A month Later
I looked around the city, still the same as ever, for me though that is good news. I moved from the city entrance and traveled toward the café that was situated on the top of the grocery. The building was a nice blue colored and it had some good items especially coffee.
Coffee was the reason that Ali my inside man (more like underground) considered this the best place to wait for me. I moved up the stair already knowing he was there due to the presence of his magic. He was sitting near the window looking out in the forest, pretending not to notice me.
I sat down next to him while signaling for grilled rice. That was another thing; he wouldn't talk to me while eating. Till the cup in his hand had not depleted, he would look outside, humming sometimes but generally enjoying the scenery.
My request came through and I collected it from the counter. Walking back, I felt his eyes on me, I raised my right eyebrow. It took me 2 months to be able to do that. Time well spent in my eyes as you can express a lot with your facial expression.
He didn't say anything but motioned with his hand toward the chair, looks like he was still curious about the thing I asked of him. I sat down and began to enjoy the rice.
After finishing the rice I waited for him to finish his second cup. As he finished the cup, I motioned him outside while giving him a sign to stay quite. He pouted for a second but then nodded, with that, we left the city and entered the jungle right outside it. It took some time to find a place to sit, but the fallen tree we found some time later was a good place to talk.
I grumbled well naturedly, "Now you can say whatever you want"
He laughingly said, "So, you are not curious whether I got the required metal or not"
"No, I know you well enough to know that you have them, if you didn't you would have made something up and would not have shown up till you got them"
He nodded at my words, "Yup, so where is the box, I am still shocked that you asked me to get the largest cold box from the city restaurant, even with you giving me money as safe deposit, I was not sure why you would want that".
Ali runs a restaurant down in the city; I wanted to get as much money as possible due to asking some Ebrite from him and for that, a lot of animals have to be rendered. Ebrite is a chakra and magic conducting metal and I wanted some of that. It was very costly though as it was rare and as such, I planned my largest hunting spree.
Though I would have still need to waste some of the time for multiple times travel, getting all that meat to Ali, with that in mind, I asked him to go to the biggest restaurant he has contacts with and ask for the biggest cold box he can get. While that was going on, I started to prepare the traps that would get me the meat.
It took a week to hear back from him, till then I just made sure my trap was undisturbed and made adjustments to make the whole thing better. After hearing the size from him, I made plans for a few more traps as I had not considered that there would be cold storage the size of the football field especially that was as small as a dice. It was a magical marvel for me, for now.
So, when we met last time, I gave him my 350 gold coins saved as a safekeeping while I took the cube from him. It was just waiting to be filled, in my hands.
Well he may as well know, "you do have a good heart, so I might as well show you, don't faint on me though"
I pulled out the cube from my pocket, more like inventory and put the black cube on the ground, "Level 3" this was done while putting some of my magic toward the rune that activated with the voice command.
The cube expanded rapidly to form a small cupboard with only a few runes you could see, I motioned him toward the door, and Ali looking back toward me and I again repeated my action, smiling just thinking of his expressions when he would look inside. I pulled out my phone discretely while opening the camera option.
He opened the door and went inside the sound, "What the fuck!" came from inside.
I went inside while taking out my phone, his expressions were absolutely priceless and I took great pleasure in recording it on the camera of my phone. He looked at my all too happy expression and then started cursing.
I couldn't contain my laughter anymore and as such doubled over while just hearing him continue cursing. After finally getting it out of my system I noticed that he was sitting near me on the ground.
"So, what do you think about this?"
"How the fuck did you do this in 17 days?" he gestured toward the room at large wherein the cold atmosphere, perfect for preserving meat, you could see 18 large elephants taking a lot of space.
In reply, I said, "If you are flipping over this, wait till you scan them"
He just flipped me off muttering something too low for me to catch. After collecting himself he started scanning the animals, looks like he really wanted to know what else was in store for him.
The cursing started midway and continued until he completely scanned all the animals. He came toward me after doing that, though he had made a sign of silence, putting a finger to his lips.
"The total amount you just made from this lot is 497 gold, 446 for meat and rest for tusks" The sentence just hanged in the air for a movement, then I jumped in joy, this was good. I began to dance to express my joy. The dance may have looked weird as he started laughing at me.
In case you are wondering about the rate of meat. Low levels are generally sold at 1 to 2 gold coins.
Mid-small animal = 3 to 5 gold coins.
Mid-large animal = 5 to 20 gold coins depending on size and rarity.
High-animal = 50 gold coins and above.
In high spirits I looked toward him to see, he was looking at me with a peculiar expression. I raised an eyebrow, he said, "Looking to see if you were a child of some pillar or high profile person" I just laughed at that.
"Not joking brat, you got me a two high-class animal and an assorted of mid ones that you hunted in the last two weeks. On top of that, you are a low-class devil. You are blowing the normal expectation right out of the water" he finished with a wary grin. His expression expressed his concerns toward me more than his words.
"Don't you worry, I am not going anywhere. I will take care of myself, what about you, would there be a problem if you take all that at ones" I asked him in turn.
"Would just say that it was done by a team of people, they would accept that easily" he replied easily.
"Now that I showed you, why don't you give me Ebrite now" showing he had more maturity than me, he pulled out a box from his expanded pockets. It screamed quality just looking at it.
I looked over the box after he handed it to me and after checking the rate (630 gold coins). I looked at the box to see it was still marked, proving that it had not been opened after being shipped from the company. It was a very high-quality material for making weapons.
Instead of opening it here, I made it look like I was storing it in my back pocket while putting it in the inventory. His expression never went toward darker emotions when we talked, there was some greed but that was expected as he would get lots of profit from this.
After that, he gave me the leftover money from what I had given him. I had given him 350 gold coins as reassurance, adding in the cost of my latest hunt, taking the cost of metal out of that, 217 coins were left, as Ebrite price never went down, I had already known this would be costly.
We talked some more and after reassuring him, that no, I was just good in making traps, we went our own ways.
I walked some more and ones I was sure no one was nearby (chakra, emotional and magic sense). I pulled out the box and scanned it over with magic to see if there was some kind of rune or tracking magic. Finding nothing I put it back, while finally releasing my henge, which was small, tweaks to make me look different.
There were only small changes that were present just on the surface and as such no one could tell about the illusion. I so wanted to have the Naruto's illusion technique as that was physical changes, instead of just a cover of chakra.
It takes skill to make the chakra solidify in your clone to make it more chakra heavy and as such able to do things other than just fooling someone. Of course, Naruto put such a large amount of chakra that it solidified. I tried to do that, but it looks like I am missing some step as, it leaks chakra instead of just solidifying, making the chakra visible and as such not a good disguise.
I had about 300 gold coins on me now; I had a few more coins stored in case of a bad day. Still with this, I can now start to make my own weapon. Though first I wanted to ask the opinion of Ronald, while he was a tricky old man, he knew his stuff.
I would get to know a lot more just talking to him, in addition, I knew that in a few months I would jump from low to the mid-class devil as I could sense, some of the changes happening. You get an additional pair of wings; there is a lot of growth that happens. There is a little itch, in the background.
After making mid-class, I would not be coming here, as that crafty man may attract me with his words. There is a very sharp mind in that old body, which I don't want against me, especially as I may need repairs and such at his shop in the future.
I made another clone to keep me updated if someone comes from under the city and donned my disguise which was eye color and minor face adjustment.
I traveled toward the shop and after meeting with the manager asked him if I could speak with his grandfather. He directed me to an office that his grandfather received a visitor in and told me that he would contact, Ronald to come as soon as possible.
The room was furnished properly and I can see the quality just shines through in these pieces. I was also sure many of them had a history of their own as that could be an excellent way to show off their wealth and conversation points to attract people.
It took about 15 minutes for Ronald to appear and he appeared wearing a suit and all that, proper antique clothes. I felt his magic more clearly this time as it traveled all over the building in less than a second. He raised an eyebrow at me which I replied in kind.
He laughed at that and said, "Looks like I have been pranked" He then raised an appraising eye toward me and further stated, "Good work Alexander, you would achieve your second pair in the next month, if what I have noticed about your magic is true, are you feeling a small itch"
"Thanks, Ronald, it is because of you that I was able to increase my magic this much, I increased my control too" I replied to his somewhat greeting.
He puffed his chest made a show of walking toward the chair near me, which I just had to laugh as his expressions were comical. He to smiled at me and said, "Hmm, let's ascertain your claims" with that he motioned me toward the table, extended his hand and said, "This is a table that belonged to Marbas pillar, so be a dear lift it in the sir and show me your tricks. While Marbas are extinct now, it is still a good piece of furniture and as such take special care, it cost me a lot to get it"
I raised an eyebrow, looks like I was right, still he told me this both to make me nervous and to see how this would affect me, not reacting much I just concentrated and twitched the hand, it helps if you associate an action with your will power as it is easy to imagine.
The table was heavy, not overly though, so I was able to lift it somewhat easily, and then I rotated it ones clockwise and then anticlockwise. The tricky part I did was, instead of only a single place, I marked 5 places. One in the middle to keep the table in the air, others in the corners that I changed the direction off, this was done for smooth movement.
He clapped at the performance, as it was, then remarked, "Good way of lifting and moving things, though you should work on force too, what you did with the direction was the same as you did before, just at more points and in different directions at ones. While this is good, it limits the force as while direction did change, you can do it with only 2 marks. One to keep it in air, others to move it"
I nodded at his words, making a point mentally and asked, "Any other way I can improve my control or other things"
"You are performing better than I expected, you must have developed some of your own exercises, anyway yes you can improve your control though more exercise, and I would recommend that you try to improve control through doing things with your specialization as there are many ways gravity can be controlled. You only wasted 60 percent of your magic in this, very good control, especially as you could only control only 5 percent when we last meet"
"Do you have any idea in which direction I should focus?"
"It is your choice brat, one of my friends in the Great War also controlled gravity, his signature attack was black hole creation, he released bullets, or attacks toward the enemy that attracted people toward it and released them in the dimensional gap, killing them. Don't focus on one thing, just see what all you can do"
Looks like I opened some wound in that, wincing internally, I thought of one other question that I really wanted to ask and thinking I have nothing to lose, asked him, "So, I was thinking about weapons, which should I specialize in as I have seen a variety of things and no one is better at all the things and am getting confused as to which direction I should go"
He raised an eyebrow again, looks like I surprised him, "Color me impressed, someone actually has some brain, first tell me what you want it for"
"I mainly hunt and as such it would be nice if it would help in that, other than that, fighting with it should not be that complicated and it should be bladed as while brute force is all good, I need slashing, slicing damage too"
He blew a whistle and said, "Looks like someone is ambitious, there are many types of weapon, but I think best for you would be a spear, they are best weapon overall"
"So what are the main points in which spears are better than rest?"
"First and foremost they are cheaper as you need only metal at the end as rest is wood, even the hardwood, which is much stronger than steel is cheaper as you just have to cut a plant and you get the wood"
He paused for a second to drink water from a glass that I just not noticed, and then further elaborated, "Secondly they are easy to make and as such you can get good quality ones cheaper and well made. The third is they are better than swords, they provide more reach and you can perform a variety of actions through them. There is a reason that angels and even medieval humans used spears, it is the best weapon in combat and it is very easy to learn"
He tsked for a second then said, "Of course our current generation is all about the show, all are attracted toward swords, no one thinks about why others are using something. Fourth, you can add a surprise in the lower end, one of my knights has a wind capsule in the end, whenever he throws the spear, he can increase its speed 10 X at a mental command, even if you have nothing fancy, you can keep any enemy at range and clip them till they die"
"The main point though is the force you can apply through it, it is very a large weapon, and as such, you can do a lot of damage through thrust the attack, killing is very easy with that, you would find that in supernatural world, many have developed ways to make them harder to hurt, tougher skin, shields of magic and such are quite common, with that you need a weapon that can price through that, no sword is better than spear in that department"
"You should use them with something that is good at close range, as many people thing, ones they are near your body, you would not be able to maneuver your weapon, which is correct for beginners, but it should be used with a weapon that is easy to control and of close range like knife"
What he said was true, spear really is a good choice for my weapon, I was thinking of making a sword, but if I would have a better weapon using less Ebrite, that is a good thing. I nodded toward him to which he smiled at me.
He then looked at his watch and asked, "Is there any other question in your tiny little brain that you want to ask this old man"
"Well, there is one, but no one talks that much about it, so I am kind of undecided on that" I replied.
"What are you thinking about, ask I am sure, it would not be something that I would not tell you about" he replied.
"Why is there so little information on the magic circle themselves?" I asked.
"Oh ho, that is a loaded question, still easy one though; circles are a way to make anything possible. Different factions use different ways to do anything with their magic, Norse use weapons to attack defend and things like that, Hindu use Mantra, you get the idea. These were developed by the top gods to help control your magic and using your imagination"
"The god that we fought, developed his own way, just like every major faction does, using a circle you can get much better results as they are used to make it easier to perform any action. First, you imagine a circle and then the runes in between, each rune interact with each other and whatever the action is performed, the magic in the circle is consumed and it dies"
"Similarly, Hindu use Mantra, they speak words of power and each word interact with each other to perform an action, a complex way to perform actions but still very good as you can build up power very easily, continue to recite the words would amplify the effects. Very dangerous to fight against"
"Alas, we can't use another way of using magic as no faction would share, how it perform any magic, I do know Hindu Mantra pass from a teacher to student's mouth to mouth and as such no one else knows about them"
"Now for us, we devils are still a branch of angels only and as such we can easily use circles, you can develop your own circle, it is easy to make simple ones, like for a single purpose, let me give you an example, you want a circle to lift objects in air using gravitation"
"You would have to first select an input rune, that would accept your magic, some conversion runes if you give normal magic instead of flavored, then there would be those that perform the action, life decreasing the gravity, force etc, and then the most important ones, desirable output ones"
I raised an eyebrow at the complex mechanism and asked him to elaborate on flavored magic and desirable outcome.
"A flavored magic is one that is different than normal, like your gravitational magic, you have changed magic from normal to giving it a function, which is better as all the things in the circle consume power, conversion done by a person is a lot better than with a circle, other than that desirable outcome is where things get tricky, you could have very specific output to broad ones but then there is room for error. Like you can use a gravitation lift rune to throw an object instead of just lifting but if it not properly made it can self destruct in your hand"
Yikes, I didn't know that, looks like fuinjutsu I will have to first learn about it some more. Though it may not be as dangerous as fuinjutsu as on the starting book the first 100 pages were just about how dangerous the art is and you better have a medic-nin nearby, if you do try to learn on your own. It went on to describe graphically why doing only a single stroke wrong, can lead to your hand or even your whole body disintegrating from within.
He further told me the danger that comes with making your own circle and why only established people with experience did any circle construction business, it was very easy to die if you are not careful. While devils are sturdy creatures, they still can die if things went wrong as it often does when you experiment with something. In the end, he asked me to meet him a few months later for the job. I replied to that, "I am enjoying hunting way too much to quit it just yet"
After a few more minutes he told me he still has work to do and as such we exchanged goodbye. I just flew off from there toward my home deep in thoughts, though still keeping an eye on the surrounding. Ronald has given me a lot to think about.
Thoughts:
Thanks for the reviews everyone, especially jrmcvay442, Azaira.
1 Tail Civilian 8(23)
2-3 Tail Genin 8-27
4-5 Tail Chunin 64-125
6-7 Tail Jounin 216-343
8 Tail Kage 512(City Destroyer)
9 Tail Jinchuuriki(non-biju-mode) 729(Country? Destroyer)
10 Tail Biju/Deity 1000 (Continent? Planet?)
We only have till 10 in this as that is the highest, being Inari of Shinto.
In DxD, it's written that gods can easily destroy the world, so yes the power level of Naruto and DxD fits better. I have posted it here in case anyone else wants to look at this.
jrmcvay442, buddy nope not going for all the hotness in one as then it is very hard to actually have a story, in case people want, I can write an overpowered as fuck SI that basically just want to fuck all the hotness. next few chapters are just setting base as everything is currently building in such a way that the SI can actually reach the top players in this world.
Now that is over, I am writing without any help apart from Grammarly and as such don't expect 100. I try to read it a few times, to clear out but still many are left.
Bye, next chapter next weekend.
