Chapter 173: Chapter 173
To understand what the reconstructed version of God Slayer Magic required in place of a true God Seed, Marshall first had to understand exactly how Slayer Magic worked at its most fundamental level.
Every form of Slayer Magic shared two defining characteristics.
The first was a specific concept.
The second was a form of specialized magic power produced through heteromorphic conversion.
Slayer Magic combined both of those characteristics inside a single internal core, allowing the Mage to devour a particular conceptual element, absorb it into that core, and then use the heteromorphic formula engraved within to convert ordinary magic and the absorbed element into the specialized power associated with that Slayer system.
Natsu’s Fire Dragon Slayer Magic provided the clearest example.
The Dragon Seed inside Natsu’s body was effectively his Slayer core.
It could receive and store the concept of fire, combine that elemental power with Natsu’s own magic, and then convert the mixture into Dragon Power.
Once Marshall looked at the system from that angle, one of his earlier assumptions immediately fell apart.
A Slayer Mage did not necessarily need a seed.
What they absolutely needed was a core.
The original Dragon Slayer system happened to use a Dragon Seed as that core, while ancient True God Slayer Magic presumably relied on something equivalent—a genuine God Seed capable of carrying God Power.
The reconstructed version of God Slayer Magic had taken a much more ingenious route.
Instead of somehow acquiring an actual God Seed, which was obviously an absurd requirement for an ordinary human Mage, the newer system artificially created a conceptual core inside the practitioner’s body.
That artificial core contained no genuine God Power, but it could still store a designated element and carry the heteromorphic formula required to transform that element into Slayer-type magic.
There was, naturally, a price for removing the God Seed.
A Mage who practiced this modified system could not imbue themselves with true God Power, which meant they also lacked the bodily transformation found in Dragon Slayer Magic.
Dragon Power did more than alter a Dragon Slayer’s magic—it continuously reshaped and strengthened the body itself.
Without an equivalent God Seed, the reconstructed God Slayer system offered no comparable physical enhancement.
Aside from that limitation, however, the imitation was surprisingly complete.
Its user could still devour a chosen conceptual element and convert that power into a specialized Slayer attribute.
The only other major drawback was that learning it was ridiculously difficult.
The hardest part of Modified God Slayer Magic lay in creating an entirely new conceptual core inside one’s own body—essentially constructing a new magical organ from nothing—and then engraving a functioning heteromorphic conversion formula inside it.
For an ordinary Mage, that was understandably close to impossible.
No wonder several centuries had passed without anyone successfully reproducing the theory.
The fact that Zancrow of Grimoire Heart had actually managed it meant the man genuinely possessed some talent.
Marshall, however, did not believe in learning bottlenecks.
[Modified God Slayer Magic LV0] → [Slayer Magic LV1]
Inspiration stirred.
His understanding rapidly reorganized itself, disconnected fragments of theory falling into place until the entire structure became clear.
With his enhanced mind working at full capacity, Marshall finally understood how to artificially construct what he decided to call a God Core.
So he made one.
Beside the Dragon Seed already embedded within his body, Marshall slowly constructed an entirely new conceptual core.
Naturally, the element he chose was light.
Actually forming the thing by hand was far more difficult than understanding the theory behind it.
Even with Marshall’s Level Four control over magic power, the procedure failed twice before the core finally stabilized.
That alone made him wonder how the original practitioners had ever managed it.
Were beginners seriously expected to create a new magical organ inside themselves through trial and error?
Did they just keep trying until one attempt happened to work?
Maybe becoming a God Slayer really did require an unreasonable amount of luck.
Regardless, the core now existed.
Marshall immediately tested it.
Magic flowed into the God Core, passed through the heteromorphic formula engraved inside, and emerged transformed.
A moment later, a ball of black light appeared above his palm.
Not darkness.
Actual light.
It was unquestionably black, yet somehow still possessed the properties of illumination. It wasn’t the absolute absence of light created by Darkness Magic, either.
Instead, the glow seemed to contain countless colors compressed together into an impossible, almost iridescent black.
It looked as though light itself had stepped outside the category of "light" while somehow retaining its fundamental nature.
Marshall stared at it.
"...Weird."
He genuinely had no better description.
It looked like light.
It behaved like light.
And yet it somehow wasn’t ordinary light anymore.
What he could say with confidence was that it possessed the distinctive nature of Slayer Magic.
He had no god conveniently available for target practice, but based on the underlying formula, the transformed power should possess a specialized advantage against beings or magic carrying the God attribute.
As for raw destructive power...
Marshall tested it for a while.
"Not bad."
It was roughly comparable to the Light Magic he already used.
Which was actually disappointing.
If the new power wasn’t significantly stronger than his existing Light Magic, then as an offensive system it was largely redundant.
Its one genuinely useful feature became obvious when Marshall opened his mouth and inhaled.
The room dimmed.
It was broad daylight outside, yet the illumination inside Cake Tower visibly faded as the surrounding light was drawn toward him and swallowed.
Marshall closed his mouth and carefully examined the light now stored inside his God Core.
"So there is a difference."
The efficiency was dramatically higher than before.
"I can absorb light much more easily now. Just as I thought... the Dragon Seed inside me was never truly a Light-attribute seed."
That explained several inconsistencies in his previous Dragon Slayer abilities.
Marshall’s existing Dragon Seed primarily belonged to space-time.
Its ability to consume light was merely a secondary compatibility produced by his other magical systems.
Because the conversion efficiency was poor, Marshall had previously needed unusually dense concentrations of light energy—such as Phantom Lord’s magical convergence cannon—before devouring it became practical as a way to replenish himself during battle.
The new God Core solved that problem.
Ordinary light was everywhere.
Sunlight filled the world during the day, and even at night there were stars, artificial lamps, magical illumination, and countless other sources.
Now Marshall could continuously devour that energy and temporarily convert it into usable reserves with far greater efficiency.
In practical terms, he had just made his mana pool significantly harder to empty.
Marshall smiled.
At the very least, he could now legitimately introduce himself as a Light Slayer Mage without having to explain whether the "Slayer" part came from Dragon Slayer Magic or something else.
Even so, Modified God Slayer Magic had not dramatically increased his personal combat power.
That wasn’t why he had learned it in the first place.
His real target was his Apostles.
...
When Marshall first began creating artificial life, the Magic he most wanted to install into them had actually been Dragon Slayer Magic.
The reason was obvious.
Dragon Slayer Magic strengthened the body, supplied powerful specialized attributes, and allowed its user to replenish magic during battle by consuming a compatible element.
For an artificial life-form designed specifically for combat, it was nearly perfect.
Unfortunately, there was one problem Marshall couldn’t solve.
Dragon Seeds.
He possessed one himself, but he had no convenient supply of additional Dragon Seeds to implant into artificial beings.
Without the conceptual core around which the entire system was built, attempting to mass-produce Dragon Slayers was unrealistic.
So the idea had been shelved.
Then, unexpectedly, Marshall discovered that God Slayer Magic could still be learned without a genuine God Seed.
Yes, it was technically a downgraded reconstructed version.
But from the perspective of artificial-life engineering, who cared?
The most important functions were still there.
Marshall barely spent any time celebrating his own new Light God Slayer abilities before turning around and attempting to install the same framework into Phoebe.
Phoebe was fundamentally different from the Seven Sins.
She did not consume negative emotions and did not use Curse Power as her primary energy system.
In that regard, she resembled a Celestial Spirit far more closely.
Her body converted absorbed sunlight into a heteromorphic form of solar power, and she had been designed from the beginning to gather light from her surroundings.
The problem was efficiency.
Phoebe could absorb sunlight, but she couldn’t use every bit of it effectively.
If Marshall could integrate Light God Slayer Magic into her existing structure, her ability to devour and convert light would improve enormously, and the resulting increase in sustainable output could transform her combat potential.
The idea sounded straightforward.
Actually implementing it was another matter entirely.
An Apostle was, fundamentally, a book.
The physical body was only the external manifestation of a far deeper magical structure recorded within that book.
Marshall could rewrite portions of the underlying "code," modify abilities, alter formulas, and even replace entire systems, but creating a genuine conceptual organ like a God Core inside that artificial body was far more difficult than editing a spell.
For a while, Marshall found himself stuck.
Then inspiration struck.
If he couldn’t make Phoebe naturally grow a God Core...
Why not manufacture one separately and implant it?
Marshall first constructed a specially designed Lacrima containing an artificial God Core.
Once the structure stabilized, he integrated that Lacrima directly into Phoebe’s body, allowing it to function as an externalized conceptual organ.
The basic principle was rather familiar.
Implanted Lacrima.
A Slayer system.
A user who had not naturally cultivated the internal core.
Marshall spent nearly two weeks refining the process before finally succeeding.
Naturally, he gave his achievement a suitably impressive name.
[Second-Generation God Slayer Conversion Technology.]
The implications were enormous.
The method didn’t only work on Phoebe.
In theory, Marshall could manufacture God Slayer Mages in batches.
Their actual strength would still depend on their own magical reserves, affinity, training, and the quality of the implanted core, so the process wouldn’t magically turn every ordinary person into a Wizard Saint.
But the cultivation cost was incredibly low compared with traditional Slayer Magic.
As long as someone already possessed magic power, a sufficiently sophisticated operation could implant a God Core Lacrima and grant them access to an extremely powerful Lost Magic.
Where else could someone find a deal like that?
For the moment, however, Marshall had no intention of manufacturing Light God Slayer Lacrima for other people.
He had far too many projects already.
The successful experiment with Phoebe was enough.
Once that was complete, Marshall immediately turned his attention back toward the Seven Sins Apostles.
And there, he encountered the opposite problem.
The Seven Sins used Curse Power.
Light had terrible compatibility with Curse Power, and unfortunately, Curse Power had equally poor compatibility with the reconstructed God Slayer framework.
Trying to force the two together would achieve very little besides wasting time.
So Marshall changed direction.
If God Slayer Magic wasn’t suitable for the Seven Sins, another branch of Slayer Magic might be.
Devil Slayer Magic.
Marshall had discovered references to it almost by accident while digging through ancient documents concerning God Slayer Magic.
One of the articles discussing the broader family of Slayer-type Magics happened to mention a third system.
The logic was almost comically straightforward.
God Slayer Magic killed gods using God Power.
Dragon Slayer Magic killed dragons using Dragon Power.
So Devil Slayer Magic naturally killed demons using—
Demon Power.
Marshall paused when he first read that.
’Demon Power?’
His mind immediately connected several pieces of information.
’Isn’t that basically Curse Power?’
The Seven Sins already used Curse Power.
This sounded extremely promising!
Marshall immediately buried himself in another round of research.
Some time later—
[Slayer Magic LV1 — EXP ↑]
[Curse Power LV2 — EXP ↑]
Marshall successfully constructed a third conceptual core inside his body.
A Devil Core.
Through it, he gained the ability to absorb emotional energy far more efficiently and convert that energy directly into Curse Power.
Marshall stared at the result for a while.
Then slapped himself on the forehead.
"Wait."
He suddenly felt like an idiot.
"I already knew how to do this."
The Seven Sins Apostles themselves were proof.
At a fundamental level, their artificial bodies weren’t particularly different from demons.
Their cores already absorbed negative emotions, processed that conceptual energy, and converted it into Curse Power.
When Marshall compared their internal formulas with the ancient records of Devil Slayer Magic, the resemblance was almost ridiculous.
The two structures were overwhelmingly similar.
Everything clicked.
Devil Slayer Magic was, in essence, a combination of the reconstructed Modified God Slayer framework and Curse Power.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Devil Slayer Magic represented a more successful imitation of Dragon Slayer Magic than Modified God Slayer Magic did.
Its user could devour both a compatible concept and the negative emotions associated with Curse Power, convert them into Slayer-type magical energy carrying a Curse attribute, and even allow that power to alter the user’s physical body.
In other words—Demonization.
That was the crucial difference.
Modified God Slayer Magic could not "deify" its practitioner because its artificial God Core lacked true God Power.
Devil Slayer Magic, however, could reproduce something comparable to Dragon Slayer Magic’s bodily transformation through Demon Power and Curse Power.
Of the three reconstructed Slayer systems Marshall had studied, Modified God Slayer Magic was actually the weakest imitation.
The problem was that the Seven Sins Apostles were already essentially demonic life-forms.
They already consumed emotional energy.
They already generated Curse Power.
Their bodies were already designed around almost the same principles Devil Slayer Magic used.
Adding Devil Slayer Magic to them now felt somewhat... redundant.
Marshall leaned back in his chair and stared at his notes.
Well.
The research hadn’t been completely wasted.
Because while Devil Slayer Magic might not offer much to the Seven Sins—
Marshall suddenly realized that he might have found a very interesting way to upgrade Mira!
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