Class Extended - Chapter 2.2 (Patreon)

Entering the 'abandoned' church, was a lot less intense than Duff expected.

For one, no alarms went off or anything, there wasn't anyone standing guard at all and even tense as he was, ready to make a bolt for escape the second anything went wrong….nobody even reacted to him much at all.

He passed by another couple exorcists in the halls, but beyond giving him a nod, they didn't say a word to him.

'These people are seriously incompetent.' the teen mused, pausing in his steps and staring at the pair of exorcists as they walked down the opposite end of the hallway.

He focused his eyes on the pairs back and examined them.

[Name: Lorenzo Black ]
[Age: 27]
[Magic Power: 230/230]
[Class: Human: Level 20]
[Equipment: - ]

[Name: Alexander Dario ]
[Age: 23]
[Magic Power: 210/210]
[Class: Human: Level 18]
[Equipment: - ]

'Their levels are way higher than most people I've saw.' he noted as they turned the corner. The highest level he'd seen another human have on his way here after leaving the park, had been three.

Their levels were even higher than Raynare actually, yet seemed infinitely weaker just going by magic power. Raynare had more than ten times the magic power they did combined.

Then again, humans were pretty much trash in this world without any special bloodline or power like a Sacred Gear.

Duff supposed he should be really thankful he ended up with his…whatever it was. Game system?

Whatever it was, it made him beyond a standard human. Just from killing that guy earlier and stealing his stuff, he'd gone beyond a typical human instantly. He could stick to any solid surface with his hands and when he hopped into a run, he moved like the wind itself he found, he had to have been moving at over forty miles per hour.

Maybe that wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but considering the worlds fastest man in the Olympics where he came from clocked at below thirty miles per hour…

The blonde shook his head, putting that out of mind for the moment.

Currently, he had two objectives while he was here. Finding a place to crash, and more importantly, 'Figuring out how the Sacred Gear extraction thing works.' he thought.

Thankfully, both of those were well in hand.

…Maybe.

Well, finding a room to crash in shouldn't be too hard. And he knew where the extraction for Asia Argento took place, which was where he was heading now.

The question that remained to be answered, was if he could figure out how it worked.

'Best just get a move on for now.' he decided, turning away from where he'd been looking after the pair of exorcists that passed him by and continuing on his way.

                                                 _____________

From there, Duff made his way to the main central room of the church, the nave, the place where priests held their ceremonies and the believers came to pray to God.

He was a catholic before he ended up here, all the schools he went to, from Nursery, to Primary and even Secondary/High School all made a point of taking their students to church at least once a month.

So he was well acquainted with the typical layouts of churches.

When he entered the nave, he paused.

Because unlike the barren halls he passed through on his way here….there was a lot more activity going on inside the large room.

Spread out through the wide spread room, he caught sight multiple black coated exorcists. There had to be at least a dozen of them each spread out around the room and looking to be standing guard.

What drew his eyes the most though was down the centre line where prayers would line up before the altar.

Sitting on the marble steps of the altar itself was a familiar teen with grey hair, casually slouched and picking at his teeth with a toothpick.

[Name: Freed Sellzen]
[Age: 19]
[Magic Power: 1020/1020]
[Class: Human: Level 43]
[Equipment:- ]

Duff stilled as he took on the older teens level and magic power, 'What the fuck?' he had to hold himself back from gaping.

Putting aside just who this fucker was, and he'd definitely come back to that, but what the fuck was with that level? He blew everyone he'd seen in the past few hours out of the damn water, and they were all older than him.

As crazy as Freed was though, he wasn't the most interesting person in the room.

No, that title lay with someone standing behind Freed. Another exorcist, very tall and broadly built, with an olive skin tone.

He stood in front of a massive cross behind the alter and from what Duff could see, there was some kind of inscription on the floor in front of the cross. It was blood red and honestly, it wasn't anything he could makes heads or tails of, it looked like some kind of magic circle straight out of some satanic ritual.

[Name: Alonzo Ricardo]
[Age: 34]
[Magic Power: 730/730]
[Class: Human: Level 31]
[Equipment: Gravity Jail]

He seemed to be the second strongest level and magic wise of all the humans he'd come across. But most interestingly of all-

Was that he had a Sacred Gear.

'Gravity Jail.' Duff bit his lip thoughtfully. Wasn't that one used by one guy in Siaraorg's peerage?

It must have been one with multiple variations he supposed.

'I can work with that though.' he hid a grin.

He had no idea why Raynare and her posse didn't gank this guy and steal his Sacred Gear, unless she specifically wanted Twilight Healing, but their stupidity was his gain.

This church had literally everything he needed, he should take the time to thank Raynare for being a dumb bitch when he was strong enough to clap her cheeks.

For now though, he needed information. And he had a feeling he knew exactly who to get it from.

Steeling himself, Duff made his way down the middle isle straight towards the altar. As he did, He noted Alonzo's eyes on him, examining him silently, while Freed just glanced at him, eyes totally bored.

Actually, it was more appropriate to say his gaze looked dead. That was a whole new level of bored.

Duff ignored him and walked up the steps passed him and stopped at the edge of the …magic circle? He supposed that was what it was. And now that he was standing right at it, he could see that it was painted with blood.

Fucking sick freaks man.

"You the one in charge here?" Duff directed the question to the man standing in front of the cross at the other side of the magic circle.

"I'm the head exorcist here, yes," the man gave a single nod, "Alonzo is my name, but I am not in charge. Lady Raynare is the one leading this mission."

As expected.

Duff shrugged, "Fair enough," he replied, "Heard you guys were looking for recruits and here I am."

"And what brings you here?" Alonzo asked, getting right to the point.

"I got excommunicated, what else?" Duff rolled his eyes, playing up the character of a flippant disrespectful teenager, it wasn't very hard, "The name's Duff, I'm from the Catholich Church of Scotland, I got booted out for killing a devil lover piece of filth, been wandering around hunting devils since and a guy I knew said there was a chance for me to join the Grigori and make a name for myself if I headed here."

"I see." Alonzo nodded simply.

And said nothing else.

…What the fuck?

"No point looking for anything out of Lil Daddy buddy boy," a voice called from behind him and he looked over his shoulder to see Freed lazily grinning at him, "He's a boring ol' stiff, all about dem following orders shit, you know? And nothing else, he's bout' as interesting as a two by four."

Oh lovely, the psycho was the only one that was good for information.

Just peachy.

Duff turned towards Freed and shrugged, "I don't really give a shit," he replied honestly, "I just wanna know what I'm expected to fucking do around here. Looking at you guys though, seems to be standing around guarding this stupid ass looking magic circle."

"Ain't you a smarty cookie boy," the older teen laughed, "That's right, we're just muscle baby, Mommy Raynare is keeping us around in case any devil fuckers come calling while she waits around for some stupid bitch to get here so she can yoink her Sacred Gear and stuff it up her fallen cunt."

"Uh-hu, seems simple enough," Duff replied before jabbing his thumb at the magic circle, "And this tacky ass thing is what will be used to extract the sacred gear I take it?"

"Well who's a smart doggie?" Freed cooed at him.

His hand twitched towards the pocket where the hilt of his shiny new light sword lay waiting.

Maybe not a good idea to pick a fight with the genetically engineered Norse super soldier, but honestly, he kinda wanted to stab the prick in the face.

Despite how bored his gaze was, it wasn't hard to miss the manic look in his beady little pupils.

"Smarter than you bitch," Duff sneered at him, again, it wasn't hard to play this attitude, "So how the fuck does this shit work? Just looks like any generic shitty devil summoning circle to me."

"Woof woof meow," Freed smirked at him before shrugging, "How the fuck should I know? Do I look like some pansy magician to you? Momma Raynare just painted the thing down with some blood and that's it. Not that we can even use it anyway, the thing can apparently only be activated with the power of light angels have and it'll let ya rip things bound to souls out or bind em to ya or whatever."

…Well shit.

                                              __________________

All things considered, it wasn't like it was the end of the world.

Sure, it felt like all his plans were ruined, the world was falling apart around his ears and he was destined to be a scrub for while not ever, a long ass time.

But Duff was proud to say he handled the ruination of his plans admirably and only collapsed into a pew and sat there for an hour, dead to the world with no idea what to do.

'What the fuck do I do now?' he wondered absently, head hung back over the pew and staring up at the ceiling.

Not only would he need to be able to manipulate magic power to use ritual, he needed light energy to do it as well.

'I don't even know how to manipulate my own magic in the first place never mind that.' he huffed.

Then again, if he remembered right, while it was one thing to use actual magic spells as a human, it was another thing entirely to just manipulate the inner magic power.

'Issei fucking Hyoudou learned to tap into his super easily, can I do it?' he wondered.

If he couldn't even do that, even if he got access to light energy it would be impossible for him to do anything anyway and would literally leave only one option for him.

Going to Rias Gremory or Sona Sitri.

If he couldn't make this work, that was the safest route for him.

Fuck.

Duff pulled his head up and palmed his face, "Shit this is bollocks." he cursed.

…Should he try out tapping into his own magic power?

'Worth a shot I suppose.' he shrugged and looked around.

The nave was pretty much empty now. It was already nearing ten at night and the only one beside him still in the huge room was Alonzo, still standing stoically on guard at the ritual magic circle.

And he'd chosen a pew near the back of the room so he wouldn't be disturbed during his wallowing in self pity.

Duff leaned forward lightly and held his hands out, palms facing up and out of Alonzo's view.

'Right, what was it Akeno told Issei when she taught him again?' he furrowed his brows.

'Direct your entire body's aura flow to a single point to concentrate the magic, I think?' he recalled.

Well, nothing for it.

He closed his eyes and focused.

He emptied his minds of all thoughts and focused entirely on his body, reaching with his consciousness and trying to feel…something.

He felt…nothing.

Well, nothing beyond the breath entering and exiting his lungs, the blood flowing in his veins and the soft rise and fall of his chest.

He felt kind of stupid.

Honestly, it seemed almost impossible to make this work. Maybe it was actually impossible for humans to even just feel their magic instinctively like other races?

God this world totally wasn't fair at all, was it?

Duff sighed deeply and was just about to give up.

…Wait.

As he released a heavier breath and felt his blood flow faster in his veins, he noticed something.

It felt just like the flow of his blood, only…it was a second one. Which now that he noticed it, felt kind of freaky.

…Was this it?

Instinctively he focused on the feeling and he felt almost a spark ignite in his veins and thunder hammer in his chest.

With a thought, he felt the flow in it change, all of it rushing towards his hands.

He opened his eyes and they flew wide open.

There, floating in the middle of his hands, was a small glowing red sphere of light, little bigger than a grape, but there it was.

A split moment later, a familiar screen appeared in his vision.

[Class:]
[Wizard - Level 1 Gained!]

He didn't even get time to process the words though before a surprised gasp left his throat as the rushing power that flowed like the blood in his veins seemed to bloat in size.

'…What the fuck.' Duff blinked and had to take a few seconds to calm his raging heart.

He shook his head, and appraised himself and then his eyes widened at what he saw.

[Name: Duff Evander]
[Age: 16]
[Magic Power: 171/171] [342/342]

[Class:]
[Human: Level 3]
[Assassin - Level 1]
[Thief - Level 1]
[Wizard - Level 1]
[-]
[Equipment: - ]

His magic power had jumped up a full hundred points, more than doubled. But, it felt like…more than that, the feeling of that flowing power within him felt like it had grown by more than three times.

And what was that, why was there a second amount of numbers listed with his magic power?

Duff was getting seriously confused with this system.

Which left only one thing to do really, appraise his newest class.

Which he did.

[Wizard Class Level 1:]
[Magic Cannon:]
[The users magic power is
doubled, the users magic power
recovers quicker.]

'Okay…I can work with this.' he grinned.