"Isn't he beautiful?" A middle-aged man with golden hair and blue eyes said as he peered down at the little bundle in his arms.
"Yes, he surely is. We truly are blessed, this is our third son!" The woman in the bed who had just given birth said. Even if she had just given birth, though, she looked perfectly healthy and had not even a trace of her being in recovery like one would expect of a mother who just gave birth. Instead, she just looked slightly tired as if she had gone to the gym for a bit.
"Yes, we of the Phenex truly are the greatest!" Her husband said with pride in his tone, making his wife roll her eyes at her husband's words.
She cared for him, she really did, but his usual outbursts of excessive pride were one of the things that truly did not let her actually love him. But she did love their kids, which was enough for her.
"So, what should we name him?" The woman in the bed questioned, wanting to know what the name should be.
"A fitting name for a son destined for the greatness, he shall be-"
13 years later
3° Person P.O.V.
"Riser, my son, we are gonna be late!"
Lord Phenex was excited, today was a big day in preparation for what was soon to come. Dressed in his very best and most elegant attire, the richest man in the entire Underworld by an order of several magnitudes waited for his third son to show up.
And waited, and waited, and waited some more.
Turning to a servant, Lord Phenex spoke up.
"Go see what is taking my son so long to get here. We can't wait much longer or the good ones will all be taken."
The servant nodded and went away quickly, after around five minutes he returned with a slightly troubled expression.
"Lord Riser will be coming shortly, my lord."
"Good, but what was taking him so long?" Lord Phenex questions, wondering if his son was taking longer to get here because he was busy fucking some maids. Satan knows that, when Lord Phenex himself was young, he was never in time for anything due to that sort of thing.
No regrets there.
He was even late for his own wedding as he had to spend a good hour fucking all the maids of honor before the wedding. Venelana was an especially delectable one to have at the time, shaking hands with her husband after the wedding and knowing that her pussy was dripping with his cum was a huge turn-on to this very day.
"He lost his sense of time training in martial arts under instructor Qin." The servant says and Lord Phenex scoffs a bit at that, but decides to let it go.
He knows how his son was fanatic about getting stronger. Considering his son's desires, the Phenex clan was paying a considerable amount to the Buddhist Pantheon to get them to agree to 'lend' one of their best fighters to train Riser. Normally, one would consider such a price they were paying as too expensive a thing, considering the time he actually spent training being rather limited, but Lord Phenex would never care as, if his son wanted to learn some martial arts, then he would find him the absolute best instructor he possibly can.
Well, not many can teach pure martial arts better than Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of Qin. The man has fought countless battles and seen who knows how many fighting styles, and he could sense precisely how each fighting method worked and was most likely the best martial artist in pure technique in the entire world.
He only came over once every five days to train Riser as the young Phenex still had other things to do, but Lord Phenex heard the former emperor mention how satisfied he was with this disciple.
In the training room, a young boy of about 13 years old with blond hair and blue eyes was facing an older man of around thirty years old with black hair and white, almost as if blind, eyes.
The two moved as if one, they were striking at each other in close proximity, the blond boy trying his best to hit the older man but falling short most of the time due to the man dodging or blocking all strikes. Their moves grew frantic as the boy used his fists, elbows, knees, feet, and every other part of his body to try and get the man, but he would always fall slightly short in the end even if it was clear that the boy was improving his movements at a rather fast speed.
After a few more minutes of this, the two separated again, the boy breathing hard while the man looked calm.
"Hao, you did good." Qin Shi Huang said with a big smile, making the young devil finally relax slightly.
"Thank you, teacher Emperor." Riser Phenex, the third son of the Phenex Clan, said in respect with a polite bow.
"You will be getting your peerage in a few days, correct?"
"Yes, as a high-class devil in status I have the right for an evil piece set." Riser admitted easily enough and Qin Shi Huang nodded his head.
"What did I tell you about what being a king means?" Qin Shi Huang ass and Riser looks slightly troubled as he answers.
"Sorry, you were knocking me in the head when you talked to me about this." Riser admitted and Qin actually laughed.
"Hao, I did that." Qin admitted easily enough, he just did that because this disciple could take any beating anyway so there was no need to pull any punches. He could go as hard as he wanted without worrying about hurting the kid, which just made the training far faster than normal. "One who never doubts in his decisions, never yields to the enemy due to fear, never blindly relies on others, and always stands as the leader of his people. That is what makes a king."
"Yes, Sifu." Riser said, his teacher nodding his head at that.
Soon, it was time for his teacher to go back even as he promised to come back with a gift for the next time they see each other. Honestly, while he may have been hired to come teach Riser, the former emperor quite liked the boy and his drive for power. It reminded Qin of himself, someone with the same hunger for power while not being a power for malicious intent.
After that Riser snapped his fingers and a magic circle appeared beneath him and passed through his body. All the sweat and dirt on his body was eliminated instantly as it did so, moving to his room Riser was greeted by his maids who quickly dressed him up with the clothes his mother had selected for this outing.
With the clothes in place Riser went to the perfume section of his room, several perfumes could be seen from all sorts of brands and a slightly proud smirk could be seen on Riser's face. Despite not carrying much about clothing and whatnot, he actually had a hobby regarding perfumes and sometimes even tried to make one or two himself.
Moving a bit he selected one of those perfumes, it was a small flask in deep blue, and using it on himself, Riser quite enjoyed the scent of it. Not too strong, not too weak, just perfect.
Snapping his fingers, a magic circle appeared beneath his feet and after a second it flashed brightly, Riser teleporting to the front lounge of the mansion where his father waited.
"Finally, you took far too long in your classes. If we had to wait any longer all the top goods would be sold." Lord Phenex said in slight irritation at the idea of not being able to get his son the very best.
Riser, on his part, looked troubled at those words.
"Do we really need that? I mean, I am confident in my skills and I don't have any reason to hurry up so much to find a peerage and-"
"Nonsense." Lord Phenex cut him off. "All devil clans who care about their kids do something like this. We either help find a good seedling with huge potential and prepare them to let them join our kid's peerage, or directly buy someone to join the peerage. I have in good authority that even the Gremories have been snooping around various places to search for the first few peerage members for their little princess, and they are families with the Satan Lucifer. If even they, who should be the most stapler to the rules, do this, then, of course, we would also do it."
Riser sighed but nodded his head. He was not that interested in going out to 'buy' people as if they were cattle, that put a bad taste in his mouth. But, he was not shocked about this turn of events.
In the end, Riser knew that many did go out to either buy servants or peerage members with house Beleth as they were experts in training others on how to serve.
Honestly, that house was one that Riser understood was problematic to deal with. On one hand, as a member of the New Satan faction, House Phenex should not be involved at all with a house that was known for doing this sort of work, being the premiere trainer of servants and slaves in the supernatural world, having business deals with all sorts of groups and only not being touched by the current Satans because they were far too connected with far too many influential people.
On the other hand, house Beleth also did, in fact, get some of the very best in servants and people with strong potential for sale. Truthfully, most peerage members in devil society came from the house Beleth's hands and the new satans had little choice but to turn a blind eye to this as, this way, there was less of a chance of international incidents when a devil tried to go and capture someone he really shouldn't.
At least house Beleth got contact with other pantheons to buy their undesirables, criminals, or captured enemies as well as humans with strong potential that no one would care about.
It was safer for the devil kings to get peerage members like that, and was also that much better for the society as a whole even if the practice was disgusting.
"Now come, we have just so much time before the auction starts and if we miss it we can only buy the open stock, and those are not of as high a quality." Lord Phenex said, putting a hand on his son's shoulders as they were soon teleporting away.
Riser's P.O.V.
This world sucks.
No two ways about it, the underworld under the New Satan Faction may be quite nice on the outside, but this is undoubtedly still hell.
How else to explain this sort of place, where people and items are so freely traded around as if they were nothing.
I am Riser, Riser Phenex. Yeah, the famous douchebag that had tried to 'force' himself on the main heroine of Highschool DxD... only to be beaten up by a new devil who barely knew how to fight but had a shiny weapon and cheated indiscriminately during their fight (seriously, using holy water in a fight like that was unfair).
I can still remember when I got sent here, and I cursed my luck to hell and back a few dozen times. It was just a dumb random CYOA I did for the heck of it, just for fun. Then, after going to sleep, there I was in a dark and wet 'cave' with a light at the end of the tunnel.
Look and behold, I was in my new mom's pussy and being pushed out. Gotta say, not the best of sensations and I honestly feel that it was a rather traumatic experience.
It took me an embarrassingly long to understand what was going on and, after I did, I will openly admit that I panicked like a little bitch.
I mean, I had only two decades or so between being born and when we have several world-ending disasters to happen one after the other, and the best defense we have was a perverted limp dick virgin with a tits fetish. Yes, that is how I see the 'main character' since no one can convince me he can get it hard, otherwise, he would have put it to use long ago with naked girls literally rubbing themselves at him while they are in bed and openly declaring they want his kids.
After I realized my reality I decided that I wouldn't be like the original Riser who was stupidly overconfident. No, my powers may be naturally amazing but that only goes so far and the enemies would know of them. Instead, I have to actually go train.
Like, enough training to make Sairaorg look like a chump by sheer comparison. That is the only feasible way for me to survive this particular hellhole.
As such I did not care one wit about playing around, socializing, or shit like that. I am not the heir anyway, that is for my eldest brother or my second brother. As a third son, at best I will either be the husband consort/breeding bull of another house, at worse I will make a living out of rating games. For neither I have to overly worry about etiquette or politics, having a lot more free time that I focus on training.
My whole focus has been and is on getting stronger. I used every second I could for that objective. I needed power, and the first thing I learned as soon as I could was how to use mind magic to allow me to put orders on my body to move while my mind does other things and doesn't register the strain or pain from training whatsoever.
The normal reality of needing to slowly raise the pressure on the body for fear of the body collapsing or causing injuries just does not exist for any one of the Phenex clan. Our regeneration ability is so strong that, as long as we have magic reserves, our bodies regenerate instantly from any harm that isn't holy in nature.
As such, I just program my body to constantly push itself to the breaking point and keep on pushing it constantly to the breaking point at every moment. Of course, I first figured out how to remove the sensation of pain and exhaustion in my body and put it in auto-pilot BEFORE I started to train my body. I may want to be physically strong, but I have no desire to actually 'feel the burn' from exercise.
The only times I don't keep this up are when I am studying magic, when my magic reserves are weak, when training with my teacher, or moments like now when I have no choice but to participate in a social event. Even when I go to sleep, I put orders on my body to keep training and moving about, but I let my mind sleep as if I was in an extremely comfortable bed.
Hells, the only reason why I even bothered to come over to this slave trading center/auction is that I understand that this is a good opportunity to find someone to put into my peerage I will be receiving soon. I have absolutely no interest in stupid things like rating games (they have no appeal to me besides as ways to train against different enemies), but a Peerage may be useful in actually helping me deal with the threats moving forward.
Not that I would over dedicate myself to finding peerage members, I don't have the time to do so nor the inclination to go out of my way to spend weeks obsessed about a servant or another.
A Peerage is an extra that may or may not help, not an obligatory aspect of my survival.
Besides, I already have a few that, if the CYOA I did got it right, I will find one way or another or just happen to meet soon enough.
As another person is sold, I look on bored as the next one, a human girl with a fire manipulation sacred gear, is presented to the public. I have no interest in her, she seems like a frightened cat and her gear isn't that useful in my eyes, so instead, I close my eyes as I think.
'Status.'
Name: Riser Phenex
Age: 13 years old
Race: Pure Blood Devil (Phenex)
Strength: 980 (10 for normal humans)
Speed: 400 (10 for normal humans)
Endurance: ?
Magic amount 200000/200000
Martial Arts 79/100
Fire Magic 96/200
Wind magic 94/200
Water Magic 12/200
Earth Magic 14/200
Thunder Magic 13/200
Space Magic 40/200
Mind Magic 60/200
Comprehensive Strength Evaluation: peak High-Class devil
Perks:
Super Devil - A transcendental existence amongst devils, your demonic power transcends what is considered normal or possible allowing you to potentially reach the same level as Sirzechs or Ajuka without depending on any item or external help;
Enduring Will - Training or Working out will carry twice the improvement across the board. With effort and resolve you can achieve the same level of physique or higher than the peak of Sairaorg within a few years;
Well of Magic - The amount of magic you´ll be able to hold is 10 times larger than others of the same level of power. You can increase your magic reservoirs with training much faster than others, but you would still need to train to be able to control it properly;
Creative Thoughts - A devil's greatest power is the ability to use their magic to make anything they imagine into reality, this perk allows your imagination and precision of what you imagine to become much stronger than the norm;
Harem Love - You are in an ecchi harem world, and this perk shows it. With this, you can ensure that no jealousy is created amongst the girls in your harem and they accept sharing much easier. They also receive a special crest in the form of a tattoo that not only creates an emotional link amongst you, allowing you to feel when they are in distress, but also protects you from the dreaded NTR or that any girl you mark suffers the effect of Dragon Aura;
Holy Resistance - While it isn't full on immunity to holy power, this lessens the damage from holy powers in you by 80% compared to other devils of your power level;
Senjutsu - You have a natural affinity for Senjutsu, allowing you to draw the power of the life energy around you to empower you further. Please note that this only increases your affinity, you would still need to train to unlock and learn how to use it since devils are not normally suited for this;
Enhanced Shapeshifting - Now you have a larger degree of control over your shapeshifting ability, allowing you to manipulate your body's size, form, and such. If combined with Creative Thoughts you may even be able to manipulate parts of your body to become that of another species or even straight out turn into another species in form.
Evil Presence - allows you to use your dark energy to corrupt objects or people's minds. Turn a holy blade into a demonic one suited for you, or turn even the holiest of beings into your willing servant. Please note that the stronger their willpower and strength the longer this process would take.
Yeah, I have something similar to a gamer system. But I can only call it similar at most since I have no levels, no 'gamers body', no 'gamers mind', and I have never seen anything like a quest or something like that. The only use of this thing is to let me better quantify what I got after these years of effort.
The CYOA was mainly about perks I wanted to get, and I fully regret having taken the Pure Blood Devil race. If I could I would go back and choose to become a Half-Devil since it would mean I can get a Sacred Gear or even a Longinus, but I made this build thinking with my dick instead of how practical things would truly be.
That is why I choose pure blood devil and used all these perks that focused mostly on getting strong easy and getting other girls. I mean, Evil Presence doesn't really help me in a fight and I only got it because I was thinking of making Asia be a slutty nun.
Sure, I still got great powers, but if I could I would have taken some other perks like Regeneration which would let me recover from injuries faster like my bloodline powers, but without me needing to spend my magic energy to do it. Or some other 'shonen main character' powers, like the ability to grow stronger when in a tough spot or some shit like that.
But NOOOO, I had to pick Enhanced Shapeshifting in hopes of making me have a horse dick.
I deeply regret my choices then.
Besides, even with these perks, getting my current stats was not that easy. While my physical stats grow easily thanks to me cheating (regeneration like mine should count as cheating), my magic stat growth is much slower as it represents the total mastery over the element. Making them actually grow is fucking hard. Sure, at the start they were easy to grow, but the higher they become the tougher they are to grow.
Well, even if I am complaining, at least my current stats are honestly impressive.
After all, Sairaorg who has just unlocked his Touki was not even a third of my physical strength. Sure, his speed and mine are not so different, but my strength growth is way higher than his and I have other things to learn besides only physical arts. My different magic affinities are also relatively high, I have looked around and, from what I could gather, the 70s point is around the power of a high class to the ultimate class devil who specializes in that one element.
My guess about why my comprehensive strength evaluation says I am at the peak of High Class is because, while I have the raw power, my battle experience has not grown enough just yet. Well, even with my lackluster battle experience, if my magic reserves or higher level magic attribute mastery grows any further I should become Ultimate Class right away.
The auction continued, and now some items of more interest started showing up including things like monster eggs and such. Father was disappointed I did not buy anyone else except for a certain purple-haired human who had a great talent for fire magic.
Yeah, I bought Yubelluna. She was the original Riser's Queen and had enough power to compare easily with Akeno at the start, and that with likely little true training. If I train her hard enough she should be able to become at least Ultimate Class in ten years, probably even approach Satan Class if I can get her anything from the Gatcha to help.
Father tried to push me to buy more, but I did not see much of interest. There was a
It took a while before the 'gran finale' of the auction.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, for our grand finale. The thing you all came for!" The auctioneer then made a sign and a magic circle appeared behind him. From it, a blond-haired woman with red eyes appeared dressed in a rather elegant attire. "This one is a very special catch, a vampire. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have found a rare pure-blood noble vampire for you on this fine day. She is a member of the Carmila faction who has been in conflict with the Tepes Faction recently. Having been captured together with others from her faction, she was too young for breeding with the members of the Tepes Faction, and with them needing money for their ongoing war she was sold in bulk together with some of the undesirables from the Tepes Faction. She and the rest will be sold in batch, two even have yet unawakened Sacred Gears! The starting price for her and the rest starts at twenty million demis!"
The price was a big high, vampires are not overly special in the grand scheme of things and were known for having too much pride, making them prone to rebel and go astray. The excitement in the crowd was not so big, no one was willing to pay for her. Sure, buying her would get two sacred gear users, but the others did not understand what their sacred gears may be.
For me, though, I could understand this very, very well.
"You want this one, son?" My father asks, I guess he noted my interested gaze.
How could I not want her, when I knew of her. Elmenhilde Karnstein, she is a vampire noble with immense potential under the right command and training. Honestly, vampires are likely the race with the highest natural potential out there, if trained right. I also knew that, in CANON, after drinking some of Ravel's blood she could copy some of her skills.
I don't know if this is normal for all vampires, but regardless she may be able to copy the bloodline magic of other supernatural beings or devils. That alone makes her valuable enough for me to want her.
As I nod my father stands up and proudly proclaims.
"Five Hundred Million for her and the rest of the batch she came with."
Hearing this everyone turns in shock to see who would pay so much, but seeing that it was my father no one was shocked anymore nor did they bother trying to compete with him. No one in the underworld can compete with house Phenex in terms of money, even the Grigory as a whole cannot compete as our house alone has more money than their entire faction.
We truly are just that filthy and obscenely rich.
"Sold!" The auctioneer said excitedly, Elmenhilde glared in our direction as she was led out. She clearly is not happy about her circumstances, guess I will have to work on that a bit.
Well, it shouldn't be THAT impossible to deal with her. She got in love with fucking Issei for almost no real reason, literally. I don't even remember what he did that might have attracted her besides showing off how strong he was at the time and 'saving' her faction... even if this saving was unintentional as he was just fighting to help a friend that was not even related to her in the first place.
Whatever, I will just treat her with enough respect and, if she becomes too troublesome in the future, I will just trade her away at a later point. I may have been a human in my past life, but I am not going to go crazy over trying to make someone like me. What I need now is dependable people, buying her is more a bet than anything else really... much like any peerage member that isn't from a Gremory devil.
And, in the end, the bigger gain would be the extra batch with her, especially if the ones in the said batch include Gasper and Valerie. Neither is all that interested in fighting or something, but both are veritable Longinus users.
Even if I don't make them join my peerage, simply having them obey me as a servant would already be a huge boom.
After that, me and father went around to see the rest of the regular stock, and see if anyone of interest was around. In the end, I found several of the original Riser's peerage members present as well as some other humans with magic potential and even one other I actually recognized.
Namely, the people from the prequel of Highschool DxD, namely Sae Toujo, the childhood friend of Slash Dog. If she is here then I guess THAT plot went up in flames somewhere, which might be troublesome as I do not know what this will imply moving forward (never really read much of those light novels, only checking their wiki for Lavinia pics).
I can only assume it won't be particularly pretty, but I rather doubt it will make this world any more likely to have an armageddon. There was some mention of experiments in making artificial sacred gears and a rebellion against the noble houses of Japan or some shit like that, it honestly has nothing to do with me except for now not knowing what happened to Tobio.
The man is very scary, but if I buy his childhood friend and never touch her, just give her back if he ever shows up, it should be enough to get the guy to not attack me if he ever comes my way.
Maybe I can even make him an ally, who knows.
Whatever, I pointed to all those I thought would be good and dad did not hesitate to buy them all, now clearly more excited than during the auction when I never seemed interested in buying anyone. Probably excited because I am 'following in his footsteps (he DOES have a 66 harem and still fucks several women outside as well as all the maids of the mansion that do not 'belong' to one of his sons), or maybe he is just happy to be able to flex his money around by buying so many people at once.
Who knows, my dad is weird like that.