After the events where Ash evolved, Cress Snide summoned his huge snake and had it transport him at the fastest speed to Niska. This creature goes by the name of Basil and it is known as an Orochimaru Basilisk. It’s speed could rival the Ice Phoenix that he had come on but it was a land mover so it could be seen how powerful its agility was.
When he arrived at Niska it took no time at all for news of Xero’s accident to spread. In a short 10 minutes several teachers with high levels of purification magic presented themselves and Cress also called for an expert in identification magic.
Identification magic isn’t used simply to see race or level. An expert is capable of seeing every last bit of information from a being's body, even things like hormone levels and other such things. The reason he called them is to identify Ash, her level, her abilities and do the same for Xero and see if he had suffered demon corruption.
Its an extremely dangerous thing, this is the biggest backdraw of the Familiar binding, for those with different kinds of monsters it's easily avoidable. Monsters aren’t like Demons. Monsters store mana in the muscles and bones which is why the meat and bones are the most valuable but demons store their power in the core and it makes it impossible for them to access it without crushing it.
The danger of this to the human body is huge. The Familiar binding is a spell developed from the study of demon spawning pools. It essentially turns the human body into a spawning pool. The more powerful the demons spawned in the pool the more corruption the pools spreads to its surroundings. It is why the spawning pools deactivated after several years within the holy aura the imps were constantly killed and kept weak and the corruption was cleansed so the pools power decreased.
It is this side effect of empowering that aids the masters of familiars to grow so incredibly powerful even when the human themselves don’t have talent. This is also how the Holy Institute is #2 in power since people with no talent in magic are given talent by their familiar while those with no talent physically have their familiar trained in a way to improve that aspect.
But as said, a sudden surge of power is dangerous to the human body because of corruption. Corruption is a term used for when a human is injected with demon magic. Their body could mutate and become demonic or they can become psychopathic with mental disorders. The tattoos on the body of the master of a demon familiar works as a gauge of how far much more powerful the familiar is compared to its master. The best condition is for there to be no tattoo but it is impossible with demons. One evolution can be the difference between changing a demon into a demon lord. That one level contains such a huge difference that it is a kin to gaining divinity and become a god.
When Cress saw the boy's entire body glowing he wanted to quickly assess if it was corruption level of it was just the gauge of power.
With all the people gathered they made their way back and quickly had the teachers aid them in keeping the children away.
Rapidly building a strange tent that possessed innumerous runes and strange symbols the placed him in the center and the priests with purification magic summoned their familiars.
The Tent was even larger inside, it was double the size of the other tents around it but inside it was almost 50 times larger and was like a small playing field. The glyphs and runes all shined as the men sat down and the Identification expert walked up. His familiar was a strange goblin with its original eyes blindfolded but on its hands, on its forehead and several other spots there were eyes. The being stuck its hands forward and the eyes around its body shined and eerie light and around Xero a dome appeared circling light from the top rotated along the dome and after a minute it vanished and in the expert's eye he saw a huge degree of information flood over a transparent screen. This information entered his brain and formed an image of Xero and then from inside the familiar seal the red demon core appeared 1 cm big and then formed into Ash’s current form.
The tattoo information, power levels, skill levels, Innate spell, bloodline abilities, everything kept flashing before his eyes all this seemed to pass for several minutes but only a few seconds passed.
“The boy has minor corruption, 2% only just around the familiar seal, this is due to the mana eruptions, that tattoos are simply symbol of his familiars power.” The man said.
Everyone sighed.
“Thank you for the analysis, men please begin the cleansing, no corruption should be left around in the body but don’t destroy the familiar.” Cress said giving the order.
“Yes sir!” The said in unison and each began to chant a spell as the familiars each raised their hands. Rays of light fell on Xero as a black smoke raised from his hands and just a few small specks around his body.
Grunt and the teachers were standing several meters away but calmed down when they saw he wasn’t in danger, Cress lead the expert to them and then he turned to Ernest who was looking down.
“Boy, explain this moment what caused this to happen!” Cress said in an angry tone.
“Alright, it's like this…” Ernest said and explained the entire situation from start to finish and when they were done, all the eyes fell on the Dark Cherub that was taking a few steps back.
“Heh… i….” Before he could say anything his neck was in a vice grip and his body was lifted off the ground with one arm by Cress.
“You insolent little bug, the problems you cause are just too numerous, it seems a small scale punishment for you isn’t going to cut it anymore.” He said and pulled his wand and used mana to write something with mana and pushed it to Ernest. “Boy recite this order to him.” He said.
Ernest saw and he paled but gulped and took a breath to calm down, “For one year, you will feel unimaginable pain upon each death equal to 50 mortal beings and you will not draw pleasure from your own death. You will undergo punishment of dying slow death within Basil 50 times and you cannot resist being eaten, attack from inside or use mana to resist the acid of his stomach. After the 50 deaths are over you can only be summoned when training, fighting and eating and will return to the seal immediately and you cannot exit on your own will.” Saying the order Night’s eyes widen.
“NOOO! I don’t want to lose my pleasurable deaths!! NOOO!” He shouted
“Silence because of you, you endangered not only the boy but all the other students! Your own master was sent coughing blood due to the shockwave!” Cress spat the words out.
“Its releasing a demon’s power! Why wouldn’t I help such a powerful being come into the world?!” He shouted.
BANG!
He was slammed into the ground head first. “Stop spouting nonsense, you knew the boy couldn’t handle the power. Enough there is no use. Boy, you watch over the boy once his treatment is over, I shall be teaching your familiar his place.” Cress said and dragged the demon away.
He left the tent and the others just looked at him before turning to the expert.
Miss Gilbody walked up and showed a worried expression, “So how is he?” She asked.
“Don’t worry, besides just a small level of corruption along the familiar seal and some spots on his body that instantly burned away under the spells there is no worry but his body did suffer from overcharge of mana.” He said.
“How did that affect his body?” Grunt asked.
The familiar walked up and raised his hands and slowly a globe appeared and expanded until Xero’s body appeared.
“It will cause his body to feel extreme pain for several days but he will be unconscious during the time, as for true side effects you can all be happy. The overload of mana completely cleared out every last mana channel in his body except his mana pool. His body is empty of mana and doesn’t seem to be drawing it in and is all heading to the familiar seal, my suggestion is to place a mana stone on the seal to feed the familiar and then another on his other hand. It will allow clean mana to flow through his body. It will aide his recovering if he has mana.” He explained.
Everyone sighed before showing a wide smile, “So the boy unlocked his magical potential, a blessing in disguise!” Grunt said and laughed.
“Yes but tell him to be careful. His mana pool is still undeveloped due to his previous talent. It will take time and slow exercise of meditation to expand the pool, just have him fill it full and a little extra each time, he shouldn’t take much time to do that any more.” The expert explained.
“That is a good thing, I thank you for the advice. And what of the familiar, what in the god's name is it?” Miss Gilbody asked.
The image in the globe shook and changed to the blue skinned demon girl with white human like eyes and blue iris. “This demon is unique in all sense of the word. It is a new species named Lesser Sword Devil Infant. It is completely out of this world. It is completely blind in the normal sense but her vision is purely by mana vision. She ‘sees’ mana in everything and they take the form of would they truly are in front of her eyes.” He said.
“What does that mean?” Ernest asked.
“Illusion, magical invisibility, and magic in general, she can ‘see’ all of it, she will be unaffected by illusions, she can see through invisibility and she can ‘see’ the core of a magical spell. Besides just her vision, her magical potential is equal to the boys now, it's a purely clean magical channel with no obstructions. Her body possess extremely high levels of magical resistance but due to her body condensing, her muscles are dense but she is only at her lowest level because the boy's body can’t handle her power. Her Innate spells are surprisingly stagnated, they are partially formed which means she is intelligent enough to stop their formation so that the boy can alter then to its most efficient state. As for her level, she has peaked every last aspect at level 20. She is a purest peak level 20 monster, this is because the boy can’t handle more. When he grows stronger her limite will slowly rise as well.” He explained.
Everyone was slack jawed by the completely strange event and learning of this strange being.
“What is the boy's level?” Grunt asked.
“Well a few aspects were altered, the magic I don’t need to say but physical strength was forcefully pushed to level 13, speed 14 and a few others all range between this so I say he is around level 13 but I am more certain to call him level 12 at this moment because when he recovers he won’t be able to do much at all at full power. For now I say have him focus on training, the best way for him to handle his own familiar is training, make sure she doesn’t evolve, only let it evolve when her level reaches its peak and she doesn’t grow anymore and the boy must be her equal in level and power. If not, this event will happen again.” He said and everyone nodded understanding.
“Well I shall remain here for a few days to watch over the boy, since I am here please tell the students that I will be doing a small service and can do an identification of their familiars and tell them levels, race and some weaknesses their familiar and they have.” He said and bowed.
The teachers of Everlight were elated and thanked him for his help and generosity.
“I shall go and calm the students.” Miss Gilbody said
“I’ll go with you.” Madrid said and the two women left.
Soon the other teachers left as well and Ernest and Grunt were left,
“Wow I never expected to find a demon with an even more unique race then Night.” Ernest said.
“The coming days are going to be fun.” Grunt grinned and the boy looked confused.
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“Why?” He asked.
Grunt grinned mischievously, “You should have seen his Imp’s form before and he called the imp ‘he’ as in male right?”
Slowly it dawned on Ernest and he covered his mouth and chuckled. “Don’t go overboard sir.” He said.
“Hehehe, bah! If I don’t take this chance then I will never get another one in my life.” He said and turned before leaving.
Ernest remained and after several minutes the men around Xero withdrew their familiars and stood up before walking to the boy.
“The boy is cleansed of corruption, take him to his tent and let him rest, any other instruction the Identification Expert gave should be followed to the letter.” One of the older men said.
Ernest bowed, “Of course, I shall see to it.” He said. The men all left and he walked over and looked down at Xero. All of his body was completely covered in black tattoos. He looked at his own right hand and pulled the sleeve up to his elbow and saw similar tattoos.
“Even a holy type demon is still a demon, can’t change their true nature I guess.” He muttered and lowered his shirt and picked up Xero and left the tent and asked around for where Xeros tent was.
Inside he found the rather poor looking tent, just a blanket with some hides. His mouth twitched as he saw this utterly poor background and he frowned. He put the boy the bed of furs and covered him and exited where he found a little halfling.
“Um… is Xero alright?” Meldie asked.
“You are?” he asked.
“I’m Meldie Dominia, I’m his friend and classmate. I’m a bit worried about what happened.” She said.
“Can you do me a favor?” Ernest asked.
“W-what?”
“Look after him for a bit, I need to gather up some things.” he said.
Meldie looked worried but nodded and entered the tent. Ernest turned and quickly ran out of the camp and into the forest and flashed a white sword. “Let's make some proper furniture.” He muttered and several booms came from crashing trees.
The following days flew quickly, Ernest used only a few hours to cut apart some trees and skillfully cut them into boards that fit together and formed a bed. Using wooden pegs he nailed them and built it all up inside the tent of the boy and made him a proper bed which he was laid down on.
The following day the teachers arrived with a small box of common mana stones. One was placed each hand and it had the expected effect that the expert had explained. One fed the seal mana and the other hand the mana move through the body but still ended at the seal but it was slowly healing the body.
With twenty mana stones the satisfied the Devil’s mana needs and so the extra mana began to fill his body and gather in the mana pool near his heart. With Miss Gilbody’s help she helped flow his mana through his body slowly reaching the further corners of the body and filling the mana channels while flowing back and forth.
The expert remained and at the end of the first week he finally stirred. Slowly his eyes opened. His arms were laid outside of the covers with a mana stone in each hand and slowly under the watchful eyes of Meldie and Ernest his eyes opened.
“Ah! Xero! He’s awake!” Meldie exclaimed.
Xero was still in a daze and slowly his head turned and he saw the inside of a tent.
“Where… am I? What… happened?” He asked.
“Don’t force it, you just woke up after a week.” Ernest said walking over.
The tent they were in closet and some tables and seats. On the ground were pelts of large beasts covering it separating the hard ground from the occupants feet making it nice to stand on.
“What… happened?” He asked and tightened his hand and felt the mana stones. Slowly he lifted his arm and found the common rank stone and then noticed all the tattoos.
“What?!” He exclaimed and suddenly tried to sit up but was hit by a wave of dizziness.
“Don’t try to sit up, your extremely exhausted.” Ernest said and pushed him down.
“Explain!” Xero said looking at him.
The boy sighed and pulled a bench over and explained what happened the week before. Xero listened attentively and when he heard it all he went into shock as he learned that such a thing happened. He tried to remember what happened but everything was hazy.
Suddenly the Familiar seal shined and a tiny red pearl jumped out and shined as a blue skinned little demon appeared over Xero’s bed and dropped on him.
“Master~! You're awake!” she shouted and landed right on him.
“Bah!” He said as the air was pushed out of him with the little girls landing. Then she moved over his chest and mounted him and grinned down.
“Ah~! Master is finally awake so now I can finally hug and show master my love!” She said.
Xero looked up and remembered the hazy image from before he fell unconscious but this time he clearly saw the demon.
“Kya!” Meldie exclaimed and her face was extremely red.
Xero soon realized why, it was because the girl had a human form, from hands to feet it was 100% human. Only the black wings on her back and the black leathery tail and the little horns and blue skin gave it away she wasn’t human but her body was human and she was completely naked and wasn’t feeling shame of it.
Seeing her mounting him Xero blushed.
“Get off of him, he is still exhausted and tired.” Ernest said.
“Is that all?” She asked and moved a bit before pulling his arms out from under her and held the hand with his familiar seal. “Hmm… ah here.” She said made her right index finger a little black but extremely sharp claw and she poked a spot on the seal.
Instantly the tattoos began to glow and an intense mana washed over Xero for a full 10 seconds and it went back to normal.
“There done! Now get up master!” She said and she began to fly and she pulled him out.
“Stop!” Xero said but when she dropped him, he landed firmly on his feet but suddenly…
“KYA!” Meldie shouted and ran out and he saw why. He was naked and he looked at Ernest.
“The teachers removed it since you were sweating a lot.” He said.
Suddenly the demon girl hugged him from behind and hooked her legs round his back and kept rubbing her cheeks on his back.
“Master is so strong.” She muttered.
He finally loses it, “Get off and don’t hug me.” He ordered and the girl releases him.
“Ah~! Master you meanie!” She complained.
“Where are my clothing?” Xero asked.
“I made closet and cabinets for you, I removed most of your things. This is your tent after all. It was lacking when I arrived so I made some basic things.” He said.
“Thanks.” Xero said and walked around and found his clothing, underwear and put them on and dressed himself while the girl was always within a 1 meter radius of him.
“Now how do I get her to stop?” Xero asked.
Ernest shrugged and smiled wryly and Xero rubbed his head.
“First off, what did you do to the seal?” Xero asked.
“Oh that, I just pinched the side and make a small bit of my gathered mana enter master's body. Since master can’t handle all my mana I just released a tiny bit and made it energize master's body and heal masters body that was in pain.” She said cheerfully and looking at Ernest he shrugged.
“How do you know how to do that?” Xero asked.
“Eh? But… every familiar can do that.” She explained making them freeze and they suddenly realized, none of them have affection on her level to release their own power for the benefit of the master.
“Please return to the seal while I organize my thoughts.” Xero asked her.
“But what about my Innate spells? I kept them backed up until now!” She complained and pouted.
At this time the seal began to glow and Xero looked.
His jaw dropped when he saw three innate spells partially formed.
“Come on master make them, they’re really good, one is called Sword inventory, the other is called Cleave and the last one is Great sword summon, I don’t get what the last one is for thought.” She said.
Xero’s mouth twitched and he walked to his bed and rubbed his head.
“Don’t let it get to you, when Night evolved the first time I had to deal with 5 spells ranging from holy magic to water magic.” Ernest said.
“Alright, let me deal with this then.” Xero sighed and closed his eyes. “Release the first one, I’ll deal with them in order.” Xero said.
As he said that the first Innate spell began to grow and the mana in the seal began to flow out into Ash.
Xero quickly read the spell, “A type of space spell that somehow holds a few swords. I wonder what she is for her to get this spell.” Xero thought.
Since he wanted to best spell possible he began to change some part that could should be changed and slowly the spell evolved in a rather strange way. No matter what he changed it would end the same and when he finished Ash complained. “Boo~! Master you made the spell weird!” She shouted.
“What happened?” Ernest asked.
“The Sword Inventory she said, it evolved into an Innate Spell called Sword Artillery. The strange part of this spell is that for her to store a sword she must eat a sword. She can store 1 of every type of weapon and she only stores the strongest sword she has eaten. After eaten she can summon the sword at will with mana.” Xero explained.
“Why do I have to eat them!” She complained like a child throwing a tantrum.
“That probably has to do with her race.” Ernest said.
“What is her race anyway?” Xero asked and looked at the strange demon.
“Its a completely new race, its called a Lesser Sword Devil Infant, she is a peak level 20 in every aspect because you can’t handle any more.” He said.
Xero looked at the devil and agreed with the infant part. “Calm down Ash, release the second spell.” Xero asked.
She pouts and does that and more mana comes from the seal and begins to form the next spell.
Unlike the previous spell, this one was worlds simpler. The name Cleave was the most flashy name it could get, if it was called mana slash it would fit just as well. The strength wasn’t good and it charged too much mana with to much lost.
Forget allowing the spell to pass as is Xero would never let a sword magic be so pathetic. In his heart, he wanted to be a powerful knight and swordsman. With his commoner background being a knight would elevate his family's conditions to lower noble. He wanted his family to live a happy less work stressful one and the best way was getting rank by being strong.
Starting from the beginning even before the empty element section showed up he already began to alter several spots. It caused the entire spell to be crushed and caused Ash to utter an “Eh?”.
Slowly moving on he soon reached the element and thought a while before he added a special rune known as ‘Elemental’. This rune is unique because it allows the spell to access all elements except holy magic but there are obvious restrictions to it.
The grey magical formula shined like the rainbow everything after the element was destroyed and not just a few sections.
He followed the formula as it formed and waited a bit after each section was made to see how they worked and slowly changed some sections but returned to the start after a while and redid several spots several times from start to finish he kept going over and over until the spell finally finished.
“Master… you really went overboard.” Ash said.
Xero just smiled at that.
“So what did it result?” Ernest asked curious.
“My dream is to be a swordsman so when I saw how bad the Cleave spell was I kind of lost it.” He said.
“What happened?” He asked.
“I ended up creating the spell, Elemental Grand Cleave. It's a spell that can be pure mana or any of the basic elements. When slashing, the blade is covered in some kind of elemental mana and when swung it would send the mana flying as a slash carrying the mana. I worked so long on it that it would only lose about 1% of the mana ever 20 meters.” Xero said smiling wryly.
“Yeah… you overdid it. The power is all contained and I kind of fear the power she will have now.” Ernest said.
“Master, the last spell.” Ash said.
He nodded and looked. It was also element neutral but he could see it would summon a big sword but he didn’t know why. That was until it formed a bit more and a second element section formed holding ‘Metal’ and ‘Air’ runes which mean it floats.
He frowned and removed the ‘Metal’ from the second section and put it in the first causing a lot of breaking in several sections.
He changed a bit more and the ‘Air’ rune broke and reformed as ‘Metal’ and ‘Air’ again making him surprised. He worked more fixing problems in mana efficiency and cost to float, then summoning cost was reduced but created a unique option to change the size of the sword. Making mana efficiency good he reviewed everything and began to work on the actual sword body and began to improve mana flow, body durability but he had to keep going back to mana efficiency and since the new changes affected cost and vise versa and so he spent hours on it until he finished.
“Wow, i…” he was stunned.
“MASTER~!” Ash said and jumped at him hugging him. “That spell is amazing!”
Ernest had fallen asleep and woke up. “What? Oh you're done?” he rubbed his eyes
“Yep, master is amazing, he made a spell called ‘Divide Demon Lords Grand Greatsword’.” She said happily and Ernest began to sweat.
“Don’t give it such a stupid name, the real name is “Sword Devil’s Divine Greatsword. She can summon an unique greatsword that can grow to an amazing size. It’s combat potential is huge but surprisingly this spell is made for transportation.” Xero said.
“What?” Ernest said.
Xero smiled, “The spell was made for her to transport people and items on the big sword, it makes a small barrier that removes air resistance and its really fast.” He explained.
Ernest just shook his head, “You two are strange.” He said.
“Hey! Don’t call master strange!” Ash said.
“Ash return to the seal now.” Xero said and forced her to return and he sighed. “Finally free.” He muttered and stood up and tested his body. “She really did heal my body huh?” Xero said.
“We should go see the teachers, they will want to know about what she did.” Ernest said.
Xero nodded and got up and stretched causing his bones to crack from being still for so long and they left after that to look for the teachers.