Gremory SI - Chapter 5 : Hanlon's Razor.... (Patreon)

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Gremory Territory, Underworld.

—Shin Gremory–

He was inside the forest, floating cross-legged in the middle of a clearing, cloaked by the highest tier of warding he could find in the library that was publicly accessible to them. It was obviously not the best thing around, and in some ways, him doing this might just be painting a huge sign on this particular area, but he figured it was better than nothing.

As for what he was trying to hide here? Well, his training, nothing else. The results of [High Potential] and [Phenex Regeneration] could not be understated here. One allowed him to continuously aim higher, and the other allowed him to pursue those heights without having to worry about injuring himself or allotting time to rest. Well, he did have to rest, but not all that much. Also, mental magic came very easily to him, a subject that most of his peers struggled with.

Which is why he was currently engaged in a semi meditative state, working on three things at once. First of all, while he did not have the famed Power of Destruction that Sirzechs had, he had Demonic Energy, literal imagination based magic, which was enough for him, so he was constantly jumping from concept to concept, using up his Demonic Energy in spectacularly expensive magics.

Secondly, he was using the same magic to damage his body all the time, forcing his regeneration to keep up with the expenditure of Demonic Energy.

Thirdly, he was in this trance that allowed him to dull the feeling of pain and focus on himself, something that increased the rate of recovery of his Demonic Energy. 

All of these tasks came together to create a cycle of sorts that allowed him to grow rapidly, at the cost of some pain. Frankly, it was a bargain. Compared to what was out there right now? What he was going to have to face in the near future? In the distant future? Literally in the next few days in the Pits? Pain was nothing.

The Rasengan was an interesting thing. A spiraling ball of energy, made up of smaller strands of energy that spun around in wildly different directions, all compressed into a singular containment unit, made up of chakra. Now, since he didn’t have chakra, he had to substitute it with pure Demonic Energy, something that was infinitely easier since Demonic Energy, especially his, was akin to a puppy that begged to be played with. He didn’t need to coax his energy, or fight it every step of the way, to create something. It just came naturally to him, to most devils, really. 

So, creating a Rasengan was mostly a matter of knowing the right steps and creating it. After all, Rasengan was just a pure energy manipulation exercise. Which is why he was able to make Rasengans since he was 10. A year since then, and he hadn’t been able to infuse any element into the Rasengan, mainly because he had been far too busy with all the new magic that was now accessible to him, simply because he had stepped past the barrier of being 10 years old.

The Gremory Library was extensive. It was full of different kinds of magic, and contained more books than he could count right now. Not that he had full access right now. Nope. He still needed to be both old and powerful enough to gain access to the rest of the library, or at least those were the official terms anyway. In reality, since he was not the right kind of Gremory, it was going to take him fulfilling the age requirement, as he could not imagine the current administration acknowledging his power levels, no matter how many Red Headed arrogant Gremory he sent back, with nothing but their pride wounded.

Unless he was willing to enlist the help of the one Gremroy with the right mindset, he was going to have to wait until he was 16 to get full access to the House’s resources. Until then, he was going to be restricted to the current version of the library, which had all the basic spells he needed plus many mid tier defensive stuff as well. While he was no magical genius and could not outright invent his own spells to compensate for the lack of knowledge, Devil Magic was called imagination based magic for a reason.

As long as he had a clear image in his mind, had enough Demonic Energy to throw at the problem, and the will to see it through? He could probably do anything, or so most Devils thought. The truth was far more complicated than that.

First of all, there was the issue of the House Circles. Naturally, those were only available to Pillar Houses and their Devils, or to those who had the currency or the connections to buy or be granted one. Either way, it was a limiter of power, something that created a barrier that could not simply be overcome with just more Demonic Energy.

All Devil House Magic Circles were more or less the same when it came to the efficiency of Demonic Energy use. Some were more attuned to Fire Magic, some more towards defensive enchanting, and so on, but the core function of the Magic Circle, which was to make efficient use of Demonic Energy, remained the same. 

Maybe Lucifer had a better version? But no one could tell. 

Secondly, there was the issue of structure. Sure, imagination alone could get you the intended result, but just like education was important in the human world, or it will be in a few hundred years, education was important in the Underworld as well. Because simply summoning fire was a costly affair for Devils who were not Phenex anyway, creating fire was much simpler, both in terms of Demonic Energy cost and the stability of the magic.

Summoning gigantic amounts of fire required more finesse, compared to just igniting gigantic amounts of fire by summoning smaller amounts of hydrogen and oxygen. This meant that the more educated a Devil was, the better they could make use of their Demonic Energy. As simple as that.

Those two things made it so that Pillar Devils made the best soldiers and had the highest growth rate. Doubly so for him, since he had double heritages and high potential.

Anyway, those things, along with the library access, allowed him to do….this.

His eyes snapped open, wiping the sweat off his forehead as he looked at the Fire Rasengan floating all around him. The Six Rasengan around his body fizzled out of existence, only to be replaced by deep blue Rasengan. The Water Variants. They were considerably more costly compared to the Fire Rasengan, but that was understandable due to his heritage.

The Water Rasengan fizzled out, only to be replaced by a white one. The Air variant. The Phenex Heritage also gave him limited control over Air, so these ones were easy on the energy draw as well. 

These six fizzled out as well, as he landed on his feet, feeling far more drained than he should be feeling. These three magics alone should give him enough of an advantage over every Devil under Ultimate Class. It was just that powerful, especially paired with his stupidly durable and resilient body.

In fact, he was pretty sure he could take out most of his House all by himself, even the Head of the House, if need be, simply based on all the training he had done so far. But this was not the kind of world where one could let ego get to their head.

Paranoia was the name of the game.

Shaking his head, he dismissed those stupid thoughts before swiftly cleaning himself up and turning around to walk right into a cave carved into a giant rock to sleep. While meditation could be a substitute, he didn't want to risk anything, with the Pits camp coming up. He only had a few days, and he would like to be in his best possible shape for that.

He was worried, but not for himself, but more so for what Zephyr Gremory could have planned for them, or even the worst option, which was what Zephyr Gremory couldn't have planned for. The Head of their House could simply be that incompetent. He wouldn't know. He had barely been here for a decade, and this was his first time going out of the Gremory Compounds.

In a way, it was both a safe haven and a prison for his growth, as he would never be able to grow at the speeds he should if he just stayed inside and trained with himself. He needed other people to compare to, to beat into the ground, and to gain valuable combat experience, which was why he was going to leave the House soon enough anyway, the threat of the Lucifer Six be damned.

He never thought his plans to do so would be hijacked by the Pits. It was going to be such a task to make sure that none of the kids died on the trip. Hopefully, Zephyr’s words about hiring the Top Pit Hunters to ensure their safety were true.

____xx___

Spoiler alert? Zephyr, in fact, did not ensure their safety.

Maybe the Pit Hunters were not paid, or they were recalled to their jobs, or they found other, more lucrative offers, or they were simply not informed of the time they had to report to their new job. Whatever the case may be, they were currently inside one of the remote Gremory outposts that was located inside the Pits, a place where danger, treasure, and death were all mixed together.

It was an unholy patch of land that was strewn across the Underworld in a haphazard manner, simply because this was the land that was ravaged during the Great War, creating large swathes of land that were uninhabitable, even for Devils, because of the harsh mixture of exotic energy, spatial tears, weird creatures emerging from the spatial tears or from the exotic energy, and more.

It was a big problem, and as such, most Pillar Houses had some outpost here. Ever since Lucifer kicked the bucket, the Four Satan Houses and the Six Houses of Lucifer had withdrawn all their people from the Pits and burdened the rest of the Pillars with this dangerous duty. Of course, there was the matter of money, so most Devils jumped at the chance, but the fact of the matter was that these Pits were a meat grinder for Devils that were not being replenished as quickly as they were being killed.

Something that he was sure many Pillar Heads must have noticed, and that was probably why Zekram was going to be successful in creating a coalition.

Unfortunately, that meant that there was always a shortage of talented Pit Hunters for tasks more than just hunting the Beasts and selling them. Protection for other outposts, protecting under construction infrastructure, protecting research projects, protecting and training children. Apparently, that last task was lower on the pay scale or importance scale, as the Pit Hunters simply did not arrive.

Fortunately, ever since that truth was exposed, everyone here had been clamoring to go back, especially the Red Haired ones.

Zephyr was ofcourse not here, and if Sirzechs were present, he would have had no concern whatsoever. So, that left the Pit Hunters here, who were far removed from the authority center and, as such, did not care much about the Main Gremory House, to bring the matter up to the Head of the House.

Once more, their luck was such that communication magic did not work reliably this far inside the Pits, or rather, it did, but it was expensive, and none of the Pit Hunters would allow the kids to pitch in the Demonic Energy for the expensive and limited use SOS system built into the outpost.

The far cheaper and, more importantly, longer option was chosen, which was to send a Pit Hunter to the outskirts before using much cheaper, individual communication magic to send the message.

The message right now was to request that the kids be brought back, using the same method they were brought here.

Using an ancient teleportation pad built deep underground, something that was only to be used for emergencies.

……Lucifer save them.