I arrived back home with Grayfia in tow, after Riser left I hashed out my plans with Rias, which boiled down to a training camp for her peerage, me included.
Which I did not have any problems with. Because currently, I actually needed some training instead of going even more all in on potions. Sure that Intermediate VII Fire Resistance potion allowed me to flex on Riser hard and it would help me immensely in a peerage fight but there are two things.
First of all, Riser is not a pushover. Sure I may have treated him like a chump but he is in the upper crust of the high class, has immense mana, strong as hell body strong enough to contend with Issei's balance breaker and I do not have to mention his cheaty regeneration, you have to kill him dozens of times to have a chance at him to stay dead.
Secondly, I am not particularly used to being a devil. Sure the process is seamless but I feel a bit awkward, and while I do have a general feel for Demonic Energy I can't say I have a full grasp of it. I especially do not its inner mechanisms and thus can't exploit it fully.
Receiving some training from Akeno and the like would be extremely helpful. I can't get Grayfia to do since while I can force her to not do something but I can't fully make her teach me well.
I need to focus on my personal strength and also getting Rias' peerage up to a respectable level of power. I am planning to give them some Elixirs for semi-free, since in the end, they stand on my side, and strengthening them does not make me lose out on anything.
The training camp would start tomorrow and I needed to get some things ready by then.
First of all, however, I should introduce my new maid acquisition.
I ordered all of my maids to regroup in the living room while Grayfia stood behind me like a statue, unwilling to talk or interact with me. As my maids gathered I could see the shock and fear in their eyes as they all stood in front of Grayfia's gaze of scrutiny.
So I decided to introduce them. Slinging my arm over Grayfia's shoulder I presented her.
"Hey guys, this is Grayfia, she is my new maid and she will be joining you three. She may be a little cold and inhospitable but have some patience with her all right? She is a little new and may mess up sometimes but be kind to her okay? It is her first day on the job after all."
*Gulp!* *Shiver.*
The fallen maids shivered as Grayfia gave me the coldest stare I have ever seen, if hell had seas, they would have frozen over with that glare. I must have hit her sore spot by treating her like a child and newbie maid when she took so much pride in it.
Unphased by her glares I also motioned to the fallen angels.
"And Grayfia, these are your new co-workers, say hi to them! They are your seniors and if you have any questions you can ask them for help okay? Don't be shy. I hope you guys can get along."
*Inhale* *Exhale*
I could feel the strands of Grayfia's patience being stretched taut.
"...I do not think I will need any help. Just show me my duties and I will fulfil them." Grayfia replied coldly while I crossed my arms and shook my head.
"Tsk, tsk, Grayfia, is that any way a maid should present herself? Don't be so cold and hostile. Come on show a smile, be hospitable it is one of the duties of a maid. Or are you incapable? I guess I should have expected something like this."
I smiled at her, challenging her. The first step to training such a prideful person is playing with their pride first.
As expected she cracked, being a maid was the most important thing to her.
She slowly forced a smile to her mouth. And I was impressed, this was the first time I had seen a smile that looked more hostile than a scowl.
I smirked and patted her shoulder.
"See? Was that so hard? I have something to do now so you guys can get familiar between yourselves. Try not to burn my house down in the meantime." Saying that I left them behind to enter the basement, leaving the hot- I guess Inferno is a better fit, potato with my fallen angel maids.
✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧
I sat in my office, rapidly drafting up a mansion plan, it went by so fast that the average person would not be able to follow me making the plan. My mind moved more than 50 times faster as 75% of my mental processing power went to drafting up the blueprint for my mansion while the other 25% worked on what I was going to be doing.
I had an idea, born of inspiration from what just happened. I wanted to create an elixir, I hadn't made one in so long because I was waiting for better ingredients and skill and now both were here.
What I wanted was a regeneration factor, like the Phenex family of course not to the same extent. But I had the core ingredients needed for it basically within 100 meters of me.
More specifically, I was going to try and replicate the healing factor of my Hydra. The reason I hadn't done so before was simple, creating a potion was a balancing act, an elixir even more so.
If I don't strike the balance between changing my body and regeneration I would just get a regeneration potion or a cancer potion. And if I used a base that was far weaker than the regeneration factor the result itself would be downgraded too.
So I needed a strong base to hold the regeneration factor of the Hydra. At first, I thought of Grayfia's breast milk as the obvious choice but after a bit of contemplation, I decided against it.
While [growth] was basically the best for elixirs... regeneration was not so much. Because when you combine the aspect representing growth with regeneration there was a good chance you would create a hyper cancer potion instead.
I was planning to get her breast milk eventually but not now, I know I will get carried away both with messing with her and with experimenting with the breastmilk of an Ultimate Class Devil. Also, pushing her too much too fast was not a good idea.
The fastest way down a hill is falling down after all.
But that didn't mean I wouldn't harvest her other resources right now.
My will for revenge may burn, but my desire for alchemic triumph burns harder.
✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧
Grayfia stood behind me, looking at what I was doing with actual curiosity and I did not blame her, even for her watching an alchemist at work must be something she has never seen before.
Especially a refining setup to this degree.
I had extracted some samples from her without too much hassle, I knew she was trying some not-so-loyal things by how she as flushed and occasionally squirmed, probably trying to pick a fight with the fallen when I said not to.
I wasn't going to push her on that matter right now, I was going to let her simmer for now. Slow and steady wins the race.
...Besides I was too preoccupied with Alchemy at the moment.
As expected Grayfia's blood was an incredibly alchemical catalyst. Far beyond anything else I have ever seen, It was rated as an Ultimate rank ingredient by the system after all.
But I forced myself to keep my head in the game and focus on making the elixir or else I would be messing with the blood all week.
The elixir I was making right now was very dangerous if done incorrectly. Not in the sense of a volatile explosion but something much much worse.
A Regeneration elixir sounds cool and all when viewed from the perspective of a game but in reality, it was dangerous.
If I fail to calibrate the settings and the intricacies to my own body perfectly do you know what will happen?
The regeneration factor will override my own natural regeneration and cell division, forget about getting just cancer, I would be left as a giant lump of cancer on the floor within the hour.
So it was a necessity to also use my own blood in the creation process too. For the regeneration factor to realize that it was what it was supposed to be regenerating.
It was mostly made up of refined Grayifa blood as the base with refined Hydra blood as the main ingredient with my blood and other vitality herbs mixed in.
It took long hours of blood tears and sweat to complete the elixir but I finally made it. I had tested lesser versions of it on some captured wild animals... the sight wasn't pretty but hey, one of them was successful and now there is a rat with a downgraded Hydra's regeneration factor loose in the world.
I am sure that will not cause disasters like a rat bloodline mutating to become a race like ratkin.
And the proof I succeeded was in front of my eyes.
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A tremendous achievement! While your alchemy is still at intermediate level you have created a High Tier Elixir
You have acquired the perk: [Alchemic Inspiration]
[Alchemic Inspiration]
You can reverse engineer the effects of your potions into the spells and vice versa more effectively.
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I stored the information about my new perk in my mental cabinet as I observed the glowing red vial in my hands, it almost pulsated with power.
"So? What is it that you created?" Grayifa asked impatiently since she had been watching do this for hours while being pent up. I shrugged and laughed at her of course.
"Really? Is that how you ask for something? For a maid, you really don't know your manners." I knew for a fact she was trying to reclaim a semblance of authority here by referring to me casually and domineering but I wouldn't allow her an inch.
Grayfia took a moment to regain her composure and push back on her desire to rip my head off my body and asked a bit more nicely. Possibly because this was important on her mission to spy on me.
"*Sigh* My apologies. Could I know what you are holding?"
"Well, at least that's a start. And for that, you will see." Leaving no room for hesitation to take hold of my actions I gulped the elixir down.
Immediately I felt a heat spread throughout my body, thankfully not a searing pain but it still felt like I was submerged into a hot tub.
____________________________
You have gained the ability [Regenaration Lv.1]
[Regenaration Lv.1] -> [Regenaration Lv.10(MAX)]
[Regenaration Lv.10(MAX)] has evolved into [High-Speed Regeneration Lv.1]
[High-Speed Regeneration Lv.1]
You rapidly regenerate from any wounds inflicted on you, including dismemberment.
____________________________
Success baby.
"I suppose I could afford to give you a demonstration." I grabbed a knife from my inventory and reinforced it before slashing my arm, putting a deep wound on my forearm as her eyes widened.
"!"
Whatever words she thought to say got stuck in her throat when she watched the wound on my forearm start stitching itself back up immediately. The sensation was rather itchy and painful but I would rather that than not having regeneration.
"Is that... the Phenex family's regeneration!? How?" Grayfia's mouth was wide open as she tried to understand while I shook my head. Man, I love acting like a smartass.
"Bzzt, wrong, zero points for you. It is a homebrew, it is the Elixir of Hydra that gives me regenerative abilities comparable to the Hydra, though I am not keen on trying beheading anytime soon, that is for later down the line. I was thinking about working on physical resistance next." Grayfia was still dumbstruck, looking at me like I was speaking gibberish that even the language of devils couldn't comprehend.
Of course, I wasn't afraid of her knowing this. She can't leak it even though she doesn't know that. The seal will prevent her from even trying.
"You... can create such things? These are comparable to the powers of the 72 pillars yet you act so casual about such a thing? Can you create more? How does it even work?"
I shrugged my arms.
"I mean, didn't the abilities of the original 72 pillars originate from god creating them? That means such abilities can be recreated if you are good enough, and I don't know what to tell you but the facts seem to talk for themselves. I am just simply that good." That and I have a cheat code given to me by god himself.
Well, there was actually a flaw to this regeneration, it and Boosted Gear both pull from stamina so it will be harder to manage how much stamina I want to allocate to both. Maybe I should work on energy regeneration next.
Hearing my words Grayfia fell into silence, not the silence where she usually wanted to strangle me like a rubber chicken
A/N: Grayfia is in my top 5 waifu's of DxD, coincidentally, most of the top 5 are milfs. What a coincidence. That totally does not say anything about my taste in women.
Also, Takumi is choosing to take things slow instead of just pushing Grayfia even though she would have reluctantly agreed to it. There is a reason why pyramids are built the way they are, if you chase your ambition with no foundation it is inevitable that it will topple over. Though it makes one wonder what is going on inside Grayfia's head.
Takumi is finally doing what all respectable alchemists do starting to modify his own body seriously. The regeneration is just the starting point.
What did you guys think about the chapter I would love to hear your thoughts about it, your comments fuel me to write more.
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