Story 5: Chapter 2: Collecting Skills.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 2: Collecting Skills.
- Samuel White -
A week into the world and my transformation has completed. My demonic power has also increased a great deal. It was a bit lower than High Class but was increasing at a decent rate. We were hoping that I would get to that level of power soon even if I just trained myself for a few days.
Four days were left from the day I had decided to go and meet a member of the Lucifuge Peerage. Wow, that felt odd.
Today however, the Vali team were returning.
I had actually held back at copying the Skills from Rias. I gave her a reason and we both agreed to accept that it was quite viable.
The reason was… if Rias had C Ranked Luck, which was the Highest Ranked Skill on her entire menu, how much Luck would Issei have?
Although my Demonic Power is slightly lower than a High Class Devil's, my overall strength reached that of a High Class Devil recently. I could even fight at a higher level with promotion.
For the last four days, all I did was go out to copy skills at night, return back home, cook food and train till we dropped. Ate food, rested, again trained till we dropped. Finally clean up and go to sleep. Rinse and repeat. My System showed my comprehensive strength to be D Rank now. It meant, I could copy stuff from C Rankers and hopefully Vali Team won't be above that. At least not all of them.
Also, with my promotion to the D Rank, I got a few new upgrades. The range again increased and was now one metre more at 3 metres. I got another Card with a special effect. It was similar to the first one except with a different function. It lets me copy the Skills of more than one person in my range only once.
"Do you remember the plan?" My new roommate asked me and I nodded.
We were going to hide everything about my past from everyone. For everyone else, I was an experimental baby created by the cult members who were trying to sacrifice me to summon something. I was already a devil by birth although I didn't know my parents. This would make any bloodlines I copy easy to hide or rather explain if I do get found out.
Apparently, when Rias did find me, I was alone. The cult members were all dead. Kuroka didn't see me as a human and I could easily be passed as a natural devil.
It was a good plan and we agreed to it. If someday I awakened some new powers, I would know what else was put into the cauldron to create me.
At this point, I was a highly talented guy who learned things at a great speed.
The reason behind this was also the skills I had planned to copy from these people.
I would first meet them and then make a list of skills each of them have. If there are things beyond our expectations, we will change the plans the very next day, we will decide to copy the skills from them.
These days, Rias has been working on different forms of Magic. The plan was for her to join the Vali Team and thus the Khaos Brigade. She will hide her identity and will thus need to be able to use different magic to fight. She did know general Devil Magic but didn't use it often as a medium of attack because the Power of Destruction was just too good at that.
On that note, I explained to Rias the details of her Gremory Bloodline. It turns out that while they had much larger demonic power reserves compared to the other devils and even some houses, the Gremory weren't known to have any definite power. Supposedly, their power was Camel Taming, which was what the first Gremory, Runeas, was known for, her love of camels.
Rias however hated camels. No, to be more precise, she was scared of camels.
Thankfully, the Gremory Trait was different from this.
The Gremory Luck thing had some truth to it because the real power of the Gremory Bloodline was Luck Manipulation. Although, at lower levels, it was just passive.
I don't think it would even show up unless she developed her powers to C Rank or above. I could hazard a guess that her luck with Riser ran out because her father was working against her while her brother couldn't exactly support her. Her father was stronger and her luck was suppressed. It was passive and nothing could be controlled or even known for sure but… none of it stopped her anger flaring up towards her father.
She was now training to improve her powers to control them consciously.
It was hard. Extremely so.
We didn't have any line of thought to train such an abstract power like Luck.
Currently, we were only deciding on the outcomes of a coin toss or picking cards from the deck. She was starting with these but I saw a craze in her eyes when she was training these powers. I had to convince her to tone down the training she had planned initially, which involved her walking through a room which was being showered by magic and forcing her luck to save her.
It sounded like Observation Haki training but instead of awakening her Observation Haki, she was forcing her passive Luck to get a feel of the power and try to control it consciously.
According to her, real danger would force her Demonic Powers to develop faster, which despite me not wanting to agree was actually true.
I in the meantime learned the Devil's skin contact healing from her. It was so we could heal each other after training.
I mean, we were sleeping together… naked anyway, so, why not make good use of it… well more good use of it.
She was good for keeping my nightmares away and I did the same for her.
"I do. I have too many inconsistent memories to make it qualify that I was experimented on and the rest can be attributed to the ritual." I said as I pulled her closer to me, her hands wrapped around me as well and she lay her head on my chest. "You on the other hand should avoid training that can get you hurt like today. At least until I find a way to heal you properly."
"I was just trying to see how it would work. I had no idea what the Gremory power was. I don't think anyone does. They still think it's Camel Taming because my ancestor had taken a liking to camels. Those weird creepy….ugh. So, now that I know of this, I want to master it. I want to rub it in the face of someone who was selling me for a Bloodline that he couldn't even use his own bloodline."
Yup. That hate is strong.
"Yes. I will support you in this but first let me learn a skill that can cure you if things go wrong. I think Kuroka's Senjutsu would be better suited for something like this."
"Yes. Take a nap. Whatever happens,we will face it together tomorrow."
"Hmm."
No other words were said. This was becoming the normal routine for us. The basic knowledge of Senjutsu and Touki helped me to regulate my blood flow to certain areas. So, not all of our cuddles were awkward. The mornings were different though. A half asleep me cannot control anything and she is greeted by Sam Jr. every morning.
But hey, like Kazuma says, I am an advocate of True Gender Equality.
- Kuroka -
She snuck into the room to check upon the runaway princess and her new partner.
To be honest, the decision to take her in was a bit random. She did realise that she had left Shirone in a very difficult situation and although she meant well for her, if it hadn't been for Sirzechs Lucifer, her little sister would have been dead. Then, this princess spent a long time getting her sister to open up a bit. She missed her old Shirone but compared to what things could have been, she was still grateful to have a sister at this point. Vali had surprisingly been quite easy about the whole situation. So had Arthur and Le Fay, the former being in the same situation in a way. As for Bikou, the monkey didn't care. Overall, the entire group had been quite alright with their new addition.
Rias was someone with potential and with being on the run and encountering difficult battles, this potential would only be revealed.
It was her new pawn that she was worried about.
There had been no information about those cult members. They were doing a summoning of some sorts.
The boy was a sacrifice.
At this point, different people have different reactions to others. She didn't mind the good reactions. It was the bad ones that worried her.
Rias was already broken from her situation. If the guy turned out to be a traitor, it would completely break her.
Vali had told her to let it be and let her handle it but as someone who brought her into this group, she thought it as her responsibility to look after her, if only slightly.
Thus, she snuck into the bedroom to see how things were going.
Though, she was not expecting the scene in front of her.
Two bodies, wrapped around each other, without a shred of clothing on each. She could see the way they wrapped their arms around each other, protectively that they were quite comfortable in this position which indicated that it was not the first time this had happened. She felt the energy around them, relaxed. It was much different than what she had felt from Rias, the first night she had brought her here. It seemed that the boy did a lot of good for her in such a short time.
She then proceeded to put a hand on the boy and check him for any sign of spells used in case he was actually taking advantage of the princess and what she found almost made her rethink her results. She again rechecked and the results were the same.
The boy was completely different than a week ago.
The Demonic Power was almost at the level of a High Class Devil. His body had become more toned as well. His life force was aligned, signs of a Touki user and his muscles had changed almost to the extent of being unrecognisable.
What the heck nyaa!?
Just what the fuck happened in the last week to make this guy into this? She then remembered that the guy took eight pawns, the same as the Red Dragon kid. A guy with the same potential as the Boosted Gear user while not having a Sacred Gear of his own. Is this what that was? A devil guy with the potential of a Longinus?
This is quite appealing. She could see why the princess wrapped herself around him so quickly. A good choice of mate.
– Sam –
I woke up surrounded by softness. The soft feeling on my back, making me warm. I moved slightly and my hand grabbed something soft in front of me again.
"Ahhhh."
I knew that sound and to make things even better/worse the sound made the softness behind me shake lightly. I pressed my elbow behind me, pressing into the softness.
"Mmanyaa."
. …
… .
I gripped the one in front of me because I recognized the voice. My senses spread lightly over the area, searching for an area that can be easily defended.
Next thing, I tightened my body, my touki flaring slightly as I took Rias in my arms and in the next moment, I was on the other end of the room with a window behind us.
The bed crumbled by my sudden move.
It was at this moment that I saw the figure who was hugging me from behind.
Black hair, golden eyes, buxom figure but the most prominent features would probably be the cat ears and tails behind her as she took a defensive position like a cat.
The movement awakened Rias who looked around, alerted and saw the person. "Kuroka!"
Ah… I might have jumped the gun.
"Sam, it's fine she's a friend." I know that now. I let her stand up again and relaxed. Kuroka relaxed too.
"I am sorry. I was surprised when I felt another person behind me."
She rubbed her head sheepishly.
"I was tired and you two looked so comfortable so I decided to take a nap to nyaa~. Still did you not like me pressing on your back to react like that? Nyahahahaha."
By this time, Rias also understood what was happening and just held her head, massaging it. She created a magic circle and fixed the damage to the room. I too lent a hand and Kuroka just watched.
With things fixed, we sat down in the dining room. I warmed something for her to eat, sitting beside Rias too.
"It was a good reaction time nyaa. I think I even sensed Senjutsu and Touki just then. Good job on the use."
I took the opportunity to scan her as we were sitting relatively close.
C Ranked Enhanced Senses
C Ranked Enhanced Speed
C Ranked Demonic Power Reserves
C Ranked Devil Magic
C Ranked Space Magic
C Ranked Senjutsu
C Ranked Yojutsu
D Ranked Enhanced Physique
D Ranked Barrier Magic
D Ranked Poison Resistance
…
…
There were tons of skills in her list.
"Thank you." I nodded lightly.
"He is very shy, isn't he nyaa~. Then again, the position you two were in, maybe not." She smirked at Rias.
I looked at Rias and grabbed her hand under the table and she smiled at me in return. With the signal received, I started the copy.
C Ranked Skill took 20 minutes in the range to complete.
It was a drastic increase from 5 minutes for a D Ranked one. I did get a chance to copy a few of them from a group of magicians.
Thankfully, she was busy eating and talking to us so it was quite fine. I wonder how much time the higher ranked skills will take to be copied
What I copied was the C Ranked Senjutsu because it was the best one I could get out of her. It had all the things I needed for the moment. Sensing, Defence Ignore, Healing and Hiding Presence among other things. It's single-handedly one of the best skills out there. I understood it even more when I knew her experiences.
Meanwhile, Rias explained about my situation to her. She looked a little sympathetic because she was also a part of the experiments and maybe understood what it felt like.
Dammit, now I feel bad for lying to her.
It was still early in the morning. 5 am to be precise so we decided to rest for the day. We had barely had four hours of sleep and with the amount of training we were putting in, cutting on sleep is not something we can afford.
Kuroka decided to get in with us. It might have been my imagination but I felt Rias get even closer to me, her legs and thighs covering my crotch directly this time. Kuroka sniggered but got back in the previous position only this time, there was no kimono in place and the softness I had felt before was pushed to a whole new level.
Was she jealous of Kuroka sharing our bed?
Touki and the newly upgraded Senjutsu only helped so much. So, I caressed her back lightly. She opened her eyes a little and looked at me on which I slowly approached her and my lips touched her forehead. She looked at me, wide eyed but then a light dusting of pink appeared on her cheeks and she hid her face in my chest. It seemed to have relaxed her a little.
Yup, she was jealous alright.
With these many emotions running around, how does one even think of a harem?
"So, this is the new member you picked up?" Bikou jumped around me while asking. His monkey side showing up.
"Hello. My name is Samuel but you can call me Sam."
"Hello hello newbie. You can call me The Great Bikou or Senior or Senpai."
"My name is Arthur Pendragon. This is my little sister Le Fay Pendragon."
"Vali."
"And you already know me. We had a very enjoyable night together. Oh, I liked it when you were rough. I mean breaking the bed."
The last one didn't need any introduction. She had noticed Rias' emotions and was at this point just teasing the two of us.
Le Fay grew red at the reveal while Arthur only rolled his eyes. The other two didn't even react.
The one whom this was aimed at however did react.
Rias' lips twitched slightly but she controlled herself quickly.
I, in the meantime, scanned the people and took in their skills.
B Ranked Divine Dividing
C Ranked Demonic Power Reserves
C Ranked Devil Magic
C Ranked Martial Arts
D Ranked Demonic Power Control
D Ranked Dragon Bloodline
E Ranked Lucifer Bloodline
…
…
His Lucifer Bloodline was pretty undeveloped. Then again, I guess he was always focusing on his Divine Dividing and never really focused any attention on his Lucifer side.
His dragon side is much stronger than his Lucifer side.
I thought for a moment and started the copy of the Lucifer Bloodline.
Why so? Because I was already a Devil and that was the Top Bloodline among the Devils. Sure, the Dragon Bloodline can be cool but me, getting a dragon side will be noticed by Kuroka and Bikou instantly. And that would raise a lot of questions. Not to mention the extra weakness to Dragon Slayer and Dragon Tamer abilities.
Thankfully, the E Ranked Skill Cards take only 2 minutes to copy.
It was done very soon.
The next up was Bikou.
B Ranked Monkey King Bloodline
C Ranked Enhanced Physique
C Ranked Touki
C Ranked Enhanced Sense
C Ranked Enhanced Strength
C Ranked Enhanced Endurance
C Ranked Enhanced Reflexes
C Ranked Magic Resistance
C Ranked Staffmanship
C Ranked Martial Arts
C Ranked Acrobatics
D Ranked Senjutsu
…
…
I started the copy on the C Ranked Touki. Although, the B Ranked Monkey King Bloodline is very enticing, I am pretty sure that the scent of a Youkai will be noticed on me very soon. Moreover, I didn't know if I would grow a tail all of a sudden or not. It was too risky. Physique can be trained by oneself. My Physique is almost at D Rank now. But Skills couldn't be trained that easily without proper help and instructions and I doubted that I would find many High levelled Touki users lazing around for me to copy from that easily.
Arthur's Skill List was much more stable. It looked like the Skill List of someone who was groomed to be a king, which was not exactly far from the truth.
C Ranked Swordsmanship
C Ranked Reinforcement Magic
C Ranked Strategy
C Ranked Holy Swordsman
D Ranked Martial Arts
…
…
Le Fay on the other hand was probably the one with the most Skills among this group. She was basically the encyclopaedia of magic. Apart from her D Ranked Magic Power Reserves which was still quite good for her age, she was basically a Genius in all types of Human Magic including some really esoteric ones.
"So, those bastards were doing some kind of genetic experiments on Sam and then tried to use him in a ritual?"
"Do you have the ritual's details? Maybe I could figure out what they were doing?" Le Fay asked.
"The entire place was destroyed. There were no survivors."
"Do you remember anything, Sam?"
"I… have too many memories. I don't know which ones are my own and which ones are implanted and which ones come from…"
"Come from?"
This was when Rias took control of the conversation. "I believe that Sam might have some abilities of a Seer."
….
….
"What!"
"I know it's very hard to believe but from the things he has told me, I am inclined to believe that it's true. Some of them were things that only I knew of. Some things are completely different but some are exactly the same."
At this point, a different voice joined in the conversation.
"Such abilities are not unknown. Although, very rarely are they strong enough. The Biblical God was one of the users of Divination too and so is Indra. The future is not fixed but they can provide some clues to what it can be."
Two light blue wings appeared on Vali's back and I unconsciously used Scan on it.
A Ranked Principle of Supremacy
A Ranked Divide
A Ranked Reflect
A Ranked Poison Magic
A Ranked Dragon's Aura
A Ranked Vanishing Dragon Bloodline
A Ranked Dragon Magic
There were several other skills but I couldn't even touch those.
I noticed that there were no skills regarding body or magic power.
"So, anything we should know about the future?" Arthur asked, looking at me.
Things went quiet for a bit at the question.
"It's what I wanted to ask Vali about." Rias asked and the guy in question looked at us in confusion. "Have you heard anything about Excalibur Sword fragments being stolen from the church?"
"… there has been such news."
"Is Kokabiel missing? I asked.
His eyes narrowed but he answered nonetheless. "I did hear Azazel talking about it. What did you see?"
"I saw him trying to start another Great War."
…
"The fuck?!" Bikou shouted.
Arthur looked stunned and Kuroka also froze over. Vali on the other hand paused for a moment before asking me to continue.
"He was planning to merge the fragments of the Excalibur into a sword. He has the assistance of Valper Galilei, the exiled church Archbishop who was in charge of the Holy Sword Project. He then planned to kill Rias and Sona Sitri along with their peerages, sparking a Great War among the three factions."
"So I take it that this was one of the odd visions you had because Rias is with us now."
I nodded.
"What else?"
"You intervened and saved them and took Kokabiel back on Azazel's orders."
Kuroka was tensed about Koneko and I looked at her and reassured her that it was fine in my visions but then again, so was Kiba.
"Vali, I am going to bring back Shirone."
"I don't think it would be a good idea at this moment. I think we should send this information to Rias' brother who can send a few of his peerage members to protect them and in the meantime if we want to help out, we can find out about Kokabiel and keep guard."
"Why would we do that? Isn't Kokabiel strong? We can fight him without anyone coming after us." Bikou perked up and I saw Vali nodding his head too.
I sighed.
"Kokabiel's attack would lead the Leaders of the Three Factions to team up and sign a Peace Treaty. The Three Factions will join hands. It will save many lives. As for Kuroka, there is something I need to check if it's true or not. If it is, there might be a way to prove her innocence. It can at least make her make up with her sister."
"What thing?" Kuroka looked at me with narrowed eyes.
"The Naberius were conducting experiments on the Youkai for a long time. You were not the first one. Your mother was in a relationship with the lead scientist." I saw her freeze up. "He was a selfish guy who never returned her feelings but in the end, she hid all the data about the experiments in Shirone's hair clip. What I want to know is, was your mother's name Fujimai and did Shirone have a black cat Hairpin?"
The girl nodded with difficulty.
"Then it might be worth checking."
….
"D-did, he… was he?"
"Your father… yes. And no, he died before you became a part of that guy's peerage. They just continued the research."
….
"Excuse me. I need some time alone." She got up and left and no one tried to stop her.
"What else do you know?" Vali asked me.
"I… just saw memories and visions of Rias to be honest. You guys were appearing sometimes but I don't know things in detail about you. Although, I saw the glimpses of both you and Issei unlocking the real power of Ddraig and Albion."
"The Juggernaut Drive?" He asked.
I shook my head. "No. The full power. The powers that were sealed away from Albion's memories even. His poison and Reflect. I don't know how you unlocked it yet."
"Do you know something about it, Albion?"
"A lot of our powers were locked away when we were both sealed but what he says does feel nostalgic to me."
We discussed a few things and they planned what to do with the situation. I told them about some things like Loki's attack and them stealing Fenrir and Diodora Astaroth's attack but nothing in detail. Despite what it was portrayed, these guys didn't want to cause widespread destruction. They were teenagers and teenagers messed up. Supernatural teenagers even more so than not.
"Eh… boring. Why can't we just kick his butt ourselves?" The Monkey Guy pouted.
In the meantime, Bikou's Touki was copied. Next up was C Ranked Swordsmanship from Arthur and C Ranked General Human Magic from Le Fay.
"Are you strong?" Vali was the one who asked me.
"I am still learning. I don't have any real fighting experience though."
"He knows Senjutsu and Touki. Some swordsmanship, although he doesn't have a good sword. All he needs is real fighting experience. We have been working on it for the last few days."
"Fighting experience comes only from fighting. How strong would you say you are?"
"I cannot recall a lot about myself. When I learn something, sometimes I feel like I already know it and those things come very easily. It is like relearning something. I will need to test things out to know how strong I am. Physically and Magically, I am growing. I don't know if I am growing this fast or just recovering. The ritual did a number on me."
"Then fight. It is the fastest way to become stronger. I will be returning back to Grigori for a week or two. I will verify the news and inform you people. Use that time to become stronger. Kuroka will take you to meet our leader, Ophis."
"I will not drag you down." I replied and he nodded before returning back to his thoughts. "Vali."
He looked at me.
"I have the Old Satan bloodline." I saw his pause, his eyes widened slightly before his face hardened. "I don't know if it's due to the experiments or my own. I don't even know which one it is. I just didn't want to hide it."
He looked at me for a while but then shrugged his shoulders. "I have some documents from Azazel with notes about their powers. I will send it to you."
The guy was a tsundere.
By the end of the meeting, Kuroka returned and Vali left.
The rest stayed and I got up and made food for them. I copied the Skills from them and noticed that my evaluation was still showing a D Rank. Obviously. They had multiple skills at C Rank and even that would only make them a C Rank. I might have gotten the Skills, but my base stats were still below the limit.
I sparred for a bit with Bikou. That monkey was tough and that was saying it lightly. The guy could shrug off most of my attacks like it was nothing. Only the attacks done by Senjutsu were of any effect. His Magic Resistance could easily hold against my attacks. I had to get in with close quarter combat and swordsmanship but my base strength allowed him to easily keep me on my toes. Basically, he ran circles around me the entire time. I took a decent amount of hits.
He wasn't really holding back against me like Rias. The damage would later be healed by Kuroka and Le Fay so he thrashed me around but that also forced me to concentrate more on Senjutsu and Touki working in tandem. Instincts of Swordsmanship to dodge and take steps, deflect attacks and get in some hits of my own. Quickly casting magic for various effects like a simple flash spell to disorient him once, although that almost led to me getting a broken jaw.
"Hahahaha that was a good after dinner exercise. You are a good man, Sam. Make good food and even help me exercise. Welcome to the team."
"Your swordsmanship seemed like an amalgamation of several styles. There were hints of Japanese Swordsmanship, the Iaijutsu and even the western swordsmanship I have learned myself. Although, as you had said, your moves seem very stiff. It's like you know things at the back of your mind and the body is just trying to remember those things again. I agree with what Vali said, you should continue fighting like this. You will figure out your style soon enough. I noticed that you were a lot more comfortable with your sword by the end of the fight than at the beginning. A few weeks and I believe that we could have a good spar too. It's nice to have you with us, Sam."
Arthur said that he will get me a sword later on.
"Magic was good. I liked that flash thing." Le Fay said.
"Oh, that was something inspired from an anime I watched. Solar Flare."
"Drag-so-Ball, right." She chimed and I nodded at her.
I looked at Rias who actually looked a little lost and was looking at me worried.
I even took the opportunity to chat up with Le Fay and asked her about different types of magic. Specifically Gravity Magic. The best way to gain strength quick enough.
"Gravity Magic is not easy to train in, Sam. Unlike weights, it puts pressure on the entire body and even the blood. The difficulty to do such a thing is far higher than just training with weights."
"I know and that's why I will only start with a very low Gravity. 1.5 times or so and slowly increase it when my body gets used to it. I am not trying to jump the gun but I think that continuously using my Demonic Power to keep myself going in such a situation would help increase my control over Demonic Power as well as my power reserves, not to mention my Physique. It is the best and fastest way to increase my strength apart from daily fighting."
"I will fight you daily." Biko perked up.
Arthur ignored him and got in thought. "A Devil's physique is certainly more resilient than a Human's and your thoughts are quite logical too. Just don't jump the gun."
"Oi, don't ignore me." The monkey shouted back.
But we did.
Le Fay then made a Magic Circle in the basement to design my very own Gravity Chamber. I was also given a different magic circle to use for my magic.
By night time, Rias and I were left alone as the others went to their own places. Kuroka was a bit lost since the reveal. She decided to go out for a walk tonight while the two of us stayed back, deciding to give her some alone time for herself.
"You were pushing yourself too hard in today's spar." She said as we got into the bed.
"I wanted to get the hang of the abilities I had copied. Despite how it looked, Bikou was actually careful where and how he hit me." Which he actually was.
"Still two cracked bones." She said, pointing at my arm and finger which had cracked during the spar earlier today.
"Rias, the more I bleed in private, in these spars, the less the chance for me to bleed against enemies."
"But I don't want you to bleed at all. I don't want you to get hurt." She shouted but there was a pleading tone in her voice.
I realised what was going on and took her in my arms. "You remembered the Rating Game."
It was not a question and she understood it too as she froze in my arms. I made small circles on her back while pulling her against my chest, I whispered "It's fine. I am not leaving you alone. I promise."
Her body shivered and I felt some wetness on my chest where her eyes were.
She fell asleep after sobbing into my chest for a while. I kept caressing her back till then. The roles from a few days ago were reversed… But, I didn't mind it at all. This was the least I could do for her.
I was in the base of Khaos Brigade.
It was two days later that we were brought to meet Ophis.
Beside me, Rias was in her disguise.
The base of the Khaos Brigade was filled with people from various races.
Kuroka led us directly to Ophis' room.
And there I saw her.
A black haired young girl with purple gothic dress, vacant looking grey eyes and extremely cute face sitting there.
"Ophis. These two are our new members, Stella and Sam. They will be joining our team from today." Kuroka explained.
Ophis looked at her and then back at us and nodded. She then raised a hand and two snakes made of energy came out of it but Kuroka stopped her. "They don't want your power. We just came here to inform you about them." She stopped and the purple snakes went back into her hand as she nodded again.
I took the opportunity to use Scan on her and was stunned stiff. Despite already knowing that she was strong, seeing the list of S Ranked Skills was just something else.
I couldn't clearly read all of those as Kuroka dragged me back with her.
She took us to the place where the Vali Team stayed in the base. They normally didn't stay there but still had a place of their own.
"I was sent here to keep a watch on everyone nyaa~. You two can take a look around the place if you want. I would suggest the library and the training rooms because they have many things you can use. There are many rogue criminals in the building, so be careful. Also, Sam… Be ruthless. If you try to solve things with logic here, these people will just think of you as weak and try to attack you."
I nodded, reminding myself that this place is the base of a terrorist organization.
"I will keep that in mind." I nodded.
For the next eight hours, we looked around the entire place.
Copying things was becoming harder because of the time taken for me to be close to them.
Although Skill till the D Rank were fairly easy to copy. And that's what I did the entire day.
In the last eight hours, my demonic power increased by five times from all the cards I collected.
I was now stronger than Rias just in terms of Demonic power, slightly below what would be considered as a baseline for the C Ranked Demonic Power. I also discovered something. Merging E Ranked Demonic Power Or any kind of Power had no more effects on my card. I needed to copy cards at the same Rank and then too, the results were diminishing.
The same happened for the Physique, Strength, Endurance, Reflex and basically all other physical skills.
I dread to think what would happen when these cards reach C Rank or even more.
I even collected the necessary skills for a devil. Demonic Power Control and such, all D Ranked though. I got a bunch of magic. This time even the devil ones.
The Fallen Angels and some extremely rare Angels gave me two extremely precious skills.
D Ranked Light Resistance and D Ranked Holy Resistance.
There were some unexpected things though. I tried to take the Holy Magic but that didn't work. It was incompatible with it. Angelic Bloodline was needed for that and I would have to copy it first. So, I went for something else. Light Magic, just to check if it was necessary for all the skills. This time however, I got the Skill. What was unexpected was that my Lucifer Bloodline jumped to D Rank suddenly due to it.
I checked the details and the information about the Lucifer Bloodline showed that it can manipulate light, although the light was demonic in nature - The Demonic Brilliance of Evil Light.
I didn't say a word about it at the moment. There were hardly any Physique masters here.
To be honest, I was already lucky to encounter as many High Class Devils as I did on my first day. The canon fodders are more or less E Ranked. I more or less spent time getting some magic skills I could from them all day.
I didn't get to visit the labs or things would have been better, because that's where the people of the Old Satan Faction mainly stayed and I was keeping a distance from them for now.
Thankfully, things didn't go badly for us.
By the end of the day, I was far stronger than when I had come in. Maybe with the promotion, I could even touch the cusps of C Rank.
Arthur and the rest had arrived. Apparently, the Old Satan Faction had called for a meeting.
We decided to attend the meeting. Vali came back for this too.
Currently, we were in the meeting room where Ophis was sitting in the middle and other people were entering one by one.
The first ones were a bunch of teenagers with the only one worth any notice for me was the blonde girl. They looked at our team with part mockery and part hostility.
The one in the lead, a black haired guy came forward with a smile and greeted Vali. "New additions to the team, Vali? Wouldn't you introduce us?"
"What's the use? One is a weakling and the other is a girl." The biggest one of the group snorted looking at us.
I noticed the girl in their group glared at him but didn't say anything.
"Ah, you have good eyes. I am in fact weak. I am Sam, the cook of the group. Nice to meet you." I greeted them all with a jovial smile. I had managed to snag an acting skill too.
Kuroka giggled and Bikou seemed to have found something fun so he pranced around too. "Yes yes. Sam is the best cook I know of."
In the meantime I had scanned them already.
These motherfuckers had tons of skills that could be copied. I couldn't grab any of their Sacred Gears right now as that would be problematic but other things can be taken.
"Told you, weakling with girly hobbies." The tryhard human giant said.
"Well I would invite you to cook for us but I am allergic to Devil food. Sorry." Cao Cao smiled and returned back to take his seat, a bit away from us.
By the time they sat, I could only be in the range of two people.
One that stupid giant and second Cao Cao himself.
I started with the things I needed the most from them. Cao Cao's C Ranked Physique.
The clock ticked and people started coming in.
There was a girl with crazy looks and Bikou introduced her as Walburga.
Finally, there came a group of Devils. A brown haired woman with glasses, a black haired elf wannabe and a brown haired idiot who looked too haughty for his own good.
There was one more Devil though. A silver haired one with braided hair. Probably the most dangerous among the group. They had a young looking devil with them, one with dark green coloured haired guy with snake-like eyes. I didn't need my senjutsu to tell me that he was a slimy bastard. He just had that feeling to him. They sat on the other side of the table too.
Rias gripped my hand tighter and I knew who he was.
Diodora Astaroth.
It was his first time in such a meeting and from what I had found out from the group, he hadn't received the Snake from Ophis yet.
A few minutes passed and I had completed the copy of the first skill.
I felt my muscles tightening and getting stronger at a rapid speed. Ophis however turned and looked in my direction… and tilted her head.
I stopped myself from swallowing my spit.
She looked at me for a few moments before Shalba's cough interrupted her and I breathed a sigh of relief.
The next up was the C Ranked Magic Resistance from the stupid giant.
Shalba started talking about what they had done over the last few months. Basically, what was supposed to be a report seemed like a massively inflated bragging competition. It was annoying as fuck.
Thankfully, I could always use the extra time. He took around half an hour and I had completed the copy of the Magic Resistance by then.
Unfortunately, none of the other Hero Faction members were in my range of 3 metres.
The meeting was going to be quite long, so I had to think of something before I wasted time that could have been used to copy Skills. I picked up a bottle of water and drank from it and when I was keeping the bottle back, it slipped and fell to the ground. Some people noticed while I just sheepishly rubbed my head and picked up the bottle a few steps away and sat down on the other side of our group.
"Sorry."
The other groups threw me annoyed looks but continued nonetheless.
I was however fixed on the ones in my range.
Siegfried and someone from the Magician's organisation who came with Walburga.
I was a little stuck between Seigfried's skills. He had skills similar to Arthur except being a Demonic Swordsman instead of Holy Swordsman. Although, I cannot imagine it being a relevant skill for me as I possessed the Lucifer Bloodline. I don't think I wouldn't have affinity with any Demonic Weapons. He had swordsmanship but Arthur's skills were more or less at the same level. Although, he had a completely different style of Swordsmanship and knowledge supplement each other and thus I started the copy on his C Ranked Swordsmanship.
Finally, I copied C Ranked Curse Magic from the Magician. The Hexanchant were a group originating from the Wizards of Oz. They had special abilities and magic compared to other normal magicials. My Demonic Power was already rising and taking a small increase didn't seem like a good choice. With my Lucifer Bloodline, I would gain extra Demonic Power soon enough. It was better to copy the Skills.
By the time I finished copying the Skills of that old man, Vali who had reported that he found the weapons of the old gods of Europe, Gogmagog had finished his report.
At the end of it, Diodora Astaroth was called forward to receive the gift from Ophis.
The guy passed by our group and I had taken the opportunity to Scan and look at his Skills. It would give me an idea about how strong one can get if blessed by Ophis' snakes.
D Ranked Demonic Power, lower than Rias. D Ranked Astaroth Bloodline, lower than Rias' D Ranked Bael Bloodline. D Ranked Demonic Power Control was stronger than Rias' but that would be due to his Astaroth Bloodline, D Ranked Mind Magic which was stronger than Rias', probably due to the crap he pulled with the holy maidens. He had already passed from my range by the time I had seen these few skills.
I saw Ophis' snakes boosting someone for the first time.
His demonic power grew stronger and I could feel it on my skin. His demonic power was stronger than the current me after the process was finished. It was still at Kuroka's level or maybe a tiny bit higher.
It was a massive increase of over seven times demonic power.
He returned back to his seat and I saw that all of the previous skills had entered C Rank now. Although, he still showed a D Rank in overall combat ability.
The rest of the meeting was a bore. I am pretty sure that Ophis wasn't even paying any attention to any of it.
We returned back home soon enough.
Vali as usual went back to Grigori. He didn't come out for long.
Rias and I stood in the training field.
Two days had passed since the meeting and today was the day I was going to contact a member of Rias' former peerage and pass on the package containing the information to them for Sirzechs' eyes.
Kuroka had got us a pamphlet, which was surprisingly, a Lucifuge House pamphlet.
Rias guessed that her father must be tracking her through the peerage and thus Grayfia had them use the Lucifuge ones.
We had carefully discussed what information to pass and what to keep. We basically ran with the same story that she met a person(me) and saved my life, which was true and I happened to possess some abilities. Then, she will go on to explain about some important events and information about Khaos Brigade as well as the Great King faction that would help out her brother fix things.
I was excited but also worried about something else. Rias looked too worried. She hadn't slept a single blink last night from all the worry.
"Will you be alright?" She asked and then a moment later, " I will go with you too."
"It's fine, Rias. You saw how much stronger I have grown in the last week. You will be recognizable and it will be better if I go there alone. Also, Kuroka will be there as backup. I will teleport out at the first sign of danger. I will not take any risk, I promise you."
And I was not saying this just to reassure her with fake words. I did become stronger.
I am at C Rank.
I had fought Bikou in these two days and got used to Seigfried's swordsmanship too. The Enhanced Physique gave me the last bit of push I needed.
My Demonic Power though didn't change much but then again it was something that happened a bit slower. There was a change though, just not much.
I did try my new Lucifer Trait. It was a dark coloured light which more or less vapourized anything in its path. It had anti-magic properties.
This would explain why it was feared so much.
Something that cuts through magic itself is one of the strongest things one could use in a magic based society like the Devils.
At higher levels, maybe I could even cut through miracles.
It would explain why Rizevim created the Sacred Gear Canceller when he didn't inherit this power.
My Skills looked something like this.
C Ranked Enhanced Physique
C Ranked Magic Resistance
C Ranked Swordsmanship
C Ranked Touki
C Ranked Senjutsu
C Ranked General Human Magic
C Ranked Curse Magic
D Ranked Demonic Power
D Ranked Lucifer Bloodline
D Ranked Light Resistance
D Ranked Holy Resistance
D Ranked Light Magic
D Ranked Enhanced Reflexes
D Ranked Enhanced Strength
D Ranked Enhanced Endurance
D Ranked Enhanced Speed
D Ranked Lightning Magic(Human)
D Ranked Fire Magic(Human)
D Ranked Water Magic(Human)
D Ranked Ice Magic(Human)
And a lot more.
I think it was within my range.
It took some time to convince her but she agreed.
It was 10 at night when I summoned a Devil using the pamphlet.
He arrived at 10:20 on a bicycle.
Brown haired, simple looking guy rang the doorbell as I opened the door.
The people of this house had gone out.
Kuroka had searched for this and she was currently in my lap in her cat form.
"Hello, did you summon a devil?" The guy said and I nodded.
"Come on in." I called him inside. "I was alone in the house for a while. The members of the house have all gone out on a tour and I was looking at the house for them. Just wanted someone to have company and honestly speaking… I also wanted to see what summoning a devil looks like. I mean I have heard of it but I was never allowed to do so before."
I spoke as I led the guy to the living room where I had a movie set up.
"What's your name Mr. Devil?"
"Ah… I am Issei Hyodou. Nice to meet you."
"My name is Samuel but just call me Sam." I smiled at the goofy guy as I shook hands with him. "By the way, this wish is acceptable, right?"
"Yes. I have done these kinds of wishes before." He nodded.
I observed that he was quite serious in the way he was trying to behave with me… and dare I say, a bit professional even.
It seems that Grayfia had been teaching the guy some things about making deals.
Good for him.
"Glad to hear that. So Issei, what's life as a devil like?" I started the game and brought out some snacks that I had cooked.
"It's nice." He said but I could see his eyes getting lost in a daze. "I…"
"Please don't mind me. If you don't want to answer anything, you are free to do so. I am just making small talk." I replied. I sensed the emotional turmoil of the guy. The amounts of guild and pain were immense.
"I-it's okay."
I used the time to do a scan on him.
S Ranked Luck
A Ranked Blessing of the Boob Goddess
D Ranked Boosted Gear
E Ranked Dragon Bloodline
E Ranked Physique
E Ranked Strength
E Ranked Endurance
E Ranked Martial Arts
…
…
The fuck.
S fucking Ranked Luck.
Also what the fuck in blazes is that Boob Goddess' blessing?
I didn't waste a single minute as I started the copy on the S Ranked Luck.
9 hours.
Shit.
"We are doing an entire run of Drag-so-Ball first season."
"Umm sure."
And we did watch it. The show was practically the same as Dragonball Z just with different names.
A dozen and half or so episodes later, we were talking normally.
"You seem a bit tense, ya know. It's like you are sad about something. Wanna talk? Sharing such things helps reduce the pain. I recently got separated from my family and have been missing them a lot."
"I…"
"I am not forcing you. You just seemed too… restrained. It just didn't feel good seeing you sad like that."
Kuroka on my lap purred as I caressed her behind her ears.
In fact, she had been quite lost too, since the reveal about her father.
She looked at me and I stared back before hugging her closer. She purred and tried to get out but I didn't let go and she relaxed a bit reluctantly.
"You see, Kuro-chan over here had a bad owner previously." She stilled. Rias had already written the information about her in the letters and Kuroka approved of it if it helped clear her relationship with her sister even a little bit. I continued, "Her mother was in that house and Kuro-chan and her younger sister Shiro-chan stayed there. The guy was a bully. He used to do painful things to her and experiment on her. One day, she stopped giving reactions and that bastard wanted to try the same things to Shiro-chan. Kuro-chan got mad and attacked him. The guy however died accidentally. She was injured too and ran away because she was not even sure if she would survive. She didn't take her sister with her. I was nearby and picked her up. In the meantime, the residents of the house saw the video of her attacking the owner and dying. Fearing that the younger kitten would be dangerous too, they tried to have her put down."
Kuroka shivered and I caressed her back again softly.
"W-what happened then?"
"Thankfully, there was this guy, Mr. Ketchuphead, who was a bigshot around the area, protected her and gave her to his sister. The sister is very kind and took care of Shiro-chan very carefully, loving her like a real family, until she recently moved away due to some big fight. She had to leave Shiro-chan along with her other friends back at home. She however found me when I was dying and saved my life. Since then we have lived together. She misses her a lot and hopes to meet her someday when she can solve things on her own. This one on the other hand, moves around and keeps a watch on her sister. She had been doing it for the last few years already. She's such a cute thing, isn't she?" I ruffled Kuroka's fur as she purred irritatedly at me.
"She is a very brave cat." He said and tried to caress her only for her to move away.
I smiled.
"She is, isn't she. Now just like her, we all face situations in life, difficult situations and different people react differently to it. Some become angry. Some blame themselves. Some become withdrawn. Some blame everyone else but themselves, just as a defence mechanism. Everyone has their own way of dealing with it. But, the more you keep it in, the more painful it gets. Sometimes, it's the right thing to let it all out. We may not realise it but… people around us, people who care about us… do. They become worried about us. I mean sure, sometimes we blame ourselves for things but… if we keep doing just that and drown ourselves in it, we will not get anywhere. At one point, we have to get up and move ahead, if not for ourselves, then for our loved ones."
The guy had stopped paying attention to the anime in front of it and was hearing whatever I said.
The words resonated with me too. I had once forced my grandpa to get me a game I wanted on my birthday. He had already arrived but I threw a tantrum and he got to it with a smile. He just patted my head and went out to get my game.
I never saw my grandpa again. He died in an accident while returning.
The incident had almost broken me as I was especially close to my grandpa. But no one said anything to me.
The guilt that someone feels in such a case is beyond words.
We only realise the true value of something once it is lost.
Since then, I have paid special attention to my family. My family helped me get out through that with support and I have gotten very close to them.
Maybe, my urge to go back home is just to see if my family is alright. If I could call them all to this world, I would do so in a moment.
I shook off my own thoughts and saw the boy now tearing up and put an arm around his shoulder to give him a light hug. He broke down into tears.
An hour or two later, he had cried out and I uncovered the food. We had a quiet dinner or with the morning sun coming up soon, an early breakfast.
I did maintain a distance of 4 metres from him all the time though. My Range had increased again after becoming a C Rank and a new card and function was unlocked.
By the end of it, the Skill was done copying. I thanked him.
"Actually Issei, your payment is on the living room's table. The one by the mirror. You will not miss it. It's a crimson box. Can you take it by yourself? I will sign your agreement if you need it first. I need to go to the toilet for a bit." And so I did.
I walked towards the toilet attached to the bedroom and Kuroka followed me.
"Sam-san."
"Hmm."
"Thank you."
"It's alright. I am happy to help." I smiled.
"Oh, Kuro-chan is following you to the toilet!"
"Hahahaha she is a bit of a pervert. She sneaks into my bed too….that too without clothes." I smirked and he laughed.
"What breed of cat is she? I have never seen one with two tails? Is she magical?"
"She is a… Nekoshou." I closed the door behind me and teleported directly out of the place.
- Interlude -
"Did you find out anything?"
"I traced back the Cult Members and they were detached from the Wizards of Oz a long time ago. They were researching ways of artificially obtaining the imagination based Magic of Devils and had extensively researched and even cloned different Pillar Houses. The ritual was to sacrifice him and see if they could summon the soul and memories of the original Satans into Sam's body. Le Fay however found some flaws in the equations and on the site as well. This would explain the mess in Sam's memories."
"So, is he clean?"
"We found no evidence of him anywhere else. I think he was artificially created using the blood of an original Satan. In fact, the last one we could figure out from the notes was… Lucifer."
"So he…was created by them and doesn't know anything about it?"
"Well the summoning was weird, so we don't know anything about this."
"Sigh, well at least he is not a weakling."
"Eh, Vali, are you perhaps worrying about your half brother maybe? Don't worry, I like Sam too."
"Shut up, Bikou. He is just a good addition to our team."
"That… I cannot deny. His skills are growing at an incredible pace and so is his strength. I think his body is developing and reaching a proper level to match the rest of him."
"We will introduce him… those two to our main bases then."
"Do you think what he said about the future was true? I mean Diodora Astaroth came as he had predicted."
"... It's better to do as Albion had said. Take them as a possible future instead of something set in stone. Things would be interesting this way. I for one want to see what Albion's true power looks like. If he can become another rival for me, even better."
_x_x_
Beta Reader: LuluViBritania(FF.N, SB, WN and QQ)/-LuluViB|99th Britannian Emperor(Discord)
Author's Note:
Another chapter is up. I was getting ideas, so I wrote things and this came out.
I know that this System is OP even compared to my other stories but Sam doesn't have the prep time like others. Moreover, do you think Sam can just go and sit face to face with Super Devils for hours to copy their Skills and they would allow it?
Moreover, what would he do after that?
S Rank?
Where would he get enough skills to copy from?
Sam's System is OP but not invincible.
Also, I always write about Issei getting his Sacred Gear stolen or downright killed several times. This time I wanted to write something different. A chance for him to 'grow'.
Maybe be a bro too.
I generally don't like, oh screw that, I abhor him as a character. So, this will be a new experience for me at writing him too.
Things will pick up pace from the next chapter.
Also before anyone complains about Sam spoiling the future, I already explained this in the previous chapter. Moreover, Sam kept some very useful pieces of information to himself. This world has no plot armours or at least less plot armour because Kiba died. If he kept the information to himself and someone else died, he would blame himself. If not directly, then for making Rias sad.
It is a logical choice. Moreover, the information in the hands of Sirzechs would be something to see as well.
This Sirzechs is just done with the bullshit of the council and him getting some juicy information would spice things up.
Enjoy the new chapter.
Good Day, Peace Out.