Chapter 16

When Junichiro woke up inside of the gene splicing pod, he felt numerous things. The biggest and most important thing was the gigantic black hole where his stomach used to be. As soon as the pod's door opened, he ordered one full meal after another. He didn't stop devouring food until he'd consumed enough for ten normal people, and even then he still felt a little peckish.

As for his body it was... different. He couldn't think of the words to describe what he was feeling. It was like there was a connection that had always been there but was turned off. Now it was turned on and he could feel more. He could... feel what he needed to do. He needed to meditate to learn more about himself, to access the changes to his life force that allowed for the use of Senjutsu. With practice he would be able to use Senjutsu to control the Ki, or life force, of himself, those around him, and the world.

He could also feel a change to his Demonic Power. It had already felt more violent after the change in his race but now it felt like it wanted to destroy. He could feel the Power of Destruction begging to be used to reduce anything and everything to less than dust. He would have to make a way to practice with his new powers, preferably while not inside of his apartment. Simple physical practice and low level spells was fine with his holohome system. But something as powerful and dangerous as the Power of Destruction? He liked not having holes in his home, thank you very much.

Junichiro left his home after a nice shower. He still used his aura hiding bracelet to keep his known power level lower than expected. It also wouldn't do for him to publicly shame Rias by showing how much stronger than her he was. He would likely always be stronger than Rias, but hopefully she could close the gap some with his help. Of course, even if her power became stronger than his base form, it wouldn't be a big deal. He could always boost and gain as much power as he desired. Once he was part dragon, his power would sky rocket rapidly. That would be done tonight.

Junichiro let out a sigh as he flopped onto his favorite spot next to Koneko on the love seat in the ORC meeting room. School had been boring and his body had been sore all day long. At least the pain meant he was growing stronger. He looked at all the members and noticed all of them looked a little annoyed as well. He grinned brightly at that, "How's everyone feeling?"

Akeno groaned while stretching her body in various ways. She was clearly trying to be provocative and trying to get a rise out of him. Since he wasn't interested in her, she got nothing for her efforts. While she pouted as his lack of reaction, Rias sighed and responded for the group, "We're all sore and will likely remain sore for quite a while." She brightened up immediately, "Still! The ability to use magic without limit is amazing! I barely got any sleep after spending so much time practicing every spell I knew just to see how strong I could make them!"

Kiba nodded in agreement with Rias, "I've never been able to summon so many swords. I even discovered that I could enhance their durability and the strength of their magic by pouring as much Demonic Power into them as I could. I've always had to be rather conservative with it in the past to keep from running out after making just a couple of swords."

Koneko flexed her pale and petite arm, "Strong."

Junichiro smiled at them all before he focused on Rias, "I'm glad to hear you started practicing." His voice took on a teasing lilt, "It wont do for me to be stronger than you." When she stuck her tongue out at him and muttered something about cheeky pawns, he added, "I, at least, want you to be magically stronger than me with my base stats. Obviously, I can become more powerful than anyone with enough boosts, but that doesn't count. On the bright side, I plan to focus on physical training for a while so you have time to surpass me. I need a stronger body to handle more of Ddraig's power."

He also had other things he wanted to work on, like finding and kidnapping Valerie Tepes. He didn't know exactly where she was, but he'd sent a ton of stealth drones to Romania where the vampire factions were located. The moment he found her, he was kidnapping her and putting her somewhere safe, after extracting her sacred gear. Her sub-species Seppiroth Graal was scary as fuck. Keeping it hidden was good for everyone.

Rias got his attention by speaking up, "You can work on your physical strength as you perform the duties expected from members of my peerage. Namely, passing out fliers to potential customers."

Junichiro raised an eyebrow and then smirked, "Sure, no problem."

Rias paused at his confident look. Most newbies hated this particular job, for him to just accept it... She narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. She might not have known him for very long, but she suspected he was up to something. She kept her eyes on him as she used a magic circle to summon a box of fliers. It was massive and must have contained tens of thousands of fliers, "Pass out as many as you can."

Junichiro just waved his hand to lift the box off of the ground and summon it to himself. Once it was close enough, it vanished into his storage ring. Seeing it disappear caused several raised eyebrows, "I'd forgotten to ask about that! How do you keep making things appear and disappear?"

Junichiro climbed to his feet while his school uniform shifted into more casual clothing. He gave Rias a cheeky grin, "Hammer space."

That wasn't exactly accurate, but now that he thought about it he could totally use magic to make a real hammer space. He'd do that later. Meanwhile, his explanation made Rias's eyes sparkle, "Is that something you can give to everyone?"

Junichiro nodded, "For the right price, of course I can." He crossed his arms over his chest and projected an aura of seriousness, "I have no issues giving you all things that will help you grow stronger and whatever else I feel like handing out for giggles." He eyed Koneko playfully, "Like food." She merely eyeballed him then went back to her snack while he continued, "Cosmetic or convenient things will generally have a price."

He tapped his chin with a smile, "On the flip side, I already owe you and Koneko-chan something, Rias-chan."

He did feel like he owned them for taking their abilities and giving them to himself. Making them an item in exchange seemed appropriate. The nanites didn't count since he felt those were a necessity for the whole group. He waved his hand in a dismissive manner, "Take some time and think about what you want from me. Just keep in mind that while I can make a lot, some things really are out of my reach. When you know what you want, let me know and I'll make it if I can."

Rias was practically vibrating in her chair with excitement. There were dozens, no hundreds of things she wanted him to make for her! What should she ask for first?! She had no idea why Junichiro felt he owed her and Koneko, but she would happily take whatever she could get! Koneko, wasn't nearly as excited as Rias but did seem to be lightly pondering what she could get him to make for her.

While those two thought, Junichiro approached Kiba, "Kiba-san, I have something I want to give you and an idea for you."

Kiba looked surprised, "What might that be?"

Junichiro grinned and summoned the Telekinesis Gem from his storage ring and held it up, "This is one of my magical gems. It doesn't grant magic, it just focuses on a specific kind of magic and amplifies any magical energy fed into it to make that magic stronger. This one is purely focused on Telekinesis Magic." Junichiro was suddenly grinning like a madman, "I strongly advise that you think of several different kinds of elemental swords whose only purpose is to explode when impacting something."

Kiba looked a little confused at that. Junichiro wasn't surprised. When it came to creativity with his sacred gear, Kiba was kind of an idiot. Junichiro continued to explain, "If you combine powerfully explosive swords of all kinds, powerful Telekinesis, and your new infinite mana, you become capable of carpet bombing a wide area and causing mass destruction. You could literally summon and launch a wall of swords at your enemies and laugh as they cower before you! Imagine the looks on their faces when the dodge the sword and it suddenly explodes into a blast of fire! Or ice! Or lightning!"

Everyone was staring at him shock at the absurdity of the idea. Kiba looked the most surprised, but his lips slowly curled into a wicked smile. Clearly the idea appealed to him so Junichiro shoved the gem into his hand, "To use the gem just feed Demonic Power into it and picture what you want to happen. Simple as that."

Kiba accepted this gem with a nod, "I'll start practicing."

Before Junichiro could leave, Rias spoke up, "Do you have any ideas for the rest of us?"

He totally did, and some bitch slapping to do in the case of Akeno and Kiba, but he couldn't say anything yet since he didn't know them well enough. Kiba's gift was just because he wanted to see a knock off Gate Of Babylon! Kiba's sacred gear was perfectly suited for the wasteful attack while Junichiro's, sadly, wasn't. Oh, he could do it, just nowhere near as easily as Kiba could.

Junichiro faced Rias and slowly shook his head, "Not really. I've never seen any of you fight. I only thought of helping out Kiba strictly based on what his sacred gear was and an idea I had already. Maybe in the future I can think of some fun stuff for everyone else."

Rias couldn't help pouting at that, something Junichiro thought was unfairly adorable, and nod her head in acceptance. Junichiro would help them all out over time. He could do all kinds of things to enhance them or give them greater strength. Hell, just the infinite mana generators inside of them all was enough to, eventually, make them the most powerful devils to have ever existed. Even Sirzechs, the most powerful devil alive, would be nothing before them. No matter how strong Sirzechs was, he still had a limited amount of Demonic Power to use.

When it seemed like no one else had anything to say, he waved his hand and used his portal gem to open a portal directly to his bedroom. Seeing a hole in the air leading to somewhere else shocked the entire room. Junichiro hopped through the portal and closed it behind himself before anyone could say anything. Ddraig laughed out loud, "You enjoy teasing those devils far too much!"

Junichiro laughed in agreement. It was time to mess with them more. His neighborhood had a lot of apartment buildings that ranged from small to massive, eight apartments to sky scrapers. He had no intention of standing around handing out fliers one by one when there was a much more efficient way to get rid of them.

He dropped a small pile of scrap onto his floor and used The Workshop to quickly convert the junk into complex drones. Along with the drones he made a VI to control them and a special long range frequency transmitter for it. He set the box of fliers on the ground and let each of the drones collect hundreds of them. Once each drone was loaded, he sent them all out of his apartment through a portal. The VI would control each drone and have the drones deliver a flier to each apartment and house mailbox within several miles until the fliers were gone. Easy.

With the drones doing his work for him, he had free time to do something else he wanted. He summoned his Boosted Gear gauntlets, "Alright Ddraig, it's time."

Ddraig grunted, "Are you sure, Partner? This will be extremely painful." Junichiro smirked, "Come now Ddraig, you've been with me long enough to know what I'm all about. Cheating!"

"Riiiiiight."

Junichiro could hear the eye roll in Ddraig's voice, but dismissed it as irrelevant. He changed his clothing into something more comfortable and had his holohome summon up a bed. Once he was comfortable and prepared he gave Ddraig the go ahead. Junichiro felt a wave of crippling pain flood his body for a brief moment before his nanites rendered him unconscious.

Junichiro awoke with a start. Energy was flooding through his body and it felt like someone had poured caffeine directly into his veins. Once his mind was fully awake, he took stock of the changes he could feel. First, breathing. Every breath he took filled his body with energy and strength. According to Ddraig, when a dragon breathed they absorbed the mana in the air into their bodies and used it to fuel themselves. When they exhaled, the injected life energy into the world. It was a form of symbiosis. The world gave dragons mana and the dragons gave the world life.

There was more though, he could feel energy pooling in his lungs and knew that with just a little focus he could breath out flames. Dragonfire, some of the most feared flames in existence. Not to mention, he had access to Ddraig's most potent flames meaning he could, potentially, destroy gods with a single breath.

Then he focused on his heartbeat. Every beat of his heart sent tremors through his body and filled it with strength. The mana he breathed in was pulled into his heart, the new core of power in his body. Demonic and Draconic energy merged together to become something more than their parts. Additionally, every time blood flowed into his heart, some of it was converted into draconic blood. The converted blood then flowed through his body carrying more energy and strength to everything. It wasn't converting him into a humanoid dragon, but it was giving his devil body significantly more energy to work with making him just that much better. It helped that his nanites were working to copy what his heart was doing and converting his blood that much faster.

All of this combined meant that every time he breathed he grew stronger, even if only just a tiny little bit. That combined with his infinite mana generator now pumping power directly into his heart, made it so that all day, every day, he grew a little stronger even if he did nothing. Combine that with the fact that devils naturally grew stronger over time as well... He could just sit on his hands and do nothing and he would, eventually, become the strongest being alive. Provided nothing stronger killed him first. That wasn't good enough though. He would push himself to grow stronger as fast as he could.

"Good morning, Partner. Looks like everything worked just fine. Though, your heart did stop for about an hour there. A normal person would have died."

Junichiro took the info that he was probably technically dead for an hour or so in stride. He knew his nanites could keep him alive through just about anything. In fact, the only way he could think of to actually permanently kill him would be to destroy his entire head. Even decapitating him wouldn't work since, over time, his nanites could reproduce and collect materials from nearby to rebuild his body. All while providing his brain the oxygen and energy it needed to live. It would suck and be the worst way to live ever, but he would live.

If you could even call something like that 'living.'

Junichiro stretched and had his holohome switch to a nice wide open bath, "Ddraig, I feel amazing so no amount of saying I died is going to make me feel worse."

His clothing melted away as he sank deep into the steaming water. He took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. As his breath left his mouth, the air ignited and flames licked at the water. Junichiro felt a giddy thrill run through his body at breathing fire, "That is so fucking COOL!"

He took another breath and then exhaled through his nose, little flicks of flame and a bunch of smoke flowed out of his nostrils. He couldn't help laughing at the experience. With the jokes and little tests done, he relaxed into the hot water. There was still time before school started and he could skip the walk today.

Rias looked up sharply when a hole in space opened up inside of the ORC's main room. Junichiro stepped through the hole in space leaving his apartment and entering the club room. Rias immediately shot to her feet and pointed an accusatory finger at him, "EXPLAIN MISTER!"

Junichiro paused for a moment at Rias's unusual outburst, then he grinned playfully, "It's a portal."

There, he explained it to her just as she wanted... in the most uninformative way possible. Rias growled while the portal closed behind Junichiro, "I meant explain how you did that! I've never seen portals like that before and teleportation works best with magic circles!"

Junichiro snickered and moved closer to her with a smirk, "Magic."

Rias actually growled at him while narrowing her eyes. Until she finally registered his metaphysical presence on her senses. She froze for a moment before her eyes widened in shock. She could feel mana in the air entering him when he breathed in and something potent coming out when he exhaled. She wasn't sure about what he was exhaling but it felt... nice. She walked around her desk and looked him over, "What did you do? There's something different about you this morning."

Junichiro blinked, "Huh. I didn't think you would notice so quickly. I asked Ddraig to make a few modifications to my body."

He tilted his head back and breathed out a small tongue of flames into the air. He couldn't help smirking at her dumbfounded look before he explained, "I asked Ddraig to replace my heart and lungs with dragon equivalents."

As soon as she heard what he said, Rias grabbed Junichiro by the lapels of his uniform and pulled his face closer to hers. It was easy for her to glare at him eye to eye since he was only an inch taller than her, "You did WHAT?!"

Junichiro just smiled happily and nodded his head even as Rias manhandled him, "Yup. Heart, lungs, throat, mouth, teeth, tongue, nostrils, and so on. I'm now at least part dragon and it feels amazing!"

Rias started jerking his body around while inspecting him as best she could. He might be a bit annoying and a lot ridiculous, but he was one of her precious peerage members and he'd just done something potentially life threatening. Junichiro patted one of her hands, "Rias-chan, I'm fiiiine."

Ddraig decided to pop up and add his two cents, "He is fine. His heart was only stopped for about an hour or so."

Junichiro instantly snapped a glare at the manifested gauntlets while Rias froze solid, "Thanks a lot Ddraig."

"My pleasure, Partner."

"YOUR HEART STOPPED FOR AN HOUR?!"

Junichiro sighed and swore to find a way to make Ddraig pay for opening his mouth. Until then, he expected to spend some time calming Rias down.

AN

Meant to get this out sooner but as always, life is unpredictable. Still, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as much as I did. I'm hoping to have more time to spend on writing so I can get more chapters out a bit quicker. We'll see if life agrees to let me.

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Lastly, I love reading reviews that aren't just crapping on my work. If you want to say something feel free to review (I do read every last one) or send me a PM. I also don't mind ideas for items. I don't know every story ever written so new ideas thrill me. I might use the idea or get inspiration for something else. Who knows?

Thanks for reading!