CHAPTER 24: CHAPTER NO.24 HONEYMOON PHRASE & BENEFITS

[Location: Morningstar Manor, New York]

[Timeskip: One week]

Early in the morning.

Sunlight shone through the white curtains, and the fresh air blew away the last traces of the previous night’s activity. The mansion was quiet, the kind of silence that only followed after days of indulgence and nights spent burning through everything unspoken.

I looked at the scene next to me, and a slight smile curved my lips.

Grayfia was still asleep. Exhausted from the previous night, or perhaps, just being shamelessly lazy. Even now, her brows were slightly furrowed as if some phantom dream tried to tug her back into tension.

"So old, yet she loves riding the—" I cut off my own muttering with a low chuckle, shaking my head.

Silver hair spilled across the pillow like liquid moonlight. Her bare shoulders peeked out from the sheets, pale skin marked faintly by my touch from the night before—delicate bruises, faint bites, and the kind of scratches that would’ve made even demons blush. It wasn’t merely indulgence; it was battle. She fought me for dominance each time, even if the outcome was the same: Grayfia, utterly undone.

My hand absentmindedly brushed down her spine, tracing the curve of her back.

"..."

Her lips parted in her sleep, a sigh slipping out. Then, in a whisper so soft I almost missed it:

"...Master..."

I froze for half a second.

Even in her dreams.

Even when utterly broken down from exhaustion, she still clung to me with a reverence that was frightening. Devotion sharpened by obsession.

I leaned back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling. One week. It had only been one week since I awakened in this body, one week since our bond was... consummated. One week since the "honeymoon phase" began.

And yet—things had already shifted.

Not just between us.

Inside me.

[System Notification]

[Unique Bond Detected: Soul Resonance Established]

[Outcome: Spiritual Energy Reserve worth 1022 Years Added to your Core]

[Processing...]

[Completed]

...

Now, people might say, "Your Haki is Level 1, what the heck would happen if more spiritual energy were added? If the quality is pathetic, then what’s the use of quantity?"

They’d be right. Normally.

But this wasn’t normal.

This wasn’t some garbage pool of diluted energy scavenged off petty souls. This was 1022 years of sealed resonance, built drop by drop from my soul in my sealed state.

To explain the effects, I have an excellent example: A person loses his sense of sight (in my case, Demonic Energy), then their body adapts to compensate, like enhanced hearing or smell. The same rule applies to my soul.

For 1,022 years, sealed in silence, I was cut off. No Sin affinities. No mana flow. No external flame of power. My soul did not die—it adapted. It grew stronger in other directions, compensating for what was missing, creating a network of survival that was never meant to exist.

And now?

All of that deprivation, that patient starvation, is suddenly flooded with nourishment.

It’s like a man born blind suddenly opening his eyes to not just the sun, but a thousand suns. The nerves can’t comprehend the information; the body convulses, trying to adapt. Except, my soul doesn’t convulse. It rejoices. It seizes what was lost and reforges itself in ways no demon could ever dream of.

The result?

[System Notification]

[Sovereign Haki: Trinity Crown has absorbed ★Soul Resonance★ energy.]

[Calculating adaptation...]

[Completed.]

[Skill Evolution Path Accelerated.]

[Armament Core: Level 5 → Level 9]

[Observation Grid: Level 2 → Level 6]

[Conqueror’s Will: Level 1 → Level 5]

I sat up, muscles taut, breath hitching. My skin prickled, not from pain, but from the sheer density of power crashing through my body. It wasn’t mana. No... this was purer, rawer. Will crystallized.

The sheet slipped off Grayfia’s form, but she didn’t stir. Thank the abyss. If she saw this—if she sensed this—questions would burn like wildfire.

My vision warped for a moment.

The walls... breathed. Every crack in the marble, every thread in the curtains, every mote of dust in the sunbeam—it all pulsed like a heartbeat. My heartbeat.

Observation Grid.

The passive sense I’d barely scratched the surface of? Now it roared. My awareness stretched across the manor, down to the courtyard, into the streets beyond. I could hear a sparrow’s talon scratching against a lamppost. I could feel the lingering mana traces left by the barrier wards Grayfia had renewed before we collapsed into bed.

Then my hand clenched into a fist.

Armament Core.

My knuckles shimmered faintly—Black sheen—covered my whole arm with an invisible density. It was like my fist wasn’t flesh anymore, but inevitability. A strike not meant to hit the body, but to strike truth itself.

And then came the most dangerous one.

A pulse. A ripple.

Conqueror’s Will.

The very air around me thickened, an invisible weight pressing down on the room. Grayfia shifted in her sleep, brow furrowing deeper, lips parting as if she sensed a nightmare. I cut it off instantly, drawing the aura back into myself with a sharp inhale.

...Damn.

One second longer, and she would’ve woken.

I wiped a hand down my face, chuckling dryly. "If that’s just Level 5... I need to be careful before I crush the neighbours by accident."

(A/N: Snort! He is overestimating himself and underestimating ourdear Fia)

The system chimed again, a softer tone this time.

[Error: Current Host capacity insufficient for full absorption.]

[Solution: Conversion Protocol Initiated.]

[Allocating...]

[Current Stat Allocation Available: +120 Free Points]

HOLY. SHIT.

You mean to tell me, even after levelling up my Sovereign Haki, there was still leftovers?

[+120 Free Stat Points]

I almost laughed out loud, except Grayfia murmured in her sleep, and I had to bite my tongue. My mind raced instead, fast and sharp.

One hundred and twenty points. Free. No grind. No daily quest. No penalty bullshit attached. Just sitting there like candy waiting for me to shove it down my throat.

I tiptoed out of the bed, pulling the sheet back over Grayfia’s form. She sighed softly, curling into the warmth I left behind, silver hair spilling like starlight. After collecting my clothes from the floor, I crossed the room and went out.

The moment the door clicked shut behind me, I let my shoulders relax. My heart was still racing—not from the night’s "exercise," but from the tidal wave the system had just dumped on me.

Because for this whole week, I have not only ’filled’ Grayfia but have been strict with my training and completing daily quests. For what? 21 stats point? 3 per daily quest.

For what? 21 stat points? Three per daily quest.

And here I am staring at one hundred and twenty like it’s pocket change.

That’s not just a week’s worth of grind. That’s a month and a half of bleeding effort. No—more than that. This is like the system looked me dead in the eye, laughed, and said, "Good boy, here’s your starter pack."

I leaned back against the wall of the corridor, exhaling slowly. My fingers flexed, the invisible sheen of Armament Core still whispering at my skin like it wanted to be used again.

But dumping stats randomly? That’s suicide.

Because, system has given me a power ranking chart at last.

I: 0-99

H: 100-199

G: 200-299

F: 300-399

E: 400-499

D: 500-599

C: 600-699

B: 700-799

A: 800-899

S: 900-999

SS: 1000-1099

SSS: 1100-???

[Further Ranks beyond SSS are currently locked. Conditions undisclosed.]

I let out a low whistle under my breath."Figures. Dangle the top of the ladder, keep the rest hidden. Classic system."

Still, the scale was telling. SSS started at 1100. Meaning the Seven Satans were probably what? A thousand? Eleven hundred? Maybe higher?

And me?

I pulled up my current stats.

[LUCIFER SYSTEM – USER PROFILE INITIALIZED]

• Name: Dominic Nocturne von Morningstar

• Race: Demon (Suppressed) / ???

• Level: 1

• Job: None

• Rank: I

• Title: [The Forsaken Lucifer(Locked)], [He Who Shouldn’t Be Awake(Locked),]

• HP: 670/670

• MP: 0/600

[Attributes]

• Strength: 59—99

• Agility: 15—65

• Stamina: 17—67

• Intelligence: 10—60

• Sense: 20—60

—Available Stats Points:

6—24—144

Well, people surprise! surprise!

What did you think? After all that daily quests and Grayfia’s ice punching hell, I would remain a whimpy 10 points all-rounder?

Huh~ Huh~

But still, my fingers twitched. The glowing panel hung before me like a smirk I wanted to punch.

Grayfia Lucifuge. SS Rank.

Even sealed, even without me, she clawed her way to the summit. A maid, they called her. A servant. A blade at the hip of nobility. But that blade... had been sharpened to the point that even Satans trembled when it sang.

And me? I was standing here, drooling over "+120 stat points" like a starving dog who’d just been thrown a bone.

...Tch.

No. That’s wrong.

Because unlike Grayfia—unlike the Satans—unlike anyone in this damned realm—I had the System.

The cheat no one could see. No one could steal. No one could replicate.

And in a world where strength was everything, hidden strength was terror.

I smirked to myself. "Let them think I’m still the Forsaken Prince. It’ll make the punchline funnier."

The stats flickered in my mind again, demanding allocation. Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intelligence, Sense. Balanced? Focused? Or reckless?

The old me—the boy stripped of everything—would have spread them thin, praying to survive.

But now? Now I knew better.

Because my pre-isekai’d self would’ve dumped points like a noob spreading butter too thin on stale bread. Safety first. Balance. Survival.

But survival wasn’t enough. Not anymore.

I’d survived 1,022 years. I wasn’t brought back just to crawl. I was here to devour.

[System: Allocate Stat Points?]

I rolled my shoulders, the faint hum of Armament Core still resonating beneath my skin. Strength wasn’t just numbers—it was inevitability. Speed wasn’t just reaction—it was dominance. Stamina wasn’t endurance—it was how long you could outlast gods.

My smirk widened. "Alright, System. Let’s see how far the rabbit hole goes."

I dumped half—sixty points—straight into Strength.

The effect was immediate. My body tightened like a bowstring. Every muscle fiber sang like molten steel being quenched, every joint humming with suppressed violence. The air felt lighter, thinner, like gravity had loosened its grip. I flexed my hand, and the black sheen of Armament Core deepened—heavier, denser, like it could fracture the world if I willed it.

[System Notification][Armament Core: Level 9 → Level 10]

Then came Agility. Forty points.

And suddenly, the world slowed. No—I accelerated. The ticking of the grandfather clock down the hall stretched, each second splintering into a hundred fragments. A droplet of water falling from the ceiling hovered midair, frozen to my new eyes. My heartbeat wasn’t just a rhythm—it was a drumbeat guiding the entire room’s motion.

Finally, the last forty—I split them. Twenty into Stamina, twenty into Sense.

The changes came violently.

Stamina. Twenty points.

It was like my veins had been replaced with molten iron. Every pulse of blood was thicker, heavier, carrying not weakness but permanence. I inhaled—and the air itself seemed richer. Each breath stretched deeper into my lungs, filling me with an absurd vitality I hadn’t felt even in my human life. My wounds from training, the faint aches in my muscles after a week of ice-hell punishment under Grayfia’s drills? Gone. Erased like they had never been.

I pressed a hand to my chest. My heartbeat was slow, steady, deliberate. A predator’s rhythm.

And then Sense.

The moment those twenty points locked into place, the world bloomed.

The corridor before me wasn’t just wood and stone. It was alive. My eyes traced the tiny imperfections in the carvings, the almost invisible threads of mana running through the walls like capillaries, the faintest vibration from a floorboard shifting as the manor itself breathed.

My ears caught the muffled purr of the generator in the mansion’s basement, the subtle crack of a sparrow breaking a twig in the courtyard outside, the way Grayfia’s breathing pattern shifted upstairs—slow, tired, but content.

I almost staggered. It was too much.

Like a computer with too many tabs open, my brain screamed under the flood of information. But instead of frying circuits, something else happened—my Observation Grid synchronized. The excess sense input flowed into the Haki, weaving into its network like a second spine.

[System Notification]

[Observation Grid: Level 6 → Level 7]

I exhaled slowly, letting the overload taper down into something manageable. The System had compensated. Again.

My lips curved. "Good boy indeed."

For the first time in over a thousand years, I didn’t feel like a cripple, a husk, a hushed joke in the corners of Hell. No—I felt dangerous.

I clenched my fist. The marble beneath my heel cracked.

...And that was when I realised: this wasn’t even scratching the surface.

As my gaze went to our bedroom door, "Even after this... I’m still only crawling compared to her."

***

Stone me, I can take it!

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