One year later
I looked around the room that I had just bought for myself, it took 700 gold coins for this whole setup, it was still a good purchase as it was portable. It could be shrunk to about 10 cm square, with all its accessories. The only problem is that accessories that had to be bought from this specific company, as others would not properly interact with the runes around the house. I can store things in the specific areas but things like a bed, chairs would have to buy at a premium price.
Still, this was a good way to live in the wilderness, on expanding it was about 5-meter square, two floors. The lower floor had a kitchen and a small sitting area, while the top floor had one room, where I am currently, with two small rooms that contained a toilet and bathroom respectively.
I just got fed up living up in the camps and such after a year and had a lookout for offers on this piece. It was a perfect way to live in the forest while having things that are just very necessary in your life.
In case you are wondering where I am currently, I am happy to tell you that, there was no need to go to a place such as Xaka. All I needed was the thing that I already had, a shadow clone. Though I am actually present today as I will have to use magic to power the runes. It was locked on my magical signature by a worker after the purchase.
A shadow clone takes a lot of chakra but that is all it takes, there is no magic in a shadow clone, all I had to do was send two shadow clones in case one got damaged by mistake. As an added precaution, I remain near the city while the clones conduct the business. Keeping that in mind I was able to get back in my routine of hunting and selling the products. I can't sell directly in Jasa as I don't have a permit for it, but I was able to find someone who could do that.
I have to deliver the box directly to him but he gave me good enough rates for the products. Picture this, in a forest you find some rare metal, so as not to destroy the whole forest, you set a parameter and boundary and those in that boundary can do the jobs.
While the main workforce is underground, leading to business being open underground and only some things open above the ground. It was a total mess, but that was to be expected as this was Maou Falbium's territory, the greatest sloth there is.
It was said that he read a report about the metals in the forest and all he had to say about it was that the forest should not be destroyed. After that he went back to sleep, following that only about a small area was used to set up a proper entrance to the mine, a few businesses that were necessary above ground.
These were general things like transportation, where I appeared, a housing one as, they sometimes make a manor before using runes to resize it for the underground, yup you heard it right, and people have started to live inside the mine.
As you can guess that's where I got my rooms from, apart from that only those who work in the mine can go inside, so I can't sell directly to the shops. The price I got from the selling though is higher as there are not that many hunters in this area. It was mainly due to mines being more profitable and as such attracting more people. I can't go to Jasa personally for a long amount of time as even here police come many times unannounced from the city that is said to be situated below the ground.
I would have to register to be allowed to work in the mine; I can't do that as such am going to remain a hunter. It is a good lifestyle, can't complain, being a nomad, would have to remain that though for some time as while I would be able to enjoy the house, there is wildlife all around me and they can attack my house at any point.
In the training department for the last year, I have started to seriously train in much harsher conditions. In the case of physical development, I am much faster than before, I started to train my gravity control first on everything around me. Before I generally read books or started just messing with my chakra, not actually concentrating on the things, taking them lightly. Now that I have a taste of how things can go for me, I learned a lesson that day.
Anyway, I started making my own exercise to increase my powers, like attracting a stone from the ground or changing the gravity of a falling leaf in various directions. With this my gravity manipulation is increasing, I am still pants at that though, mainly due to the small size of my magic, I can't do this exercise for more than a few hours. My magical core size is increasing, though slowly. Regeneration, on the other hand, has gotten a lot faster, due to my healing of all the wounds that I accumulate during my training.
In case you are wondering, try to lift heavy weights at a gym, without trainer guidance and no way of knowing which muscles to develop first. It was about the same, while I knew some exercises from my old world, those were done a few years ago even before I got here and as such, I don't know a lot about them. So, instead of concentrating on purely increasing my strength, I concentrated on my speed, getting fast in all the departments from hand seal formation to walking on hands. Still, strength was needed so, I started to lift boulders and logs to compensate for no equipment.
That leads to a lot of wounds, from wear and tear of muscles to accidents due to balance being lost in an exercise. Though this does help in increasing my balance and muscles all around my body. That leads to a small amount of control that I can now exert on the magic. To do that, I first studied my body from the medical books that came from medic nins and they were very informative.
I am not good enough with healing palm and as such generally only practice using that on insects or fishes. It's very hard, as you have to control the chakra evenly and convert the chakra in your tenketsu. I don't have enough practice for that yet. This did teach me what to do though so, I am regenerating somewhat faster. I allow my magic to do what it wants in things that I still don't understand while guiding the magic in case of things that I know what to do about.
Still, I have things to do, so with that in mind, I came out from the house and after going to the side, started to power up the rune that was locked to my signature. It took about all my magic to decrease the size of the house from 5 meters to 1 meter, it could still go down but I didn't have enough power to shrink it. I had just one-tenth of the amount of magic now.
I panted from powering up such a power hog rune. I didn't know it was going to suck so much of my energy to shrink the house, that presented another problem though as I can't go in the area now, while the area itself was good for setting up the house, it was in a pretty secluded place in between a pack of wolfs that have a few high class wolfs with different type of magic, they have carved their areas and attack anyone that tries to come there.
While with my band I would be invisible to their senses they could still attack me and I don't think I am powerful enough to go forward to the area I initially selected. It is a somewhat invisible place as you have to climb a steep mountain to reach a somewhat stable area.
It's a mountain slope or was before I started to even it out for some area so as to plant my house there. While there are birds, they go for mountain top as the place I was thinking about is too windy to consider, especially with only some plants.
It is a few days' distance from Jasa and there is a lot of wildlife in between, I can travel a small distance from the city, but it would not solve my problem as I have to take the cube everywhere. I can have the workers power it up, but that would cost extra.
My inventory is full of all kinds of stuff and I have still not put them in the house, I can't do that now, it was a total cluster fuck. I should have thought of that before. Taking a movement to berate myself, I focused on how to proceed further. Taking a deep breath, I thought on how what I can do now, taking in my location, I was still at the site where I was admiring my house.
A plan began to form in my head, I can profit from this. While I am happy, with I bought it in an offer of 20% fewer rates, the company was still earning more than enough money from this, to sell it at this cheap price. I went looking at for the manager and found him talking to another customer, thinking this would only help; I made a cute face and approached the pair.
"Excuse me, May I talk to you," I asked the manager.
The manager looked at me for a second then after a few more exchanges turned properly toward me, "Yes, young man, what can I do for you?"
I asked him to come to the area where I just bought my new home and we both started to walk toward the area while making small talk on my experience during my current visit.
As we reached the area I said, "Well, I just bought the medium-sized single person portable house for myself today, it is so cool" while making an excited face at the end, doing a jump to show my excitement.
The manager clearly bought the act (it was real excitement but I am not really the type to express myself this way, but needs must) and laughed, "Did you now, it is one of the best products".
I nodded along with him, then turned my face pensive, "I was really excited and I enjoyed seeing all the features that it contains" and it did contain many features, there was a weight compression of 1000 to 1 and as such, when it was small-sized you can pick it up with little difficulty (with devil body, it really was unnoticeable), when it was full-sized, it's total weight was present. Apart from that it's magic to electricity array were also very good, you can charge the array and all the products in the house could be powered from that.
The manager beamed at me after hearing this, everyone does that, especially when you praise a product that was made by them. By then we reached the site, where my house was present in a semi-small house, between the two stages.
I motioned him toward the house and said in a low tone, "But I don't even have magic necessary to make it go small, should I really buy it" at the end, I made a sad face and started rubbing my hands against my eyes as if to ward tears. If this didn't move him my next line would surely do that, "I so wanted to make father happy by showing him, that I am a big guy, I bought it from my own money you know but it looks like he was right, I should stop pretending to be a big guy, I am just a child pretending to be an adult" I started sniffing and letting a few tears roll out of my eyes.
All this time I was not looking at the manager, as I don't want to get caught in the act, I may be a good actor, but I am not that good, changing facial expression and such takes a lot of training. I used my emotion-sensing ability to keep track of his emotions and it looks like my acting was good enough. As such I was not surprised when he began to pet my hair and made a shushing noise, "Don't worry child, I will help you"
After that, he went toward the cube and after generating a magic circle, he interacted with the rune on the side, in a few seconds he powered it on himself and the house shrunk further, till it reached the end result of 10x10 cm cube. I clapped when it happened and gave him a big smile that was very real as I now would not have to spend money or do other unnecessary tasks that first came to mind when the house didn't properly shrink.
As I was inspecting the block, the manager was hailed by another worker and he said, "Well, kid I was thinking of talking to you more but work to do, how about I take you to the area where my grandfather works to manufacture the buildings.
I was interested in the process too and this way I can further talk to the manager later, with the house needing specific products to properly furnish out, it would be good to have connections for later. Also, his expression still told me he was not after something, and really wanted to help me. So, I nodded to make him aware of my answer.
He smiled and put a hand on my shoulder after brief vertigo due to teleportation, I was in a room which looked like a room for visitors who were given tour of the faculty, He looked around for a second and said, "You could see a grassland where people were assembling a variety of things along with a medium-sized house, well my grandfather is the one who will do the ending work of integrating all the things while putting in the runes, you should watch it, I will collect you sometime later though I think my grandfather would do that before me".
After saying that, he looked around for a second and then teleported back to the shop, I did know, I was some distance away from Jasa as only a small area was allowed to be used for the city and all around that there was only forest. With that in mind, I allowed my mind to relax somewhat and saw how a variety of people started clearing out things that looked like tools. The continued to do that till only the things that were going in the house were in the center of the grass field.
After that, someone with blue hair made a call though rune, I knew from seeing other people communicating using that. After that, there was a teleportation circle in the middle of the clearing and a middle-aged man appeared out of it, he looked at me for a second just after appearing and then motioned all the others to move away.
He must be very powerful as I am about 100 meters away from him and for him to single me out a few seconds after appearing must mean that he would have to search the whole area in that single second.
After all of the workers flew some distance away, he motioned with his arms and the whole setup began levitating, he didn't even make sure that all the pieces were levitating, then runes began to appear all over the pieces and then they began to assemble. It was like a choreographer in a concert by building a house.
It really was a mesmerizing work and I can now see why they made this booth, after watching that anyone would be tempted to buy the house. Still, that only increased the skill and power rating of the man.
After the house was assembled he motioned the flying workers and they began to rush back, it looks like the display energized them too. He looked at them for a second and after talking for a few more seconds he started to walk toward the booth.
He came inside and after another intense stare held his hand out and said, "Ronald R. Cook owner of Cook's Construction, how may I help you?"
I just stared at him for a second and then being as professional as he replied, "Alexander, a buyer" a name that I now identified as my name. I had a warrant at the name assigned and as such, I didn't want to give that anyone, apart from that I really didn't like the name that much and so I named myself Alexander.
We both stared at each other for a second, then laughter started first from him than me too, it really was too silly to laugh for that, but the atmosphere, as well as the smile on the face of Ronald was something else, same with his emotions, while they were analytical, they had a humorous side to them.
After we both sat back in the chairs that were present in the booth he said, "So, Alexander, how did you like the show?"
"It was so good, how were you able to levitate all the things so effortlessly," I asked truly excited at what he would tell.
He laughed at me and said, "Alexander, what you are amazed about is something anyone can do that"
I looked at him as if he has lost his mind, seeing my looks he said, "Any powers you are familiar with?"
I thought for a second about whether to tell him, then shrugged, "I can control the gravity, somewhat"
"Can I test it?" his emotions were now properly intrigued.
"Sure" what was there to lose?
He didn't even do anything but the door opened and a few leaves floated in, then the door closed back. I looked at him for a second as the leaves continued to float in front of me, then selected all of them in my mind and changed the gravity from downward to upward. The leaves floated upwards without any problem.
I looked at him as he started speaking, "A good way to show your power but a lot of waste, only about 5% magic released from your body did the actual purpose."
I just looked at him in surprise and then words finally registered in my head and I exclaimed, "5%!"
He laughed at my expression then replied, "You should focus on increasing your control, even if use circle with runes to help in control your power, you would still be wasting a lot of magic in forming the circle."
I just looked at his face stunned yet again at his words. He just shook his head at me, and then the leaves came back in front of my face and started traveling towards my back, "Now try to exert your magic at them without looking back".
I tried to do that several times but couldn't do anything. He again shook his head and I felt ashamed to fail him like that.
"You are too heavily dependent on your sense from your eyes, try to minimize your dependency on any particular sense", he said to me, I just nodded at him feeling a little down.
"Don't be too sad, now that you know your shortcomings, try to minimize them, one of my favorite things to remember during training was 'success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm', now cheer up, I will even tell you how you can both increase your magical reserve and senses with control too"
I just stared at him, too stunned to even say anything, he started speaking "Now listen carefully as this is generally used by pillars to help their children learn about magic, first map out an area in the forest, then after putting a blindfold start running"
He paused for a second then seeing I am still listening he continued, "As you run, send a wave of magic all around you, and use it to map what is all around you, do that till your magic is completed depleted"
I made a noise at that, he motioned at me to say out my query, I said, "Would that not after my growth rate of magic as well as make me very weak"
He tsked, "That is all rubbish, you should always have little magic to increase your powers faster, your body would think more is needed and this would increase your rate of regeneration for magic. At the night the magic would continue to replenish itself and as the rate is increased during the day, this would lead to slightly more magic in your core, which would both stretch the core and make the magic more potent".
I just shook my head at this information, if I had known that, It would have been so easy to increase my powers and I could have already reached mid-class-devil. Still, I now knew that I would continue to increase my powers.
He must have seen something as his emotions went to happy again; I looked toward him to see what changed his expression, to see him looking at the clearing and motioning with his hands to the workers.
He turned toward me, "Well, looks like our work is done here, when you have reached mid-class, if you are interested, ask about me again, I would then see how much you have improved, if you perform well, I may even offer you a job" Saying that he started to walk off back outside.
I just sat there looking at the grassland as I thought about the latest information that was just provided to me. It was like an interview come to think about it, he played me like an instrument.
First he set the atmosphere, then he tested me, after finding me lacking, he admonished me and told me how I could improve myself and later on told me how I have to prove something to him, if I was a child, it would have capitalized on the proving mentality that child has to come back here, even if I had no interest in working here. He truly is more dangerous than I first thought.
Regardless, I now know important information that could help my development and that should be taken as a positive. Even though I am going to continue improving, I am not going to come here for the job. While it may look interesting, it is boring as fuck, from what I just saw. That combined with my magical signature associated with a crime, I am not going to do things that put me under the radar of people that could kill me easily.
Sometime later the manager came back and after seeing my face he just made a comment about his grandfather. We teleported back to Jasa and after picking up my order, I took off from the city as I had started to make plans for how to proceed further as now I had a house to live in.
Thoughts
Thanks for the reviews, even the one about the devil raised being bad choice. The simple thing is, the SI is human and we all have our flaws. He only saw the devils in the series of DxD and thought it is better to be with a known evil than be always on guard for the unknown one.
I was looking at the comments and taking that in mind, I have installed Microsoft using Wine. I used google docs for the first few as I was travelling. At home I have a linux installed machine and, I didn't think it would lead to this much trouble.
Refreshed all the chapters and am writing the new one, I have already mapped what is going to happen in next 20 chapters and as such the only thing that generally makes things difficult is time.
