Chapter 70: Prospects for the Journey

From the depths of memory, Feng Xue learned her current name—Yeyeshou. But she still had no real impression of it. In truth, even in the original work, the names of Digimon in their infant stages were seldom mentioned, and in her previous life, the Digimon she knew were mostly the powerful ones—champion, ultimate, or mega level. Her knowledge of the earliest forms was limited to a handful with more complex evolutionary lines.

Although the Elecmon she’d encountered before had already evolved into Kapurimon, this was the Village of Beginnings after all, and finding a newly hatched Choroemon was still quite easy. As the primitive form of most machine-type Digimon, this infant stage was, of course, fairly common.

But when she caught sight of herself, a surge of ecstatic joy welled up in Feng Xue’s heart—she recognized her own identity.

Her body was still a deep purple, but now her face had turned reddish-brown, and the cone atop her head had become something like the floppy extensions of a jester’s cap. A mischievous grin seemed to be etched across her face—this was unmistakably the infant stage of the Impmon line!

“The Impmon evolutionary line… I’ve really hit the jackpot!” Feng Xue recalled with excitement, feeling a happiness she had never known before. The ultimate form of Impmon, aside from the well-known Beelzemon, could also evolve into Daemon, Demon Lord, Lilithmon, Barbamon, and the fallen form of Lucemon. In other words, the Impmon line included six Demon Lord-type Digimon—five of them from the Seven Great Demon Lords!

Though it couldn’t compete with the sheer variety of the Demidevimon line, which could evolve into most death, demon king, fallen angel, and demon types, at least she would be spared the fate of Demidevimon’s infant form—Pagumon—evolving into Gazimon. (Demidevimon had more than one possible infant stage, but whether it was Unimon, Digimon, Rollimon, Bikomon, or Flamebabiemon, all had countless beast-type evolutionary branches.)

But this also meant that Feng Xue was almost destined to evolve into a Digimon aligned with the Nightmare Soldiers or the Dark Area.

With this in mind, Feng Xue became even more determined to pursue a path of absorbing holy attribute factors. Not that she wanted to become an angel or even a deity-type, but her aim was to evolve into a fallen angel.

Yes, a fallen angel. Among the countless Digimon types, those at the absolute pinnacle were few: at the top stood deity and demon king types, followed by angel, demon, fallen angel, and holy beast types—not to mention dragon and wizard types. (There was also the oni-warrior type, but the likes of Kujaemon, who couldn’t even defeat a champion-level Digimon, dragged down the average.)

But demon-type Digimon were utterly countered by angel types. Given Feng Xue’s future, which was nearly set in stone, the only reasonable choice was the fallen angel path.

“The Seven Demon Lords can be traced through the Devimon and Impmon lines. Hmm, Beelzemon also has a Wizardmon branch, but the Impmon line can sometimes evolve into demon beast types, and even if I follow the demon king path, I could wind up as Lilithmon…” Though Digimon have no gender, Feng Xue couldn’t accept the idea of sporting a voluptuous, busty form. In the end, Beelzemon and Gourmet Demon King seemed most fitting for her.

“So the choice is really between Wizardmon and Devimon?” No matter how carefully she chose now, unforeseen events could alter her fate, but Feng Xue couldn’t help but overthink things out of habit.

Wizardmon, as a wizard type, was on an equal standing with the fallen angel-type Devimon. But Wizardmon required mastery over magic—in the world of Digimon, that meant programming languages—to unlock its full potential, whereas Devimon was a straightforward brawler (though not entirely without magic).

As much as Feng Xue admired the power of mages, she was honest with herself. Back in her previous life, she’d majored in computer science, but only at a third-rate university, and her memories of campus were limited to skipping class and playing games. She still remembered a bit of C and C++, but to truly master programming to the extent of wielding it as magic in battle? That was simply beyond her.

So Feng Xue gave up on the deity path and chose Devimon, though the requirements for that evolution were far from simple. It took more than just dark and holy factors.

There was another crucial—yet rarely spoken—element: win rate!

That’s right, win rate. For Digimon, win rate was essential. Without enough victories, one couldn’t evolve along the optimal path. Just like in the manga, a HolyAngemon, who was qualified to become a high angel—Seraphimon—failed to do so after being defeated in its ultimate stage by Arkadimon, and could only evolve into a mid-ranking angel—MagnaAngemon.

Thus, Feng Xue vowed to approach battle with utmost caution.

She didn’t know the exact timeline, but judging by the peace and order in the Digital World, the Digital Grim Reaper—Daemon—had yet to awaken, meaning the story had not yet begun. In the original, the plot in the real world spanned at least several months, which suggested that Feng Xue could remain in the Digital World for at least a few centuries.

“That’s more than enough!” Feng Xue made up her mind and began training her one and only signature move.

It was a physical technique, but since Dark Spiral had “dark” in its name, it naturally involved the power of darkness. Mastering this dark energy would help her control power more quickly when she evolved into a higher-level Digimon.

Feng Xue had no intention of developing custom techniques—not for lack of desire, but because her infant body was simply too precious. How was she supposed to invent moves as a little ball?

Yet, as time passed, Feng Xue made an intriguing discovery—she could use Quincy powers!

The data energy omnipresent in the Digital World was not only the foundation of a Digimon’s existence (the digital signal was as essential to Digimon as oxygen to humans), but also made up their very being. Wasn’t this not unlike spiritual energy? Moreover, since Feng Xue’s soul had transmigrated, becoming data, it didn’t seem so outlandish to treat data as spiritual energy.

However, this didn’t mean Feng Xue could embark on an overpowered, world-dominating path. She couldn’t control that much data—in her infant form, her body was far too fragile. Even using Quincy techniques to leverage her own data, she couldn’t move much at all. (A Quincy at Vollständig could use spiritual particles to amplify their power tenfold or more, which was the only way to stand against a Soul Reaper’s Bankai. After all, the true power of Bankai was in its amplification, not its special abilities.)

All Feng Xue could do was mimic Blut, injecting some wild data into herself to boost her defense and attack. But the impurities in wild data were too many, and each use forced her to excrete vast quantities of waste data. Still, this gave her a way to acquire data besides eating and fighting.

Unfortunately, this made life hard for the Digimon sprites overseeing the Village of Beginnings. Though this strange Heihei-shou wasn’t as gluttonous after evolving into Yeyeshou, she produced several times more waste than before! Fortunately, Digimon droppings, if left alone, would turn into discarded data on their own. Fortunate indeed…