Xero steps into his dormitory room while limping. When he left the ceremony the teacher had called him.

***

“Xero.”

“Yes teacher?” He replied.

“About your familiar, don’t feel down, if it makes you feel better I can tell you, you got one of the creatures with the most explosive growth rates known. With each death they only grow smarter, also yours seems to be extremely old so it should grow even faster than common ones.” The teacher said.

Although Xero was a bit startled by this since until now he has been only a target of scorn for all including the teachers but now he was encouraging him he didn’t know how to feel.

“Thank you for your kind words. I need to go back to my room and rest for class tomorrow.” He replied and bowed before turning and leaving with the flow of people.

A quarter of the way several boy from his class stopped him. “Hey Zero Nill!” This was the boy that had openly insulted him when his Imp had been summoned.

“Do you need something?” Xero asked him coldly.

“Whats with that tone brat! Don’t you dare talk with boss with that tone again or we will beat you up!”

“Yeah! Show respect to boss who gained a high class fire beast!” two of the grunts said.

“I saw, a Fire Ant Soldier is high class… a very high class minion summon. If I remember, all of you got monsters that follow some kind of mob mentality. It all truly fits you all.” Xero said and sneered.

“Brat, you think you’re any better?” The leader said. The boy was Chad Liquivet, he was a mid rank noble but his talent in gathering mana is high which caused his mother to spoil him making him egoistic today. “A blind Ash Golem, that is nice.” He said and sneered before he turned serious. “Brat, summon that trash pile punching bag now or you will be the one to get pounded.”

Xero just stayed quiet, he knew this was coming, the type of familiar meant everything when it comes to ranking and to these nobles, if it wasn’t a high rank from the start then it will forever be low rank.

“Since you are not summoning it then prepare yourself.” He said and gestured to his little mob and they began to hit him but in very select areas where the bruises won’t be seen easily.

***

As he fell in his bed he sighed. The rooms which are one person per room since the student would eventually get the familiar and normally they are left summoned so that they can grow accustomed to the master.

He looked and sneered at the ash grey familiar symbols and with a thought it flashed and the red pearl came out followed by the ash and formed the Imp.

Xero sat up and looked at his familiar and pulled out a book on monsters and found the imp section. The image showed all the shapes from newly born to a greater imp. They looked demonic and form start to finish they had wings.

Looking at his own he frowned and had it turn around where he found very small undeveloped wings.

“Yeah, should have guessed, he is blind after all, how can he fly?” He muttered but then looked at the ears and chuckled to himself. “Might as well make it a vampire or something his ears are so developed.” Xero muttered and flipped the page showing hundreds of different forms imps take after. Hell hounds, Brutes, gargoyles, Devils, Demons, Demonic golems. Imps comprise the lowest tier of every last creature in the underworld but none show the development this one had. He looked like a slightly disfigured goblin.

“If the head and nose was smaller and if it was less scrawny it would look like a grey goblin.” He said and flipped to the page with unique goblins and found a similar looking one. He looked at the imp and sighed. “Your are free to move around as you want but you can’t hurt me, you can’t leave the room and you can’t damage the room. Also go train your legs to walk properly.” He ordered.

The Imp turned and began to sniff the room and took a step and stumbled but soon fixed itself and took slow steps but it didn’t break this time.

Xero didn’t pay much attention to it and went to the imp section.

‘Hell’s lowest tier monster. They are said to be the made from bound evil souls that the gods no longer wish to roam the world and are placed in the spawning pools. Although comprised of ash they are creatures that will constantly respawn and with a unique ability to slowly absorb more materials into the demon cores that look like a red pearl. The size of these pearl represents their age and intelligence. The more they die the greater their power will get as the soul will remember everything and will improve their bodies as they train and grow. Every demon dies and rebirths as an imp but as they evolve the demon core grows as well. It is said that demon lords are beings that have died and rebirthed so many times that they are said to be the souls of the fallen angels that have been tainted with death to the very end and have large demon cores that have to be compressed and form many layers. The common imp core is between 1 millimeter and 2 cm.’

Most of it was pretty common but he raised a brow when he saw the size of the core. He chuckled to himself and looked at the Imp. “Nah no way that is some higher demon, its body is too weak and flawed.” He muttered.

‘Imps are said to possess the world's greatest growth rate. Being the primary being that becomes all the other demons, they are both the food and the main bulk of hells population and only after countless deaths can these unintelligent beings improve.’

Xero closes the book hard and frowns. “Like hell such a trashy monster is so important but if it has such a good growth rate like they say then he would already be a demon dragon or something.” He sneered and put the book away. “Bah! I’m going to sleep, Imp! Your bed is in that haystack, when you get tired don’t just stand around or stand beside my bed, go to bed.” Xero shouted at the imp. With that he went to sleep.

The next morning he found the Imp still walking around but there were some things like his study chair and some clothing knocked over or on the floor. When he found the Imp it was sitting under the sun coming from the window just staring his way.

“Why did you damage my room! Didn’t I say to not damage anything!” He shouted at the imp but as soon as he looked in its eye he realized something. “That’s right, it's blind so that means that it can’t see, stupid I pointed at the bed yet it wouldn’t be able to see or even know what a haystack is.” He criticized himself but stood up nonetheless.

“Return.” He said. The Imp returned to the symbol and he sighed before cleaned up his room and got dressed before going down to get something to eat. It was still early and he was first but that was because he didn’t want to be part of the bulk of the morning rush and wanted to be in the classroom where it was safer then out where he could get beat up.

Simply sitting at the table activated the magical artifacts that transported the food to the table around the seats that were occupied and filled the goblets with juice. He began to eat quickly and soon finished before he quickly left and headed to his class. Starting today would be class using the familiars which in turn would be considered true magic class. He would need to meditate a bit to have mana to do the class. Well in truth it was more studies of the familiars themselves since most of the are either too young or too weak to do magic from exterior magical formations. Their own magic needs to be trained first because their ability to use magic is usually weak unless it's a powerful monster.

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Xero goes to his usual spot at the back to make sure he have no eyes on him and brings out his books and start reading the notes. Most of it was magical formulas that consist of lots of math and studies of magical formations, or in other words, magic circles.

Soon other students start coming in one at a time and soon the bullies… I mean ‘nobles’ come in. The class is made of around 30% nobles and the rest are from either commoner families, him, or merchant or other low ranking families that can provide some items that would improve the abilities of their children. As you can tell but he was part of the commoners and not the merchants with money to pay to improve the talent of the children. He was purely talent and that was the bottom rank talent unlike the rich nobles that can pay to make genius from shit.

“Hey Zero!” Chad said as he saw Xero and grinned. He sat at the front and as the time neared for the class to begin, Univa Crost walked in and like always she passed her hand in her hair to try and make a dramatic and ‘beautiful’.

She looked around and her eyes landed on Xero and frowned when she saw him looking down at his book. A few people glared at him and insulted him by saying things like, “Do you see that, Zero actually dares to ignore our idol.” “I know right, he should be the first to come and kiss the ground she steps on.”

These words obviously reached his ears but he didn’t mind, if he didn’t have talent he would work hard to catch up, with or without that imp.

“Alright children take your seats!” A fat pudgy man said as he walked in with a handkerchief wiping his sweat from his head.

“Now, I am Professor Servine Florence and I will be your teacher in the art of magic and familiar care.” He said and looked around taking in every student's face. “Good, now as you can tell by the spacing of the seats, the classrooms used by the students of the second year and beyond are all large and spacious, this is for your familiars to have room, I want everyone to summon theirs.” He said.

Flash’s form the symbols came from everyone and Xero sneered at having to summon it but did so and the Imp appeared next to him after forming from the ashes.

“Oh my! Not only do we have a dragon blood we also have a demon and a high ranked demon imp as well.” He said in shock. Instantly everyone turned to Xero since he was the only one with an imp.

“Sir, how is that blind imp high ranked?” Chad suddenly asked.

“You can tell by the size of the red pearl that is the core of the demons. A common imp would have a core that is the size of 1 millimeter to 2 cm only. Bigger than that are commonly found in higher ranked demons. That imps core is at least 12 cm in diameter.” he said excited then waved for Xero. “Come boy and bring the imp as well. This is a grand thing to see, imps have an amazing growth even as common ones so for one like this it should be unsurpassed.” He said.

Xero was sweating but stood up and told the imp to follow and started to walk over. He was afraid that the legs of the imp would break but it walked normally behind him and reached the front and with a command it stood next to him.

“Hey how come the legs aren’t breaking?” Someone whispered.

“Hm? What's this? Small white eyes and undeveloped wings… scrawny figure that matches a newborn yet with a figure only found when mid or high ranked demons are supposed to rebirth. Large nose and ears suggesting strong sense of smell and hearing. Hard skin.” He muttered.

“The teacher that was present at the summoning said it was blind and was impossible to hunt. The legs yesterday were breaking because it couldn’t handle its own weight.” Chad said to the teacher.

“I see, blind huh? That is a small flaw that shouldn’t matter too much, a bit of training in the magical arts and it will develop mana vision so its blindness will be secondary and it will even be strong against illusions.” The fat man said but then rubbed the fat that filled the space between his neck and head. “Now then, can anyone tell me what is the most efficient method to grow a demon or any familiar for that matter?”

“Fight with them?!” one of Chad’s mob replied.

“Yes and No! You need to properly feed it while training. The greatest example is the imp. As you can tell, its figure is small skinny and looks overall weak. The legs he developed after walking but he wouldn’t have much strength for anything over all and his body is still weak overall because it severely lacks mana it gets from eating food.” professor Florence said. He turned and pulled out a bag from behind him and opened before sticking his hand in and pulling out the hind leg of some animal. It was wrapped in some kind of material which preserved it and kept the blood inside. He removed it and instantly the Imp and all the other carnivores began to sniff the air.

“As you can see by the reaction, fresh raw meat is something that attracts their attention greatly. Part of your curriculum of this class is how well you can raise your familiar. Now I will say this, the imp isn’t the only creature affected by the lack of food. Every one of these present can experience great amount of growth but there needs to be a balance. Overfeeding won’t work, over training won’t work. You need a balance of training for food depending on the size of the creature.” He said and dropped the meat he was holding on the ground and the imp quickly jumped on it and then pulled out more and began to pull out and toss more meat for each of the familiars.

Everyone was surprised by the action of the teacher but as they watched all the animals eat the meat they saw something amazing.

Some monster’s body seemed to squirm as they grow a small degree while others get longer but when they watched the Imp they saw something scary. The scrawny body began to wriggle and muscle began to form. The wrinkled skin began tighter as the muscles stretched a bit, the legs, body and arms were no longer skinny and looked to have formed muscles that were lacking before. It even grew a small degree.

“Some creatures take better to the method of feeding for growth, Imps are a prime example because the moment they are born they need to fight to the death with their own kind to be able to survive and get sustenance. Through death they become better hunters until they become powerful demons. Now we will begin with magic training. Boy stand over there.” He said and pointed to one end of the platform. He then waved his finger and pointed at Univa. “Miss, please stand at the other end.” He said. She stood up and called the salamander to the other side of the stage.

“Here we have two magical creatures. Both are magical but there is a clear difference between them and you will see why now.” He said and turned and stepped on something that caused a wooden doll to appear and draw a wooden sword and look at the girl.

“Miss, the Blue Winged Salamander is a being of fire, they are capable of a basic attack like Fire spit. Please attack this doll now with its innate ability.”

She nodded then held her wand out and through the link she searched for the magic and found it near the throat and supplied it magic and ordered the salamander to spit at the wooden doll.

The salamander hissed and spit out a large flaming ball that slammed into the doll. It burst but otherwise it had no damage but it turned towards Xero.

“Now young man, have your imp take 2 steps forward, you take 3 steps back and you have it attack with the innate ash golem ability Imp fire.”

Xero was confused by this but did as ordered and took three steps back and the Imp took two towards the doll. He drew his magic sword and looked at the connection and after a while he found the magic formula and ordered the imp to attack and then fed it the mana necessary.

That said, halfway through the grey imp suddenly turned bright red before it’s body burst into a ball of flame. The large red pearl flew up and flashed before returning to the familiar seal.

Everyone started to cough but the windows opened quickly and the wind pulled all the ash out.

“What you witnessed…” Professor Florance said and coughed a few time and stood up better, “What you witnessed was a familiar that isn’t adapt at using magic. Beings like dragons are naturally strong magic users and those with dragon blood can also innately use magic but not to powerfully without injury. Now I can see quite a few of you are sneering at the boy. Stop it because every last one of you will end in the same way.” The fat teacher said. “You two may sit down, now since we are doing this, we will have everyone come up and use magic with their familiars.” he said and pointed at anyone randomly.

Xero was sneered at and he was depressed as he seated himself but very quickly he sighed. He wholly liked this teacher because soon more than 80% of the familiars blew up or were injured by their own magic. Even the high ranked Fire Ant Soldier that Chad had had its head blown up from the fire it was about to spit out which made Xero grin and sneer at the pale faced noble.

By the end of class the dust and ashs from the blow up monsters actually contributed to allowing the Imp to respawn and it looked only a slightly bit thinner than before it died but he noticed that it was because it kept constantly flapping the slightly bigger deformed wings and kept stomping its feet as if anticipating something.

When everyone went, those that had their familiars survive the magic were proud while those who didn’t were a bit sad to have their familiar die in such a way.

“Good, you all seem to have learned that even if a creature is ‘higher ranked’ it can still sustain the same injuries as the ‘low ranked’ ones. From now on, no one is to ‘rank’ familiars because of the breed is better. The strong will naturally get strong and we teachers will help you all make powerful familiars to help you get better.” He said.

Suddenly a loud ringing was heard, “Class is over, you're all free to head to your next class.” He said and sat down with an ‘uff’.

As the students were gathering their things Chad walked over to Xero, “Don’t think you can laugh at me so easily you peasant.” He said and left.

Xero just blinked a bit and shrugged and left the room for the outdoors class.