The strumming of a lute filled the area, along with the sound of the lute came the strange singing of a strange multicolored bird around the man.
The bird’s voice wasn’t perfectly accustomed to this strange song it was playing, in fact, if one listened, the bird wasn’t crying it's common call but instead singing in tune with the lute of it’s master.
The effect of this thought was incredibly strange, the singing of the bird caused colored sound waves to radiate out and when it reached four other figures in the midst of combat, they felt their strength, speed or energy increase.
Indeed, this was Gus and the four 1st rank nobles whom Nil was supervising their training and who had their familiars ‘improved’ with new spells and magic.
The song that the Rainbow Song Bird above Gus was singing was a unique spell Nadir had thought of and that Xero had built with her. It’s called Buff Song.
Birds, unlike humans and other humanoids, have two vocal cords instead of one so their range of sounds is much greater. That said the song bird wasn’t trained in this thus making it feel discomfort during the first days and even dying a few times due to closed mana channels. It also gained wind magic placed in its wings to help develop the wings more.
Now, with each sound, the wind helps propel the sound which increases the range. The spell also only buffs allies so monsters would not feel the improvement and instead might even suffer from it.
As the target drops, the little bird lands while breathing heavily.
“Good job.” Gus said, patting its head. The little bird cried out and rubbed it’s head on his cheek.
“That is quite a good ability it gained.” Nil said walking over.
He looked at the killed target. The men were huffing but after a while of fighting they had killed a Winged Lion and it’s pride.
The leader would go to Nil for protecting them while the minions, all level 31 through 40, would be split among them.
“This kind of training is really hardcore.” the owner of the butterfly familiar said. Neither of them were good at close combat.
Coming from another corner, the magician with the two tailed magic cat was sweating after exerting his mana so much. “Let’s rest a while!” he breathed heavily.
“Alright, it’s fine to rest.” Nil said and clapped his hand.
Five female sword devils that Nil borrowed, though made sure to promise that he would keep training them as Xero instructed, ran over and began to process the corpses and started a fire to cook a few of the lions.
They wouldn’t be able to finish it all themselves but the familiars could within a few hours. Xero obviously didn’t teach Grunt’s metabolism martial arts since that was something he himself was still only so good at and wouldn’t be able to teach.
The food soon reached the prime state and was served. All the familiars chowed down and even the smallest Songbird was eating the corpse.
It made one realize how even the seemingly peaceful races can become carnivores.
“So what race would you all plan to evolve them into?” Nil asked.
“It’s said that after Songbird, the most common path is them heading towards Beastmen route so the most natural form she would take is a Harpy probably.” Gus said.
“My familiar is a Feline Vagabond so I am curious about it truthfully.” the man with the feline that walks upright.
“I have researched about the possibilities of the Magic Two tailed cat, after this is, hopefully, a Lesser Nekomata which is similar to his feline but when it loses the Lesser status, it takes a humanoid form with feline features.” the owner of that familiar replied.
“My fire Spirit is still an Adolescent. I hope to someday follow in our majesty's footsteps and create a King elemental.” he said with respect.
“You will need a minion spell for that you know, you should start thinking about that. My son gave you quite an impressive improvement but you won’t develop it much without it from what I hear.” Nil replied.
“Indeed, I have heard that the earlier a spirit forms a minion creation spell, the more potential it possibly has.” he replied. He looked at the others who shook their heads.
“We can think of it when we finish off the Orc camp that is nearby and return back to Cipher. Once you all feel my son’s Tempering you will find your magic abilities improve by a lot as well and you will have more stamina so let’s finish up and finish off.” Nil said.
“Yes sir!” They said and went back to eating before the mage began to meditate.
***
Xero arrived at his brother’s smithy and was shocked to find nobles there. He tried to remember if any arrived but didn’t get any word meaning they didn’t even inform their family which was something like a formal thing to do if they were equal ranking at least. If they were stronger then it wouldn’t matter.
Still, looking at the carriage, one could tell it wasn’t exactly a rich family and Xero walked in only to find the guard of the carriage stopping him and people behind him.
“Stop! Our lord is speaking with the demon smith! Begone!” the knight said.
“None of you hold any authority in the town run by my father, what are you doing to my brother!” Xero said, narrowing his eyes.
“Stop bullshitting kid!” The guard said and sent a simple kick at Xero but the boy caught it and with a simple turn of his body, threw the fully armored man at the other guard and sent the two to the ground before walking into the smithy where he found Zip and the blacksmiths standing in one side and the nobles on the other.
“What is going on brother?” Xero asked.
Everyone turned to him, “What are those useless guards doing letting this brat pass!?” a young man sneered.
Xero looked at the boy, “Are you here for brother’s tempering?” Xero asked.
“You are his brother?” the boy said and grinned.
Suddenly one of the knights took a step forward and launched himself at Xero.
“Xero! Run!” Zip said.
The boy saw the Knight coming and his body went on automatic as he grabbed the sword at his side. The Sword Demon in sword form had all the techniques of the Sword Devil’s Combat Sword Art that he and Ashley made and several dozen consisted of a drawing technique. He simply activated one and a blazing sword came from the sheath and slashed at the man.
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Kleng!
Hitting the armor, the man was sent flying while his armor was ripped to shreds and falling down like a sack of rice.
Next, he summoned Ashley who instantly called upon her Sword Devil’s Field and the minions all sprang out around the nobles with their manifested swords from the Sword Artillery.
BOOM!
Suddenly Cinder took to her demon form as her forge appeared and her minions began to crawl out and to the shock of the knights that had kept them in check, deformed humanoid figures without any features, no hair, sunken eyes, and red lines from it’s chest, crawled out.
“What the fuck are those!?” the nobles shouted in fear at the monstrous humanoid demon.
“Let’s make this clear, my contract with the king states I can reject who I want, any coercion can lead to loss of nobility so I suggest we stop here before things become strained between our families.” Zip said as imps and evolutions of the same crawled out slowly surrounding the nobles.
“I see, since you demons don’t want it the nice way then we will have to do it the hard way.” the boy said and turned before waving his hand, “We are leaving this town of savages.” he said.
Xero didn’t stop them as the guards grabbed the injured man. The maid attendant turned to the two brothers, “You lowly savages have better watch your backs.” She said glaring at them.
After that she boarded and the carriage went on.
Xero walked over frowning, “Who was that?” Xero asked.
“He was the son of a neighboring town, his father is a baron and although he doesn’t look it, he is in his twenties and stuck at level 30 so you can probably guess what he wanted.” Zip said the information the boy himself had said.
“Should we tell mother?” Xero asked.
“It wouldn’t do much, although the king and us have a contract, without him doing something like actually capturing someone to coert me, I can’t successfully use the connection to the king to suppress him.” Zip sighed.
“How come? Didn’t the king make the contract to avoid problems like this?” Xero asked.
His older brother smiled and sighed, “The world of politics and nobility isn’t as simple as that, there are loopholes in everything and he did just that. It was just verbal abuse, what’s more, his aunt is married to a Viscount so his connections go up quite high and can avoid instant suppression. It’s not like some random mercenary that I can kill if he tries something.” Zip said.
Xero nodded and looked at the Demon Zombies, “S-Since when did you get so many undead?” Xero asked.
“Most of them are bandits in the surroundings, while you were training and in school before summer break, Father, Void and I went around clearing them out and Cinder made them.” he said smiling.
“Yo lil bro.” Cinder says as she returns to her devil form.
“Hi… so…” Xero looked at the line.
Zip looked as well and woke up and coughs, “Sorry for that, who is here to request a breakthrough, please make a line on the left, you must be level 30 and have to be stuck in this stage for at least 5 years. For forging, make another row if you have either material, spirit, or material type demon or angel familiar and for tempering make another line!” Zip shouted.
The entrance had a divider made of steel and some chains between them with wooden signs stating which service.
The breakthrough line was incredibly small and the service was very expensive and had long waiting lines. Just the already registered quere numbered several dozen. Only Cinder dealt with that so the amount of people going where few per day. Zip still had not properly learned to do that and he was busy making the armor of an impure and low grade Devil Alloy for the Demon Zombies to make the Devil Knights that Cinder wanted to make them.
The rest of the Plated Devil’s dealt with the tempering and forging. As for the common weapons sold to warriors. They were all made by Jasmine’s father and cyclops and dwarves that Zip had hired.
Zip was already planning to buy out the several buildings around his smithy and expand the smithy to have more smiths and more space for his Devil forgers.
After the line’s started to form Zip returned, “So what did you need?” He asked.
“I wanted a forging for my minions.” He said.
Zip smiled, “Great! I have 6 new Lesser Plated Devil minions that have recently evolved and I’ve been needing them to forge your Sword Devils.” Zip said, happy to get more hands to properly process the long line of people.
Leading the group of Sword Devils to the lesser ones, they formed their forge and they were made to forge the Sword Devil Minions while Ashley and Xero got a special service from Cinder.
The effect of the forging had rather impressive improvements almost instantly with the sword minions. Although neither of the boys realized but if the person being forged undergoes intense training and comes to get forged within a short time frame after recently stopping, the areas impacted would actually obtain greater empowering effect for already being ‘damaged’ so they are repaired to an even greater degree allowing for concentrated training.
That said, as mentioned, it wasn’t noticed by either of them and at most, the wings doubled in size for all of the demons and the tails went from 45 cm to halfway past the knee. The wings could already obtain lift through physical power after training but they weren’t fast yet while the tail could already be used like a third arm, though it is still weak.
As for the eyes, Xero didn’t see it but the red iris of the devil minions had strands of very faint blue coming from the Holy Magic Eye spell that he had placed in everyone of them to help train resistance to Holy mana, create a counter against illusions and make it possible to more easily hunt and find herbs.
Xero called Edge and with the flying Sword Devils in tow, he started their speed training to get the sword devils accustomed to flying and increase the speed they could fly at.
There was now much less awkwardness in the flight of the sword devils though they had to flap a lot still but they could still easily achieve a stable flight even 20 meter from the ground but it wasn’t fast. If there was a way to identify it, the wings would only be around level 5 or 6, Ashley's would only be around level 12.
It caused a clumsy air show over the town who looked up and saw the strange sight and were confused until they realized it was Xero.
Many were still curious, and even envious, of the ability to freely fly. The black sword under Xero was an obvious indicator of that mysterious ability.
While in the air, Xero looked down and out of curiosity he activated the Holy Magic eyes. His iris started to form blue strands covering his brown eyes but it didn’t completely cover it and sank into his pupil.
The world around him turned into one of mana and he saw everything turn from detailed into basic shapes of mana. People were just featureless puppet shapes and the devil’s near him were more focused.
When they got to the manor, he saw the guards within 50 meters of him and saw they were more featured and he began to wonder if it was because of their level and amount of mana. He looked at his house and saw it was as detailed as the Knights and figured it was because he used magic to make it.
He saw the Gem Sapling from far away and was shocked to find that the detail was quite pronounced and wondered why even when it was still only a sprout absorbing mana slowly.
His eyes began to hurt so he stopped the spell and rubbed his eyes. “I really wish this spell and my eyes were stronger so that I could see better.” he thought but since he didn’t know advanced magic beyond 3rd year it would be hard for him. Nadir was also a beginner and he couldn’t do much about these magic eyes except keep training to use it and wait for Ashley to experience a growth spurt and the spell develop completely.
“Graw!”
At that time, Ignia flew out of Ashley’s horns and hugged him in the face, “Hmm… is something wrong?” he asked.
“Graw! Graw!” She exclaimed.
Through mental images he could feel her saying she was happy to feel holy mana in him. “I still need a lot of training to make my eyes strong enough to hold it perfectly.” He replied. He suddenly paused and looked at her, “That’s right… you’re also my familiar, aren’t you?” Xero asked.
She looked at him confused and nodded.
“Then I can also train you!” He exclaimed and she nodded. He became excited as he thought of having Ignia fighting for herself. It would help her develop quicker and reach the stage of upgrading earlier. A lot of the power of the Sword Devil revolved around the strength of the fire spirit they have, the others only have a sentient flame but he had a fire spirit.
When he thought of this, he found that it might be good to train the fire spirits like separate familiars, as long as their strength increases, the development of the Sword Devil’s would follow as they were burned continuously by the spirits.
“Alright, let’s figure out how you can train.” He said and pet the head of the little spirit who purred in satisfaction.
***
“Is this how magic sensory is? Hmm… this is head splitting! No… maybe if it’s this sequence…” Jasmine was in her bed with books of neutral magic around her as she kept researching something she believed would be a good method to help her husband and family. Though to her it was just giving more headaches.
Two separate piles showed two different research topics.
“Maybe I should get some field training.” She muttered and nodded and took some empty books and recalled the floating Gem spirits before leaving the house into the border of the forests to further experiment with Crystal.