Chapter 125: Bishop and Nine-Realms

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It had taken three months of more question and answers sessions between Serafall and Leona for the young woman to accept Serafall's invitation to become her Bishop. Of course, they had not met every day for Leona to clear her doubts. Even after Leonardo Da Vinci had finished the family's painting, which became amazing by the way, Serafall, Selena, and Calypso continued to visit Leona sporadically. But what pushed Leona to accept the Evil Piece was, in Serafall's opinion, the pressure that she was receiving from her family. During these three months, Leona scared away three more possible husbands. It reached a point that they had seriously thought of ignoring completely Leona's opinion on her future husband and just forcing her to marry the man of their choice.

Incredible enough her twin brother, the only person who stood by her side and helped her with her publications, stood silent on this matter. That possibly gave Leona the final push to accept Serafall's invite.

The 'ritual' of reincarnation was a simple and fast one that happened between Serafall and Leona only. The blond woman entered the room as a human and exited it as a Devil. Things complicated a little more when they were deciding what to do about Leona's family. Since she was now a Devil, Leona would undoubtedly outlive every one of them. That, and if they discovered that she was not human anymore and was now a Devil, retaliation was sure to come her way, after all, Italy was still the heart of the Church.

In the end, both women decided that the best way to ensure a 'smooth' transition was to 'kill' Leona Da Vinci. Much more was discussed on the 'hows' to do it, and in the end, Erik's suggestion was voted the best one due to its foolproof method.

Another six months later, Leona Da Vinci tragically 'died' when a horse got scared and ran over her while pulling a carriage. Leona's 'body' was heavily damaged and she died before any help could get to her. The ran-over body was, of course, a fake one created by Erik just like the one that he had made for Joan.

A month later, Leonardo Da Vinci received a letter from his sister. In it, she thanked him for all his help and said that her dieing was for the best. Leona also warned him not to try to find her, because it would be impossible, just like him showing the letter to others. As he finished reading, the letter burst into cold flames that burned the letter entirely. It was a very simple spell cast by Selena that would 'read' the mood of the reader. Leonardo Da Vinci was spooked by the letter, but happy anyway that her sister was still alive somewhere.

As that chapter of Leona's life ended, a new one began, and with it came a whole new process of learning a lot o new things. The blond woman was in her own heaven when she saw the number of books available to her in Serafall's parents' home. Serafall would have shown her the Ravenclaw library but decided that Leona needed to focus on Devil-related stuff first, and Ravenclaw's library had a too wide range of subjects.

It didn't take long for Leona to get the gist of the Devil's magic. It didn't take long either for her to almost blow herself while doing tests. Devil's magic could be very 'free' in what it did, but it had rules on how to do some things too. For example, Devil's magic requires a good concentration and visualization of the process, if you deviate a little in it during the casting process… BOOM! An explosion can and will most certainly occur. The energy gathered had to go to someplace after all and a quick discharge to the atmosphere was the most obvious way for it to disperse.

Aside from all the study that she had to do, Leona assumed the position of Serafall's secretary, accompanying the Satan to all places that she had to go out of the Underworld. But that too only happened after Eleanor, Serafall's mother, taught some intensive Devil's etiquette lessons to Leona, so she would not embarrass herself and Serafall terribly. The new Devil had no complaints about her new position because in it she could see a lot of new places and learn a lot of new things.

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A year after getting the gist of Devil's magic, Leona was good enough to not explode herself when trying new magics. She had learned all the basics of it, including the magic transportation magic, and received from Serafall the authorization to use the Sitri's shield in her magic circles. After concluding this step of her 'education', Leona received from Selena authorization to enter and use Ravenclaw's library. The blond Devil almost had an orgasm when she saw the size of it and almost had another one when Selena showed her the search system that she had invented for it. The search consisted of the user writing in a book the subject that it wanted to search. The book then would 'write back' the result of where the user could find a book with that subject. It was still in development. Now, the search took a too long time to give a reply back to the user because it would search sections of the library at a time. Selena was still looking for a way to optimize the search.

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Ten years passed and news arrived at Erik that new land was discovered in the west by an Italian man named Christopher Columbus that was being patronized by the Spanish Monarchy. The 'discovery' of the Americas was something that Erik was waiting for for a long time. Immediately he put in motion a plan that he had prepared together with a new fleet of ten ships. These new ships would sail exclusively from Europe to the Americas, taking colonizers and cargo with them. It was time for Erik to start his business in the Americas.

And he was very successful. His mercantile group quickly settled in a good land and from there started their ventures. Little did the colonizers know that the location that they had settled had been prepared by Erik previously and would repel people with ill intentions to the settlement, helping it flourish faster.

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Eight more years quickly passed by and Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese explorer, 'discovered' South America, landing on where would onde be known as Salvador, Brazil. Erik had a lot of plans for the South American lands too and had already started preparations for it just after Columbus landed in North America. A new fleet of another ten ships was launched to work on South American waters.

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Twenty years later, even with the raising and fall of a lot of Mercantile and Navigation Companies, Ravens' Mechantile Group was still the top dog of the world with a fleet of more than a hundred ships that sailed through almost all the Seas of the world. It was a force that no Empire or Kingdom could ignore. Be that for the economic power that it represented or because almost every sailor's dream was to work there. The only one that didn't dream about it was because they already worked there.

Its influence was so big that it started to slowly get the attention of the supernatural world and some of the more greedy people were found in need of some punishment by Erik's hands. The Devils who tried to worm themselves in the mercantile group quickly retreated when they discovered that the 'monster' who 'tamed' Serafall Leviatan was the true owner of it.

But it was not so easy with some of the other factions. Members of the Church tried to strong-arm their way inside the company as a way to spread their beliefs but they quickly found that it was impossible when their best Exorcists, who were Holy Sword holders, were delivered back to their Headquarters traumatized and with all four limbs cleanly broken in different places. After that, they tried to badmouth the mercantile group, but the authors of the idea quickly found that all their dirty secrets were thrown all over the place for everyone to see. With that, the rest of the higher-ups of the Church quickly learned to not mess with Ravens' Mercantile Group. They were not a force that they could afford to fight with.

Another group that tried to worm their way inside the mercantile group was some members of the Theseus family, from the Greeks. The family had a history with navigation since they were descendants of Poseidon, but were quickly barred from entering the company and it was not even because they were from another faction. When they were presented with the work contract that all people from the supernatural world who worked with them signed, they whined about it. A lot. It was multiple times pointed to them that the contract was for their own protection too but they didn't want to sign it. Well, there was one person from their family who signed it, but she was the 'black sheep' of the family. Bella was a daughter of Poseidon whose mother had 'betrayed' the family after running away from an arranged marriage with the son of an elder that she hated, just to be begrudgingly accepted back when she earned the 'favor' of the god of the sea and earthquakes. After some time of apprenticeship in different ships, she became the first female Captain of a ship in Ravens' Merchantile Group. A very successful woman who had made a point in rubbing it all over the face of the family that belittled her and her mother.

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Years continued to pass. Erik and his family continued to do their own things. During this time, they found some time for another long vacation trip. This time, they choose to travel through and see the five realms of the Norse. They visited all nine realms. Well… Eight realms since they already lived in 'Midgard'.

Asgard had been not as good as they imagined that it would be. The place was beautiful, with white marble and gold everywhere but some minor gods thought that they were untouchable inside Asgard and because of that, they made a point to annoy any visiting groups. But what they didn't count on was that Erik, because he had Norse ancestry, was 'protected' by some of the laws of the realm. All it took was to call the annoying pest around in one of the various arenas scattered by the city and some old and good skull bashing for the group to be left alone again. Erik had to bash half a dozen of skulls before the pests understood that they would not achieve anything there. And they couldn't even call him a cheater since Erik never used magic spells in their fights. The group had to cut their visit short when they got the winds that Thor was starting to look for Erik for a fight. Not that Erik thought that he could not win against the Norse god of thunder and strength, but Thor's personality was… Troublesome, not say other things. Thankfully for the group, they managed to avoid the other troublesome god of the pantheon. Loki was not at 'home' during their visit to the realm and they thanked their luck for that.

Vanahein was a show for the eyes. The realm was a beautiful place that had magic flowing and happening everywhere that you looked at. The Vanirs, the realm's original residents, had a big affinity to all magics and made a point in applying it to every corner of the realm that they could. Selena was having the time of her life there together with Serafall and Leona when they had free time to join the group. Before, she had only gone to the public libraries of Asgard, but now, she had tons of new knowledge about magic to learn. That left Erik 'alone' with Calypso and Joan. Both women took advantage of that 'alone' time and thoroughly enjoyed it with all their hearts.

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