There are six ranks when it came to Demon Hearts.
A Flickering Heart which Lesser Demons possess.
A Burning Heart which Fiends or Awakened Demons possess.
An Infernal Heart which Archfiends possess.
A Forged Heart which Greater Demons possess.
An Abyssal Heart which Demon Lords possess.
And a Cataclysm Heart which Demon Kings possess.
Each Demon Heart rank also had four sub-grades.
Minor Grade. Prime Grade. Superior Grade. Supreme Grade.
For a demon with a Flickering Heart to advance from Minor Grade to Prime Grade, all they needed to do is to increase the size and intensity of their chaos flame by consuming other demon hearts, battle, and cultivation.
For Lesser Demons with a Flickering Heart, knowing what sub-grade they were in was easy.
Once the size of a Lesser Demon’s chaos flame is 25% larger than its birth size, the demon is still a Minor Lesser Demon.
But once the demon’s chaos flame crosses the 25% mark and is 26% larger than its birth size, the demon becomes a Prime Lesser Demon.
Then, once the demon’s chaos flame is 51% larger than its birth size, the demon becomes a Superior Lesser Demon.
And once the demon’s chaos flame crosses the 75% mark and becomes 76% larger than its birth size, the demon becomes a Supreme Lesser Demon.
After that, once the demon has refined his or her chaos flame to a size that’s 100% larger than its original size, the demon can then advance his or her heart to a Burning Heart.
However, a demon could choose not to refine their chaos flame beyond 50% of its birth size if they so wished.
If a Lesser Demon wants to become a Fiend with a Burning Heart, the minimum requirement is for the Lesser Demon to be a Prime Lesser Demon with a chaos flame of 50% its birth size.
And this was where the division between talented and untalented, the strong and the weak began.
A demon who advances as a Prime Lesser Demon to a Fiend is always going to be weaker than a demon who advances to a Fiend as a Supreme Lesser Demon.
One might ask why a demon would choose to advance as a Prime rather than as a Supreme.
And the answer to this question is very simple and straightforward.
Bloodline and talent.
The greater a demon’s bloodline was, the easier it was for the demon to refine their chaos flame.
A demon with a Lesser or Common bloodline would spend more time refining their chaos flame.
Although there can be exceptions where the demon partakes in multiple life or death battles that forces his chaos life to grow.
But using such a method meant that the demon was constantly tethering on the line between life or death.
It was an extremely dangerous method no demon king would even recommend.
Even Simon with his experience and talent would prefer not to do such a thing.
In the demon realm, bloodlines was extremely crucial to demons because the lower a demon’s bloodline, the lower their limit was.
As for Simon?
He knew that he was an oddity for several reasons.
Leaving aside his decades of experience, he realized that his demon cat bloodline was truly abnormal.
His innate demonic energy circulation method was not the best, it was extremely efficient and quick.
His chaos flame was able to absorb and refine demonic energy at a very fast rate for a Supreme Common Bloodline.
Normally, Simon should not have been able to increase the size of his chaos flame by 10% in two days through cultivation.
He only had a Supreme Common Bloodline, and if his Supreme Common Bloodline was normal, he should have only been able to increase his chaos flame by 3% or 4%.
If he chose not to sleep at all in those two days, then his chaos flame should have only increased by 5% at best.
But Simon’s increased by 10%, and he wanted to see if he could increase its size by another 5% before the trial started.
If any demon knew that Simon was not spending the entire day cultivating just to increase his chaos flame by 5%, the demon would be shocked.
Simon knew how foolish it would be if he spent his entire time cultivating, especially for his level and present situation.
He rested whenever he needed to and he ate the food that was provided to when he was hungry.
He needed to be in peak condition for the trials, and cultivating for twenty four hours especially for his current realm was more detrimental to him than beneficial.
With his strength which could allow him to survive against Archfiends, one would think that Simon should not be so worried about the trial.
Even Simon believed so when he first got here.
But he was proven wrong very quickly after using his ocular technique to scan the surroundings.
He opened his eyes in the pond, then he looked at the peak of the valley.
He could not see anything clearly, but his ocular technique was picking up a dense amount of demonic energy.
He then shifted his gaze to the left and stared at a particular building.
The doors of the building were closed and the demon inside the building never came out, but Simon’s eye could see a dense amount of demonic energy which was even covering the entire house.
’A Supreme Lesser Demon with most likely a Supreme Noble Bloodline. He’s dangerous.’
This demon was the most dangerous demon amongst the trial members he could currently sense, but there were other Lesser Demons who also had Noble Bloodlines.
They were not little, but they were also not many.
Simon took note of a few demons who might give him a bit of trouble or two in terms of the demonic energy they possessed, and every single one of them had a Noble Bloodline.
’Why are so many demons with a Noble Bloodline trying to join the Shadowgrave Clan? Shouldn’t they be part of a kingdom instead?’
’Is the Shadowgrave Clan one of the six major clans? And are the six major clans greater than the nobles of a kingdom?’
’No... That should be wrong.’
’Then what is it?’
Simon pondered in thought for some minutes while looking up at the dark sky.
’The Shadowgrave Clan’s location is in the region where the Black Moon shines... Hmm."
Simon released a soft sigh, then he got out of the water and approached his clothes.
As he did this, he utilized his one-horned demon bloodline to heat up his body so that the water could dry up.
And after a few seconds, he was no longer wet.
He walked past the two guards that were stationed in front of his house, but just as he was about to enter his house, a voice called out to him.
"Hey!"
He paused and looked back.
He saw a group of six approaching him- four boys and two girls, and the moment he saw this group, a sense of déjà vu hit him.
His lips twitched, and without even responding to the group, he turned and walked inside his room.
’Not today kids.’
"Hey!!!"