Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Yuri sneezed.

Mark turned a small rock into a tissue paper and handed it over to her.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Yep, I wonder who is thinking about me?" She wiped her nose with the tissue and threw it away. "So anyway, let's focus back on what we were doing."

He cupped her face and kissed her. Yuri reciprocated but when they broke the kiss, she rolled her eyes at him. "I didn't mean let's continue kissing, I meant let's try using your Alchemic Shapeshifting in weird ways."

"Does a prey tell its predator what to do?" he asked.

Yuri was currently pinned against the ground, Mark floating above her. She couldn't move aside easily unless he allowed her to move.

"I am an A-rank Hunter, Mark, I can escape if I want. I am no prey," she challenged.

Mark pinned her wrists tightly against the ground with his hand and pushed her legs against the ground with his own legs. His golden eyes roamed over her seductive body.

"If I don't want you to move, you can't move. You are my prey then."

The scientist squinted her eyes and held his gaze. She kicked the side of his waist powerfully with her knees. The kick was strong enough to leave a hole in a building.

A bang echoed but he stood there, unflinching and kissed her. She could only reciprocate.

"Don't be smug," she said, slightly irritated. "It's because you have the Defensive Magic Aura or I would have definitely hurt you a bit."

"What kind of excuse is that?" he said. "It is also my own power."

"So smug, are you?" Yuri cupped his face with her hands. "Be smug now."

Mark's expression changed. Now, her legs were exactly below his sacred jewels. He wouldn't be hurt but he didn't want to be kicked there by Yuri—even for fun. He sat up and let her sit up. She ruffled his hair with a slight smile on her coy face.

"Okay, focus, Mark. No more playing around." She stood up and wiped the saliva on her lips with her lab robes. "So, the one limitation that your Alchemic Shapeshifting has is, it can't increase the mass of anything. If you change a 1 kilogram metal into gold, it can't become 2 kilogram."

"Yep," he said. "Now what?"

"Take out something big from your World Space."

Mark used his Soul Sense to scour his World Space and after some contemplation, brought out another stone. There were many stones in his World Space but not too many—he would have to get some stones in there but for now, there were no stones in the Exchange.

He threw the half a meter sized small boulder at Yuri. She caught it effortlessly as if it weighed nothing.

"Hm, this weighs about 40 kilo?" She nodded. "I want you to transform this rock into a human."

She threw it back. He caught it.

"Yuri, do you think this stone would come to life?"

If he gave it a functional human body without any disease, would the rock gain life? Its organs were all going to function! Even the brain!

But it didn't have any soul. Can a body without a soul live?

"Try it, Mark."

Mark took a deep breath and used Alchemic Shapeshifting on the stone. He thought about all the human organs, the bones, the limbs, the feel of the tender skin, and even the taste of the lips. The flow of blood through the complex nerve system.

In seconds, the stone transformed and gained a clearly defined human body.

Immediately,he also fed it Black Water.

Yuri crouched down and separated the woman's eyelashes.

Lifeless eyes stared back at her.

"It is not dead, nor alive. But it sure looks intriguing. As human as myself. Maybe even more human than me. Do you have some way to give it a soul?"

"Let me see."

He went into his World Space using his Soul Sense and deep in there, he saw a Well. It was the Well where the souls he killed were stored. He took out a single, pristine soul out of it. All demons could take out souls from their Soul Space, they just had to know how to use their Soul Senses well.

Mark himself had only learned the simple trick when he had to pay using souls in the Demon City for the soul noodles he ate.

"So that is a soul," Yuri said, moving her hand towards the transparent smock-like thing.

Demons had Soul Devouring demonic trick, thus, they could grow stronger by eating these things. She couldn't touch it—it was immaterial. Mark didn't know what to do with it either, so he just threw the soul at the artificial human body he had just created.

The soul sputtered into it as if water was touched by a dry desert.

The woman opened her eyes and breathed in, her chest heaving.

Yuri and Mark stared in incredible interest.

She sat up.

She had a demon soul inside her.

"Her vitals just dropped," Mark said. "Heart stopped beating, brain stopped working."

His Soul Sense saw it all. The woman moved towards him and groaned.

"A zombie?" Yuri murmured, thoughtful. "She is not alive but she can move. So doing what you just did creates zombies—amusing."

Suddenly, the woman fell to the floor and… turned lifeless again.

"The Mindpower remaining in the soul I planted in her ended?" he wondered. "So soul is the fuel for this 'zombie.'"

"An interesting power but in the end, it is kinda useless," Yuri sighed. "But truly, the potential of Alchemic Shapeshifting is limitless."

"Do you have any other ideas like this?"

"Yep, plenty of them, Mark, what do you think will happen if you fuse two different demons into one using Alchemic Shapeshifting? Would a new person be created? Stronger? Weaker? Would the fused creature have the demonic tricks of both the fused demons?"

Mark blinked and then patted Yuri's head. "I forgot that you were a mad scientist because of how cute you are. You are still the same psycho I met all those days ago, huh?"

Yuri blushed. "It's science, it's interesting."

"And you are cute."

She rubbed her nose. "But well, now we know one thing. You can't do what Gods do and create life out of non-living things. At least, not yet. But another thing is more certain than ever, Alchemic Shapeshifting is a truly..."

Mark nodded, aware. "We can't try fusing demons for now, and only about 6 days remain before we have to leave the Exchange..."

What else can he do here in that time of absolute safety?