DxD - Game Master - Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Ryuji contemplated the results of Rias running the kobold scenario. He'd honestly not meant for it to be so tough on her. The kobolds were pretty weak. Even a normal man with a regular weapon, like a sword, should have been able to handle four of them with some effort. Rias should have rolled over them like they weren't even there.

He'd watched the recording through a few times and put it down as a bit of arrogance, inexperience, and a lack of focus. Arrogance wasn't exactly a surprise. Rias was pretty strong for her age and lack of actually putting effort into training. It was easy to see that had gone to her head. Her lack of experience was also obvious. She'd hardly looked around for the kobold in the forest and hadn't checked her corners until she got ambushed and cut. Then her lack of focus, she'd clearly forgotten the last kobold out in the forest and took an arrow for it. Arrows she'd been visually warned the kobolds had.

He honestly feared that if he'd put in more kobolds thinking 'oh, she's strong she can handle it' that she would now be dead. Clearly he needed to be very careful about what he put in his scenarios until she, and likely every other devil, actually got some real experience and could consistently handle themselves.

On the flip side, having to watch the recording over repeatedly led to a startling discovery. When she wasn't lasing out in a panic, Rias used magical circles to help summon and control her Power of Destruction. Magic circles he could read! He didn't understand everything about them, yet, but he could instinctively tell that, with some studying, he could learn to harness the Power of Destruction for his own spells.

That was a huge discovery! It meant that if he could see, and study, the magic circles for devil clan magic, he could learn them and copy their magical abilities! Okay, granted, he had no idea what any of them were beyond Rias's Power of Destruction, but still! It was an avenue to a lot of power. Or at least he assumed it was given how powerful the Power of Destruction was. Just the idea that he could study, and then copy, the Phenex clan regeneration was one hell of a boon. He would definitely have to find a way to study Riser's magic, somehow.

After studying Rias's run through the scenario, Ryuji decided to do some work on his Alchemy. He learned a few things really quickly. First, the ability he had that improved his intelligence and memory wen dealing with learning magic? That applied to Alchemy as well making learning the basics a breeze. Second, just handling an ingredient for a bit gave him a very basic concept of what it could be used for, this would make matching ingredients for a desired effect easier. It kind of reminded him of learning about Alchemy ingredients in Skyrim, without having to eat them.

The whole not eating them thing was an amazing boon because he'd found just a single ingredient that helped with fertility among the tier one ingredients. If eating them had been the only way to learn the abilities of the ingredient, he never would have known its effect. After all, who in their right mind would eat raw skinned goblin testicles? Just the fact he had a dozen of them in a jar was scary enough, never mind trying to eat one to know what they did. Just the thought was enough to make him gag. Though, he had to admit, the goblin testicles helping with fertility made sense. In so many stories the little green blighters could breed with anything female and knock them up the first time. Creepy as fuck, sure, but not innacurate.

Despite the disturbing nature of many of his ingredients, it was nice to learn about them and begin his experimentation. The process of discovering a new potion was easy. Step one, grab two ingredients with a similar nature. For example, two ingredients that have healing properties. Step two, place one ingredient in the left alembic with some water. Repeat with the second ingredient but with the right alembic. Step three, wait for the magical flames to reduce the ingredients to distillate and come out of the alembic pipes to meet in the center and drip into a vial. Step four, pump some mana into the mixed juices and you're done!

His current facilities only allowed for mixing two ingredients together at a time, the next tier would allow for three ingredients and a second preparation method. Not that he was in a rush to get there. He was currently saving all of his Dungeon Energy to buy both the Jewelcrafting and Enchanting upgrades. After that, he might consider upgrading Alchemy, if there's nothing more important that needs increasing before then.

He moved over to a table where he'd placed the potions he'd managed to make. They were a rainbow of color to match their various effects. His favorite were the damage resistance potions. Unlike in a game they didn't give a percentage of how much damage they could prevent, but given they were all Lesser potions, he'd guess not a huge amount. No, it was the potential such potions represented. If he could get them strong enough to almost, or completely, negate any given element they will become game changers.

He was sad about one thing though. His attempt at a flying potion only produced a weak levitation potion. Drinking it only let him float a few inches off of the ground and move at a speed slower than walking. It was mildly entertaining for a few minutes and then lost its luster. He clearly needed more ingredients and more complex potions to achieve some of the effects he was hoping for.

On the bright side though! The Alchemy facility came with a special machine that let him produce potions with ease. It had two hoppers he could throw ingredients in and a button to start the process. It used his mana to make the vials, water, and to infuse the potions, but did everything else automatically. This meant he didn't have to make each individual potion when he wanted to mass produce them. Right now he had the machine producing a solid one hundred Lesser Healing Potions. He suspected they would be the ones in the most demand.

With his Alchemy research done, for now, and his potions being made automatically, he found he had some time to contemplate Rias. He was honestly feeling like a complete heel with everything he'd accidentally put her through. Scamming her with the fake Boosted Gear, getting her hurt in a simple scenario, and, you know, accidentally killing Issei to begin with. He really wanted to do something, anything, to try and make it up to her.

He moved out of the Alchemy room to his desk and pulled up his recordings of Rias inside of the onsen resort scenario. As much as he would like to enjoy watching her, and the others, as they bathed naked, he was currently more interested in going through her conversations. He was looking for any kind of clue as to something that might entertain her and make her feel better. The question was, what?

After a few hours of listening, which may or may not have included footage showing the majority of the female devils in the nude, he heard her say something that brought a smile to his face. He could do practically anything with his scenarios and listening to her talking about something in such an excited and happy tone gave him a great idea.

He was certain that it would be awesome this time!

-----Line Break-----

Rias stared at the shimmering blue doorway that lead into a pocket dimension with some consternation. Just yesterday she'd been in one and gotten hurt. Granted, the healing potions had dealt with the damage and left her skin as flawless as it had always been, but still. The point was, she was getting semi annoyed with the portals constantly opening.

Alright, maybe not too annoyed. She had gained a small boost to her overall strength, both magical and physical, when she finished the dungeon yesterday. The potions were also fairly nice as well. She'd grown to rather like the stamina potions, they were like a good cup of coffee mixed with a light massage. The mana potions were alright, but refilled far too little when compared to her overall demonic power. Still nice though.

Why her? That's what she found kind of annoying. The portals had been aimed deliberately at her lately and it was putting her a bit on edge. Yes, it was kind of nice that whoever this was, wanted to help her out and make her stronger. She appreciated the thought. What she did not appreciate was being cut and shot.

Well, that wouldn't be something she needed to worry about this time! She wasn't making the mistake of going inside of the portal alone! She looked to her partner for this expedition, a pair of golden eyes framed by white strands of hair looks up at her in return.

“You ready Koneko-chan?”

Koneko responds to Rias's question with a simple nod of her head. With nothing else to be said, Rias led Koneko through the portal into a new dimension. She wondered what it would be this time. When she came through, she took in her surroundings. She was in a forest of some sort with tall trees and a simple dirt path leading into the forest.

Seeing no other option, the pair of them start walking up the path. It isn't long until they spot something around a gentle curve in the path. A building just glanced through some trees. As they get closer and can finally make out more of the building, Rias's eyes widen in recognition. It's a tiny house with half of its vertical height taken up by the roof. The lower half of the walls are made of red bright, while the upper half are white stone. The roof looked like an exaggerated version of a pagoda roof, all in blue tiles. The double door entrance takes up half of the wall its set in with the doors being painted a lighter blue than the roof.

As they approach, the double doors open and a small boy comes walking out of them with a pep in his step and a happy smile on his face. His hair is pitch black and wildly spiked, his eyes are large, dark, and filled with innocence, and he wears a simple blue outfit that looks like a modified kung fu outfit without sleeves. On his back is a small red pole in a sheath that looks like his only weapon.

Oh yeah, and a brown monkey-like tail sticking out from his waist and waving around in the air behind him!

As Rias took everything in, her eyes widened until they looked as if they were bulging. She doesn't hesitate to pinch her arm to make sure she's not breathing. Feeling the pain from the pinch only seems to make her happier as her whole body begins to vibrate.

Then... it happens.

Rias begins bouncing up and down in excitement as a high pitched squeal of pure joy forces its way out of her mouth. When the sound reaches him, the small boy looks over at her and Koneko, his smile widening when he sees them. He lifted his hand and waved it at them, “Oh! Hello!”

The suppressed squeal became a full on fangirl scream as Rias couldn't keep it in anymore, “SON GOKU!”

It was over, her restraint was gone. One moment she stood next to Koneko, the next she had the Goku lookalike scooped up into her arms and his face crushed into her breasts as she tried her best to squeeze the life out of him, “Oh maou you're so cute!”

The young Goku struggled in her grasp until he managed to pull his face out of her prodigious chest at which point he inhaled deeply, “I thought I was going to go meet Grandpa!”

He struggled some more in Rias's grasp, but had to give up after failing to free himself. It wasn't entirely his fault. Ryuji could still only make human characters with their regular strength, so this copy of Goku was only as strong as the average twelve year old human child. Compared to a normal human Rias's age he was a weakling, let alone a devil with enhanced strength. Still struggling to gain his freedom, his eyes catch Koneko's golden ones, “Is she always like this?”

Koneko's eyes lost their focus as she remembered a dark point in her life. The days just after Rias had taken her into the peerage were dark days indeed, full of cuddling and several near death experiences by hug. When she returned to the present, she gave Goku a very serious nod.

Seeing that he wasn't going to escape or be released anytime soon, Goku decided to get on with what his master had created him for, “Well hi! I'm Son Goku,” He ignored the squeal of excitement from the woman holding him hostage, “and I need your help! Lately something has been scaring off all the other animals and attacking me whenever I enter the woods. Whatever this thing is it's a coward and only attacks when my back is turned! I need your help to take it down. Will you help me?”

“Yes! Yes! A thousand times YES!”

Clearly Rias hadn't lost any of her excitement yet and was very excited to actually go on a quest with THE Son Goku. It didn't matter to her that it was currently the Goku from the original Drag-so-ball and not the newest Z series. It was till Goku! THE most influential character who practically created the shounen genre of manga and anime. It didn't matter what anyone else told her, that was what she believed and she totally forgave the bastard making the portals after this!

Koneko let out a little sigh, but didn't argue with Rias. She hadn't actually been in any other pocket dimension but the onsen resort, which she loved. As far as Koneko was concerned, the person making these portals was the greatest person in the history of ever. Free all she could eat sweets anytime she wanted. If she weren't a devil she likely would have died from massive onset diabetes by now. Or, be really really fat instead of her usual tiny petite self.

Goku, having to the agreement needed, smiled brightly, “Then were off!” There's silence for a moment as Goku realizes he can't guide them while hanging in the air within the woman's arms. He sighs and points to a small game trail leading into the forest, “That way!”

Rias, still adamantly refusing to release the tiny Goku, turns to face the trail he pointed out. A little more seriously, she addresses Koneko, “Koneko-chan, take the lead and keep your senses open for anything.”

Not only was Koneko her Rook making the petite girl super strong and super durable but she was reincarnated from a race known as Nekoshou, a subspecies of Nekomata. Nekomata were, essentially, cat people yokai while Nekoshou were simply a stronger version of the Nekomata. This meant that Koneko had enhanced senses, especially her senses of hearing and smell. Combining her sense and toughness made her perfect as the vanguard while looking for whatever was giving her adorable Goku trouble.

Koneko leads the way, sniffing the air as she moved. She admitted, if only silently in her head since she didn't talk much, that she was very impressed with this place. If she didn't know better, she would swear she was really outside in the woods. She could smell the greenery, but also various animals. A small trail leading off the one they were on smelled like deer. Off to the side of the path she could see a small burrow with a pair of rabbis living in it. Far away, thankfully, she could scent the pungent odor of a skunk. She would definitely avoid going in that direction.

After walking for a bit, Goku spoke up in a soft voice, “We're getting close to the last spot where I was attacked.”

Koneko sniffed the air and could smell a mix of animals and fresh water in the air. She nodded to herself. The large game trail they were on was so well tread because it led to a water source. She thought it was a nice detail. There were too many different animal scents for her to pick which might be the attacker, but she did notice there were no predator scents. She could recognize all the other scents as they were normal animals, nothing out of her experience.

When they arrived at the small flowing creek, Goku began to struggle in Rias's grasp once more, “Okay, you gotta put me down! We could be attacked by the monster at any time!”

Rias pouted horrifically, but finally put her Goku doll down on the ground. Finally free from his captor, Goku quickly scrambled away from her while pulling the small red staff out of its holder on his back. He looked around warily as he addressed the girls, “I was just doing some fishing when something hit me from behind and sent me falling into the river. Whatever it was stole the fish I'd caught!”

As Goku looked around for the culprit, Koneko perked up and looked behind him. As Goku caught on and went to turn, a large bear came out of the forest. The large bear moved faster and quieter than anything that size had a right to do. It got to Goku before he could completely turn around and smacked him in the back with enough force to send the kid flying. While Goku got a flight lesson, his trajectory aimed at the creek, Koneko and Rias focused on the bear.

Koneko used her excellent strength to push herself off the ground at high speed to intercept the bear's face with her fist. As Goku splashed down, Koneko's fist connected with the bears snout. Despite the massive disparity in size and common sense saying what would happen, the bears head snapped to the side with its body following shortly after. It lets out a pained groan from the blow and comes to a rolling stop a few feet away.

As soon as it comes to a stop, the bear rears its head back and lets out a very loud roar that's cut off as Rias's Power of Destruction erases it. As everyone began to relax, answering roars came from deeper in the woods. It sounded like dozens of angry bears answered the call of the one they'd just gotten rid of.

Goku, soaking wet, crawled out of the creek and looked around with the others, “That doesn't sound good.”

As if to prove him right, three bears came barreling out of the woods on the opposite side of the creek, each bigger than the one they'd just beaten. Oddly, each of the bears was a different color with one being black, the next brown, and the last one tawny. Rias couldn't help wondering if there were tawny colored bears in the wild. She didn't recall any off the top of her head.

She was rudely brought out of her thoughts as the three bears charged across the creek. It was nowhere near deep enough to prevent anything from crossing it. Koneko charged the black bear, Goku charged the tawny bear, which happened to be the smallest, leaving just the brown bear for Rias. Koneko engaged in melees punching her bear hard enough to send it rolling into a tree. Rias erased hers in the usual manner. Meanwhile, Goku got slapped by the tawny bear and was sent flying.

-----Line Break-----

Sitting in his Home Base, Ryuji winced. The idea of doing a mini isekai adventure into one of Rias's favorite worlds was definitely a good idea. Her excitement alone had given him a rather large amount of Dungeon Energy. Though, perhaps, he shouldn't have picked Drag-so-ball as the first one. He'd had to look into it and do some research to make the scenario and it looked amazing. He even managed to make one of his human creations look exactly like Goku as a child.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a perfect recreation. While the character looked and sounded like Goku, it's acting could use some work and it was nowhere near as strong as the character. That lack of strength came down to his lack of mana. The strength of his creations was limited completely by the amount of mana he could spend in an instant. For more powerful creatures, he needed to be able to spend more mana.

If he could spend the mana over time then it wouldn't be a problem, but he had to pay for it all at once. It was annoying because if he could pay over time, he could make anything with his rapid mana recovery. In short, if this were an RPG game, he would have a maximum mana of one hundred with a regeneration rate of over one hundred per five seconds.

The only way to make stronger monsters, which given how easily Koneko and Rias were slaughtering the huge pack of bears he'd made indicated he should, would be to increase his mana capacity. Thankfully, that was something he could do with the Dungeon Energy he was getting from running his current scenario. Yeah, he'd definitely have to do that next.

Thankfully, he already knew the Cloaking technique from his beginners guide so his sudden increase in magical power should go unnoticed by everyone else. He was kind of looking forward to making stronger creatures now that he'd decided that was what he would do.

-----Line Break-----

Georg sat in the hidden base of the Hero Faction, resting in his room while the others did their own thing. Cao Cao, his friend and leader, was planning something but it was only the beginning stages so nothing really needed to be discussed with the rest of the group yet.

Georg was young man with black hair and rectangular frameless spectacles. He wore a combination of a Japanese school uniform, more specifically, the gakuran worn by Japanese schoolboys in the fall, and a maroon mage-style robe over his uniform. He was currently surrounded by a writhing black fog that indicated his use of his Sacred Gear, Dimension Lost.

Dimension Lost was one of the top four Longinus class Sacred Gears making it one of the most powerful things in the world. He was extremely happy to have it, even if it didn't have any ability to attack directly. It was one of the most powerful defensive Sacred Gears on the planet. It could block any attack with its mist and transport anything inside of the mist wherever he desired. If he got strong enough, it was possible for him to cover and entire country in his mist and transport it to the Dimensional Gap, where it would be destroyed.

On top of all of that, he could make dimensions that he controlled, sense other dimensions, strengthen other peoples dimensions, and even break into their dimensions after finding them. It would really come in handy when they wanted to break into the dimensions of the different pantheons, such as the Norse one. That was one of their future plans, to use Dimension Lost to break in and steal Fenrir. Though that would be a while from now.

While messing with it to pass the time was something he often did, this time something was different. He could sense a new dimension. New dimensions came into existence pretty often, believe it or not. Most of that was due to the devils and their rating games. Every game took place in a pocket dimension.

However, the new one he was sensing was far too small to be for a rating game. On top of that, he was also having a little trouble pinpointing its exact location, something he'd never had trouble with before. On top of that, the feedback he got from trying to study it was strange, almost like gibberish.

To Georg, a young man in his twenties who was already a master Magician in a dozen fields, finding something he couldn't immediately understand or recognize fully was intriguing. Just as he thought about trying to break into the pocket dimension, it vanished.

He found that slightly annoying, but having seen it once, he'd recognize the signature if another was made. He'd keep his eyes open and move quickly the next time he sensed one open.

Wait... he felt another pocket dimension similar to the last, likely made by the same person. This one was older though and had been around for a little bit, a couple of weeks maybe? Probably less than that. Still, he was curious so he summoned up the black mist of Dimension Lost and guided it toward the pocket dimension. That was the odd thing about using his Sacred Gear, it made distance a really strange concept for him. For him, distance was more of a concept that a fact of life since he could take a single step to move from New York to London.

It only takes him a few moments to poke a hole into the pocket dimension. It really wasn't very difficult, nowhere near as powerful or secure as the dimensions housing things like the Hindu Pantheon. Whoever made the dimension clearly wasn't very strong. With that being the case, he felt no fear in simply walking into it through the fog of Dimension Lost.

When he comes out of the transition, he finds himself inside of a hot spring. A quick look around shows absolutely nothing of real interest. As a Master Magician, his magical senses are exemplary so he can tell everything in the place is constructed with mana, meaning it's hardly more than a very convincing physical illusion. Impressive in its own way, but also very boring. Even the people are the same.

He shook his head and brought himself back out of the pocket dimension, maybe the short term ones are more interesting. If nothing else, checking out the next few will let him see something new and interesting for a bit. After that he would likely grow bored of them and ignore any new ones. Still, the magical technique to make the physical illusions was interesting and something he hadn't mastered.

Well, at least he would have a new magic to work on mastering for the next week or two.

-----Line Break-----

Rias groaned in annoyance as she erased yet another bear. They'd been ambushed repeatedly as they moved in the direction the bears kept coming from. She knew, for a fact, that there was no way so many bears would be living in such a close knit community!

Though, despite her complaints, she was having a lot of fun. Just going on an adventure with Son Goku was worth the minor annoyance of beating a bunch of bears. There were some flaws that she'd noticed eventually. For example, Goku's Power Pole didn't actually extend, which was saddening. Goku was also nowhere near as strong as he should have been. He was only as strong as an athletic kid.

Despite all that though, she still appreciated the effort that the Innovate Clear user went through for this whole thing.

She was brought out of her musing when the arrived at the mouth of a cave. The entrance was large, at least ten meters tall and fifteen meters wide. With sunlight flooding into the cave, they could see the massive form of a bear slowly walking towards them. As it stepped into the sun, they got their first look at what had to be the boss of all the bears.

Even walking on all four of its feet, it was nearly as tall as the cave entrance. It's teeth were so big Rias actually found them intimidating. It's every step sent a heavy thud through the ground and its black fur was so thick it could act as armor. When it's huge head fully entered the sunlight, they could all see a small X-shaped scar on it's right cheek. Looking closer, made Rias connect the bear with a akuza member. It just... gave off that kind of air.

Once if fully exited the cave, it leaned back and stood on its hind legs towering over all of them. There, right on its huge belly, was another X-shaped scar adding to its thuggish looks. It took in a deep breath, silence fell for but a moment, and then the bear ROARED. The very air shook with the force of the bears bellow. It's spittle flew as it vented its rage at the people that had taken down his minions.

His fearsome roar was quickly cut off as a small white blur flashed across the distance and a tiny fist buried itself in the beasts stomach. The mighty roar turned into a strangled sounding gurgle which ended when a red and black blast of magic took its head clean off. They all watched the huge body of the bear crash down on the ground with an earth shaking thud.

With the yakuza feeling bear dead, the group moves toward the cave entrance, keeping their eyes peeled in case there's a surprise waiting for them inside. As they step inside though, they can clearly see the back of the cave and there are no more bears hiding within. Instead, they find a pile of bones composed of various forest animals. Something bright and orange glitters within the bones prompting Goku to run toward the reflected light.

After digging in the bones for a moment he lets out a shout of triumph and holds up a small orange ball with four small red stars within it, “I found it! So it was the bears that stole it!” He hugs the ball to his chest, “I thought I lost you Grandpa.”

Rias stares at the ball in surprise that quickly morphs into excitement, “Is that a Dragon Ball?”

Goku looks at her confused, “I don't know what that is, this,” he holds up the orange ball, “is the last thing my Grandpa gave me before he died. It's my precious treasure.”

Deep inside, Rias knew that it wasn't a real Dragon Ball, it couldn't be. Even if it was the real deal, it was only one of them and the pocket dimensions were way too small for them to search the world to hunt down the other six. Not to mention that without the Dragon Radar invented by Bulma, finding them would be a nightmare. Still, it was a Dragon Ball right in her sight!

Goku tucked the Dragon Ball away and smiled at his new friends, “It looks like we got all of the bears that were causing so much trouble. I think Grandpa left some of his medicines back home. As thanks for helping me I'll give them to you.”

Rias rolled her eyes at yet more potions, couldn't the guy making these places give them anything else for going through all of this? Yes, she'd deliberately chosen to forget how each time she came out of one of the pocket dimensions she was just a tiny bit stronger. She also ignored the fact that whoever it was, was seemingly trying to help her out. She had no idea why, and that honestly bothered her. However, she wasn't in a position where she could ignore any offered help.

When they arrived back at Goku's home, he dashed inside and came out a moment later with a collection of potion bottles. What caught Rias's attention was that none of them were the expected red, green, or blue. One potion was a dull gray, another was neon green, and the final two were orange.

As soon as Goku brought them the potions, Rias plucked them out to read their names. The gray one was Stone Skin, neon green was a Potion of Swiftness, and the two orange ones were Potions of Strength. She had a pretty fair guess at what each potion would do just from the names. Still, they would need to be sent in for testing meaning she wouldn't be keeping any of them for herself.

After accepting the small box with the four potions in it, she watched Goku reach into the top of his outfit and pull out the Dragon Ball. He smiled at it and then held it out toward her, “Grandpa always told me that when you make a new friend, you should give them a gift. I don't have much, but I'm sure Grandpa would approve of me giving this to you.”

Rias passed the box of potions to Koneko as her eyes locked onto the gleaming orange sphere. She gently reached out with her hand, her fingers coming to a stop mere centimeters away from touching it, “Are... are you sure?”

Goku nodded happily and pushed the Dragon Ball into her hand, “I'm sure.”

with no reason to refuse, Rias accepts the Dragon Ball and cuddles it to her chest like its a fragile glass ball that will shatter at even a slightly strong grip. She looked to Goku with awe in her eyes, “Thank you, this is a wonderful gift.”

Goku gave her a bright smile and a thumbs up, “I hope to see you again very soon!”

Rias nodded along in agreement, “I hope so too!”

With that as their goodbye, Goku returned to his home while Rias and Koneko walked back down the path and out of the scenario.

-----Line Break-----

Ryuji smiled as he watched the end of the scenario and closed it, unaware it had been detected and almost breached by someone he didn't even know existed. He was also completely unaware of the security breach that took place within the onsen resort scenario. How was he to know that he could only detect when people used the proper entrance?

Instead, he was ignorant and completely happy. His latest scenario had produced the most Dungeon Energy yet! The two major spikes of emotion from Rias had really pushed the total up. Her sheer joy at meeting Goku in person was a sight to behold. Then there was a massive spike of happiness and excitement when Goku gave her the Dragon Ball.

No, it was not a real Dragon Ball, he was nowhere near powerful enough to make an item like that. Not to mention lacking the proper facilities and knowledge. Rather it was just a simple magically reinforced bauble that looked like the four star Dragon Ball. A trinket Rias could display and enjoy, a gift from him to her.

Also, FINALLY! He finally ran a combat scenario without something going wrong! Rias didn't get a scratch, no one died, and everyone had a good time. It was wonderful and he was looking forward to running more scenarios with such excellent results.

But first... He tapped into the large pool of Dungeon Energy and immediately spent it all on increasing the size of his mana pool. He felt a wave of heat flow from his heart out through his entire body as his total capacity more than doubled. It was an indescribable feeling, almost like pleasure but more gentle. That was the only way he could describe it.

Once the sensation faded, he immediately used the Cloaking technique to drop his emissions back to their previous level. He did not want to draw any more attention from the devils than he already had and this was the main way to do so.

With his Dungeon Energy spent, it was time to think about earning more. He tried to decide how he would go about doing so. So far, he'd only run what could be classified as one shots, single scenarios with no real overarching plot. He really wanted to run a multi-part story. Something that would drag the players into it and get them invested. The more invested they were, the more emotional they would get, and the more Dungeon Energy he would gain.

However, he'd just increased the amount of mana he could spend on monsters and needed to see how well their new strength could be handled by Rias and the others. There's be no point to it if he jumped the gun and accidentally killed someone again. Though he would forever maintain that Issei was just weak as fuck and it wasn't really his fault. Issei died to rats, after all. Who does that?!

Moving on.

He decided to take the next few days to plan out what he was going to do for the next few scenarios. He also needed to take some time to do more experimentation and research in his Alchemy lab to make more potions. He'd made quite a few, but there were hundreds of tier one ingredients and he'd only gone though about half of them so far. Mostly, he was just finding different recipes for the same potions, or variations of those potions. Such as the Potion of Regeneration. It healed more than a regular healing potion of the same tier, but did it over time instead of instantly.

He also wanted to take some time to work on his actual ability to cast spells. He was getting closer to finishing the beginner guide. He'd completed the spell circle for the fireball, more accurately a firebolt, spell and was ready to give it a try.

Thinking of that, he looked around his Home Base, he hadn't made any changes to it though it was technically one of his pocket dimensions and could be modified like any other. He'd just not seen any reason to do so, until now.

Putting his new maximum mana limit to use, he used his power to create a small shooting range made of fireproof materials. No need to start a fire. With the new range set, he stepped to the firing line and held up his right hand. It took a mere flex of his mana and visualizing the magical circle in precise detail, something he finds exceptionally easy, for him to conjure up a small red spell circle no bigger than the palm of his hand. A moment later a ball of fire appeared in the center of the circle and was sent flying down the range at a targeting circle. He watched, enthralled, as the small ball of flames flew completely off course and hit the back wall where it burst apart harmlessly.

Despite his poor aim, Ryuji felt nothing but pure excitement. He looked at the palm of his hand in sheer joy. He'd cast his first spell! He'd used real magic for the first time ever! It. Was. AWESOME. Once was far from enough. He also wanted to hit the target, but that was secondary to just using actual magic.

Yes, he was aware everything he did for his scenarios was, in fact, magic. So was making potions with Alchemy. It just wasn't the same as creating a magic spell with his own hands and casting that spell. He made goddamn fire with sheer willpower, and mana, and fired it as a projectile! That was the most amazing thing in the world to him.

He quickly pointed his hand at the target downrange again and summoned up the same small red spell circle. Flames came to life and were launched once again. He kept going, firing off little burst of fire until he finally struck the target dead center. He fired the spell off non-stop for over an hour before he felt like he could cast the spell in his sleep due to sheer repetition. In all that time, he never once felt his magic dip more than a little. He could literally fire the small bolts of flames for as long as he wanted. Hell, at the end he was firing the spells so quickly it was like firing a machine gun of magic.

So awesome.

He definitely needed to finish reading the book. The final chapters covered the proper way to make new spells and experiment with them safely. He could use Dungeon Energy to just buy spell books, but he had more important things he could spend that energy on. Additionally, the book he had now technically gave him all the information he needed to figure out how to make any spell he desired. It just required time and experimentation. New books could speed the process up by giving him more pieces to the puzzles that were his spells, but were not strictly required.

It didn't hurt that he found he had an instinctive understanding of the work needed and felt like he could quickly create simple spells and use that experience to make more complicated spells later on. Honestly, it was strange to him just how easy and intuitive he found everything related to magic to be. Even the maths. Which was super odd because normal high school maths took more effort than the esoteric magical math he needed to use to create spells.

As best he could tell, some aspect of one of his Essence's made him a genius when it came to magic, but only for magic and its related fields. He found Alchemy easy and expected it was for the same reason he found making a spell circle easy. It was all gravy as far as he was concerned.

So he had his plans. New potions, then new spells, then work on a new scenario to test his stronger monsters, then work on a storyline scenario to pump his targets for more emotional energy. Why did that make him feel manipulative and a little skeevy?

-----Line Break-----

Serafall sighed as she ended the group call with the other three Satans. Rias had passed along more potions for testing and the results had come in. They all did what the labels said. The Stone Skin potion made the drinkers skin more durable letting them shrug off more damage than normal. The swiftness potion made people move faster, though it notably did not improve their reaction times so it would require experience to use properly. Then the final new potion, the Potion of Strength also did what the label said, improved the drinkers physical strength. All of the effects were temporary.

The big deal was, the improvements the potions granted would actually improve their own strength. Given that they were four of the most power devils in the underworld, and it became a concern. Granted, the boost would be very minor for any of them and Ajuka suspected that drinking the same potion multiple times would not increase the effect. That being the case they couldn't just chug fifty strength potions and get a huge boost in strength.

On the other hand, whoever was making the potions had already shown that they could make stronger versions of potions they already had. This was shown when the Lesser version of a healing potion was twice as effective as a Least version. The creator had doubled the efficacy of the potion! If he could do that to the various 'buff' potions, doubling their efficacy, they would become even more dangerous. But what if he could improve on them over and over again doubling their efficacy every single time? Then the effect of the potion would become something that could make them significantly stronger.

But what would that mean for weaker devils? For them the increases were small, for weaker devils? Her precious So-tan could drink the potions and gain a much more impressive boost to her abilities. Her peerage members would get an even more impressive boost. What would happen if the maker had some 'Super Duper Ultra Potion of Strength' that could make even her markedly stronger and it was given to So-tan?

SUPER SO-TAN!

As amazing as that would be, especially if she could get So-tan into a Magical Girl outfit, it presented a serious problem. It was only a matter of time until the other factions found out about the pocket dimensions popping up all the time in Kuoh and giving out these prizes. Which faction wouldn't want a supply of potions that could make their rank and file stronger and more useful? It wasn't just the enemies without, but also within. The old Satan Faction was still there enemy, even if they were currently in more of a cold war with them. They would sink to any low to get their hands on such potions to improve their weakest members. Their leaders would also want to get stronger ones for themselves. They knew they couldn't defeat her and the other satans, for now, but strong enough potions could change that.

Then there was the Great King Faction, it was a mostly political faction, but that was a form of power and they could use that power in very annoying ways. They held a majority and, with some effort, could get just about any law they wanted passed. They could do something stupid, like make a law that all potions from the pocket dimensions had to go through them. She didn't even want to think about what they would do if they found out other factions got their hands on the potions.

All in all, it was an annoying mess. Luckily for her, it was all Sirzechs' problem! She wouldn't have to deal with it even if other factions did get the potions. As far as they knew, the person making them and the portals was a human with an unknown Sacred Gear. Ajuka was certain it wasn't Innovate Clear, but he had no idea what other Sacred Gear could possibly be involved. He was also irked at the person using it since he had zero success in reverse engineering any of the potions. The most he could get out of it was knowing they were made with materials from both flora and fauna.

She let all of her thoughts on that slip away as she focused on the thing that had been distracting her for a while now. So-tan had lost a chess match! Serafall wasn't supposed to know, no one outside of Sona's peerage was, but she had long since bugged the crap out of Sona's office, home, and other places. She couldn't check the recordings as often as she liked, but she spent some time every week catching up on Sona's life.

Seeing that boy beat Sona while simultaneously raking her over the coals for her perceived failures make her want to head up to the human world and turn the boy into an ice sculpture. She couldn't do that though. Not only would it reveal she was spying on Sona, it would upset Sirzechs. He went through a bit of effort to get that boy transferred to Kuoh for the new year and killing him would make that work a waste. There wasn't anything special about the boy, just a human with some potential talent to be a magician. She could see what Sirzechs was trying to do and she admitted that Okane Ryuji would make a decent Bishop piece for Ria-chan.

That didn't mean she had to like him!

No, the real problem was that Sona was a stickler for the rules... When she knew what those rules were anyway. She'd sworn to their parents that she would marry whoever could beat her at chess. Something no one had managed to accomplish before. Even if she tried to pretend the loss hadn't happened, she couldn't. Technically speaking, Okane was now Sona's fiance, even if he was only a human with mild magical talent.

Which was another reason Serafall did nothing. To do something would be to acknowledge the loss and would cause all kinds of problems. Killing her younger sister's 'technical' fiance would be an impossible incident to hide. Not least of which because Sona wouldn't let her hide something like that. Then her parents would get involved, the politics, and it would just become an ugly mess.

Unfortunately, this meant she could do nothing.

Well, she could do what she was doing right now, pout.

-----Line Break-----

Ryuji held in a sigh as he walked through the gates to the academy. Sona, like always, was at the entrance looking over the students for infractions. She wasn't a complete hardass but she did keep an eye out for the more blatant infractions. Still, with how angry she looked when glaring at him, he'd taken to doing everything by the book. His uniform was perfect, there was nothing in his bag but school supplies, and he kept himself clean and presentable. Nothing she could complain about.

“Okane-san, please step over here for a spot check.”

He bit back a groan and tried, for the hundredth time, to remember not to taunt Murphy. Almost every time he did the dude kicked him in the balls and he was getting pretty tired of it. Regardless, he didn't let any emotion show on his face as he made his way over to Sona and held his bag out for her to examine. Spot checks were a pretty rare thing normally and usually only used on students known to carry contraband. Obviously Ryuji carried no such things.

As Sona looked through his perfectly organized bag, she spoke in a restrained voice, “I would like to see you in the student council offices after classes end today.”

He had zero intention of being alone with her and her entire peerage after their last meeting so he gave her the same answer that he gave every other time that she asked, “I'm sorry but I've got appointments that I must keep this afternoon. I'm afraid I have no time to spare, unless it's a serious scholastic matter pertaining to my grades or some form of rule breaking.”

Sona and Rias might have claimed the school as their main base and the entirety of Kuoh as their territory, but they still had to follows the laws of mankind. No matter what rules and regulations they might make and try to maintain within the bounds of the school, there were laws regulating them. He'd made himself intimately familiar with said laws and had no problem using them to get out of meeting with Sona in private.

Somehow he didn't think she appreciated his growing knowledge of law in regards to what a school was allowed to do with the students.

It also didn't hurt that she couldn't level any real threats against him. What was she going to do, expel him? He'd love to see her explaining that to Sirzechs after the most powerful devil in existence went out of his way to make sure Ryuji attended Kuoh this year. He was pretty sure that Sirzechs would not be amused.

Finding nothing out of sorts in his bag, Sona passed it back to him. She tried to keep her expression stoic but he could see the annoyance she was hiding at his repeated refusals to do as she wanted, “No. Your schoolwork is as exemplary as usual and you have broken no school rules.”

It must have killed her to say that and Ryuji would be lying if he said he didn't take a small bit of pleasure in seeing her unable to get her way. He considered it an important life lesson for her. After all, adults do not always get their way in the real world. She should get used to disappointment because she was going to run into it a lot outside of the school.

Taking his bag, he gave her a polite, if a bit shallow, bow and turned to make his way onto the campus and toward his classroom. School was imply easy for him and not something he had to pay a ton of attention to in order to excel. So, he planned to spend a lot of his classroom time focused on designing his next few scenarios. He could work on them anywhere since it was all in his head. It was just that his Home Base let him do it out in the open and use the magical screens to get a visual representation of what he was doing.

He almost had his testing one finished and planned to have someone run it tonight. He was actually working on several different scenarios with specific individuals in mind. He'd also realized something that, in hindsight, was kind of obvious. The characters he created could have and use skills he didn't. For example, the son of the old couple in the onsen resort was a professional masseuse, something that Ryuji himself was most definitely not.

He hadn't even thought about the kind of education and experience something like being a professional masseuse required and he'd just made one. So he was using that knowledge to make other professionals that could help the members of the various peerages improve their skills. For example, he was making a scenario for Kiba that had a Master Swordsman as a teacher with disciples that Kiba could challenge. Defeating all of the disciples, who got progressively stronger, would let him challenge the leader. He expected it would take Kiba a few tries to complete it but he had rewards at various points for beating the disciples to keep him motivated.

He had something similar for Koneko in the form of a mixed martial arts dojo, only her prizes were sugary delicacies. For Rias he was working on a version of duck hunt that would require her to use her Power of Destruction in a more thoughtful manner. Going full blast might seem like an alright idea, but she tended to run out of power fast and big blasts weren't always necessary. His goal with her was control. For Akeno, he was actually stuck. He couldn't make creatures completely immune ot specific elements, yet, but he planned to so he could make monsters immune to different elements and force her to use more than just lightning. She's supposed to be good with all elements and never uses the others.

When it came to Sona's peerage... he was clueless. It wasn't his fault that Sona and her peerage were just side characters in the show! He knew hardly anything about them. The only things he honestly remembered is Sona used water magic and Saji used his tongue Sacred Gear to suck people off, or something. He questioned his memory of Saji's ability, but then remembered that DxD was barely above the level of a hentai so he stopped doubting and figured he was closer to right than wrong.

Since he had no idea how to really train Sona and the others, he planned to just make a D&D style scenario chain for them so they could get stronger, even if they wouldn't get as much out of it as Rias and her peerage. Maybe if he'd seen more of the show he could help them more, but it's not his fault the weeb broke up with him when he said Bleach was overrated.

Ah, good times.

He sat at his desk and was a little surprised when he saw Rias looking at him speculatively. She still hadn't done anything toward him so he had no idea what she was thinking. He hadn't gotten any intel on her thoughts toward himself so he was kind of in the dark there. He'd do his best to make up for killing Issei and screwing her over, but he drew the line at joining a peerage and becoming a slave. No matter how well he would be treated as said slave.

Ya'know, with naked Rias cuddles like Issei got. As tempting as they were he was going to stand firm on that and stay human...

Okay that was a lie. First chance he got he was going to drop his humanity like a bad penny and swap to another race. He wasn't sure which race but was leaning toward Devil. Despite what anyone might think, he was picking Devil for one reason and one reason only, Imagination Based Magic.

No, seriously. If he was already a certifiable genius when it came to human calculation based magic and had an excellent understanding of the subject and how to manipulate it. What could he do if he got his hands on the inspiration for human magic and could cast spells just by picturing the results he wanted properly?

Granted he wouldn't be using it to break reality, yet, but he'd already increased his mana by more than double. Given a few months of work who knew how powerful he could become and what he could do with devil magic. So what was his plan? It was the simplest plan in the world.

Race Change Potion.

Granted, he had zero ingredients for it so far and expected it would be a higher tier potion, but he was certain it was possible. So, if he could change his race himself, becoming a pureblood devil all on his own, why the hell wouldn't he?

So that was his current goal, become a pureblood devil on his own terms. It would take time and a lot of work to get stronger but it would be worth it. Upgrades and unlocking new options were the keys to his evolution. He needed to expand all of his operations. He needed to gather a ton of Dungeon Energy and he needed to spend it wisely.

He'd never been afraid of a little work. So, with a smile on his face, he worked on the next steps to achieving his goal. This world was not ready for what he would become.

-----Line Break-----

AN

Okay, this chapter is a little shorter at just 9.6k words. I could have written more but it would have been forced and this was a good place to stop. There are also a few interesting reasons why it took me longer to write this chapter than the previous ones. Some funny, some scary as fuck.

Funny! I'm a whiskey fan, especially Scotch Whiskey. For the last decade or so that's all I've really had to drink when it comes to hard liquors. I always have a bottle of Johnny Walker Black in the house. The other day I was buying a new bottle of Johnny when I spotted an old friend on sale and decided “what the hell?” and bought it.

Dear GOD I forgot just how delicious a rum and coke is when that run is good ol' Captain Morgan. And yes, I did forget because it's been at least fifteen years since any Captain has gone past my lips. I'm too old to get blackout drunk, but a pair of rum and cokes with dinner the last few nights might have impacted my writing speed.

The second issue actually happened today, which I planned to spend most of writing. I was just sitting here in my room typing away when there was a massive crash outside. The biggest tree in my backyard, decided to let gravity win and fucking BROKE IN HALF. No, seriously, that mother fucker, with no warning, snapped like a fucking twig and came crashing down. It's a goddamn miracle that it didn't smash through my window and shatter a portion of the roof to splinters. If I actually parked at the very end of my driveway, instead of where the path to my front door lines up with my door, my SUV would have been buried under the tree and likely smashed. As it is, there's some damage to the fucking neighbors house, no telling how bad yet, but there gutters are at least fucked up.

I am soooo fucking glad I rent, because all that? Not my fucking problem. That shit is NOT covered under expected maintenance and something I have to deal with. There's also no way we can be blamed for not seeing it coming. From the outside that tree looked healthy as can be, big branches full of bright green leaves and no outward signs of rot.

I'll post a few pictures I took of the aftermath just so you guys can see it. Shit is wild.

Aaaanyway. I hope you all liked this chapter. Lemme know what you think and post a comment if you like. The positive reinforcement does a lot for my desire to write. If you're shy (nothing wrong with that!) feel free to send me something more private.

Look forward to those pics... as soon as I figure out how to get that shit uploaded and posted.