Chapter 121: A New High Human

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Joan's adaptation to her new life of freedom was quite quick. Erik thought that it had to do with Selena and Calypso dragging her around to do things with them like shopping for clothes for Erik's horror. Her first encounter with Serafall was an awkward one. Joan didn't know what to do when Serafall came home that day and started to complain about young masters and old Devil coots. She then got introduced to Serafall, 'she is Satan Leviathan, by the way', and almost went into shock. When she managed to calm down, she was explained how things really worked within the Underworld and things got better. It helped that Gabriel arrived to visit them just as the explanation began and seeing how Gabriel interacted with Serafall eased things a lot. Joan's reaction to Gabriel was an expected one. She became all devoted but the moment was 'ruined' when Gabriel just jumped at her and started to hug the heck out of Joan while asking for forgiveness. In the end, the future saint and the Seraph became friends.

Joan became very interested in training after she was given an idea of how large the world really was. But everything had to start in parts. Together they decided on a schedule for her lessons. Erik would work with her on the physical aspect of the training while Selena would work on the general knowledge and since Joan didn't know how to read or write, that was the first thing that she was taught how to do.

With general knowledge lessons by the morning and physical lessons by the afternoon, Joan quickly got into a comfortable routine. One that was constantly broke by the kind of visits that the Ravenclaws would get. Just in the first week, the young woman's mind was blown away when Hestia, a Greek goddess, came by and stayed with them for the next three days. Next was Frigga, the Norse goddess Queen, and Gandul, a Valkyrie, that came for some tea with Selena and Calypso. Soon enough, Joan had become numb to all of that.

When her magic education began, it was then discovered that she had an affinity for light-oriented magic, like most saints, and that she had an uncommon Sacred Gear named Mobile Armory. It allowed Joan to store inside a personal space armors and weapons of her choice. While activating the Sacred Gear, she could equip and unequip any of the items stored in the space at will. For Erik, it was just like Fairy Tail's Erza's Requip Magic, but in Sacred Gear form. Joan loved her sacred gear and immediately asked for some armor and weapons to store there. During all their travels and years alive, Erik and Selena had obtained a lot of different armors and weapons that they would probably never use just because they were magical or they had fancied the couple. Joan was gobsmacked when she was shown the Ravenclaw armory and even more when she was said that she could choose at will since Erik and Selena's personal weapons were not stored there. Joan was reluctant at first in getting any weapon, but soon enough she was excited with all the different things inside the vault. She ended up choosing four different sets of magical armor, two light armored sets, one medium armored set, and one heavily armored set. For weaponry, she chose nine items, one greatsword, two long swords, two short swords, two daggers, and, at Erik's insistence, one longbow, and one short bow. Everything with its own enchantments. Joan took two shields and quivers full of arrows too. Her style of fighting quickly evolved after that to one that would equip the better armor and weapons suited for the job at hand.

At Selena's insistence, Joan tried to put normal clothes inside the space of her Sacred Gear and was surprised when it worked. She now had a mobile wardrobe always with her too. Lucky for Erik, the space inside her Sacred Gear was limited to Joan's mana capacity. Unlucky for him, Joan's mana capacity seemed to grow very fast with each training. Her blessing was a great contributor to that fast growth.

Another shock for Joan was when she discovered how old Erik and Selena really were. For her, the couple looked like twenty-five years old but in reality, they were almost five hundred years old. When she asked them 'what they are', they just smiled and replied 'High Humans'. The talk then went on to them simply explaining to her what a High Human was and how they achieved it due to a ritual that Erik received from his grandfather figure. They had decided that was too soon to tell her who that grandfather figure was, after all, she was with them just for a week until now. Unknown to her, the mana control method that she was being taught was the one that was taught to Erik by his 'grandpa'. The decision to teach her that method was something that was discussed between Erik and Selena. Not that he had been against it at all. Erik only asked Joan to not teach that method of training to anyone else. He knew that she was not the type of person that would go against her word.

In a blink of an eye, ten years had passed. Joan, who was now twenty-nine years old, had become an excellent close-quarters fighter had gotten the ropes on how to manipulate her vital energy. Erik had quickly seen that she had a great talent for physical training and started to teach her the same methods that Sun Wukong had once taught him. It had taken one entire year for Joan to grab control of her vital energy, a lot more time than Erik, but very fast in terms of normal people, even blessed ones. Nine years later, that means, now, Joan had very good control over her vital energy. So much that would let youkai greens with envy. It all summed up to when she had her spars with Erik. She could still not lay a finger on him, but her technique was getting better and better. In fact, it was so good that she had managed to make circles around the Pendragon Knights when Erik brought her to a Festival that the family was putting up. She was disguised, of course, so no one would recognize Joan for who she really was. After she had won the finals and taken her helmet off, the people went quiet. The most talented Knights of the Pendragon family had been defeated by a woman. The sad thing for them was that nobody could accuse her of cheating because all her fights had been very clean and she was representing the Ravenclaw family, who was a true powerhouse that nobody dared to offend in the supernatural world.

A week after having come back home with the prize, a warhorse that had magic blood in its lineage, Erik started to received various offers for Joan's hand in marriage because as her 'Lord' it was his decision. Erik didn't buy any of that and just passed all the letters to Joan with a 'do what you want with them'. And she did. After writing a handful of short 'no' replies, the letters found themselves burning inside the fireplace of the house. Offers continued to be received and Erik continued to pass them to Joan. Even gifts were received directly by Joan, who returned all of them unopened with short 'stop pursuing me'-like replies.

It took some time, but they eventually stopped pursuing Joan for her hand in marriage.

Thirteen years later, Joan, now forty-two years of age but looking like twenty-five due to her training with vital energy, received news from Erik that the war that she had fought twenty-three years ago was finally over. Just as the war ended, the king of France ordered an inquest to be opened about Joan's trial and it was found that everything on it was biased against her. Nothing new there for them. Three years later, the church's new Pope reopened the trial of Joan under the petition of Joan's mother and two brothers, and a report of the previous investigation findings. The court declared that the original trial was unjust, malicious, slanderous, fraudulent, and deceitful. Joan's trial, abjuration, execution, and their consequences were then declared nullified and a Cross was ordered to be erected on the place where she was originally 'burned'.

After her absolution, Joan, with Erik's help, visited Joan's mother. The old woman was very happy to see that her daughter was not really dead and that she had continued to live her life, even if in secrecy and away from her blood family.

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Fifteen years later, at the age of sixty, Joan reached the peak of her mana control and Erik judged her ready for the evolution ritual. And on her sixth-first birthday, Joan, under the protection and eyes of her friends, including the Seraph Gabriel, did the evolution ritual and evolved herself, making her the third High Human alive on Earth.

In a surprising move to Erik, but not for his wives, Joan's first move after waking up from her 'coma' post-ritual was to tackle and kiss Erik on his mouth.

"I'm finally your equal. Now make me one of your wives!"

Joan said to Erik. Selena, Calypso, and Serafall, who had taken some 'out time' from her work, smiled at that. They had definitely gained another sister.

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With one more member in the family, the Ravenclaws decided that was time for a new vacation. Much was discussed as to where they would be going this time. It was then that Hestia suggested the family to visit another realm this time. They all found it an amazing idea and made a raffle to see where they would be going next. Amazingly, from all the possible different realms that were put in the draw, the Underworld was the chosen one. Serafall was very happy with this because she would be able to show her family around the Underworld.

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Five years later, the family was back from their vacation to the Underworld. They had, of course, not lost contact with their friends during these five years and would frequently come back to Earth to meet with them. During these five years, they visited the territory of a lot of the families that were still around from the seventy-two pillars. They tried the maximum that they could to avoid the young masters from those families, but eventually, they met with some of them. Needless to say that the girls had to bash some heads as punishment. Erik… Erik was a lot more sneaky about his punishments. His 'victims' never knew that they were being targeted by him until it was too late and they have already been 'hit'. Erik's punishments varied from bouts of explosive diarrhea and a healthy dosage of Malaclaw Venom to the loss of what made them High-class Devils in the first place, their Devil Magic. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for Erik, none ever had proof against him. They all know that the happenings were because of Erik, but they never had proof of it.

It was by this time that Erik got news of one of his idols from his past life. A genius polymath man named Leonardo Da Vinci appeared in Italy, and Erik had to meet the man.

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