“Greetings Sir Null!” a flamboyant voice called out to Nil.

After several days of meetings, many of the required things were decided, including how the nation’s base would be trained.

The Lurian empire has an estimate of around ten to twenty thousand 1st rank knights. These live in small towns and villages throughout the empire as well as the borders struggling. Many of these aren’t lucky like Nil who advanced two from level 30 to level 41 within his first year due to the hand of lady luck.

Above this are around four thousand 2nd rank Senior Knights. Each rank up would further funnel the power ranking of the nation until it reached the king and dukes.

The decision for training the 1st rank knights into 2nd rank was left to all the 2nd rank knights. None of the baron and upper ranks wanted to deal with this when they had an extremely stressful enough life managing their land and training their own local militia.

This left the four thousand or so senior knights to manage twenty thousand or so 1st rank knights meaning at least five knights for one senior knight.

This didn’t go well with them though because senior knights were towns with high development rates unlike other 1st rank villages. Just a look at Cipher would show that towns with senior knights would have a huge amount of development.

Still, they were silenced once they were told of the danger the nation would face if their base was weak so they could only suck it up. Anyway the objective was that the senior knights would just aide the 1st rank knights reach 2nd rank. From there it was on them to develop.

This man was one such knight that had poor development. All the knights were also close neighbors to one another which would allow groups and a sense of unity to form between those helping and receiving.

His name was Gus Dorian, he was the lord of a town nearby and has been the lord for a few dozen years. The development actually isn’t that high because he doesn’t have a combat type familiar. Due to this, the danger around the city was much higher. Since he was Nil’s neighbor it also meant that he was a border knight.

What was ‘unique’ about this man was the fact that on his back was a lute. In fact, the man himself was a common bard who had gathered enough money for a familiar and through much luck he reached level 31 but has since stagnated within this stage. He wasn’t a mage or any sort of combatant. Although with the money he gets from taxes he was eventually able to get a tutor in magic, his familiar isn’t much of a combatant either making it difficult for him to advance without endangering himself and family.

“Sir Dorian, are you already prepared to leave?” Nil asked.

“Of course. To think you would help my town first!” He said, jolly “My child came home after so long so I will have to introduce you to him. If I am not wrong he and your son go to the same magic academy! It can be counted as fate!” he said and his eyes flashed as he took out a page and began to write, “Yes, indeed this is good lyrics!” he said writing quickly.

The other four looked at him strangely. They are similar to him, they were lucky to score money and invested in familiars and became a 1st rank noble but never advanced. It's a pretty common pattern since everyone has a different talent range.

That said, there are things that can improve a familiar and master together. One of which is adding magic and expanding the mana channels. Another method was Zip.

“We don’t have time for that.” Zip said, sighing. He was given 1st rank status so he was expected to train as well as help others train through tempering.

“Alright, please help us to the city.” Nil addressed the sword devil who nodded, “Of course sir.” She replied and formed a Divine Greatsword that extended to a comfortable size after they had left the city and they took off.

***

Running through the woods around Cipher, Xero, Ashley and the Sword Devil Minions were covered in sweat as they trekked through the trees. As Xero had said, he made them and himself run around the city and this was the third day already but today was different.

As he had mentioned before, he and Ashley had forgotten about the legs, tail and wings but there was another place that he realized. Ashley’s unique eyes were a place that lacked development.

Her description of the world was vague, she could see bodies of mana and basic contours, the center of all magic allowing her to break them easily and she was unaffected by visual illusions. This kind of power was very useful for combat. Previously, using even worse vision, she had located an important flower herb for Silver so now, he had gotten serious and decided to focus his attention on developing her eyes next.

The first thing he needed was to discover how to convert her normal eyes function into magic.

The three days after starting training was followed by Ashley forcefully flooding her eyes with mana. Although they were magic eyes they were undeveloped and as expected, the mana channels were very tiny. It caused an incredible burning feeling when her devil mana reacted with the strange holy aura that permeated her eyes.

Eating, forcing the eyes expanded them a bit and under self destruction it began to develop more. Xero then put his experimental magic eye spell he had been making for himself into her eyes.

Eyes were usually compatible with identification magic but eye magic didn’t just stop there of course. Basilisk, medusa and other creatures had eye based magic for offensive purposes while the spell he wanted was for auxiliary purposes. It would aid in many more fields than simple combat and could make identifying threats easier.

The spell itself did little to improve her eyes but it caused more burning and even made tears of blood come out showing the pain she was suffering. Under this kind of pain, the spell eventually evolved after several deaths. It rebuilt itself and seemed more structurally stable but it lacked sophistication. The spell name was called [Holy Magic Eye] which was a bit of a shock coming from a demon but the sword devil flame already had something like that so it wasn’t such a surprise from Ashley.

A new problem arises from this though because now she had to use holy mana when pulling it from her core and it caused damage to herself but not to her eye this time. Still the effect of the spell improved her vision.

Before, she could see at a range of around 1 km and saw in detail only around 50 meters around her.

“Hm… within 10 meters I can see in great detail and can see master’s every contour but your hair is blurred. From 10 to 100 meters I can see as I did before at 50 meters and beyond are blurred bodies of mana.” She explained.

Xero nodded quite happily as he copied the spell and activated on himself. His eyes were normal so he found the spell, when he used it, would give him about half the effect of what she could see normally. It was a large jump but it felt his eyes pulsing after several moments meaning he wasn’t used to eye magic.

“Alright, let’s return to the town and then I can make all the minions have this spell.” Xero said.

They nodded and on the way back, Xero used the spell to get used to it and found a few herbs by identifying their bodies of mana. Just like the familiars, he needed to train himself so he felt that this spell would train the hardest part to train in his body.

As they arrived at the gate into the lord’s manor, the guards bowed to him and his group. At this time, a large sword flew overhead and Xero knew his father had returned and quickly ran in and found the sword making a small round at the training field.

When Xero saw his father and brothers getting off the sword, he was confused by the five other men and approached. “Welcome back dad, bros!” Xero exclaimed, “Who are they?”

“These are our neighboring city lords. It was decided by the king that 2nd rank nobles are to help 1st ranks improve and possibly advance to 2nd rank.” he said.

“So this is the third demon owner. He is well built Sir Null!” one of the nobles said nodding.

In retrospect, Xero’s status was much greater than their own being a 12 year old, almost 13, at level 31 already.

“Sir’s shall we proceed inside, Xero please come along.” Nil said.

Xero nodded and turned to Ashley, “Get her training.” Xero pointed at the sword devil who had been with his father.

Ashley nodded and called the girl away to put her through the hellish drill.

Inside, Nil led the men to the library and got the maids to bring some tea. “Alright, as I know it, you men are from a common background?” Nil asked.

“Yes, I was a Bard before.” Gus said.

“Can you each tell us the familiar you have?” Nil asked.

They nod and Gus summons a small colorful bird. “This is a Rainbow Songbird, when it was a bird at the start, I gathered enough money to pay a passing knight to put some sound magic into it while teaching it to sing. I reached level 31 when we encountered a recently killed Howling Harpy Raptor killed by a young noble who took only the monster core. I took the sound pouch and fed it to her and she broke through helping me follow behind.” He explained. “I’m level 38 now.” he said.

The next one introduced them to a butterfly that was 30 cm long and it’s wings produced many different kinds of powders such as poison and paralysis. Following that there was a cat with two tails that had magical abilities, poorly developed. Another cat appeared but this one wore a hat and vest and sat up on its hind legs and could speak and hid a small dangerous blade in it’s vest like a vagabond warrior. Lastly was a fire spirit. It had a human form with glowing eyes but made of pure flame and burned bright red.

“So Xero, the reason I wanted you here is because I want to add magic to them, every creature’s basic requirement of training involves magic first and foremost.” Nil said.

“Oh, I see!” he exclaimed and nodded agreeing that it was indeed true. Even Silver had many skills added after Xero’s learned magic.

The first to start was the song bird. It had few spells most sound based and developed the voice most but the rest was forgotten.

“Maybe we can make sound based support magic.” Xero muttered but was unsure of how to do this. He wasn’t a specialist in sound magic after all, his focus was sword and fire magic while sound magic was advanced wind magic.

He sat five minutes thinking before deciding to call Nadir, who studied a broad number of magic systems. Although he knew the basics, she already surpassed him since she studied more of it.

Soon she arrived and was introduced to the men and she began to work with Xero. She happily played around while thinking of different spells for the little bird that was very full of mana. Like that, the two young teens spent the rest of the day throwing ideas out to make the spells for the familiars of the five other nobles.

***

With the coming of the summer break also meant the harvest of the spring harvest. With the even greater fields, the blessing of the goddess herself and the instructions from Opal’s little angel, the spring harvest nearly tripled.

Within a short time frame, even if it had no one managing it, no proper arrangements or anything, the populace of the farmers from Cipher built a wooden chapel dedicated to the Harvest goddess and prayed to her and thanked her for allowing the Harvest angel to exist in their lives.

Over the last few days Leo, the Lesser Cherub of Harvest has been constantly absorbing the faith brought by the prayers and transmitted almost 95% of it to the goddess as they were for her and the excess power in the 5% were all transmitted into himself and Opal.

He didn’t leave once the familiar seal and had all that faith power flow through Opal, causing her mana channels and Mana pool to open. Through the magical infusion both her own body strength and magical power began to increase along with her familiar.

As the level increase stabilized after a few days, the two stopped at level 14, the Lesser Cerub of Harvest was still the same race but his tiny body had grown in size from a baby fairy look to a child about the same size as the second youngest child of his master who was 7 years old.

The sudden development startled the family, though Nil had already left with the nobles when it happened.

Still, it was a pleasant surprise because she had been the slowest to develop but the sudden burst showed how much it could grow.

After her came Jasmine, whose Minions began to appear. On the first day it was one but then four appeared until more and more appeared numbering 50 by the end of the week all level 1 Gem Spirits and only the Level 1 Gem Sapling was different.

“They are all the same…” Jasmine said after the family had gathered to see the initial group of minions appear.

“How come the sapling was different, although I get that it merged with a sapling but how did it do that?” Xero asked.

“As a seed, they are more moldable which is why it could merge with it.” Crystal replied.

“Oh… can you do that and evolve differently?” Xero asked.

“No.” Crystal replied.

“Hmm… Sweetie, if there are chances of making unique types of gem spirits aren’t there also conditions?” Zip asked.

Crystal’s eyes shined, “Indeed there are!” he said, “After being planted, if there are invaders sapping it’s nutrients they will defend and in rare cases can merge.” Crystal said.

“Is that the only one? I mean, since they can assume plant form, can they do it to animals if you bury a corpse in a spot with mana?” He asked.

“They cannot!” He said. “Spirits are in tune with nature and plants are part of nature thus making it easier to merge a spirit with a plant but not a spirit with a monster!” he replied.

“I see.” Zip nodded.

Jasmine sighed as she looked at the fifty Gem Spirits and felt helpless remembering what she went through but her expression hardened after that since she now had the resource to make them stronger.

“How would you evolve?” Xero suddenly asked.

“Huh? Evolve? Hmm… when me and master advance past level 31 I shall advance to From Gem Knight Paige to Gem Knight Adept at level 51 I shall become a Full Knight, at level 71 I become a Senior Knight and at level 91 I shall become a Grandmaster Knight!” He said proudly as if stating that he ‘will’ become such.

“Then would you become some variant if you somehow absorbed a dragon core or something like a Dragon Gem Knight or something?!” Xero asked excitedly.

“No!” Crystal replied instantly. “Dragon Knights are very unique, one cannot become it so easily!” he said.

“You have no idea how to become one do you?” Void joked causing the little knight to flinch making them go silent before Void laughed that he was actually correct on that.

“It would be interesting if you and your spirits could assimilate creatures and make yourselves more unique.” Xero said after the laughing died down.

“Little bro, don’t say the impossible.” Jasmine said chuckling before sighing as she imagined how it would be really impressive if that could work.

She called one of the spirits and looked at it’s magic and then suddenly thought of something, “How do you plan to ‘store’ these? Do they die completely if they are killed?” She asked.

“Oh right, master never noticed when the minion spell formed, there is a subsequent storage spell for it.” He said.

“Wait!” Xero exclaimed, “You let the Minion spell form naturally?” he asked.

“Yes…” Crystal said.

“Why?!” Xero asked.

“Because I did not wish to be caught… imagine others finding out that I can create so many gemstone-like minions. They would die within minutes of forming but their bodies remain as valuable gems.” He replied.

Void, Zip and Xero face palmed.

“You idiot, the spell could have been upgraded from the get go making it more efficient and powerful.” Void insulted him outright.

The crystal knight looked at them and soon the crystal helmet turned red, “I’m sorry.” He muttered a bit depressed.

“It’s okay.” Jasmine sighed and looked at Xero who nodded and walked over. She and Xero began to look at the spell and rebuild a copy just next to it and piece each part one by one and try some other sections. To a starting 4rd year like Xero, the spell of a below level 30 familiar wasn’t hard.

They kept building it and the spell kept expanding and nearly doubled in size.

It was when they were doing the final look over it, Xero noticed a very long section that was imperceptible when still in pieces but the complete spell showed a strange effect.

He pulled that section off, “Hey what does this do?” he asked confused.

He had never seen this kind of combination and the two began to debate but came to no result so Jasmine wrote the complete sequence down to insert into a minion and see the result.

They then completed the still to form minion storage spell. It was much quicker since it would form and reform naturally and after it was complete the spells [Gem Spirit Contract] and [Crystal Field] was formed.

The field was very similar to Ashley’s own Sword Devil’s Field. When activated though, it formed only five pillars with ten sockets. When ordered too, the Gem Spirits flew into each socket with their ‘mouth’ facing inwards and the dull crystals began to shine and gather mana.

“Ah! These are like mana stone!” Xero shouted in shock.

Everyone was shocked as they saw mana slowly gather into the crystals. When the field was withdrawn, it was like a barrier was formed and hid them just like the Sword Devil’s. It was like it’s own dimension but it didn’t provide any buff, yet.

“Thank you, I guess I have a way to gather mana for them without using so much mana stones.” She sighed.

“Don’t worry. Even if we had to use a lot of resources we would help you, we aren’t some common family anymore, we almost have four nobles. You should know, Void is already level 29 so one more level…” Zip began to chuckle, making Void scowl, “... he will break through since he already learned the conditions for it.” He said and laughed only for Void to run after him to beat him up.

After a while Zip had her and Void go with him so that they could get some forging. Xero went to train with his minions and Opal sighed before standing up and going with Eva to the fields and manage the harvests and check the inventory with her.

***

At the forge, Zip grabbed a large black hammer and breathed deeply.

“What is that?” Jasmine asked.

“This is the first magical weapon I have forged.” he said with a smile.

Jasmine’s eyes widened when she heard that.

Forging magic weapons may sound simple since Ashley had done so with great ease since she simply needed a sword spirit in some dirt and it would make a magic sword or bunch a whole lot and even make a Spirit sword. After that she even made ego swords which were her Sword Demon Minions and even further upgraded them to full sentient swords as Sword devils. The process was simple for her but for humans to forge magic weapons was much harder.

He has to have the mana, the material and know how to forge while infusing mana in the form of mana channels in the weapon while forging.

This pure Devil Alloy hammer was his first work and something he planned to keep upgrading because it served a very special purpose.

The weapon began to shine and the one handed hammer grew into a two handed hammer and going into the open he struck down in an open space. To the shock of his wife and her familiar, the ground began to shine as a Plated Devil’s Divine Forge began to appear.

“H-How?!” Jasmine said in shock.

“Surprised? Magical weapons can carry spell sequences so I had this one hold the forge. As surprising as it is, the forge even adapted itself to me.” he said and pointed to a strange circle. “Since I can’t grow to the size of a giant, the forge makes a different way for me to forge.” He said.

She nodded confused but he just smiled and helped her to the center and told her not to worry during the forging.

He jumped back, to the side, Cinder looked and watched him set up the forge taking a long while since he was still getting used to using this magical forge.

The other Plated devils watched since his forge was slightly different even if it was the same kind as theirs.

After a while he finally returned to the plate that would forge them.

The pillars began to shine and he hit the plate with the handle. A large magic circle formed above the forge. Zip lifted the hammer, “Here it comes!” He shouted.

Jasmine gulped and got ready. As the hammer hit down, a surprise happened as the hammer sunk into the plate only to appear as big as the altar crushing down. Cinder was shocked by this feature that she had not known but Zip kept smashing and the two kept taking the hits and were forged by him.

When he was done, he jumped over and lifted Jasmine up and talked slowly to the pale woman who smiled at him as she felt her body heal up. After healing completely he put her outside and Crystal eventually came out as well, brimming with energy.

“There, we can’t have you forged very often so go home and rest, don’t train more today or it will strain you.” He said.

“Alright, I’ll rest for today.” She said, very pale.

Crystal helped her home while her father came out red faced. “What did you do to her?!” He shouted.

“Calm down already, it was only a strengthening technique, this isn’t her first time.” Zip said.

“Some husband you are.” He said and spat down after seeing how he treated her but Jasmine was content that her weak body had become strong enough to take her husband's strikes. Previously she could only do this with several other common guards. Only level 20 and above people could do this alone with their familiar.

Zip could only scratch his head to this and store away the forge but he kept using the hammer that was many times better than a common hammer that had been breaking with his newly developed strength.