“Wait? Experience points are rising…”
The change occurred the moment Lucia shivered.
Watching the experience bar nearly gain one level, Lucoco felt incredibly curious.
She suspected it was a passive effect from an Imprint, but she was in no hurry to check.
She continued to accept Lucia’s feeding.
Once she felt a bit less hungry, she let out a fake yawn and sprawled out on the grass mat.
Her eyelids fluttered a few times before she closed her eyes to pretend to sleep.
Seeing this, Lucia cautiously covered Lucoco with that piece of clothing again.
Being as quiet as possible, Lucia began to devour the meat in large gulps.
Once her stomach was full, she cast a spell, enveloping the two of them in a barrier before lying down to sleep.
When the breathing behind her grew steady, Lucoco slowly opened her eyes.
A tentacle waved silently, opening her detailed personal attribute window.
At that moment, she finally noticed a problem. Behind her name, **[Lucoco]**, there was no “(Player)” suffix.
She was somewhat confused.
‘Does this mean I don’t have the privilege of reviving after death like other players?’
She didn’t dwell on the question for too long.
In any case, she just had to try her best to survive.
She was far more curious about other things!
She looked into the detailed information of several Imprints.
**[Demon King Marking]**
Rank: SSS-grade
Affiliated Rank: Elite (Maximum: Rank 11)
Attribute Growth Rate: 225%
Activation Power Bonus: 5x attribute power
1. **[Demon King Engine]**: Upon activation, it can suppress target creatures. The effect is determined by the opponent’s Spirit. The Demon King can lower or restore their own Level and Rank at will.
2. Immunity to 50% physical damage and 50% magic damage; immune to all curse effects.
3. Individual detected as a Player; effect changed to: Deaths not caused by a God-favored allow for immediate resurrection at a chosen anchor point. Deaths caused by a God-favored will cause the individual to regress upon revival, up to a maximum regression to infancy.
4. Obtains skill **[Siphon]**: Converts dispersed negative emotions into XP. [Current range: 100 meters]. After Level 40, no XP is gained from killing targets below Elite rank.
5. [Special Individual, Activated in Advance]: Increases own attributes based on the quantity and quality of enemies. Speed does not exceed a 500% increase; other attributes have no upper limit. Effects change in real-time upon activation. The highest value is taken within three minutes, after which a new assessment is made.
Note: If there are no more than three Heroes or Saints within range, and their total strength does not exceed the user’s, the increase is capped at 300%.
Note: If there are more than three Heroes or Saints within range, the user becomes immune to all anti-Demon King special attacks from Saints and Heroes. The duration of the buff lasts until the end of combat.
6. [Special Individual, Activated in Advance]: Attacks from Heroes and Saints will be stored and slowly converted into XP. The amount and speed are determined by the damage received.
7. Insufficient Level; cannot activate.
8. Insufficient Rank; cannot activate.
**[Saintess Marking]**
Rank: SSS-grade
Affiliated Rank: Elite (Maximum: Sage-rank)
Attribute Growth Rate: 225%
Activation Power Bonus: 3x attribute power
1. **[Saintess Domain]**: Obtains magic resistance effects [currently 30% immunity]. Slowly restores the status of allies within range, dispels negative effects within range, and provides magic resistance to allies within range.
2. Holy magic gains 50% basic damage penetration. Obtains skill **[Unranked Seal]**: The body can transform into a sealing cage. The sealed target loses all abilities. Sealing duration: 100–300 years.
3. If killed before completing the mission, it will make all future Saint candidates and Saints of the next generation even stronger.
If killed by foul play, all sinners will be marked with a curse. Holy Light magic will ignore all of the marked targets’ defenses and deal ten times the damage.
4. The more Power of Faith possessed, the greater the power of Holy magic, up to a maximum of 300%.
5. Insufficient Level; cannot activate.
6. Insufficient Rank; cannot activate.
**[Hero Marking · Unslotted]**
Rank: SSS-grade
Affiliated Rank: Elite (Maximum: Sage-rank)
Attribute Growth Rate: 225%
Attribute Power: 3x attribute power
1. **[Heroic Spirit]**: With every heavy injury, the Hero becomes stronger.
2. The stronger the monster, the higher the penetration; ignores the Demon King’s defense. HP +100%, 30% physical damage immunity, but own magic resistance becomes 0.
3. If killed before completing the mission, combat techniques and talents will be stacked onto one of the next generation’s Heroes. If killed by foul play, all sinners will be marked with a curse visible to all Heroes. Heroes will have a “Guaranteed Hit” effect against targets, dealing ten times the damage.
4. Experience gained from slaying monsters is doubled, and Luck is increased by 50%. However, maliciously slaying innocents will result in punishment.
5. Insufficient Level; cannot activate.
6. Insufficient Rank; cannot activate.
She set aside the effects of other skills for the time being.
She had essentially seen the full picture of the three legendary Imprints.
Lucoco also knew about one more thing: the unrevealed fifth trait of the Hero, which included an effect: “When facing a Demon King of at least the same rank alone, a Guaranteed Hit buff is applied. If the Demon King is one rank higher, attributes are directly increased by 300%.”
After all, she had been a Hero once.
The Saint’s fifth trait probably had a similar effect, but she couldn’t see it now.
As for the remaining **[Body of the Old One Ruler · Sealed]** and the other Imprint, Lucoco tried a few times and didn’t dwell on it further after finding she couldn’t view the details.
She figured that since she wasn’t a “legitimate resident” in the first place, being able to play the game normally was already good enough!
The effects of the Saintess and Hero Markings were not much different from the information players had gathered from various sources.
However, the effects of the Demon King Marking truly shocked Lucoco.
Certain memories even began to make sense.
For instance, a common situation: an army of the Dark Camp, led by a Demon King, would crush the Light Camp’s forces with overwhelming power!
Yet no matter how disadvantaged they were, the Light Camp “always managed to hold on.”
Until the Hero and Saint appeared!
The tide of battle would immediately turn!
Just like that, another story of overcoming defeat was written into the books.
She had originally thought this was just for the sake of game balance, but now it seemed the reality was that the Demon King’s fifth power was causing mischief!
Conversely, if a Demon King appeared alone, absolutely no one would dare send a large army to subjugate them, even if the Hero and Saint went together.
Lucoco was all too familiar with this!
In the *Estella Chronicles*, there was a period of history recorded in crimson text:
‘The most powerful empires dispatched four King-rank Heroes, three King-rank Saints, and two thousand A-rank Imprint holders—a Consecrated Army of BOSS-level strength or higher—to jointly surround a lone Demon King.
The result: the Heroes, Saints, and the elite guard were all wiped out. The Demon King only rested for one year before making a comeback, his rank having transcended the King-rank to reach the Demon God (Sage) level.
The failure of this subjugation directly led to the human camp losing half of its territory. It wasn’t until forty years later (in game years) that the new generation of Saints and Heroes grew strong enough to stop the dark erosion.’
‘…This Demon King Marking is so… weird!’
While lost in thought, she swiped the page to the character equipment section… and her eyes suddenly widened, unable to look away.
It was a very archaic-looking page.
In the silhouette of the character between the two equipment columns, there were over a dozen slots distributed across the silhouettes of various tentacles.
A silly, slightly perverse smile appeared on her dazed little face.
‘That’s what I’m talking about! Only a fool would pick the human race in a game!’
‘It’s best not to be human; becoming a monster is the greatest, yahoo!’
At this moment, Lucoco felt almost no resistance toward the fact that she had reincarnated as a monster girl.
These slots were used for slotting Imprints—specifically, **[Magical Marking]** and **[Warrior Marking]**.
A maximum of five could be equipped, and the effects would stack, provided one could awaken five of them.
As for the **[Prosperity Marking]**, it didn’t need to be slotted; it activated automatically upon awakening, though one could only use the power of one at a time.
NPCs slotted them with the help of divine statues.
Players, however, could use the system interface directly, consuming gold coins to remove them.
If a player performed the ritual before a divine statue like an NPC, they could even get a discount based on their piety.
Of course, there were restrictions.
Changing them again within a short period would require paying up to ten times the cost.
Under normal circumstances, an awakened individual would initially unlock one slot.
After that, another would unlock every twenty levels, provided their rank was high enough.
However, fifty percent of awakened individuals would only ever awaken one Imprint in their entire lives.
Therefore, reaching Level 80 and advancing an Imprint to Elite or even Boss-rank was the luxury of most people’s dreams.
As for the higher Sage-rank, forget it—those were mythological figures.
Naturally, all the above applied to normal NPCs.
For a player like Lucoco, having so many slots meant her upper limit could be several times higher than anyone else’s!
If one were to make a table, setting the base attribute to one point, the output power of various ranks would look like this:
Level | Common | Elite | Boss | Lord | Sage |
0 | 1 | 30 | 70 | 150 | 290 | 510 |
20 | 30 | 70 | 150 | 290 | 510 | 730 |
40 | 70 | 150 | 290 | 510 | 730 | 950 |
60 | 150 | 290 | 510 | 730 | 950 | 1,170|
80 | 290 | 510 | 730 | 950 | 1,170| 1,390|
100 | 510 | 730 | 950 | 1,170| 1,390| 1,610|
In other words, if simulating a battle with a base attribute of 1 and no activated powers:
A Level 1 Elite could fight on par with a Level 20 Common.
Normally, if both sides had Imprints of the same rank, the result wouldn’t differ much.
But what about an abnormal case?
That was Lucoco!
A “goo-goo ga-ga” who couldn’t even walk steadily was already an Elite monster at Level 1, with SSS-grade base attribute growth!
With powers activated, she had the Demon King’s 5x plus the Saint’s 3x, making it 8x the attribute power!
And there was still an inactive Hero power.
Starting with this template made her practically invincible!
Could one expect anything less from the most powerful Imprints in the game?
Suppressing the excitement in her heart, Lucoco gently waved a tentacle.
She wanted to try taking off the Demon King Marking… she wanted to see if removing it would return her body to a normal human form.
It was lifted very easily—
But immediately following that!
“Ugh!”
A sudden wave of dizziness hit her, as if her soul and body were about to separate!
Frightened, she immediately stopped her movements and *click*—she pressed the marking back in!
‘I actually can’t remove it…’
With just that one move, her back was already drenched.
Panting heavily, Lucoco struggled to suppress the intense discomfort.
After a good while, she finally recovered.
However, an even stronger curiosity drew her gaze to another Imprint…
She swallowed hard.
Unwilling to give up, another idea formed.
Her slightly trembling tentacle reached toward the Saintess Marking, gently… gently… testing it a few times… lifting it a bit… then a tiny bit more… This time, until a corner was lifted, there was no discomfort.
It looked like it could be removed.
Breathing a long sigh of relief, Lucoco continued her cautious operation.
‘I wonder what the effect will be if the Demon King and Hero Markings are stacked together… Will the effect of magic resistance becoming zero be overridden by the **[Demon King]**’s 50% magic immunity?’
Just as she was about to remove the Saintess Marking, a prompt suddenly rang out!
**[System Notification: Removing the Imprint requires 1 Crystal Coin. Would you like to continue?]**
“?? What the f—”
Her face went dark, and she slammed the nearly-detached Imprint back into place!
She looked at her currency list: [2 Crystal Coins, 700 gold, 86 silver, 62 copper].
This was the currency she had saved up from collecting terminals for over ten years!
In the *Estella Continent*, the purchasing power of one silver coin was equivalent to one hundred in the real world.
Over the years, Lucoco had maintained high-intensity interest in the game’s ecosystem.
She knew removing an Imprint required many gold coins, but she hadn’t expected it to be this many!
The information currently known to the Blue Star players included a record of the price required to remove an SSS-grade Imprint: 50 gold coins.
Well… that record had been left by **[Ace the Hero]**.
But now, for the same SSS-grade **[Saintess]** marking, the fee had actually increased by so many times!?
Perhaps the **[Siphon]** skill consumed too much, or perhaps her newly born body was still too weak.
Before Lucoco could examine anything else in detail, she was hit by a wave of irresistible sleepiness.
‘Forget it, I’ll deal with it later…’
While thinking, she pulled the shimmering “blanket” over the curled-up, sleeping Lucia.
‘It wouldn’t be good if she caught a cold.’
*Yawn*
… Letting out a yawn, she fell fast asleep.
She was completely unaware that every single one of her moves was being clearly observed by certain existences in the Paradise Realm.
“I didn’t expect the great Yggdrasil to be hiding in her room, voyeuristically watching her own God-favored~?”
“The great Goddess of Light would rather climb through a window than use the front door, it seems~”
“I don’t have time today to play games with your dungeon traps.”
“You came at the wrong time. The little rice cake is already asleep.”
“No! I came at exactly the right time! Quickly pull the progress bar back; let’s watch it again!”
“According to my observations, the *tsundere* trope is out of style… Why did you leave so much Holy Light on purpose? Is it because you’re going to lose to Lilith in this year’s *Paradise Realm Laborer* contest?”
(Pulling the progress bar).
“I possess a holy form and should naturally be honest and open. How could it be because of such a trivial matter!”
(The Saint Knight revealed her perfect curves, barely covering the vital spots).
[From the floating magic mirror came the sounds of the mother and daughter crying.]
— — —