"How did you even manage to do this to yourself?" Healer Ken said. "It's like your muscles exploded from inside...that shouldn't be possible."

  I shrugged. "Just some experimenting with magic is all, nothing fancy to be amazed by."

  "How does that lead to this?"

  "I might be persuaded to tell you if you share some of your wisdom." I smiled.

  Healer Ken gave me a flat look, I didn't expect that to work but it was worth a shot. Ken moved his hands to the viscera that was my right forearm, pushing mana into the wound. His magic felt clinical, except with a smooth edge that was meant for comfort. It felt like my arm was getting a bath in tepid waters filled with herbs to heal and surrounded by incense.

  The strange taste of raisins didn't really match with all the other metaphors, I wondered what his concept was? He didn't seem all that powerful for a mage, but I could only measure ability in terms of strength.

  Healing?

  He was the only mage I knew who specialized in that discipline, so I had no frame of reference.

  It was nice, much nicer than Alvir's hidden poison, so I chose to bask in the feeling as it settled in my arm and the flesh began to visibly heal.

  "Now about that hand—"

  "No," I shook my head. "That wound stays."

  Healer Ken let out a sigh, probably expecting that answer. "Look, I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but if you leave that to heal on it's own it's going to heal wrong. You could be crippled in that hand for gods sake! Don't you care at all about yourself?"

  "Of course I do, and if it heals wrong then I'll just break it again and heal it right." I raised my chin to try and look down on the man. It didn't work, he was plenty tall compared to me. An annoying aspect of having to restart life entirely. Hopefully when my growth spurt hit, I'd be of decent height. "Besides, It's not so bad that my mend can't deal with it."

  "Alright, have it your way," Healer Ken grumbled. "Get out, and don't do whatever caused this again, or I'll charge you double."

  I gave a smile alongside a nod and left the room. That wasn't much of a threat since I could more than afford it, what with Alvir's allowance and the money I'd been making slaughtering giant rats in the sewer. I had a vendetta against Alvir, but I couldn't enact it directly, so instead I killed his rats within the parameters he'd set oh so long ago. I skipped down the streets and headed back to my inn, considering I was essentially incapacitated until the magic healed my arm.

  Next time I was going to try and make a meridian in my left arm, considering the success of my first attempt. Well, I say success, but all I managed was to burst the muscles of my forearm.

  I called it a meridian, but that likely wasn't the correct term. I was just pulling on cultivator xianxia bullshit from the stories in my old world. Like I did to make my first droplet. I figured since that was a success, I could try to find other happy coincidences.

  Next, if it produced something other than turning my meat bits into explosives, I was going to try cleansing impurities! Didn't even know where the fuck to look for those, but I figured the imp wouldn't be against guiding me. Right, you little shit?

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The imp huffed. "No.”

  I froze in the middle of the street, causing the fellow behind me to crash into my back. I wasn't listening to the litany of expletives they delivered at the offence, I was too busy rewiring my brain from the shock it had just experienced.

  It could talk now? Proper communication with words instead of metaphor? When did that happen? How long could it do that?

  The imp gave me a sardonic smile as I processed this new revelation.

  Eventually, I started walking again, plenty of people giving disgusted looks at the wound on my forearm as it knit itself together. Looks I didn't register in my mind, because I was too busy wracking my brain with all the implications of this development.

  I always knew the imp would get stronger.

  It was the main reason it accepted my Deal, along with some other small sacrifices. I couldn't eat the meat of reptiles anymore, which was a fucking weird restriction, but whatever.

  Ostensibly, the demon was a parasite for my growth. As my soul grew with each application of magic or Word learned, it would siphon some for itself. Kinda like a tax, but metaphysical. I didn't know what a bigger soul actually did, so I didn't care at the time.

  Pretty stupid of me in hindsight, but it was either that or face the coming Armageddon without any magic, and I was more than a little desperate at the time.

  Still was desperate, but now I had options to pursue for growth, which helped a lot for my mental faculties. Killing monsters and absorbing essence like how normal people got stronger? Well, I didn't know about essence for one (though I did know that people could get ridiculously powerful without magic), and facing a monster, or even an animal, without any sort of cushion?

  Yeah, no.

  So I knew the demon would grow, I knew my Deal had a price.

  I just ignored it and moved on with my life.

  But now that the consequence of my decision was staring me right in the face? Alvir's words echoed in my mind, about how weak my demon was, about how that meant It didn't twist my personality. I was still stronger than it, by far, but how long would it take for the imp to start influencing my actions?

  Said demon seemed to preen in delight at my dilemma, like an oversized hound given treats.

  Now that I really looked, my parasite had changed.

  It had horns now, small nubs that poked out of its forehead. Said head wasn't as comically oversized for its body anymore, like it was closer to a toddler than a newborn. The muscles were too defined for that comparison to last though. Lean but rippling.

  The wings started to resemble a bird more than a bat, interspersed with feathers covering leather, but otherwise they were the same minuscule size as when I first summoned the imp.

  The one negative change was its claws.

  They looked to be retracting, slowly morphing into normal nails. As normal as any feature belonging to a demon could be at least. Its teeth were still razor sharp, distinctly similar to a goblin's now that I thought about.

  Weird comparison to make at the time, but I wasn't all there at the moment.

  I was going to get stronger, I had too, that wasn't a path I was willing to abandoned because of this development. But for each step I made, I brought the demon along with me. How much did a demon influence the minds of their hosts? Was it just strange impulses that flared at certain times? Was it a pervasive whisper in my thoughts? Or would I someday become a hollow puppet for it to control?

  I had to get rid of it.

  I didn't even know where to start. Couldn't expect any witches to have a clue, and going to the academics and revealing my nature was just asking for death. I'd needed to get strong enough where I was too important to kill for that.

  The emperor made deals with demons, all the time, it was likely one of the reasons the empire was so prosperous under his reign. But he was insane. From what I knew, he wasn't a witch, but he still lost his mental faculties. How far down into madness would I have to fall before the empire considered me too valuable to kill? Could I even reach that point before everything turned to ruins?

  No, I had to assume I was on my own until proven otherwise.

  I stared at the ceiling, laying on the wooden floorboards instead of my bed, cycling through so many theories on how I could sever the connection I had made between me and the demon.

  I doubted I was approaching any sort of answer, if how it entertained the imp was any measure.