There were three ways, broadly speaking, for a Devil to actively increase their level of Demonic Power. The first is the one that is most widely known, which is through the use of contracts. A devil performs a service for a human, in exchange for a material payment as well as a small portion of life force. The human eventually regains the life force, which allows Devils to keep harvesting from their stock of contractors for a long period of time, generating an almost passive source of growth.
The second way, is by revelling in and gaining power from sin. Any sin would do, from just random taboo breaking in public to straight up murdering an innocent. The place where the gains truly occurred however, were sins tied to the Big Seven. That's right, the Seven Deadly Sins were straight up mana batteries for Devils. This is part of the reason why Devils slept every day instead of once a week as they truly needed to, to indulge in Sloth for a bit of a constant increase.
The third way, is to exercise. Yes, boring, I know, but if a Devil drained their reserve of Demonic Power to nothing, their capacity would increase as they recharged. Something about 'adversity strengthening the soul'. 'That sounds great!' you think, 'why doesn't every Devil grind for power ups then?'. I would love to say it's because Devils are pussies who are just afraid of the Grind, but that isn't true.
You see, being low enough on Demonic Power to gain a capacity increase from it fucking sucks. It restores exponentially, so the more you have the faster you get it back. This means that training this way will make you feel run down, tired and irritable for at minimum 4-5 days at a time, making it difficult to rest. On top of that, the training was more effective when you remained on a low Demonic Power level for as long as possible, making the whole thing basically drawn out torture.
"So," I finished explaining to Kasane and Naomi as we stood in the field next to my mansion, "That's why we are going to be training you on how to use your Demonic Power rather than increasing its capacity."
"Kasane, We'll be doing some one-on-one training to help each other out, but for now I want you to familiarize yourself with using your Magic to move and control your knives rather than PK. It'll be faster and more responsive, so that will probably mess up your accuracy." I then nodded to Naomi, "I'm going to be teaching you the basics of casting."
Kasane had her customary blank face on and barely reacted to my statements, but moved off to start training with her knives. Naomi, on the other hand, looked super excited.
She bounced on her feet, doing interesting things to her chest, before brightly saying, "So what are we going to be working on?"
I nodded to her, before explaining, "Well, what I had in mind for you was a anti-caster caster. Once we figure out how to trigger your precognitive ability with Magic, you should be able to see what an enemy Bishop is trying to cast before they cast it and break up its structure or counter the spell in some other way. Immediately dousing a flame spell with water as it's cast, for example."
Her eyes sparkled, "That sounds so cool!"
I laughed, "If we can get it right you'll be a terror, but for now, baby steps. Focus on your chest, the area I put in the Evil Piece. You should be able to feel an energy there, I've been told it feels a bit different for everyone..."
I got her started on drawing out her Demonic Power, shaping it into a ball as it was the easiest thing to visualize. I then had her attempt to change its shape into anything she wanted to. I handed the books I was carrying to her, containing as few of the basic spells that other Sagan Devils had come up with and told her to try and attempt those once she was comfortable with manipulating her Magic.
Homework given, I went towards the other sister. I stopped near the area she was practicing and watched her moving the knives around, mentally comparing how it looked to her fight through the Museum. It seemed her familiarity with using her powers to manipulate the knives allowed her to conceptualize it and guide her Demonic Power with her imagination easily. I was right however, the knives were flying how she imagined they fly, not according to conventional physics. Several of them stopped and started, or wobbled as she lost focus.
That could be ironed out with practice. I interrupted her, causing her to make her knives fly back into their pouch, "Looks like that's something to work on, but its still pretty deadly. Have you tested out your new attributes as a Knight yet?"
She raised an eyebrow, "You mean that speed thing you told us about? No, not really."
I nodded, "Good, in that case, we'll spar in CQC, unarmed. To access your speed, draw the same power you were using to move your knives, but instead direct it into your muscles. Focus on imagining it speeding you up, making you react and move faster."
She looked at me, eyes narrowed but eagerness radiating from her posture, "You know hand-to-hand?"
I confirmed, "Boxing and street fighting, no official style. Very out of practice though, with Cleria hanging about I couldn't train at all."
That was a problem that was suspiciously easy to fix. After one day of Naomi preforming her maidly duties with Cleria supervising, she deemed her to be competent and agreed to my request for her to go back to the Sitri. I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one.
I jumped up and down, despite it doing nothing for my circulation thanks to Devil biology, and put my hands up in a loose guard, "Ready when you..."
I deflected a sharp knife strike while dodging a vicious knee to the gonads.
Well. Part of the reason I chose this style of training was to let her vent her frustrations with me.
In my previous life, I was a bit of a wild child, and got into several fights with other kids. This escalated as I fell into a bad crowd, and was getting pulled into a gang, after helping some of my mates fight the other groups in the area. I thankfully got pulled out of that lifestyle by Bobby, a boxing gym owner who caught me coming home to my complex with a busted up face.
He taught me how to box, and how to channel that aggression into more useful areas. Due to my boring IT job, I hadn't got into any fights or even visited the gym for a long while even before I got reincarnated here. To say I was out of practice was an understatement. Still, I did surprisingly well.
At first I dominated the fight by using my Demonic Power to enhance myself to be faster and stronger, but after Kasane figured out how to access her Knight speed that advantage went out the window, and she became slightly faster than me. The only thing keeping it somewhat even was her unfamiliarity with moving at those speeds, causing frequent overreach.
Still, the speed combined with her skill advantage meant it was all I could do to defend and block the more painful hits. I got some taps in, but those mostly came about from cheap shots and feints. After a particularly solid palm hit me in the chest, I hopped out of range and brought up my hands.
"Okay, okay, time. That's something you can really help me work on, it felt like I learned a lot there."
Kasane merely stared at me passively, before dropping out of her stance. I didn't yet know her well enough to tell how she was feeling, but I could have sworn she seemed smug.
"Good match." Was her reply. Was that sarcasm?
I waved it off however, and let her get back to her training, now that she had a handle on activating her Knight speed.
I observed Kasane's training for a while, using Soul Talent to observe how she distorted gravity to achieve her desired effects. The hardest part of learning magic for Devils is actualization. You can imagine how something will work, but without understanding its effects, you'll find it very difficult to use the magic. From what I gleaned from the library, the trick is to use a sort of mental shorthand.
An example would be a lightning bolt. To cast one, you'd need to visualize each part of the spell, from the first spark, to how it travels through the air, to how much voltage it delivers on impact. If you fail to put the proper detail into your mental construct, that particular part of the spell will be vastly reduced in power with various effect, from not being as damaging as it could be to travelling slower than it should, etc.
I think this is why, despite having magic 'based on the power of imagination', most devils magic was actually straight forward. Keeping all those mental images in your head at once is pretty difficult, thankfully that's where the trick comes in. Once you've managed that and have actualized each specific part, with none lacking in detail, you can tie the mental image of each part into a simple mental picture, like a mnemonic.
The example in the book was like this: Imagine Zeus throwing a lightning bolt. He draws his hand back and grabs the lightning: the spark. He launches the lightning like a javelin: the travel. The lightning bolt explodes on impact: the landing. The specific shorthand you use isn't casting or actualizing the spell, but it is allowing you to more easily recall the spell you created and cast it how you imagined.
The image I used for my Lock is rather simple, a key turning in a hole and a deadbolt slamming shut. The whole thing reminded me of the self-hypnosis thing Magi from Fate did to activate their magic circuits, except you had to do it with every spell you cast if you wanted to use them quickly.
The reason I brought this up, is with the Magic detection abilities of Soul Talent, I could analyze how Kasane was moving the knives via gravity. Why I was doing this was to develop a gravity based technique of my own. Eventually, I hoped to be able to manipulate the gravitational force of my surroundings, as making everyone else fight in 50-100 times Earth's gravity seemed like it would be a useful trick to have.
That would eat through my reserves way too quickly to be useful, however, so instead I was focusing on something a little simpler.
Once I got a good grasp on how Magic interacted with the force of nature, I moved to my own training. I stood by a fairly large rock in the field, and actualized my spell. A thin thread, blade sliding between surfaces, gravitational ripples...
I cast at the rock.
Naomi rubbed sleep out of her eyes as she blearily walked into the kitchen. She had woken up because she had smelled something baking and she wanted to investigate. Indeed, the thick smell of dough and vanilla permeated the room, while standing in front of the oven taking out a tray was Damocles.
"Damocles?" She asked, bewildered, "What are you doing baking? Its the middle of the night."
He placed the tray down on the counter, then turned to look at her and revealing his haggard appearance.
"Couldn't sleep, so I decided to do something useful." He had deep bags under his bloodshot eyes and was even paler than usual.
She had noticed that he was looking a bit under the weather recently, but when she brought it up he had simply laughed her off and told her not to worry. She thought back to the training they had all done, realizing that as the days went by he cast less and less magic, while still teaching her and sparring with Kasane.
"You're running your Demonic Power low, aren't you? That's why you've been so tired." She deduced.
"Yeah, I have. I don't have time to do it the slow way, I need to get stronger as fast as I can. I have many enemies and I will probably make many more, I need to be ready." He sighed, "At least this baking is good exercise for learning Glyphs."
Naomi had a lot of things to say about the boy risking his health like this, but decided that they could wait, "Glyphs?"
He perked up, his tiredness forgotten. She had noticed that about him, he seemed to relish the chance to explain and teach things to others, "Glyphs are magical symbols that can be used to tie effects to certain areas. For instance, this baking is allowing me to practice Glyphs for both stasis and teleportation. For example:"
He swiped his hand in front of himself, and resting on his palm was a freshly baked brownie. She looked to the tray he just took out of the oven, noting that it contained cookies. So he must have been doing this for a while. She bit into the confection, somewhat annoyingly finding it better than her last attempt at the dish. The rich dark chocolate was still gooey, and the balance between the flavours was almost perfect.
She swallowed, wondering if he was just naturally talented at baking, before asking slowly, "Just to confirm: You have been forcefully running yourself dangerously low on Demonic Power for a week or more causing you to not be able to sleep?"
He seemed somewhat confused at the question, "Yes...?"
"And you decided the smart thing to do in this situation would be to bake treats, while practicing even more Magic, driving your Demonic Power even lower?"
"That's right! Was the brownie good?" He was barely paying attention to her, busying himself by drawing some symbols around the tray with the cookies.
"Very." She bit out.
He paused, turning to take in her expression. "Ah, I see. I've done something to upset you, haven't I?"
She sucked in a deep breath.
The rumbling of the train was the only sound reverberating through the cabin. Kasane and Naomi were seated next to each other, facing their young King who was currently asleep. In the week leading up to this trip, he had let his Demonic Power rebuild, but the effects of his long period of running low could still be felt.
"He really is an idiot." Kasane huffed.
Naomi hummed, "I can remember a certain someone not being able to move after some of her training sessions."
Kasane's cheeks slightly coloured, "That's different, I had to be strong to protect you."
Naomi giggled, "He would probably use the same excuse."
"He would be lying. You don't trick people into being stuck with you if you care about them." Kasane crossed her arms.
Naomi sighed, "I know you're still angry about that. But Kasane... We are better off here than back home."
Kasane turned to her sister, arching an eyebrow, "Really?"
"I..." Naomi bit her lip, seemingly struggling to admit what she was about to say, "I can sleep here."
"What do you mean?" Kasane asked.
Naomi looked down, "When I was in the... research facility, occasionally I would sleep while still I was still myself and not the Other, I could even dream."
She laughed hollowly, "You would think that the nightmares would be about me getting shot and turned into that thing, right? But no. I knocked you down and took that bullet because my power showed me you being shot..."
She took a shuddering breath, "I kept seeing you get shot, or impaled, or... or eaten. I was so, so worried. Every time they gave me more news about you I hoped it wasn't... wasn't..."
Kasane moved to get off her seat to embrace her sister, but stopped as she looked up at her, he blue eyes shining with un-shed tears, "But that's it, Kasane! I don't have to worry any more! Sure, it's still dangerous here, but you're with me, you're safe and we actually have someone we can rely on to help us!"
Kasane knew what she meant, but was still hesitant, "Are you sure we can trust him? He's been nice so far, but he still tricked us."
Naomi nodded, "It's because he went through all that trouble that we can trust him. He knows you didn't like that, it's why he's allowed you to beat him up in all those spars. He wouldn't be training us up like this if we were just disposable pieces."
She continued, "This world has no Others, Kasane. It's peaceful, for the most part. For the first time in my life, I don't have a constant feeling of dread hanging over me."
Naomi was the one to get up and embrace Kasane, "Try to give it a chance?"
Kasane stiffened, but relaxed into her sister's embrace, "Fine... but only for you."
Japan truly was a lovely country to visit. I had slipped out of the Underworld on that ridiculous Transplanar train of theirs with surprising ease. I half expected the Satans to have a travel restriction on me, but apparently not. There were the minders tailing me that I was aware of thanks to Information Defence, but so far they hadn't made any moves to apprehend or impede me.
As for what I was doing in Japan, well as far as anyone else could tell I was spending my time going to various Orphanages and scouting for recruits amongst the kiddie-winks. From what I could determine on my new, bug free phone, this was a rather common practice for Devils just starting to build their peerage. It was mostly regulated to those which weren't in any hurry to get instant power-houses, but that perception of the practice worked rather well for me.
What was actually happening, of course, was that I walked into the orphanage with Kasane and Naomi, hypnotized everyone in there to ignore us, then meditated to find the next world I would jump to while they trained with controlling their Demonic Power.
The whole charade was actually a double smoke-screen. I would be using these visits to the orphanages to justify my acquisition of my next piece, who would be my ultimate secret weapon for my immediate plans. Their second purpose, however, was to provide cover to my nocturnal trips north. I had set up a teleport circle in Sapporo when I visited an orphanage there, which I used to sneak out of our hotel room that was under surveillance from the Satan's goons.
I stepped out of the teleport circle, tucked away in a dingy alley, in my traditional face covering hood. I had a attention redirecting ward on me, but even without that the predominant culture of 'not my business' would help me move without confrontation.
As I stepped out of the alley into the moonlight, Information Defence lit up like a beacon. I had no clue what was looking at me, but the feeling I got was that I had not a chance a hell of stopping it, even if I did understand the mechanism they were using, the power difference was that vast. The presence settled around me, rooting me in place with it's attention, seemingly examining every single part of me and completely bypassing Mind Defence. Then, weirdly, it felt reassuring, leaving with a lover-like caress of magic.
I wildly looked around, trying to pin down what the hell just happened. I caught something out of the corner of my eye, then turned to look up at the moon. It was brief, merely an instant, but I saw something that looked like a symbol or rune on it before it disappeared as if it never existed.
Even in my surprise, I was cognizant of the fact that whatever the hell that was, it likely lit up this area like a beacon. I ducked back into the alley and quickly disassembled the teleport array, before getting the hell out of dodge. I moved quickly through the streets of Sapporo, my head on a swivel and monitoring the feeling I got from Information Defence like a hawk, but did not receive even the slightest blip on the needle.
Eventually, I determined that after so long, no one had tracked me from that location. I debated whether or not to give up my plans for the night or continue, but decided that the potential rewards were worth the risk.
So, I set up the teleportation circle in another location and moved to my eventual destination, that being the Fushimi Inari-Jinja Shrine. I was on edge for the entire climb up to the temple, expecting to be challenged or prevented from entering the holy grounds with wards, but to my surprise, I managed to enter the temple completely uninhibited.
Still, as I set up the offerings at one of the fox statues, I kept a weary observation on both Information and Mind Defence. It would take me a minute to set up a one-way teleport circle, so every second of warning counted. I clapped my hands and bowed to the statue, the Inari-zushi and incense set up properly, then waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Then waited some more.
Eventually I relaxed, and even zoned out a bit, using this opportunity for some meditation. I couldn't get into it fully, but it still slowly eased me off of my state of high alert. It also allowed me to pass the time, which turned out to be a necessity. Time passed, with absolutely no sign of the Shrine's guardian spirit, despite the offering given. After hours, the sun started to rise, so I straightened up and began to move back down the mountain to the teleport circle, planning to return the next night.
If there was no response, why would I return? Two reasons: First, the incense did not burn out, despite me being there for more than long enough for it to have done so. Second, as I turned around to look at the statue, the offerings were no longer present. The spirit was there, but it just didn't communicate with me.
I expected this, to be honest. The Shinto-Devil relationship had been severely damaged by the Nekoshou fiasco. In the DxD series, they didn't really go into detail about what happened with the Yokai after Kuroka offed her King, so finding out about the reality of the situation was quite the read.
The Yokai and the Devils were actually fairly good allies, due to both of them facing hostility from the religious institutions of their respective mythologies. Yokai parts, such as shedding from tails and the like, could be used in many extremely useful rituals as well as for a wide range of potions, where as the Devil's resources allowed the Yokai to live in greater prosperity than their lands permitted.
The recruitment of Yokai into peerages was even explicitly allowed, but only on the understanding that said Yokai would be treated well and could be reclaimed by the Yokai Faction should they believe mistreatment took place. Such a thing would necessitate the removal of their Evil Pieces, thus destroying the piece, meaning most Devils were loathe to risk it.
When Kuroka killed her master and went walkabout, it sparked a fear of Yokai in the Devils. The resulting abuses and attacks, while relatively small in number, were blown out of proportion by agitators on both sides. Tensions rose and eventually Yasaka called for all the Yokai currently in Peerages to be returned to their brethren in Kyoto, to safeguard them from what was swiftly turning into a full blown persecution of them in the Underworld.
Foreseeing that this would cause even greater distress, Serafall managed to negotiate quite the heavy payment on behalf of the Yokai to return their people, to cover the cost of making new Evil Pieces for the Devils that lost their Peerage members. The whole thing seemed to be over and done with, an unfortunate wobble to diplomatic relations but not anything deal-breaking.
Except, it looks like the Old Satan faction stole a march on the New Satans during this whole debacle. They organised with their allies and payed off members of the Great King faction to trade as many Yokai into their controlled peerages as possible, during the negotiations for their return. When the time came to return them, they did so happily.
With the Evil Pieces still inside.
So no, unlike what some of the fandom theorized back home, the Devils did not, in fact, genocide the Nekoshou or the Yokai in their Peerages. No, instead they forced their own people to put them down as they turned into rabid monsters beyond all sense. I'm sure once they figured out what was happening, the Yokai tried everything to either remove the Pieces themselves or get the Kings to do it, but it was too late. You could see why such a thing made dialogue between the two factions after the fact a near impossibility.
Ruthless, brutal, completely beyond the pale and brilliant. The old Satans got everything they wanted out of the situation, breaking an alliance with another faction, raising tensions and discrediting the New Satans. I have no idea why Zekram allowed it to go unopposed, but he did not deign to even get directly involved.
Back to the present, there is a very good reason that the Shinto as a whole have to not want to deal with any Devils after that, my whole race was reviled in Japan. Likely the only thing stopping Inari from strking me down for entering her Shrine was due to her not wanting to antagonize Sirzechs, the nuclear deterrent of the Devils.
It was even the reason why I was not attempting to contact the Yokai directly, pretty sure that they would normally kill a Devil stupid enough to put themselves at their mercy.
'However,' I thought as I walked down the mountain to the teleport circle, my Pride surging in my chest, 'I am not a normal Devil.'
AN: Like pulling fucking teeth, this chapter was. Set up chapters are always like that for me.
Sorry it was so late, got called in to cover other people's shifts 3 times this week, so sleep was at a premium. That also means I might have fucked up somewhere, but I would rather get this chapter out now then sit on it for another week or two.
Quick explanation on the Sin thing, most Devils gravitate towards one of the Big Seven to indulge in, as it causes warping effects on their personality they constantly have to contend with. This doesn't mean all devils are uninhibited sluts, they can choose the way they let the Sin effect them. An example would be Greed, they could revel in getting a good deal where they profit massively, or they could revel in robbing people blind. Another thing is that a lot of the energy is expended recharging your demonic power and only a small bit actually goes towards increasing your maximum.
The bigger the transgression, the bigger the power gain, but all things need to be considered carefully and weighed up in long-term vs short-term benefits. It's no use gaining a bit of power while pissing off someone who could easily kill you, after all.
Hope you had a lovely Christmas!
Edit 1: Fixing the Italics now
Edit 2: Should be good to go, please let me know if there are any other formatting errors!