own subsystems with a skill apiece, which Noah chose to grant them for the time being.

As much as he felt the weariness in himself getting even heavier by giving both of them a skill, still, Noah pretended he was feeling nothing and completed the task.

While Carlos was playing with a small fireball in the palm of his hand, Maggy was already incredibly making little fire creatures as if it were the easiest thing in the world. This surprised both Carlos and Noah, who himself was not even able to do that.

Carlos could only make a fireball for now, just like Noah when he first acquired the skill, but Maggy was already making a little fire squirrel that looked around her palm with curiosity.

"That... can you do that too...?" Carlos pointed to the squirrel while asking Noah.

"No... the most I can do is a fire dagger, but that already gives me a lot of difficulty... I wouldn't even be able to make a fire bow, let alone an animal..." Noah said incredulously.

*Rumble*

A loud noise made the three of them stop paying attention to Maggy's amazing control with the fire and made them pay attention again to the great portal that had apparently started to collapse.

As much as the government was able to identify and analyze many of the portals around the city, it was impossible for them to locate them all, so the portals that no one in the government had knowledge of were identified to them by the populace. But as this place was far removed from the population, probably nobody had told the government that it was here, which resulted in not even a single Blessed invading this portal for not having any government rewards.

"Come on, you need to earn Exp," Noah said to the two a little excitedly. After all, this would be the perfect environment for them to train their [Hell Flames] without anyone from the government intervening. And in case something happened, Noah could still save them both. Given the appearance of this portal, it was just a Rank E Fortress, which Noah's imps alone could handle.

"Come on! I want to level up like in a video game!" Maggy said excitedly as she ran towards the portal in a slightly awkward way seeing as she was not used to walking after being in a hospital bed for so long.

Carlos also ran to the portal to kill some monsters and level up, also used to the mentality of a video game.

Seeing this, Noah couldn't help shaking his head, already knowing that they were being very unrealistic in this Fortress, thinking that it was just fun like some virtual reality role-playing game. "Fortunately I am here for you. Let's see if in a few hours you will still have this animation to see blood, death, and destruction in front of you."

Someone's first Fortress was called their "baptism". After all, most of the new Blessed Ones thought that they would have as much fun in the Fortresses as they did in games, but the tension that the place gave them was unimaginable. Taking a life with your own hands while fighting a creature that wanted to do the same to you was scary, and that was exactly what changed people's opinion of Fortresses being fun to Fortresses being scary.

Although as much as Noah thought that, he didn't think they were going to be so wrong, especially when it came to the small and seemingly innocent little girl who was running excitedly to that place.

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