“It’s finally here!” Xero exclaimed happily as Edge arrived with several large crates at the training field where the Sword Demons were all training.

“Master, what is this?” Edge asked, having only received the items after giving a sealed note to Grunt.

He opened the large crate and pulled out strange leather straps with glowing springs attached to it.

Everyone looked at it confused, “What is that master?” Ashley asked.

“You don’t remember? These are body restraints, they’re to train physical strength.” Xero said.

They all remained confused, “Why do we need those?” One of the minions asked.

Xero snorted, “Of course, it’s to train, specifically, Ashley…” Xero turned to his familiar, “We neglected to train your legs for a long time and soon, your body strengths will equal the strength of your legs but the potential of your legs is one of the highest parts of your body so from now on, we are all going to train them.” Xero said.

All the devil’s stared at him confused, “Us too, master?” the minions asked.

“Of course, everyone will train. Why do you think I brought extra body restraints? The main focus of training the legs is for jumping power, Leg strength and because the legs are where we gather our strength from. If the base is weak the power will be weaker.” Xero said.

This is part of combat training that Grunt had given through the long distance class. Training the minions was now an important subject that was now going to be graded the following year so Xero wanted to start early.

“Ah, master. There is no need to train my leg. Just look how beautifully strong it is.” She said and did an air kick causing a strong gale to blast through the field. “See, my strength is perfectly above twice as strong as my arms.” she said.

Xero grinned and pulled out a book before flipping quickly to a page and turned it to Ashley. “Read here.” He said.

She bent over and looked at his finger, “The common strength of the legs are commonly 3 times that of the arms because we always walk thus keeping them in constant motion.” she said and froze while her face cramped up as if she had eaten something sour.

“All of you will come and put on these restraints.” Xero ordered with the familiar seal.

Because the minions were linked to Ashley, his familiar order affected them through Ashley.

Their bodies moved on their own and the child sized devils exclaimed as they felt this the first time ever, being unable to control their bodies.

The restraints were focused on the leg but there were smaller sections that strapped around the shoulder and arms so that it would work the upper body as well.

When the restraints were on, their mana began to flow into the equipment and it suddenly began to add more and more pressure.

“M-Master! W-what is this!?” Ashley said as she forced herself more upright under the increasing pressure.

“These are Master Grunt’s Level match pressure leg restraints. For monsters that need immense leg strength, say a rabbit beastman, these would be the best training tool and since your biggest talent is your legs, I asked him for these. They adjust to a threshold of power equal to your level. Each level would increase the pressure but it functions only to the 50th level but it is perfect to develop the leg.” Xero said. “Also, I noticed that all you Sword Devil’s have wings and tails. The training of the legs happens for 4 hours before the restraints are deactivated but after that we will start to strengthen those undeveloped wings and tails.” Xero said

“W-what!? M-Master, why!?” Ashley said as her legs were already half bent when the weight maxed out for her level 31 strength. It was almost 5 times heavier than her normal weight limit and she was using all her force to stand half up.

“You use magic to fly but your wings are undeveloped, the same as your tail. Here read this.” Xero said, pulling out a letter and holding it.

On it was written, with Grunt’s letters, “Hey kid, just a word up, your little devil’s wings, tail and legs are being neglected. Undeveloped body parts become useless and can’t hold magic. If you strengthen them up properly they could hold unique spells like the tail with sword magic could form something like a sword whip or something. The wings as well could become some kind of body weapon that could complement the girl’s fighting style.” it had written on it.

Ashley was resenting Grunt so much at this moment because since she became a Sword Devil, she never trained much besides getting a lot of forging from Cinder.

She couldn’t hide that she wasn’t developing as fast as before, just eating wasn’t keeping up her improvement anymore and Xero noticed it as did Grunt.

“Alright, we will start some simple squats for now. Later we will move to jumping squats and when you all can move normally, we will start jogging through the village under the pressure.” Xero said.

They all paled but what he did next shocked them as he put the restraints on himself and soon was under as much pressure as Ashley and was gritting his teeth, “Get… ready…” He said huffing.

Just standing was making him sweat but Xero forced himself to stand upright that even Ashley was still trying to do.

They began to admire him and followed his command and began to do squats for leg exercise while feeling as if their bones would break.

After no less than 5 minutes, all the sword devils and Xero had fallen down and the equipment deactivated to allow them to rest and stand up, like most of Grunt’s equipment is set to do.

After a short rest, Xero forced himself and his minions to stand and they started another repetition, several of which almost started to cry as their bodies moved on their own to Xero’s counting.

After 30 minutes, even Xero couldn’t handle it anymore and used a magic control and deactivated all the equipment and all the devils fell down with tears in their eyes.

If one were to see these devils as they were, they would have a hard time imagining that they were devils all of which were over level 20.

It went to show that Cinder’s Demon cores were made ‘pure’ and were not demon souls summoned from hell but newly formed souls through her skill.

“M-Master… I-I can’t move!” Ashley said as her legs twitched in pain.

“Still think you don’t need training?” Xero asked while huffing and sitting up to stretch his legs and use the pained stress on his leg to focus on limbering his body up more.

“M-Master is right~!” Ashley said, tearing up.

“Good, now all of you, sit up and start stretching or your legs might cramp!” Xero said.

The sniffling devils all slowly sat up and put their effort into stretching their legs and back. True to young creatures, they were very nimble and stretched to an almost split and reached near the ground and could easily reach their feet and hold it.

After around 10 minutes, Xero stood up and clapped. “Alright, let’s start training your tails.” He said.

“Ahhh!” They all exclaimed, wondering what kind of demonic torture tool their master would bring out. That said, what shocked them was when Xero grabbed his magic bag and after messing with it a bit, he flipped it and from it, dozens of barbells of different sizes fell on the ground. The weight ranged from 1 kilo to 100.

“We are going to start up with simple weight lifting while using your tail. We will first start by seeing the strength limit of your tails, everyone come over and start at the one kilo and lift it one by one and go up the weights!” Xero said.

They all sigh, thankful that there wasn’t anything intense this time and walked over, Ashley started at the one kilo with discontent and quickly went to 20 kilo before she could barely lift it.

“W-w-what!? I-I am a level 31 and can’t lift a 20 kilo weight!” She exclaimed in shock before becoming depressed.

The minions were much worse of course, the strongest lifted 10 kilos and the weakest could lift 5.

“Alright, you all will work out your tail until you feel it numbing and almost like they are falling off.” Xero ordered.

“Master! That’s cruel!” Ashley complained but all their tails had already begun to move and they could only focus. This exercise lasted for an hour and during that time, the Devil’s rapid growth showed itself. Ashley ended up lifting 30 kilo while almost all the minions lifted more than 10 kilo.

Ashley and the female sword devils went and made food for everyone and they all ate before Xero gathered them again.

“Ashley, when the minions die, do they get the boost of strength like you do?” Xero asked.

“Not as great as me because the mana in the sword field has to pass through me so they require more time to get mana and receive a bit less. In fact, they help me grow faster.” She said.

Xero nodded understanding, “Well, that helps, since we have worked out a lot today, all of you, self destruct somehow and return to the sword field.” Xero ordered.

They looked shocked but with a nod from Ashley, they all lifted their hands to their horns and poked them and suddenly their bodies exploded into balls of blue white flame which were all sucked into their demon core and all of them flashed into Ashley’s body.

She did the same and touched her horn and Ignia ignited her body from the inside before she flew into Xero’s seal where mana and material started to get sucked up slowly.

Xero smiled and nodded before pulling out his sword and started to practice his sword magic.

It took around four hours for Ashley to reform and when she did, they both noticed a drastic change on her body as the previous 30 cm long barbed tail had grown by half making it 45 cm long and it had thickened. There were strong muscles in it already.

“Seems your tail developed well. Come here.” he said and she came over and let him touch it.

Ashley tensed up due to the sensitivity of her tail it was much less sensitive but the barb still reacted greatly.

“The tail itself is strengthening but what is this little barb for anyway?” Xero asked her.

“I don’t know.” She said.

Xero let go and felt the internal structure of her body and reached the area of her tail, the mana channels in this area were mostly undeveloped as were the wings.

Xero thought a while before he began to build a very very simple spell using metal element magic to harden the tail.

“Oh, master so we are adding magic already?” She asked.

“Yeah, hold on.” He said and soon finished the simple spell.

Ashley activated it as soon as it was finished and her tail began to glow, she groaned from the pain and he could feel where the unblocked passages went but there were areas it wanted to enter without any mana channels causing bottled up mana. Still, the tail formed a faint metallic shine.

“Start working out your tail in that state, also…” he said, pulling out a small one kilo weight.

“Start flapping your wings with these weights on them.” he said and carefully placed the weights on her wings.

“Master is so cruel!” She said, complaining but she still did it, lifting a 20 kilo weight, cause she currently couldn’t use her full strength due to the spell activated.

Like that, he watched as she kept exerting her extra limbs and saw veins appear on the leathery black skin on both of them.

When Ashley became exhausted, she stopped and opened her sword field and the minions all came out restored.

Similar to herself, she and Xero went around and built the tail hardening spell and they all had to activate it on their undeveloped tails and exercise like that while Xero walked around and made sure they were properly working.

As time passed, he added more weight to the wings and tail slowly making it harder all the way until dinner time when they were released to eat and then self-destruct to process their development at a greater pace.

The following morning Xero experimented, “Let’s see how many of you can fly just on wing power.” Xero said.

They were fearing what kind of thing he would make them do until they heard his order. They started to flap their small wings and began to take off including Ashley. She could actually fly but only could do so by flapping them at very hard. It turned out to be a high intensity task as it was.

“Just fly around until you get tired but…” Xero smiled, “...those who land will rest for 5 minutes only and then will add 1 kilo to their body and have to fly again.” Xero said.

The all paled by his cruel abuse. They became determined to not land but their wings simply weren’t made for long flight and their back muscles were also undeveloped. Even Ashley, the strongest among them, was the last to land and had doubled the weight, two kilos, added and had to fly again.

When the weight reached 5 kilo, Xero changed the weight to barbells and told them to carry it with their tail, but it had to be held level with the ground while hardening the tail.

It was much harder than it looked but Xero kept watching and they soon dropped, with their back burning from the exercise that focused on their back muscles. The wing’s twitched and Xero nodded. He began training himself while leaving the minions to train after giving orders for them to put the weights on themselves and fly until they couldn’t get off the ground anymore.

They all cried out at the order but couldn’t go against it and were made to do just what was said.

***

Peeking from the 2nd floor of his house Nero watched his older brother training all the devils.

A mischievous grin appeared on his face as he turned and looked around to make sure there was no one around. He carefully crouched and pointed to his feet, “Silent.” he muttered and his feet were suddenly covered in a layer of mana which didn’t make any sound.

He left his room and ran quickly to his brother's room and began to look around, seeing all the magic books, he looked and looked before pouting, “Where are big brothers ice magic books!?” he thought but found mostly fire and sword magic making him angry and stomp soundlessly.

This was actually a secret of his that his family didn’t know, he had found a way to use magic to soften sound and it wasn’t built with a magic sequence but from a long lost art which was the old method of using magic. By using one’s imagination to picture and perform the spell. He had found out when he was trying to make the basic magics and discovered how to visualize how to change the most basic ‘Mana bolt’ into a ‘Fireball’ spell.

When he found out, he noticed that doing a similar way with other things worked as well. It was only limited by his mana capacity which didn’t last long but he could sneak around quite well and only Eva would notice him through his presence. Of course, she was as strong as his father and her familiar was a magical cat familiar which made her sensitive to magic.

After pouting and complaining silently, he thought about his sister who had studied a lot of different magic and quickly slipped out and ran to her room where he found a lot of books, including ice magic.

The books were more in depth but still generalized. He was far more interested in his sister's general information than his brother's specialized magic. His mind was like a sponge and kept reading the book on ice magic and then changed to a neutral magic which encased many kinds of common element neutral spells such as identification.

“Hmm…” He looked at the identification spell and tilted his head before turning to look around and grabbed one of the plants before he gathered his dwindling mana and built the basic Identification spell aimed at the plant.

‘High quality Healing Herb’ he felt this information appear in his head but there was a lot of jumbled up stuff as well.

“This is really annoying.” he said as he itched his head wanting to get rid of that jumbled up block of information in his brain. Only getting the name, he felt annoyed by the spell and looked at the book before grabbing a piece of paper and writing it down and then he flipped the page. “Space Sensory?” He muttered.

‘Space Sensory, can feel the space around oneself and have a rough idea of what is where. Requires training in identification magic and a strong memory.’ it wrote in the description.

He flipped and found different kinds of kinds for identification magic and had his curiosity peaked so he took the neutral magic and ice magic books to his room without a care and closed the door of his sister's room after taking his claim.

***

Nadir, at this same time, was in the northern side of the village where the original village had been. The village previously had very few people but one of them had been her first teacher in alchemy. If one identified her, they would be surprised to find she was at level 40 along with her familiar, a level 40 Mandrake. This was an example of a person who did not wish to be burdened by nobility titles and politics and didn’t search for it even in her old age.

At this level, she already had her own kind of minion which were called budlings, seedlings of Mandrake. They were featureless humanoid roots with a small head and only a set of eyes. As for the Mandrake, she was, in all possible sense, extremely human.

Nadir had asked about why the Budling Minions and the Mandrake looked so different and she was told that she didn’t know, at the time.

“You have grown well child, this is quite a creative method to developing your own path of alchemy.” She said after witnessing the transformation magic.

“Hey hey! Master! Can you teach me something new?!” She asked.

“What is it that you wish to know?” She asked like a grandmother seeing her grandchild.

“Hmm… How do you raise monster herbs?” she asked.

Monster herbs is a rare plant type herb. They are plant monsters but their leaves, roots or fruits have medical property. Mandrake are one such monster herb and their main attack method is through high pitched screaming. The scream of a young Mandrake can cause deafness, fainting and different problems, an adult one could directly kill but of course, adults develop sound magic so they can even control their voice focusing it.

“Hmm.” she thought and grabbed her cane and walked around before pulling out a book and flipped through it. “Here read this.” She muttered and turned around and showed the girl.

Nadir looked at the book, ‘Monster herb rearing: This is a dangerous type of herb rearing. For one to be successful, they should learn extensive knowledge of each herb they will rear, including all possible variants and evolutions. It is suggested that one be either a spirit familiar owner or a plant familiar owner to attempt this.’

She pouted but the old alchemist chuckled, “Just grow slowly, eventually you will be able to as your familiar evolves. When it does and can be used to rear Monster Herbs, I will teach you.” She said.

Nadir obediently nodded sadly.

The alchemist smiled at the child and asked her about her academy.

Nadir happily spoke of her private lessons. “You are quite lucky to get such a good teacher.” She said.

“Master is just as nice.” Nadir said happily.

“Alright, let me see what you can do, I’ll see if I can give any pointers.” she said.

“Okay master!” the bubbly girl said happily and pulled out some herbs for a common healing potion.

The old woman walked up to the cauldron and touched it after the girl had started and sensed the inside with her mana and watched through the feeling.

She was surprised by the complex process of purification the girl was able to achieve with the cauldron.

When she was finished, Nadir produced the high quality health potion.

“Is this the hardest potion you can make?” the girl's master asked.

“No, the hardest potion i can make is low quality mana potion.” She said.

“That requires three slime nuclei, as expected of an academy. It isn’t something I can easily make due to material cost.” She said.

“Can master make it?” Nadir said.

“Of course, I just lack material.” She said. “When the land becomes safer around here though, slimes will start gathering from the wild. They are pests for sure.” She said. Even if she frowned, her face had an expectant expression because, besides Nadir, she was the only other alchemist in the village and making mana stones is many times harder than making any potion. “Alright, if you have slime nuclei, show me how you make the potion and I will instruct you.” She said.

“Yay!” Nadir said and pulled out the slime cores and herbs and made it once and her master began to tell her about her mistakes and the first few she needed to fix to achieve Middle grade and let the girl train while watching her do the process. The two spent a long while together like this with her helping her student learn her craft.