Ch7. Summoning a devil

Time slowly passed and Tom was finished with his Mana Crystal research.

With that done, he had more confidence in using Vision on items of magical nature. Like the Devil Summoning Flier in front of him, for example.

Oh, he tried to scan it with Vision. But as he expected, it made him faint, depleted his magic reserves, and when he woke up, he received incomplete information about it that was such a jumbled mess it was not useful at all.

Despite it looking like a normal paper, the flier was actually quite an advanced piece of magic.

'But no longer!' Tom sniffed and grasped the purple mana crystal in his hand, 'I... have finally conquered my fainting issues. I am so proud of myself!' He wiped off a stray tear from his cheek.

Activating Vision on the flier while redirecting the magic flow towards the mana crystal, Tom found himself viewing how the flier was made and how it worked. He felt as if only a moment passed and the knowledge was etched into his memory before he found himself sitting on his ass, gasping for air and profusely sweating.

Wryly smiling, he spoke, "That was... different."

Since the mana he used for Vision didn't come from within him, channeling the magic through his body put a strain on it. That was completely unexpected by Tom and posed an entirely new problem.

'Really… one issue solved only for another to pop up out of nowhere.' Tom inwardly sighed.

Checking the mana crystal, he noted barely ten percent of it was diminished. Tom rejoiced at the fact because he finally had at least a loose reference for how much magic it cost to scan magical items.

But at the same time, Tom also felt sour. If ten percent managed to put him under so much strain, he wondered what using all of the magic in crystal for Vision would do to his body.

'I need to make restorative potions.' Tom shuddered at the image.

Yes... he was not thinking about stopping using the crystal just because of the risks. Instead, he wanted to make a way to mitigate the harm.

Well, even the smart people sometimes act dumb...

Ten percent of the mana crystal seemed like a small amount but in comparison, it was five times the mana reserves Tom currently possessed. No wonder he could only get fragments of knowledge when using Vision on it without the mana crystal. He usually only received a fifth of the information he was seeking and even that was at random, making it into a mess.

Tom looked through his new knowledge about the flier, deadpanning at what he found, "It's just a uselessly complicated locator spell."

Activating the flier would simply send a signal to its owner. A signal that was capable of getting from the human world even to the Underworld. In fact, that was impressive and most likely the sole reason why Vision took so much magic from Tom to identify it.

Other than that... the flier was just an overexaggerated locator spell so its owner could teleport to it. Upon its activation, the coordinates of its position would be sent alongside the alert to its owner and that... was all.

Tom had found nothing useful. At all.

A total waste of a few days of charging the crystal.

He stared at the flier with an unreadable expression donned on his face and a small frown, trying to make it combust with his gaze.

"I have no idea what I expected." He grumpily complained under his nose, "It's something belonging to the devils. Of course, it would be a scam." He crossed his arms on his chest and... pouted.

There was a reason why Tom screened the flier. He wanted to see if it didn't contain anything... nefarious.

Unlike those sweaty fanfiction-writing nerds who dreamed to be a slave of a devil just because she was a pretty girl with big knockers, completely ignoring the fact she would have never let them touch her simply because the social standing between them would have been an immense rift, Tom didn't trust devils at all.

He would naturally check a flier that summoned one. For all he knew, it could have anything from mild manipulation spells to some kind of obscure curse on it.

Finding out there was no such thing was a relief but it wouldn't alleviate Tom's vigilance.

Unfortunately, dealing with devils was the best way forward for Tom. They had the resources he needed and they were willing to offer them for a relatively low price.

For example, if he wanted to buy a book on magic from a family of magicians, they would overprice it by ten times and play hard to get, maybe even make Tom swear some favors to them later down the line... and all of that simply because how scarce knowledge on magic was on Earth.

But for devils? They had entire libraries with magical tomes they never did and never would read and they collected them just to satisfy their collector's spirit or some other bullshit.

For them, lending one or two books was not an issue. Of course, they would ask a price for every bit of knowledge and try to get huge benefits for something so low-effort was almost certain to happen, but still... that's what negotiation was for.

They would not ask a ridiculously high price for it, at least not to the extent the magician families would, simply because it is no bother at all for them.

There was a reason why magicians made pacts with devils. And it wasn't because it sounded cool and edgy.

For devils, amassing magical knowledge, even if they didn't have any use for it, was a way to lure magicians to summon them. Magicians usually had more wealth and more means of repayment for contracts, and on top of all that, it was a way to find talented young magicians they could possibly lure into their peerages.

It was a win-win situation for them.

On the other side of things, dealing with devils was a very common thing for magicians. Some, like Tom's father, would never be able to make a deal with a devil no matter how much he wanted, but magicians from influential families did it quite frequently.

The hard part of this was to ensure your safety and make sure you will get what you want without sacrificing a lot and always knowing what you are paying for the services. Making easy and good-sounding vague promises? That was a surefire way to get a collar around your neck.

That was one of the reasons why Tom chose the Sitri Household. They were devils but they ran a hospital. Meaning they had at least some level of compassion for others, hence, he could assume they would not be utter bastards trying to chase him into a corner with each deal.

Not that he would be careless when dealing with them but at least it would give him a bit of leeway.

Yes, the Gremory Devils were known for being kind to their family. But the keyword was... to their family.

For all Tom knew, they could be insidious scheming pieces of shit to everyone else. Seeing how Rias acquired Issei in the anime or how Sirzechs oh-so-innocently made the naive and stupid Issei confront Riser during the engagement celebration...

Needless to say, if Issei lost against Riser, his life would be in danger. He, a low-class devil commoner, just barged into the party of devil nobility and proclaimed that the virginity of Rias, the sole Heiress of a very influential and important noble house, belonged to him. Then he offended not only Riser, a noble high-class devil, but also the entire Phenex House and their allies.

That's not mentioning how upset the other devil nobles on the party must have felt at having some common weak reincarnated devil interrupting their gathering as if he owned the Underworld.

The only reason why Issei was not killed on spot was that it was ever-so-obvious Sirzechs was backing the boy up. It was clearly impossible for Issei to get into the Underworld, much less the banquet hall, without some serious help. But even then, Sirzechs could not directly intervene.

If Issei lost against Riser, he would be in a very tough spot.

But since he won and the devils valued strength, Issei faced almost no consequences at all. And Tom didn't doubt Sirzechs had some hand in suppressing any sort of backlash from the boy's actions.

It went well for Issei. Hell, Tom was sure Issei had no idea just how big of a bullet he just dodged, too happy to fondle Rias's breasts. But that entire plot reeked of scheming and manipulation.

Just one glance at Rias's peerage and it was obvious how the Gremory House operated.

Every piece of hers was 'special' and acquired 'by chance'.

Just by a massive coincidence, Rias was at the right spot at the right time to get the daughter of freaking Baraqiel as her Queen. The political backlash from that one must have been a massive clusterfuck, yet, it happened.

Apparently, the peace and lowering the tensions between the factions were not as important to Sirzechs as giving his sister a nice present.

Just by chance, Rias got one of the last few remaining Nekoshou in the world, a race known for their potential and talent in Senjutsu, as her rook. Not only was Shirone the sister of Kuroka, a stray who clearly showcased her potential by attaining ultimate-class prowess, but after the decimation of Nekoshou in the Underworld, giving Shirone back to the Yokai faction would lessen the resentment a lot. That way, there would at least be a chance for the Nekoshou race to recover, given a few centuries.

Yet, the last Nekoshou was reincarnated as a devil, completely ending the pure Nekoshou race right there and then since the transformation was permanent, and then dropped off to Rias's circle of servants at a young age to be groomed into an obedient kitty.

Again... the relations between Yokai and Devils could go to the side when giving Rias a gift was concerned.

Just by a coincidence, Kiba was saved from the clutches of the mean Church... And that was another clusterfuck of its own.

The research facility would naturally be deep in the territory of the Church where no friggin' devil had any right to be because if they were discovered, tensions between the factions would rise like prices during inflation. Especially since it was a research facility and the church would not want devils to snoop around those.

Just by being there, the devils risked a conflict. Did it matter though? Rias got her knight, after all!

Tom didn't remember much about Gasper but a dhampir with Forbidden Balor View? Nobody could persuade Tom that his ending up in Rias's peerage was a coincidence.

Of course, Tom wouldn't give Rias the credit for this. Instead, Sirzechs, Venelana, and Zeoticus seemed much more suspicious as far as the reason why Rias's peerage was so... special.

Trusting the Gremorys, especially when it came to his own safety and future, didn't seem like a good choice to Tom. The second he showed his capabilities, he would possibly have the strongest Devil trying to make him a pawn for his sister. The red-haired devils seemed like the extremely greedy sort with a nice facade but a penchant for not knowing what 'no' meant.

No, thank you. The Sitri House seemed much better in that regard.

"Let's get this over with." Tom sighed, walking towards the couch in the corner of his lab and seated himself before channeling a bit of magic into the flier and tossing it onto the floor, causing it to flash and send the signal to its owner.

Tom leaned back and made himself comfortable.

'Now... I wait.'