Chapter 7: [Tutorial Complete]
(Sona)
Sitting on one of the nice leather couches of the Occult Research Club, she watched her best friend pace back and forth in panic as she calmly sipped on a cup of tea.
Sighing, she placed her cup down as Rias screamed again about her problems. Once again, the time of her engagement had been moved up without reason.
While it was unfair, Sona thought Rias could've handled it better if she actually put in the effort. She'd been informed about the engagement years ago, but she didn't do much at all in preparation.
At first, it made sense, they told her it was supposed to be after she graduated from college. More than enough time for her to train. But she should've noticed how the time seemed to keep getting cut in half every year.
And now, she only had-
"A week! From years to months, and now a week?! I can't believe he would do this!" Rias interrupted her thoughts with her incessant screaming. It was understandable that she had to vent when dealing with her terrible father, but this was getting ridiculous.
"What about Naoki? You still haven't told me what happened there," She said, deciding to change the subject. Maybe she'd calm down if she was thinking about something else. Plus, Sona still hadn't heard the whole story.
Rias was only able to tell her about the beginning of the story, encountering Naoki in the park with the dead body of one of the other students. It was a tragedy that the boy couldn't be revived, apparently a spear to the head, but Rias still hadn't told her exactly how he died and what exactly Naoki was doing there.
"Huh? Oh, right. That was a bit of a disaster too. He fled the moment I said he could go because he was scared of Koneko,"
"Of… Koneko? Why would he be scared of her?" She was barely five feet and everyone called her cute and paraded her as the school mascot. Why would he possibly think she's scary?
"In her defense, we did find him maniacally laughing while standing next to a dead body," Rias mumbled.
She squinted at Rias, trying to decide if she was real or not. In defeat, she took off her glasses and rubbed between her eyes. "Alright, start from the beginning and don't leave anything out."
And so she did, telling her about the maniacal laughter, his usage of ki and flaring of magic, his story, and the black feathers they found on the ground to corroborate his side of the story. She briefly wondered if there was a reason Issei specifically was killed by the fallen. A sacred gear, maybe? It'd explain some things.
On the subject of explanations, the pulsing she observed must've been Naoki getting a feel for using magic since he definitely didn't have magic or ki the other day. A bit boring of a discovery, but her curiosity was sated.
"So, how are you going to recruit him?" It was a no-brainer that Rias was going to try, it was only a matter of how. The chances of convincing him seemed slim in Sona's eyes.
"Oh, I'm thinking of giving him a Rook piece. He can probably do Senjutsu just like Koneko, even if she doesn't use it, so he should be pretty strong physically. And they can make up through their similarities,"
"A rook? Wouldn't he fit better as a Knight? With his supposed lack of a presence, he could combine that with his speed and- wait, that's not what I meant. I meant how are you going to convince him to join? If I was him I'd be already running away by now."
"That? Easy. He might not be the most sociable, but he's still a teenage boy. They're not that complicated,"
"I... see." Sona thought it best not to mention that he seemed to have no interest in people as a whole, much less the opposite sex. Plus, she wanted to annoy him a bit after he decided that skipping school on the second day would be a good idea.
More importantly, the issue with the fallen. While Kuoh Town was her and Rias' territory, this went a bit beyond that. The peace between the three factions was brittle at the moment and getting rid of the fallen with brute force could spark a war.
And Rias probably hasn't even thought about the fallen with how stressed she is. Sigh, she's gonna have to call her dear older sister, isn't she?
-------------------------
(Katsuo)
Fun fact: Although I don't need sleep, I still get tired from exhaustion.
After getting home and laying down for a moment, I slept like a log. Still, that only means I have all of Sunday to play with my magic. But there's something that's been buzzing at me every so often, annoying the hell out of me.
Sitting down in the living room after having breakfast, I open up the screen that keeps flashing and dinging every hour.
[Main Quest 1: Baby Steps] Complete!
Objective: Reach 10 Battle Power
Reward: [Skill: Unique Formula]
Bonus Objective: Achieve a supernatural feat before the Protagonist is killed.
Bonus Reward: [Innate Affinity], [Custom Spell]
[Skill Unlocked: Unique Formula]
<You have discovered your unique magical formula, increasing your [Mana Manipulation] by one stage while using your unique magic circle.>
That's... interesting. What does it mean by stage though? And what Mana Manipulation skill?
Although it probably wasn't the intention, that skill just inadvertently taught me how to use the magic that typical magicians use. A calculation system based on the demonic power that devils use for their imagination magic.
Considering the last names of people I've encountered, I'm going to assume those girls were devils. I've never heard of the term devils in place for demons but maybe it's just a result of some history I don't know about.
After all, that girl definitely wasn't the Gremory I'm familiar with, and that Sitri girl definitely isn't a man with a leopard face. And if they are the same ones I'm thinking about? This world is weird as fuck.
On magic, that does beg the question: Could I create my own version of using magic? Human magic is inferior to devil magic in every way, and I'm not much of a calculation guy. I can do it, sure, but I'd rather not.
<Finally.>
Oh, Sin. I was just about to choose my affinity and custom spell, what's up?
<I know. I've come to inform you that the Prologue phase is complete.>
Prologue phase? So the anime has started?
<Indeed. Now it's time to take off the training wheels.>
[Certain skills have been changed!]
[Skill levels have been replaced by expertise levels!]
<I know how obsessed you are with numbers, so I'll do you a favor to compensate>
[Congratulations, your Sacred Gear has been unlocked!]
The thing he said with the numbers scared me a bit, so I hastily opened up the skills page without replying. My eyes instantly locked onto the skill I'd been working on since I came into this world.
[Meditation (Apprentice)] (Active)
I raised an eyebrow at that. I don't know what it means so I don't know if it's bad or not.
All of the skills changed into a similar look, missing the levels to see how far along I was. And Meditation is the only skill that's above Novice level so it probably means it's good?
<This change was necessary so your goal of becoming the strongest isn't obscured by obsession.>
<I looked into the near future, and when I continued to allow you to see levels, you spent days trying to level up a skill once. Just. One. Level.>
That... sounds about right. I hated seeing skill levels that weren't multiples of five when I played RPGs back in the day. Seeing a random assortment of numbers splotched onto my skill page would annoy the hell out of me.
So what are the expertise levels, then? And how do I upgrade my skills, in the same way as before?
<It goes Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master. They get closer to upgrading just by using them, and upgrade fully once you make a breakthrough of some kind.>
<It's why Meditation Lv.10 felt over the top. The skill is about understanding yourself and the world you live in, so of course, a breakthrough would make you re-evaluate existence itself.>
<You can jump levels without much work if you make a huge breakthrough. Like suddenly learning how to freeze time when using Novice level Ice magic.>
That's...cool. Heh, get it?
...
Ignoring me again, are we? I get it, it wasn't very punny. Okay, that one was just bad.
Anyway, I think I'll choose my custom spell now, I don't-
<One more thing, your ability Ki Proficiency has been changed to Touki Manipulation and Touki the technique cannot be upgraded. Magic Proficiency has been changed to Mana Manipulation.>
<You can look over those in your own time. This will be our last conversation until your death. Goodbye.>
Er, uh, bye? I can't tell if I just got nerfed or buffed. Well, he did unlock my sacred gear so I can check that out, I guess.
I activate Touki just to see if I can still do it, and... nothing much has changed. I guess it was a logistical change rather than one that mattered?
Oh, my Stealth changed into a passive. Instead of just erasing my presence, I have instinctive knowledge about how to not be seen. It achieves the same result as before but it's now less about fading away and more about using certain techniques that trick the mind of others into ignoring me.
Time to get my bonus reward. After all, I did unlock my magic and ki before that guy died.
<Choose a School of Magic>
[Illusion] [Duplication] [Hypnosis] [Sealing] [Healing] [Enhancement] [Defensive] [Fire] [Ice] [Water] [Earth] [Shadow]
The list goes on and on for a very long time, but there's a search bar at the top of it.
Although I was joking about Sun Tzu earlier, I still did read a few lines of the Art of War. And the situation I'm in definitely requires it. I don't have enough information to trust anyone fully, so I need something to bypass my weakness and kill anyone who might try and take advantage of my ignorance.
Thus,
[Skill Unlocked: Transmutation Magic (Apprentice)]
<You are a natural transmuter, a practitioner of an art that modifies matter and energy. You are the blacksmith and reality is your forge. Grants instinctual knowledge about Transmutation Magic, and makes all Transmutation and Alchemy spells 20% stronger and quicker.>
Perfect.
Transmutation magic, in any setting, has the potential to be insane in application. It literally just lets the user trade substances for other substances as long as the user understands how they work on an atomic or molecular scale.
In fact, it works by three simple rules. Comprehension of the substance, Deconstruction of the substance into a more malleable state, and then Reconstruction into a more desirable state. It sounds simple and is very overpowered but there's a major problem with this.
I'm not a complete dumbass, but I'm definitely not genius level. And if calculation magic would be annoying, transmutation would be near impossible.
But I have a solution. I have a custom spell ready to be created. Having a custom spell might sound like it would be easy to just make a spell like 'God Mode' and then have infinite BP. And technically I could create a spell like that.
But I don't exactly have a great deal of mana to cast the spell in the first place. It'd be a complete waste.
So the solution? I'll just force myself to comprehend.
[Custom Spell Created: Download]
<Based on the 'Trace On' ability of Shirou Emiya, the user flows their magic through the target before copying information found. Unlike the famous projection magic, however, they do not attempt to recreate it.>
With this, I can just scan the information about a target and instantly comprehend it. Well, maybe not instantly. It still should take a bit to completely get all the information if the thing is too complex.
Plus, it doesn't even use a lot of magic. The only real drawback of this ability is information overload. But I should be able to tell or not if the target is too complicated for me to Download from before I attempt it.
And speaking of Shirou Emiya, I have an idea for an ability I can create. The only problem is that I don't know how to complete it, nor do I know if it'd be possible.
And I need the devil people's consent to do it. Either that or I can kill them and do it anyway.
There's just one tiny problem I just realized when I thought about creating a spell using transmutation magic. I don't actually understand any of the information I get from using my Download spell. It's like someone telling you that a person is made up of a bunch of different elements... but you've never even seen the periodic table.
I can't exactly deconstruct things into the elements when I can't even recognize which elements are which.
Ugh, I guess it's finally time to do my chemistry homework.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Khyrrid
Khyrrid I am very busy this week so I couldn't get many chapters out.
Next week will be better.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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