Ok, so, here's the power scaling Tier that I set up so far. I know where I'm taking it, and I already have the rest of it written out, but I'm only going to post as much as is relevant to the story so far.

Now, there are a few areas to this.

- First and foremost, the five categories of strength.

Power, Understanding, Tools, Skills, Other.

Power – Raw Power. This is the fundamental aspect of strength. How much energy is contained in an individual. The more power, the higher the Tier, and the higher the Tier, the higher all around your existence is in Body, Magic, and Soul.

Understanding – This is an esoteric area for concepts, laws, and such that will come at higher tiers. No need to worry about this for now.

Tools – Tools are any form of weapon, armor, equipment, accessory, or such that boosts an individual in whatever way.

Examples: Sacred Gears, Magic swords, Magic Boosting Rings, Modern Firearms, and even the Peerage system.

Yes, yes, I know. Many might disagree with labeling the Peerage chess set a 'tool,' but I have a founded opinion on why that is. However, I have not revealed this part yet, so I shall hold onto the answer for now.

Skills – Any form of ability that can be trained, learned, etc. There is fundamentally no absolute limit here, as a swordsman could just keep improving their skill if things lined up nicely for them.

Other – Other encompasses all the areas that only apply to unique individuals. An example would be bloodlines. Bloodlines are all vastly different from one another, and all supply different pros and cons depending on their source. Racial abilities are another.

Hm….you know, does anyone think I should change 'Other' to 'Body'? I just realized most of the 'Other' category items are related to body/blood.

These 5 categories allow anyone, at any tier, to jump ranks to fight higher-tier opponents. The greatest example is the Longinus Sacred Gears, which are really the most bullshit powers out there.

- Next comes the literal power ranking based on Power.

Every race has energy in various forms. Humans with Mana, Devils with Demonic Energy, Angels with Holy Energy, etc.

How much energy is contained within an individual determines their ranking.

Tier 0 belonged to the base humans or creatures without knowledge or ability to use mana. Classified as beings with 1 – 100 units of energy.

Tier 1 belonged to anyone with the slightest bit of mana control to just below Low-class. Usually, training mages in mage organizations, baby magical creatures, church exorcists, etc. They were classified anywhere from 100 – 200 units of energy.

Tier 2 belonged to anyone from Entry Low-Class to Peak Low-Class. Many races were naturally born at Tier 2. They are classified anywhere from 200 – 950 units of energy.

Tier 3 belonged to those stuck between the Low and Mid Classes. Tier 3 was the first true benchmark for all members of the supernatural world. Being at this Tier was about condensing the density of energy rather than increasing their mana pool and sat at 950 – 1000 units.

Tier 4 was Mid-Class. At Tier 4, the body and magic were changed enough to shrug off modern firearms without much issue.

The vital thing to take away from this is that every race has its own way of increasing the units of energy inside their core.

- The next part is Bottleneck Tiers.

According to my power scaling. Every other Tier starting at Tier 3, is a bottleneck between stages. The purpose of this is something that always bothered me in canon.

What does it mean to be a higher tier? To be known as a Mid-Class, High-Class, Ultimate, Satan, Super Devil.

To have more wings? To be more 'stronk'? I want answers, not vague concepts!

So I added cultivation elements. Between each stage is a Tier, and at this Tier, the individual has to convert the energy inside their core into a new form. From Gas to Liquid, from Liquid to….etc.

When an individual does this, their body, magic, and soul get washed in the higher grade of energy and rise to a higher state of being, making their flesh/bones/blood/hair inherently more durable. Making their magic denser and able to recover mana faster. Making their souls rise, improving willpower, personal characteristics, and more important aspects we can talk about later.

As that German scientist from the MCU movie said for Captain America, his serum would only enhance the existing mental characteristics that exist. I've considered why powerful DxD characters are so eccentric, and it makes sense to me that improving in Tier does not make one 'smarter' but just enhances what's already there. So a greedy person will become greedier, etc.

Now an important facet here is that moving up the tiers does not directly improve the physical abilities.

What I mean by this is aspects like Speed, Strength, Intelligence, etc. Evolving improves the durability of the body naturally, AND it increases the physical potential the individual can reach, but they still have to actually train their body to move faster, punch harder, etc.

Example: On a scale of 1 – 10, let's say the human limit for physical ability is 10.

Hei trains his body to 10, maxing it out at 10/10, and he can't grow further; his body won't let him.

Then he reaches Mid-Class(Tier 4), and now instead of 10 being the limit, it's 1 – 50, but his body is still at 10/50.

He can push his physical limits farther now, but he has to train his body to make the most of that potential.

Hope that makes sense.

- Final Area – Modern Weapons.

I feel like fanfiction has a weird mix of people who know nothing about guns, people who know fantasy guns, and extreme gun nuts who will tell me about the craziest shit out there.

Frankly, there are all kinds, and after a lot of research, I have to admit how deadly hot weapons really are.

Magic / Technology / Biology are all side by side to me in potential. I've seen stories that have used any of the three to beautiful extents.

Anyway, guns.

Guns are powerful. Hard to use skillfully in the heat of combat, but very powerful.

So how does that relate to supernaturals? Well, I added the cultivation elements mainly because of guns. I had to start asking myself, what would affect what? How much damage could what do against what?

A 9mm round, .45ACP, 10mm, .45 super, .50 AE, .357, .44 magnum, .454 Casull, 5.56 round, 7.76 round.

Shotguns – 10/12/16/20/28 gauge, grenades, RPGs, Subsonic/Supersonic/Hypersonic missiles.

Special rounds like armor piercing, hollow points, FMJs, dragon fire, and shit just goes on.

There is just so much. So I had to start thinking about the basic facts. No matter what the weapon, force is force, and even if a bullet can't penetrate, it can still apply the physical force of an extremely fast-moving object.

To put things into perspective:

The speed of sound is 751mph, or 1,125fps.

The fastest a human has ever run is 27mph.

A Boeing 747 travels at a cruising speed of 600mph, or 880fps.

A 9mm bullet travels at the lowest at 100mph.

A .357 bullet travels at 1290fps; that's over Mach 1.

A .454 Casull bullet travels at 1600fps; that's Mach 1.5.

The fastest bullets on the planet can travel 1,800mph; that's Mach 2.5.

Then you have missiles going anywhere from Mach 1 to Mach 10.

I'm going a bit far here, but the point is to show just how fucking scary modern weapons really are. Hei will primary dual pistols for this story, so anything over .454 Casull won't really matter.

The way I set it up is that at Mid-Class, a regular .454 Casull will not penetrate, but it sure as hell can knock the individual out, injure organs, or knock the wind out of them. IF it hits that it. Whether someone is dexterous enough to see/move/block with magical or physical means it is up to the individual, but if it hits, the effect is the same. Meaning, Hei will have to start looking into improving his weapons.

There are four areas of importance to Hei's guns.

#1:-Gun Material – The material his actual guns are made of. Even regular guns have their barrels warp under the heat of bullets. Hei needs to find magic metals to improve the durability of his guns. The more extreme the other categories, the more durable his guns need to be.

#2:-Bullet Shell – The material his bullet shells are made out of. They need to be strong enough to contain whatever he wants to put inside and deadly enough against whatever he is shooting. If the bullet shell is weaker than the payload, it will end badly. The most difficult aspect of the shell is that unless Hei can find a way to not lose them after firing, trying to make Mithril shells would be illogical.

#3:-Bullet Load – What goes inside the bullet. Gunpowder is used as a propellent in the bullet, but the filling is often metal shards, rubber, plastic, or a metal core. As these become more than useless against Mid-Class enemies and up, Hei will have to find magical reagents to replace gunpowder for added speed and force, as well as new payloads. From holy water, to blessed silver shrapnel, to celestial bronze, and so on.

#4:-Spells – Hei desires to figure a way to either Engrave a spell onto bullets in advance, or develop a spell he can memorize that he can cast into an empty bullet shell and fire, launching a spell at speeds unattainable by simple casting with the penetration and force of a physical bullet.

HOW Hei goes about solving all four areas are for the plot of the story. Nothing will be figured out overnight, and he will have struggles. He chose the path of dual pistols, and the challenges that come with it will be his to overcome.

Ok, I think that's everything to mention here. Oh, do you guys want a Greed Island List? I can supply all the KNOWN cards with their explanations listed.