For the Demon Civilization of today, one of the oldest Ascended Civilizations, had an extremely striking characteristic: rigid class divisions and resources funneled to the top.
In the Demon Civilization, which had undergone Ascension over ten thousand years ago, the entire society had long since rotted.
The powerful, their descendants, and their families occupied the vast majority of resources as a matter of course.
That included the monster-farming spots on their civilization's planets! Ruins! Tombs!
The best resources had long since been monopolized by the various families and factions.
So even with decent classes and talents, "commoner demons" like the demon Nook struggled to rise, because the resources available to them were far, far too few.
All the popular monster-farming spots were occupied.
They could only farm scattered wild monsters. Never mind comparing themselves to demon nobles their own age—even compared to some civilizations that had yet to undergo Ascension, their leveling speed lagged far behind.
After awakening his class and talent at eleven, the demon Nook had spent nearly seven days just going from level 1 to level 10.
Going from level 10 to level 15 had taken an entire month.
And the further he progressed, the harder every step became...
Without monsters to farm, he had no experience.
Without monsters to farm, he had no equipment.
Without monsters to farm, he had no Skill Books.
Meanwhile, the equipment and Skill Books on the market had long been controlled by demon noble factions. Even some low-level Skill Books were extremely expensive, and commoner demons often had to spend all the tradable lifespan they earned from leveling up in exchange for a tiny amount of resources for their development.
It was no exaggeration to say...
In the Demon Civilization, the conditions commoner demons faced in developing themselves were far worse