Chương 32: [1.32] Life Planning (Part 1)

Alright, time to figure this out! After being rudely awoken from her catnap by running out of MP, forced back into being a Puffball Imp, Gelic begrudgingly dragged herself out of bed and sat at her desk. Fortunately, she could still shift to her human form endlessly, or it would make operating her computer a lot more difficult. It was time to figure out the course of the rest of her life. She found it an odd concept, not something she'd ever really done before.

Growing up, there was pretty much always a path laid out. When she displayed the sufficient intellect, it was essentially directed by her mother that Angelica would follow in her shadow. Go to college and earn as much prestige as possible through extracurriculars, then become an actuary and take the best available opportunity. After that, the rest would just fall into place. That plan was engraved into Angelica's mind before she even entered high school.

Only after everything had crashed and burned did she genuinely consider pursuing art, a track that hadn't been super successful, but now it was time to turn it around so that she could have the life she genuinely wanted.

"Become Super Strong. Enjoy Peaceful Life." She started by writing those two items as bullet points using her drawing pad. Not a very definitive plan, but it had to start somewhere, and those would be the core foundations. No, I can't just be strong. While that might be the core of being a Demon, she had to appease human reality as well. So above that, she wrote another bullet point.

"Get Stupid Rich. Become Super Strong. Enjoy Peaceful Life." Now she was getting somewhere. Angelica made a commitment to herself that everything she did would need to be an effort to one of those three ideals. No more slacking, no more waiting for her situation to magically change, it was up to her to achieve her own goals. Of course, she didn't expect to achieve such a thing overnight. She needed to be realistic.

If she just focused on the first two points, she'd never achieve the third, assuredly burning out rather quickly. There had to be balance, so under the "Enjoy Peaceful Life" section, she wrote, "Keep improving with art." Then she added a bit more detail.

"Do not let Merlina's Boutique go on hiatus." Yes, that was key. Besides her reinforced obsession with cat snuggles, that was what gave her the most joy in life. If she gave that up, what was she doing all this for?

"Try to keep up with commissions. Dedicate a bit of time each day to drawing if possible." Hopefully, that would provide the balance she needed. Her webcomic could be done in bulk, maybe a day or two a week, so that alone might not be enough of an outlet. While her current commissions definitely weren't the best way to make money, it was probably doing more for building her brand than her serialization was, at this point. Plus, it made for great practice drawing things she wouldn't make otherwise.

If the artist really wanted to dive deep into the profitable side, she could start another comic, one that appealed more to the market now that she knew its intricacies a lot better. However, that would be more manufactured, missing the passion she inherently had for Merlina's Boutique. It was still worth considering, but if she was going to be doing Demon things, she didn't know if she could commit to a second routine release schedule.

Maybe it was something to delve into if Merlina's ever ended, or if she found herself with more time than anticipated. With that decently outlined for now, she moved up to the Strong section.

"Keep improving Demon and Summoner Ranks." That was the obvious way for her to improve her strength. She put improving Demon as a higher priority, however. Summoner undoubtedly had its uses, but compared to the Skills she could obtain from the DGS, it was a lot less enticing. Despite being an Initiate, she already had a very strong base that undoubtedly eclipsed all other Summoners at her level. Being able to forcefully manipulate her own body into action was more than she could ask for.

The main reason she would want to improve it would be for the Bind Resistance increases. From what she'd ascertained, the higher her own Summoner Rank, the harder it would be for other Summoners to bind her. That was the main draw that really made her not write off the idea as a passing fancy rather than a definite need. Especially since she couldn't bind other Demons, there wasn't as much incentive, not that she'd even really want to. They'd just be weak Imps like her at this stage.

Plus, any Essence she got with which to pay them, she'd rather just give to herself. Of course, there were the additional Skills she'd assumedly get as she increased the rank. Simultaneous Orders had definitely been an unexpected yet welcome benefit. However, since she had no way of knowing what those skills would be, they tantalized her less than the wonders of Demon magic. Maybe she could stop by Fioso's manor again and ask him what to expect at improvement thresholds.

Though, if the Imp kept asking him instead of her master, he might get suspicious. It was undoubtedly best that the next time she went there for Summoner needs, to do so as Merlina. That, of course, brought up another issue which she wrote down.

"Find out how to trick Scrying Eye." She could make no significant progress as a Summoner without that. While there could be a good deal she could uncover with self-study, having someone to train her would be optimal, whether it be a Rogue Summoner or a Sect, but both were off the table for now. As for actively raising her rank, of course there was only one viable way. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Regularly give yourself Orders, the more complicated, the better, but also try not to become wholly reliant on them." That last part was definitely important. Angelica didn't want to become a slave to herself, unable to complete basic tasks without the crutch and atrophying her free will. Plus, such simple things didn't seem to give much Summoner experience, anyway. So now it was time to move onto the Demon side. Before getting to the crunchier aspects, she jotted what she felt was an important note.

"Try to improve your Worth when possible. Keep exercising daily for now." Yes, her base stats also shouldn't be neglected. Ranking up and getting new Skills was definitely the highlight of the DGS, so she felt improving the fundamentals could easily be lost in priority. And since the Skills scaled in potency based off of Worth, it would behoove her to make them as high as possible. Of course, obtaining and levelling Skills improved them, but she wanted to also work on them outside of that aspect.

Some stumped her, though, like Beguilement and Malice. Would she need to start dressing fancier and be mean to waiters? Perhaps it would be best to let them sit idly for now, until she understood them better. Ones like Might and Vigor were obvious, though, which is where the exercise came into play. Angelica kind of wanted to buy one of those big all-in-one workout machines and get jacked, but they were grossly expensive, so it was out of the realm of possibility, for now. Plus, where would she even put it?

There was absolutely no room in her current apartment. That briefly put her down a bit of spiral thinking about possibly moving out to a bigger place, but she quickly cut it off. There was no way she'd find a place as cheap as this, and since it was in a relatively safe location, it wasn't something to really entertain until she'd made some progress in both money and strength. If she really wanted more equipment, she could always go to a gym. That had the annoyance of… people…

but maybe she could sneak in at night as an Imp. Doing that during the day probably wasn't advisable even if she could get away with it. The gym goers might raise an eyebrow if iron started to pump itself or if there was a treadmill running with no one on it. Ultimately, it was probably best for her to just keep pushing herself using her own body, at least until she found some sort of more demonic way of improving, if such a thing existed.

Since she was in the realm of training, Gelic moved onto her existing Skills, to see where she should prioritize improvement. Of her Active Skills, Order Rejection was really the only one that stood out as vital. That was something probably best done passively while training other things, same with Order Resistance. Other than that, it felt she already had a pretty good handle on Transfiguration, so improvement would just be to extend her cat time.

Maybe she'd try a bit with other animals, too, to see if she could become something that could fly. Definitely worth her time, but it would be a lower priority. She might put some effort into Frost Touch, too, or notably, the skating side of it. If flying was a hassle, that could be her new definitive best way to get around. Plus, there was the added benefit of training Cold Resistance. That would definitely be a bonus.

If she never had to worry about being cold again, that'd be an amazing quality of life improvement. Maybe she'd purposefully make some frost at her feet to work on it when she had gained a bit more MP back. And on to her Passive Skills, Tongues definitely had the priority there. Maxing that out should definitely be one of her immediate to-dos, so she went ahead and made a dedicated note.

Maybe she could listen to some foreign shows or audiobooks while drawing and running, ones that she didn't care about actually getting the full story of. It'd definitely be annoying, but worth it in the end. She just wished she knew what her progress was. Actually… since Scrying Eye had improved, she hadn't really fiddled with any additional benefits. Maybe… yes! At the top, above the usual Skill description, now read: [Tongues Lv. 3 / 5 | Progress: 23%] So she still had quite a ways to go, and the last level would likely be even more arduously long. At least she could see her improvement now, instead of bashing her head against the invisible wall. Briefly checking a few others, they all also had percentages too, so that was a win for the day. Notably, Transfiguration wasn't moving even a smidge at present. It had gotten a good bump during her hours as a cat, up to 35% to Lv. 7. As a human now, though, it wasn't increasing at all.

That was to be expected, given the prior notice she'd been given. Sadly, it probably meant that cat would max out eventually, too, so she'd have to turn into less fun things if she wanted to improve it more. Other than that, for the passives, there wasn't much else she could do. Angelica had absolutely no interest in leveling Hunger Resistance, because that meant going hungry. And the other ones she did have at least some interest in, Essence Tip, Poison Chef, and Poison Eater, couldn't really be trained actively.

Well, she could cook a bunch of food in the hopes of raising the latter two, but that would lead to a lot of leftovers. And since she wasn't really a big eater, besides the occasional indulgence like eating all of Mart Hucklebain's cookies, that meant there'd probably be a lot of waste. Speaking of that, though, she was getting a bit hungry, having not eaten since the morning, and that had been minor.

So she took a break to be diligent for once and make dinner, now no longer having to live in fear about unintentionally poisoning herself. She made a very basic stir-fry. It was quick and easy, and made enough food to last for several meals. Though mostly she made it because she wanted to use up the few vegetables she bought before they went bad. And yet, in a way, they went bad regardless. [Poison Chef triggered]