Story 9: Chapter 1: The Zero (Patreon)

Story 9: Ace in the Hole

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 1: The Zero

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

- ??? -

I sat down, my back against the wall of the small room, exhausted after the day’s work.

There was only so much my body could take.

Age was an undeniable factor and being a twelve year old didn’t help my case.

I looked outside the window of my shoddy rundown room towards the purple coloured sky and the moon.

It only served to remind me that I was no longer on Earth.

The Underworld.

I was in the Underworld.

I was not a human anymore.

I was a Devil.

This was a very familiar and yet unfamiliar world.

The world which I remember as a story from my previous life.

Once I had recovered from the initial shock of dying and reincarnating, I had almost relapsed into depression when I figured which world I had reincarnated into.

A world where beings who can destroy the world on a whim exist. People who could destroy cities were numerous. Even a High Class being’s rampage can destroy a small mountain.

And that was not even mentioning the supposed invasion of Transformer Wannabes and Perverted Eldritch Gods who killed the so called Strongest Being of this world, the same being who was so strong that people of this world didn’t even put him in the Power Rankings as it was pointless.

I remember raging at the stupid plot more than several times in my last life. But now, imagining that my life rests in the hands of a braindead pervert who would trade his heart for a boob… yeah, I did contemplate giving that reincarnation wheel another go, more than a few times already.

I mean it would have been good if I was in a better position than I currently was but… looking around at the small, dilapidated room around me, I sighed.

Unlike the other transmigrators, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon aka OP family or a golden finger aka cheat skill.

Actually, I did.

But it only served to aggravate my situation.

I am Acelin Abaddon, the son of the third Ranked Rating Game player, Bedeze Abaddon and the nephew of Roygun Belphegor, the second Ranked Rating Game Player.

So then why was I in such a situation?

Well… there are several factors responsible for this.

The prime reason being that my dear father is a piece of shit.

What happened was that Bedeze, due to his pettiness at always losing to a woman, Roygun, did something to get one over her.

He seduced my dear mother, Mariane Belphegor, Roygun’s younger sister. My Aunt warned her about him but she was too lost in her so-called love and fell for his ploy. In doing so, she left the Clan and Bedeze was already kicked out of his clan when he decided to participate in the Rating Games.

The bastard didn’t just stop at this, he even used it to taunt Roygun and she in turn broke his limbs in the next Rating Game in front of the whole Underworld.

He was unfortunately healed with a Phenex Tears.

Damn chicken fuckers.

This caused the relations between the two sisters to plummet below Freezing Point.

The turning point was when I was born.

It turned out that I was born with a Mutated Clan Trait.

Now, many thought that it would be a good thing just because it was mutated but no… unfortunately, not all Mutations are good.

The Clan Trait of the Abaddon is Hole.

This technique allows the user to create and control portals that expand and retract according to the user's will and are able to absorb attacks and reflect them back as they choose. Once these holes have absorbed something in them, the user can reopen them in a different area of space nearby to release everything or even parts of what they've absorbed. 

These spatial gaps work similar to black holes, in which they have a gravitational pull that redirects an attack away from their target; this pull is strong enough to completely absorb attacks or teleport to other locations and avoid attacks, or alternatively even teleport portions of the user's body and even their own attacks.

A versatile power.

The Belphegor Trait however was Crack.

It can create a Tear in anything with equal or lower power than the user.

Both of these are very good powers.

So if I was lucky, I would be born with both powers.

But it wasn’t so.

In my case, both the traits fused in a strange way which ruined the power of both sides.

I can create Holes but they cannot suck or store techniques. Instead, there is just a crack inside and that crack cannot do anything to other attacks.

The holes don’t even connect to each other which ultimately make the Skills a complete failure.

My clan traits fused in a way which made them completely useless.

Not to mention, the energy it takes to create them is so large that I could only create fingernail sized holes at the start whereas someone with even low class reserves could create several holes the size of a fist at the very least.

Ultimately, it was a complete waste.

And how could Bedeze stand this?

The guy hadn’t married my mother and refused to accept that the child was his, breaking off all relations.

My dear Mum went after him several times but to no use. She blamed me or rather the previous owner of the body.

I’m still not sure if I just regained my memories or was transmigrated.

She ultimately left me aside and decided to make a living.

Last I know, she died while trying to hunt near the pits.

….

The last owner of the body was left alone at the age of eight and that’s when I entered.

So, here I was, in a small dingy room, a hot potato young devil with a defective Clan Trait who was on the shit list of two Ultimate Class devils.

I don’t think many would envy my position.

I know I wouldn’t… especially knowing what was to come later on.

In this world, training was hard.

Training without any special help was even harder.

The resources lay in the hands of the top levels while Low Class Devils like me had to toil for decades to reach the levels which they can in teenage years.

I did have an advantage of being the child of two Extra Demon Clan’s devils which gave me better genes but even then, there was only so much I could do with brute force.

Some people would argue that I could train like Sairaorg but even Sairaorg was not a nobody.

Sure he was sent away by his father but he was still given enough resources as a member of the Bael house. Not to mention the Vapula.

I couldn’t even eat properly, so how could my body withstand the strain?

Then he got a Longinus to boot… and even then he was defeated by an idiot who had been a Devil for just a few months… because… Boobs.

What the fuck!?

Yes.

Life was unfair.

In this world if someone was without a background or didn’t win the birth gacha for an Overpowered Sacred Gear, they probably wouldn’t make it large.

There were obviously exceptions but even they had to work for centuries.

I don’t even know if I had that much time.

There were obviously other ways to get stronger.

We can always make contracts.

But even here, there was a catch for me.

As a Low Class Devil, a natural born Low Class Devil, I was not allowed to go to the Human World to make contracts.

I could only go there after I became a Middle Class Devil and that too for a short while. To really have easy access to the Human world, I needed to become a High Class Devil which would take a lot of time.

No one was going to take me in their peerages due to my background… not to mention, I don’t think I can trust anyone.

I doubt I would be able to rest my life in the hands of someone with just the knowledge of an anime from my previous life where boobs decided the future of the world.

It was easier for the ones with peerages to get promoted as they have certain facilities which normal Low Class Devils don’t.

First, they were allowed to go to the Human World with their kings which allowed them to make contracts easily and collect contribution points.

Second, they could participate in the Rating Games and Rank Up with the permission of their Kings and take a relatively easy exam.

Natural born devils don’t exactly need to join any peerages and can become a Middle Class Devil on their own.

There was however a catch. Any Low Class Devil would need the recommendation of a High Class or above Devil to be able to take the Middle Class Devil examination. 

 after they pass an examination held every decade for a limited number of seats for the promotion of Low Class Devils.

While this may seem fair, it hardly was so as hundreds of thousands of Low Class Devils exist and the seats for promotion were only a few hundreds positions for Middle Class seats. This was made harder by the fact that the examinations were extremely tough and each devil entering those were at the very least at the High Class Level in strength. Not to mention that other High Class Devils will only recommend their own servants and relatives making it nigh impossible for other normal Low Class Devils to get a recommendation.

Not that anyone would recommend me and piss off the Abaddon and Belphegor.

It was basically a scam which gave the Low Class Devils hope that they can also reach High Class Levels.

Moreover, Devils backed by Pillar Clans and other Top Tier Devil families have an unfair advantage in terms of resources such as magical knowledge and magic circles which acts as a means to properly channel their Demonic Power.

Without those, the efficiency of normal Devils to cast spells was 15% on average and 33% at best.

So the imagination based magic only goes so far as it becomes terribly inefficient without any magic circle.

To explain it in this way, with a magic circle, even Issei, someone who was stated to have lower Demonic Power than a newborn Devil child was able to cast Dress Break, which would have been a feat for normal Devils his age without a magic circle.

I know this because I was using the Abaddon Magic Circle when I was a kid and I had the memories of the previous user. Using normal magic was easy although my Trait didn’t help. But without a Magic Circle as I am now, it was hard. Far far harder.

I could barely use a basic water spell at half the power of what I could use when I was six years old.

Some might argue that one can still train their Physical abilities but that is also a dead end.

I know of devils who can rival Ultimate Class beings in terms of Physical Strength and were still Low Class Devils.

So, all in all, while a System did exist, it was broken beyond repair.

I shook my head off the thoughts and got up. I needed to prepare for the day.

I needed to work everyday to get food on my plate.

I walked out of my residence and towards the place I worked.

The town where I lived was on the outskirts of Devil Territory, a distance from a pit which is a place where demonic beasts spawned.

I preferred this place as it was somewhere where neither the enemies of my dear father, nor he himself could find me.

Here, I hid my identity and was known as Ace, the kid of two hunters who died while hunting in the pits and moved to this town to search for a living.

The Pit was both the boon and curse of this town.

On one hand, demonic beasts made the area around the town dangerous to live, on the other hand, it provided the town with its source of living.

The entire town dealt with the Demonic Beasts. Demonic Beast parts were harvested from the beasts which were hunted by the people of this place. They were then made into equipment. Demonic Beast meat was a food preferred by many High Class Devils. Obviously those are the meat of higher ranking beasts.

Hunting was a dangerous job and someone like me had no business going there.

But still, it was far better than other safer cities where Low Class Devils even with the strength of High Class ones had to toil in fields or tow boulders for a living.

At first, I did odd jobs in the town for over two years before landing a job at the local Blacksmith shop.

It provided me with a stable source of income as well as a place to train my body. Demonic Blacksmithing consisted of several methods of using Demonic Energy, thus improving control over it.

My plan was to slowly train myself to a decent level of strength and save up enough for a set of equipment and become a hunter.

It was the fastest way to make money.

The shop I worked at was a small one.

The Blacksmith, Mr. Dave was a gruff guy who spoke very few words but was very kindhearted.

He basically took me in at a time where I am sure I would have died if I was left alone.

For this alone, I owed this man more than I can repay him back for.

“I’m back, Mr. Dave.”

“Hmm. Clear the forge and prepare the Carcacide.” He replied, without even turning back from his place.

“Alright.” I got to work.

Demonic Beast bones were far harder and resistant than steel or any other non magical metals.

The fuels used in the Underworld for crafting are different too.

Caracide is a magical ore which produces far more heat than normal materials but needs magic to operate with.

There are obviously higher grade ores as well as fuels.

I first cleaned the furnace and removed the leftovers.

Then came the harder work.

Preparing the Caracide required breaking it with a hammer made from the bones of a High Class Demonic Beasts. Using magic or Demonic Power to do so made it harder.

The hammer itself is extremely heavy to lift. The ones he uses for the forging process is heavier and yet, Dave still waves it around like it’s nobody’s business.

“Keep your arms in position and swing properly. Put your back into it.” He said as he put down a several feet tall bone beside the forge.

I corrected my position.

“Channel Demonic Power when your muscles are tired. It can heal devils to some extent.” He continued as he poured himself a drink

“Yes!” I shouted as I picked up the hammer and slammed it on the Caracide.

“Don’t reinforce yourself with Demonic Power. Let your body adapt.”

“Yes sir!”

I continued breaking the Caracide.

This was how we started our daily work.

I break enough caracide to last him an entire day.

In fact, he even collected the Caracide from nearby shops and left them for me to break.

He did give me the money for it though but kept a part of it.

According to him, there was nothing free in this world.

If we want anything, we can only use our own hands to get it.

Our hard work is the only thing that will accompany us to the end.

His mouth got loose when he drank sometimes.

The man was old. Thousands of years old.

He is someone who had fought and survived in the Great War and had seen the age of Devils change over the time.

The two wars left him tired of all kinds of bloodshed and so when the Government changed, he retired and chose this kind of life.

_________________________________x____________________________________

I lay on the ground, trying to catch my breath, tired beyond comparison.

“Eat this.” Dave came out and sat down beside me. 

I looked at the black piece of fried food.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s made from the Coagulated Blood of a High Class Demonic Beast’s heart.”

“But aren’t the Hearts of Demonic Beasts very expensive?” I asked, taking a bit into a surprisingly delicious snack.

“They are. Costs more than the entire Skeleton of some beasts. They do however bleed out the heart. A foolish thing to do. The lifeblood of a beast contains a lot of its demonic power. It helps to heal the body.” He explained.

“Then… why don’t they eat it too?” I asked.

“Because they find it too beneath them. Several fruits and vegetables have more nutrients in the skin than the vegetables themselves and yet… they get peeled and thrown aside. It’s a matter of if they can afford it. The heart will still contain more nutrients and Demonic Power, so why would they bother about something as lowly as this.” He dawdled and picked up a piece of the snack and took a bite. He had another bottle of alcohol in his other hand.

Seeing this, I knew that he was in one of his drunk moods so I decided to ask him more about this world.

The anime and light novels tell us almost nothing about the world itself. Especially about the Underworld.

I knew nothing about the history of this place, how things worked around here. How the people lived and how they functioned as a part of the society.

For such things, Dave was an excellent source of information.

As things progressed, I asked him about other things.

“Magic? Yes. Other races and Pantheons have different varieties of magic. Exorcists use Holy Magic by reciting the scriptures. The Heaven’s System collects the faith of the followers and powers those who have faith when they need it. They can channel this energy through different mediums. These people however consider any other form of magic to be heretical. A bunch of nutjobs, those bunch I tell you.”

I listened as he explained.

“At times, when we were allowed to go to the Human world on summonings, it would sometimes be the Church doing that, to catch a bunch of us and use us as training tools to teach their new trainees. Sometimes it was just for hunting us. Thus, the summoning ritual had to be changed to be intent based. It did change the numbers but it still existed. Later on, the Low Class Devils were stopped from going to the Human World until they were under the supervision of a High Class Devil or were at least a Middle Class Devil themselves to decrease the chances of this happening. The numbers of such cases were further reduced.”

I listened.

“So… not everything was done with bad intentions. It’s just that, some people had turned it into something it wasn’t supposed to be. You shouldn’t doubt everything.” He added at the end, making me shocked.

I looked at him surprised.

“What? It’s obvious from your actions. I don’t know whose bastard child you are or what has happened to you in your past. Just make sure you don’t get hurt kid. I don’t want to lose such cheap labour…” He smiled.

My mind however was hovering with thoughts about how he knew.

“I told you previously, didn’t I? I used to be in the army. I fought in the Great War. Did you think I couldn’t see your growth? You are not Low Class Devils like us in blood. No. You are much like those nobles…”

“I am nothing like them.” I stopped him from continuing. “I will never be like them.”

"Having so much hate in your heart will only cloud your judgement, boy. They don't care what happens to you so why are you wasting your life giving them free room in your mind and heart? The first step to grow is to give up these thoughts which burden you."

I became quiet. 

It's not like I didn't know what he was talking about. I had all the memories of the kid before me and puberty with all the hormonal changes wasn't doing my temper any favours. I hated them even when I knew that what they did was to the previous owner of the body and not me. For all I know, I just regained my memories and it was me all along.

"You are on your own, boy. So live for yourself. Why make your life entertainment for them? Why give them the satisfaction of seeing you struggle for their sake?" He spoke.

I let out a sigh.

He was not wrong.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

He looked towards the moon in the sky and laid down on the ground. “Because you are still young and there is still time to fix this instead of letting it take root in your mind.”

“... I...”

“Just think about it.” He closed his eyes. “As for your plan for becoming a Hunter, give it a few more years and train. I still have the old books and training methods from my time in the Great War.”

I looked at him in surprise. “I could barely put them to use due to my minuscule demonic power reserves. Maybe, they will be better suited to you. It’s nothing much but it’s still enough to help you out as a hunter.”

“... thank you.”

“Just work hard, kid. Believe me, you are not the unluckiest person in this world. There are those who have had it far worse.”

I nodded.

He got up after a few minutes. “Oh, and don’t you dare think I will be cutting off your workload. If anything, it will be increasing to compensate for my wasted time.”

….

“Yes Sir!”

_________________________________x____________________________________

Dave began my training from the next day onwards.

A few hours after the day's work.

The first thing was the language.

I knew the basics of language but not enough.

Dave taught me enough to bring me to an acceptable level first.

While I was given one task everyday.

To exhaust my Demonic Power completely before I go to sleep.

Not even lower but completely empty my Demonic Power Reserves.

I could use any method but I needed to get it done.

At first I used to practise basic spells till I exhausted myself.

It wasn’t hard as my shit efficiency was a great help in doing so.

That’s where he guided me.

For Low Class Devils, the best method to use their demonic power was through reinforcement. Be it a weapon or their own body, reinforcement was the most energy efficient type of magic. It was extremely versatile.

Simple to learn and yet hard to master.

To train me, he set some challenges in front of me.

Once I passed them, he would change the challenge and teach me a new trick.

For example, at first he would give me the work of crushing Caracide crystals in one hit.

When I could do so, he changed it with a different crystal.

I was trained how to use the basics of Reinforcement with this while also training my Demonic Power Reserves, Demonic Power Control, Stamina and concentration.

Then he changed it with a sword and the task was to do the same.

And then the task suddenly got worse.

I broke over a hundred swords in a week and Dave finally got fed up and stopped my training… only to teach me how to forge and mend a sword for the next month.

Since then if I ever broke a sword, I repaired it myself. I had to work for the cost though.

Took me five months to figure out how to do so.

His goal was to teach me how to use Reinforcement properly so as to damage the weapons the least.

And that’s when he changed the task again.

Cut the Caracide Crystals using my Reinforcement Magic.

This was to further refine my control and make the Demonic Power coating the sword sharper.

When even that was completed… he changed the sword with one which had a blunt edge and asked me to do the same.

Then he changed the material of my sword to make them weaker until I was doing so with a wooden sword.

It took a lot more Demonic Power but according to him, it would allow me to increase my control even more as these materials could simply crumble apart if the control was messed up even slightly.

- Dave -

Two years.

It had been a full two years since he started training the boy.

And to say that he had shown improvement was an understatement.

He himself had needed to train for more than a few decades to master everything he had done in these two years.

Really, the top tier clans were something else.

He still remembered the day he had first met him.

A ten year old brat, barely wet behind his ears, was begging around for work.

He had taken pity on him and offered some bread but the boy wanted to work for it and stubbornly refused it.

To repay him for it, he stayed there and cleaned his shop the whole day.

The boy was quite smart and did a decent job so he allowed him to live in the shed.

And thus started a strange relationship.

He never complained no matter how hard the work was as long as there was a payment. He always completed the work without a word.

He stayed and worked there for the next two months and he observed that the boy was different from the normal Low Class Devils.

Probably the descendant of some extinct clan or a bastard child of some Pillars. They were rare but not unheard of.

Over the next two years, he observed the boy and found out about his training and plans.

He had seen too many kids trying to be hunters and fail. Thus he offered some training to the kid, in an attempt to ensure he would be able to survive and maybe even give up his hatred.

Fighting against those Top Clans was nigh impossible.

He had lived tens of thousands of years to know that already.

But the kid had surpassed all his expectations.

His Demonic Power alone had grown tremendously over the years and was nearing High Class levels.

Although the lack of a proper Magic Circle would hold him back, his reinforcement magic alone would put him in the same league with most Mid Class Devils. If given a good magic circle, he would even reach High Class level in no time.

With this level of strength, he could last in the pits.

To be honest, he had lost his family in the Great War and the Civil War which led him to coming here and living his life in seclusion.

But over the past few years, he had found a semblance of a family in the boy.

And it made him hesitant to see him ready to leave for the Pits.

- Acelin -

Two and a half years of training and I was finally ready for the job as a hunter.

And today was my last day over at Dave’s Workshop.

I walked into the place with a sad feeling.

This place had become a home to me and Dave had become a stubborn grandfather figure. I was a bit hesitant to leave but it was something I needed to do.

When I reached there, I saw that Dave was working as normal in front of the forge.

We didn’t speak about leaving and I worked normally the entire day.

It was when I was supposed to leave, I bowed to the man.

“Thank you for everything, Dave.”

“It was not for free. You still have to pay me for everything so make sure you don’t die, boy.” He snorted.

A smile came over my face at his tsundere-like reply.

“There, take that bag in the corner of the room and get out. I need to go out for drinks. Hurry up. Be off already.”

I looked at the bag and picked it up before being pushed out by the guy who was very quick to close the door today. On opening the bag, I saw that there was a sword of my size, exactly like the one I had been using for training as well as a set of armour made from beast hide.

Really… this, he is such an old tsundere.

“I’ll be back.”

With that said, I left for my home.

___________________________________x__________________________________

Being a hunter was a dangerous job.

Thus, people who went to hunt in the pits made teams.

These teams could be anything from three to a hundred Devils.

In fact, several bigger ones had their own offices where one could register and start at a lower level as carriers.

I had applied to a mid-sized group known as the Demonic Fang. It was a group of sixty devils who were quite well known throughout the city. I was given a position of a carrier to start with.

It was owned by a High Class Devil connected to the Amy Clan.

They mostly hunted Demonic Beasts of High Class Ranks and below.

In fact most of the big hunting groups were connected to some Pillar House in one way or the other. 

Without such a connection, it was nigh impossible for them to get enough resources to compete for the top positions.

Demonic Fang had the lowest casualty rates among the hunting groups in this town. The main reason why I joined them.

"Carry the bags and stay at the end of the group." The team leader commanded gruffly.

I nodded and followed them to my first hunt.

___________________________________x__________________________________

The pits were a scary place.

Now I know what Dave had meant when he said that I had to go there myself to know the difference.

The atmosphere itself had a sense of pressure on the people. It was filled with Demonic Power but there was a sense of wrongness in it.

The pressure made flying difficult, not to mention that aerial beasts would be able to detect us from a distance and it was hard to fight aerial battles with our equipment where we couldn’t use strong enough magic, whereas the trees protected us from those beasts.

Even teleportation was difficult in this place as the demonic power interfered with the spell and thus casting the spell needed time for those of our level.

This place gave the phrase, 'pits of hell' a new meaning.

The group had people good at sensing, who were searching for enemies so that we wouldn't get ambushed.

While the chances were low, sometimes stronger demonic beasts with intelligence came to the outer areas of the pit.

"Five targets, 30° west." One of the sensors said and the group got into action.

"Take formation.”

The whole group got into formation.

I too took my place at the tail of the group to prevent any ambushes from behind.

A few seconds later, the enemies appeared in front of us.

Wolves.

Each of them were above two metres high and the leader was around three.

They surrounded us first as the devils in the middle started to cast spells.

The first priority of such groups was to avoid damaging the beasts too much as damaged parts were sold for much less.

The spells were mainly to subdue the beast.

Even when using the weapons, they mainly used blunt weapons to avoid harming the fur.

In the meanwhile, the team had to hold back the beast.

The wolves jumped towards us as the ones at the front faced them head on.

The battle started in earnest and I watched my first real battle.

Dave had sparred with me sometimes but it was nothing like this.

Here, any slight mistake would take the heads of the ones in the front.

“Careful, three more targets incoming.” The sensors suddenly shouted.

The group tensed as the frontliners were full, one of the frontliners, the guy in front of me, slipped and tumbled back.

It was enough for the wolf to pounce on him.

The guy defended his head from being bitten off although his hand was bitten in the process. The devil between us jumped towards the side and left me open immediately.

I froze, all hair on the back of my neck rising, but it was only for a second.

Three other wolves entered and one of them pounced towards me.

I gripped my sword, pushed a large part of my Demonic Power into it and slashed with all my strength.

Maybe it was because the wolf had underestimated my size but it hadn’t expected an attack of such power. All my experience with the Reinforcement Magic came forward as the wolf’s head was cleaved in two.

The blood from the wound splashed on my face.

I didn’t stop however and kneeled and stomped on the ground to push myself forward from under the first wolf and appeared right in front of the one who was attacking the frontliner and slashed.

The wolf looked in my direction at the last moment and backed away slightly but it wasn’t fast enough as my slash went through both its eyes and the front part of its face.

It howled.

My adrenaline rush was still on so I went forward and slashed my sword a third time.

This time the wolf was stunned by the previous attack and its neck was torn apart immediately and it fell to the ground.

The rest of the group gathered their wits and the spell casters had prepared their spells by then.

They cast a sleep spell on the whole group of wolves, several of them overlapping their attacks, causing the wolves to fall drowsy and fall down soon.

My adrenaline rush subsided and I fell down on my back, breathing heavily.

This was unlike anything I had felt yet.

_________________________________x____________________________________

I sat under the running water, trying to cool down while I tried to remember the hunt.

Now I understood what everyone meant when they said it’s not something which could be explained and one had to experience it for themselves to know.

Each moment was filled with danger. One stray attack, one misplaced step or one slip of attention and it was all over.

There was no second chance.

It was an eye opening experience.

Things could go from zero to infinity in just one moment.

The result of the fight was eight bodies of middle class Demonic Wolves.

I was given three times my share for my performance… which was still lower than any of the front line fighters.

That said, I was in a much safer place and this was still more than what I earned in two months as a blacksmith apprentice.

After taking a bath, I looked at myself in the mirror.

I had strawberry blonde hair and a decent height due to my training for the last few years. My facial features made me look more like a noble than any of the low class and middle class devils in these areas. I guess genes do help no matter which scum they come from.

With today’s income, I decided to buy something for my old mentor as well as take some time to do some maintenance on my sword.

And with that thought in mind, I left towards Dave’s workshop.

“Oh, you’re alive.” He looked back and said lazily before concentrating back on the forge.

I rolled my eyes at his comment.

“Yes. I was lucky.”

“I would guess so.”

I went ahead and brought out a bottle of alcohol for him and kept it on the table at the side of the room.

“Just one bottle?” he said, not even looking back.

“For now.”

“Alright sit down. I guess I was expecting too much from a brat like you in the first place.”

I deadpanned at his comment. “I guess I should have brought more. At least you are honest when you’re drunk.”

“Che… as if stuff like this could get me drunk.” he finished the last touch up on the item he was working on and got up, washed his hands before coming beside me and picking up the bottle, opening and taking a sip.

“Carlson’s. They don’t make stuff like they did back in the day.” Although he said that, he didn’t stop.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“So, how was your first hunt?”

“It was…” I went ahead and explained everything to him.

“That was quite a mishap for your first hunt. Maybe I should have taken you to get blooded first before leaving you by yourself.”

I kept quiet.

“Don’t let this bout of luck get into your head. Hunt smaller beasts on the outskirts. Remember, always go at a beast one rank lower than you in terms of strength. Go for the same rank only when you are at least three times its number, more if they can use magic or poison. Actually, visit me after two days. I will prepare something for you to get you used to poisoning.”

“Okay.”

I did the maintenance on my sword while he drank in silence.

“You should give some time to your Clan Power if you have one.” he spoke after a period of silence.

My hands paused and I looked towards him and turning back to the sword in my hand, I let out a sigh.

Till now, he had never brought up my clan in all these years or the circumstance of my being there.

So, it was a bit of a surprise to see him bring up this topic. “My Clan Trait is useless in any combat.”

“Eh, not really. Maybe you just haven’t figured out how to use it yet. Every power has their own specialities. Even the ones we think are useless. Don’t give up on it. A Devil’s power comes from inside, from their desires, something which is perfectly suitable for them. It can never be useless, just of different use. Heard it from my commander during the Great War.”

“Your commander?”

“Belial. The original one. The man was a genius when it came to magic. His Clan Trait made him gather the knowledge of every kind of power to be able to disarm them. Should have seen him in a fight. All kinds of magic in front of him was….worthless. That’s where the Trait of the Belial House comes from. His understanding of any Magical Phenomenon was so great that he could always find a flaw in them and make them worthless. He was the one who brought up this theory and I do have to say that he was quite accurate.”

I looked at the reflection of my face in the sword in my hand.

“Okay. I will see what I can do.”

_________________________________x____________________________________

I left Dave’s place, my head full of thought.

I had given up on using my Clan Trait. In fact, I never used it in the last two and half years. In a way, it reminded me of the tag everyone had given me… defective.

I didn’t want to ruin my newly earned motivation for training through it.

As the saying goes, ‘Out of sight, out of mind’. 

And, so I did my best to forget about it.

Before I realised, I was walking through the market and realised that I was at the front of a shop.

Magic Shop.

It was a shop which sold magical items for the general public, including Summoning Circles.

Sure, Low Class Devils were not allowed to go into the human world but… there were still other species which lived in the Underworld and some of them even lived in the Devil territories. And while devils were not allowed to make contracts with other devils, they could make contracts with other races.

And this is where the Summoning Contracts came into use.

They also sold one time Spell circles which could be used by just inputting magic into them.

Their best products however were the Magic Circles.

They sold Magic Circles  with upto 35% efficiency, the maximum amount of a Low Class Devil. That matched with the control of the user could push their efficiency from the average 33% to anything between 40-50%.

That said, these Circles cost an insane amount of money.

Even the lower versions cost a lot.

It would take me working for a century as a hunter to even dream of buying the 35% one.

There was however an advantage though.

Once someone gets it, they can pass it to their children. The top models can be passed around easily but there are cheaper ones where you just get the Magic Circle imprinted on you and so cannot pass them down.

They even sold some books on magic.

This establishment was under the Marbas House.

__________________________________x___________________________________

Sigh

What was I even thinking?

I looked at the bunch of paper in my hand.

Summoning Circles.

I shook my head and concentrated on the training for tonight.

First of all, I shut all the doors and windows of the house.

My house was already near the outskirts of the town so there wasn’t much chance of anyone seeing me practise but still, it’s better not to leave anything to chance.

With everything in place, I took a deep breath and faced an empty side of the room and summoned the Abaddon Hole.

A Palm sized hole appeared in front of me.

Palm sized…

Even after my Demonic Power increased so much, it was still a fist sized hole. Not to mention, the hole seemed cracked.

It wasn’t even full anymore.

All that frustration from over the years came back at full force.

I clenched the thing near me and flung it at the hole. It took me a second to realise what I had thrown. The Summoning Contracts. Fucking dammit.

Suddenly I realised something, a few contracts were thrown in the hole and they never came out.

Where did they go?

To test it out, I summoned another hole and threw another crumpled Summoning Contract in it.

It went through.

Was it destroyed?

Did it go through? Was it connected to someplace?

I picked up a stick and poked the hole.

There was no resistance.

I pulled it back to see that there was no damage to the hole.

So it was connected to some place.

But where.

Over the night, I did several experiments.

I realised several differences between the normal Abaddon Hole and this one.

A normal Abaddon Hole was like a storage while this was like a window.

A normal one had a gravitational pull of its own, mine didn’t.

The third and the most important one.

A normal one’s interiors never changed but the ones I made always opened at a different place.

I didn’t dare look through the hole, fearing what might be on the other side.

Maybe if I can get a camera or some kind of similar spell to investigate the interior, that might change.

But for now, I guess I will have to keep experimenting with it.

As I lay down on my bed, I remembered what Dave had said earlier today. ‘A trait is always suitable for the owner.’

What exactly did my power do?

For the first time in the last six years or so, I didn’t feel that my power was useless.

_________________________________x____________________________________

Over the next month, I followed a steady routine.

Hunting every alternate day, mostly Low Class Demonic beasts to get a steady source of income.

Come back home and practise how to gain better control of my Clan Trait.

Over the course of this month, I gained a relatively fine control over the trait.

If nothing else, it could be used to throw attacks to a different place and although I couldn’t reflect them back at the user, this alone was still useful to a certain extent.

The greatest discovery however was that the Holes I created, while not an inventory, were more of a portal.

This meant, there was another end for the trait unlike the Abaddon Hole.

This also meant I could open a hole somewhere I wanted.

And with just that discovery, the whole Skill became an extremely useful one all of a sudden.

I wonder what they would have felt if they knew what I could do?

But all was not sunshine and butterflies all of a sudden.

Controlling the power was extremely hard.

I was still trying to open portals to a place where my eyes could see and only succeeded once every three times.

It was still helpful and opened up a lot of possibilities.

During a fight, I could open a portal near the weak spot of the enemy and directly stab my sword through it, finishing them off in one attack.

This was still not possible due to the amount of concentration needed for it without a magic circle. To do it in the middle of a fight while I was alone would be suicidal.

However, there was still a way to use it during an ambush.

If I hid in advance, I could open a portal behind the enemy and snipe them from my hiding place, which is exactly what I had been doing to hunt low class demonic beasts.

Thanks to this, I was able to save a bit of money in the last month. With this money, I bought the books needed for the Middle Class examinations.

It was expensive and I was only able to get a few but it was still a start.

I will reach there.

One step at a time.

With the rest of the money, I bought Summoning Circles and threw them in the Holes I created at random.

My theory was that these portals did open somewhere, which meant that the chances of them being inhabited by other beings was not a non-zero one.

If so then I could make contracts with them without going out of the Underworld.

And while I wouldn’t be able to put them on my record for promotion, it still increased my strength over the course of time as well as could provide me with a chance to get stuff from other places.

But there hasn’t been any answers till now.

I lay down on my bed after another day of hard work.

And that’s when something happened.

I felt a summoning.

A Summoning!

….

It was a very unique sensation.

The magic conveyed the call of the summoner to me, a connection through the magic I had put in the circle.

There had been several improvements to the new circles as now the Devils could select whether to reply to the summoning and if they did, then if they wanted to get summoned there or send someone else.

It was all done due to several reasons.

One was to improve the security so that ambushes were reduced.

Second was due to the Peerage System.

The King of the Peerage got the Summoning requests by default unless they gave their peerage members an explicit permission.

In this way, they could manage the activities and contracts of their peerages. This was done both to prevent their peerage members being drawn into a trap and to prevent them from doing any type of contract which the King didn’t provide or take any payment which was not allowed, like the souls.

I quickly got up and dressed up to make myself look presentable.

No way could I answer the Summoning, my first summoning in my pyjamas.

I chose not to teleport there because I didn’t know how to and I didn’t want to take the risk so… I chose to open the portal.

And to my surprise, opening the portal was much easier this time, even the crack was bigger and I could see the other side of the hole.

It took me a moment to realise why that happened.

The magic I had input inside the Summoning Circle was acting as an anchor for the hole from the other side.

Another new discovery.

On the other side, I could see a boy with glasses, wearing oversized clothes.

He seemed like a human but there was magic on him.

There was something else which I couldn’t just put a finger to.

“I-it really works.” he stumbled and fell on his back at my sight.

I decided to take this opportunity to pitch my sales.

“Why have you summoned me, human? What is it… that you desire?”

….

….

….

The boy just kept looking at me wide eyed.

The hole was taking my magic continuously so I interrupted the shell shocked guy.

“I have better things to do than to stare at you, boy. Who are you?”

“I-I -I am Harry Potter, Sir.”

….

….

….

“Huh!”

___________________________________x__________________________________

Support Me on: https://www.patreon.com/crossedge

Join me on my Discord server https://discord.gg/RNNZyyert4

Beta Reader: @LuluViBritania (FF.N, SB, WN and QQ)/-LuluViB|99th Britannian Emperor(Discord)

Author’s Note:

So I am back with a new story.

It was an idea that was presented to me and I took a liking to it.

Made me realise that I had not written a story where the MC starts from the bottom. I mean sure the first Snippet was similar but it went in a different direction as he was picked up by Ingvild and got a backdoor route.

This time it will be different.

No Systems.

No instant hax.

Ace will plan things and progress, one step at a time.

I sincerely hope that you all like it.

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.