Chapter 48: Innovative Improvements

~Grayfia Lucifuge~

Grayfia after a little thought Takumi might not have been so bad, his perversity and disrespect aside, he seemed to hold genuine affection toward Rias.

She was intrigued and sometimes even amazed at his Alchemy and Transmutation while she was taking mental notes to deliver to her master. His hands were capable of creating miracles, she understood what her master saw in him.

Now, however, she changed her mind again.

She still wanted to strangle him.

She wanted to strangle him hard.

Unfortunately, she was the one who agreed to this fate knowing he was a teenage boy. She had already readied herself for every possibility, even that she might have to sleep with him.

She would, she would loathe to do it but she reluctantly would have to. Of course, she was confident in her ability to stop a singular arrogant teenage boy from going too far, if she could handle her master for so many years she could handle one angsty teen.

But she had underestimated his sheer pettiness. He had even prioritized his pettiness over his own pleasure.

She had discovered today that her seal came with a certain feature.

It made it impossible for her to cum.

Whenever she tried to disobey him she got more and more aroused and the worst part was she couldn't even relieve herself, even after hours of masturbating she couldn't climax, it just left her more frustrated.

She could get her arm ripped off and still maintain a stoic expression but this was a new kind of frustrating torture invented in his perverted mind. The frustration was honestly worse than pain.

Grayfia already had a rather large sex drive, and with both the arousal and the constant harassment of her new employer it felt like she was going mad.

And now she didn't even get to wear her panties inside the mansion that she had to take care of. As much as she loathed to admit the cool air brushing up against her uncovered slit made her even more aroused due to how sexually frustrated she was.

Oh, once she got her hands on him...

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Finally, fucking finally. I am finished. I laid my head on the large oak desk with hundreds of paper documents littered around, I preferred taking paper notes, just felt more comfortable for me. But...

Ugh, my brain is... on fucking fire, the amount of knowledge and experience crammed into it in such a short period of time may have finally gone and melted it completely.

It was such a pain to learn so much magic at once, it was almost maddening. Each was so wildly different and I did not even have a proper reference for Air and Wind since I neglected their transmutation circles.

I will be honest, I was considerably worse at traditional magic since I rely more on leveraging physics while these blatantly break them.

Butt... I did it, I reached intermediate rank in all 4 schools of basic elemental magic. And Iter Melius seems to agree on how insane the feat I accomplished is.

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Skill promotion complete.

[Transmutation(Intermediate) Lv. 10 - MAX ] => [Transmutation(Adept) Lv. 1]

[Transmutation(Adept) Lv. 1]

Transmutation speed is faster and covers a significantly larger range, all transmuted constructs are stronger and allow the creation of more advanced constructs.

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You managed to reach Intermediate Level in 4 branches of magic in a single week!

Generating perk...

You have created the perk [Mystical Intuition]

[Mystical Intuition]

All magic masteries improve 50% faster, creation of unique magic is easier you can learn and decipher magical constructs faster.

Compatibility detected with [Alchemists Intuition], [Pioneer] and [Mana Sponge] fuse perks together?

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Well, the fusion seems to be almost always better than the sum of its parts so of course.

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Fusing...

You have acquired the perk [Heavenly Comprehension]

[Heavenly Comprehension]

Magic Masteries Improve twice as fast, the user is able to rapidly decipher and comprehend magical constructs they come across. Direct contact allows the instant memorization of a spell.

Thanks to [Heavenly Comprehension] [Inspect] has evolved into [Insight]

[Insight]

Allows the user to draw knowledge from their own memory and [Redacted] to gauge the nature of a subject.

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Honestly, at this point, I do have to ask.

What the actual hell is Iter Melius even? Seriously, that does not seem like something a normal sacred gear should be able to do. Just the fact that the perk has heavenly in its name is ringing some bells in my head.

This doesn't seem like something that a measly mid-tier sacred gear could do, I know it formed a link with Boosted Gear that is increasing its capabilities and potency but...

Draw knowledge from [Redacted]...

What is redacted? What is the Iter Melius connected to? Where is it drawing knowledge from? Where am I getting the knowledge and skills it is imparting me from?

Not only that I already had suspicions about what is becoming from this one perk.

[Harem Dreamer] 

You dream of a Harem but it still remains just out of reach. But a man with a will is a man with a way. Girls are now more accepting of the prospect of you having a harem and are more willing to join.

It seems simple. But is it? In fact, it's the most unique perk I have. Why is that?

It is the only perk that influences not just me but the world and the people around me as well. From everything I know about Iter Melius it should NOT be able to influence the world around me, its effects seemed strictly focused on me and me only with it being incapable of any outside influence.

The same reason why it didn't have things like assignable stat points or the luck stat, because it couldn't actually change the world or anything, just point me toward a better path and give me knowledge, ie Iter Melius, a better path.

Yet it can now manipulate events in my favour, albeit very slightly.

What changed? Did anything change? Or did I unlock something inside of it?

The only other sacred gear that could do such a thing is the Telos Karma. A longinus.

Really, just what is Iter Melius?

The puzzle that was the Iter Melius was getting more and more complex by the minute. But I did not have the luxury to address its mystery for now. I would have to leave that until after I have fucked up Riser beyond all recognition.

Preferably, I should get records of all sacred gears from a sacred gear expert like Azazel, he should at least know something about Iter Melius, there should be records of previous users, that could explain the behaviour of the sacred gear.

But for now, I have other things I needed to cross off of my checklist. And one of them was protection, I was not looking forward to getting blasted by Riser's flames and I would rather not waste a buff slot on a fire resistance potion when I have a handy dandy thing called enchanting in my pockets.

Which was the reason I sent Grayfia on a fetch quest in the first place. I needed proper enchanting materials for my enchantments to truly prosper.

So after an hour of backbreaking labour of properly assembling the materials and analysing them properly and enchanting, I finally had it.

In my hands was a cardigan similar to the one I usually wore, but instead it had a wine-red colour with a subtle scale pattern, it was also slightly less comfortable than my usual reinforced mana silk cardigan.

But that was fine, since this was fighting equipment after all.

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[The Ashless Coat of the Salamander]

A coat made from the skin of a magma salamander enchanted with Fire Resistance and Reinforcement. This coat protects its wearer from all but the fiercest of flames.

-Intermediate Fire Resistance V-

-Novice Physical Resistance X-

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It was pretty great if I do say so myself, putting this coat on effectively gives the same effect as an intermediate fire Resistance potion semi-permanently. It was expensive as hell to make, requiring the hide of rare magma salamanders but that was Grayfia's problem to catch them.

Of course, I didn't waste the other parts at all. I tried using the organs and blood of the salamanders as well as different blood samples to try and make a Fire Resistance Elixir but I was unsuccessful.

For some reason, their organs are not potent or maybe not focused enough to provide elixir-level resistance, or maybe the base does not fit with the ingredients well enough to make it permanent.

Maybe if I had some Phenex blood and breast milk I could make it but that is obviously easier said than done. I doubt any Phenex woman would be very willing to donate to me after the devious act I am about to pull on Riser.

Maybe Ravel would, she was rather into Issei in cannon despite him traumatizing the ever-loving shit out of her brother. But I don't really know how to approach her exactly.

...Well I am not desperate, I am sure I will have a chance one day.

Regardless, I still have some preparations I want to do before I face Riser, I could take him down with only half of my preparations but that wouldn't nearly be as fun or effective.

It isn't about beating him after all, it's about how badly I can beat him.

And I have a very good idea.

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I must say, I am very good at crunching work.

The amount of work I have managed to squeeze into these past few days astounds even me. Sacrificing sleep and running 50x acceleration and running 5 partitions really helped I would say. But this is one of the most miserable working crunches I have ever done.

I created the elixirs I would give to Rias and her Peerage while also finally promoting sealing to intermediate after fulfilling the condition of learning 50 seals. For some reason, Sealing was way harder to level than other masteries but also considerably stronger.

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Skill promotion complete.

[Sealing(Novice) Lv. 10 - MAX ] => [Sealing(Intermediate) Lv. 1]

[Sealing(Intermediate) Lv. 1]

Seals are stronger and can contain more power before breaking. Creation of custom of seals is easier. Current skills can be used as inspiration for creating seals.

You have acquired the perk [Sturdy Sealer]

[Sturdy Sealer]

Your seals last longer and are more resistant to wear and tear, they degrade very little over time.

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With that, I was basically set. Why was sealing so important for defeating Riser? And why did I spend over 30 hours creating a very special sealing formation to use in the rating game?

The answer is don't worry about it.

A/N: Takumi is a very petty person. Grayfia is facing the full brunt of pettiness since he is also very annoyed at how much he has work to make the rating game perfect. Also, Takumi has a plan for Grayfia, don't think he is doing it only out of pettiness.

Takumi is right, Iter Melius is slowly going from a mediocre enhancer sacred gear to an ever-growing puzzle. Its origins are unknown, how it does what it does is unknown. It is an enigma. However, I would love to hear what you think Iter Melius actually might be and what redacted is.

Anyways, now the preparations for the Rating Game are finally complete. Now it's finally time for action. Riser will not be having a fun time to say the least once Takumi gets his paws on him.