Touki

And thus my vacations were coming to an end.

Celina : " Wake up young master, you can't sleep too long since we have to take the plane at 11:30"

Alexander : "mmmmh... 5 more hours... " I vaguely remember mumbling.

*Moving some pancakes next to me*

Celina : "Young master, your breakfast is ready, it's your favourite pancakes. And your cloths are already ironed, please wake up. You don't want to delay your visit by missing another flight schedule."

Alexander : *grumble*

Celina : "Here, your good morning kiss" She told me blushing and kissing me on the mouth. That's right, she got into the habit of waking me up with a morning kiss. According to her I barely respond if she doesn't do it. I'm doubtful, but I like it, so whatever...

Alexander : "Yawn, alright, let's get the day rolling."

After a nice breakfast, we went to the airport. For the last month of my holidays I was going to visit South America, starting with Peru.

***

Celina : "By the way young master, I really believe it is time for you to learn to seriously defend yourself. I still don't understand why don't you find a way to strengthen yourself ?

Your tenth birthday is coming soon, and your mother was rather firm. You WILL have to go to the birthday party organised for you and your sister since It will be a good way to meet some other kid your age. She also mentioned a news of some importance that would be shared the same day.

But from what you told me about devils in general, you should expect trouble from some haughty brats. My presence as your personal maid despite being a human won't bring you much goodwill either."

Alexander : "I already told you, it's bothersome... I can't use the contract. I looked for a way to use it on devils but it would make my essence more chaotic. Chances are I would become way more led by my sins. I don't want to become a beast of violence, geed and lust. No thank you.

As for the party, I know it will be bothersome. But my status as a Gremory will curb the most rash actions, even if I'm a 'failure'. As for your status as a human, I told you I would change you for whatever race you'd want in the future. There's no urgency. I'd like to look at Ajuka devil piece first."

Celina : "But can't you find something else to become stronger ? I saw you creating lots of incredible contraptions since I'm with you. You could certainly create something that would forever stay with you and make you stronger, no ? While I hope to always be by your side to help you, I'm alone in the end, I'm not always at your side."

And like that for the next 5 days she relentlessly 'reminded' me that being strong could not be a bad thing. And it was not because I was strong that I would HAVE to fight.

But in the end I relented after a single argument. I was reminded that as a human, any devil that wanted to take her would just have to put a devil piece in her, and once it was done, I could whine as much as I wanted, she would belong to someone else. The only way to stop that would be if the act of taking her wouldn't be worth risking my wrath. And she was worth a LOT.

So I needed to find something to be considered strong enough that Celina would be left alone... And I had a deadline of three months. My birthday coming two months after my return.

While I liked magic a lot, I was not a prodigy in it. I was knowledgable, but that's it. I wasn't a magic fighter, my talent was more about theory and magical crafting. So I needed to find an real edge. Something easy to learn and improve, and that didn't need much work.

And after thinking about it for a while I came with what I consider a genius idea. During my musing about the fact I did not have a special trait or magical power, I got reminded of Sairaorg Bael. That devil was another heir that did not inherit the power of his family. He was considered a trash, and yet, by training like a crazy lunatic, he became the stronger devil of his generation.

How ? By mastering touki. Touki allows you to create a life force aura around your body, strengthening your physical power, stamina and speed. It also gives you enhanced senses, and the capability to interact with magic physically. Thus allowing you to 'punch' a magic spell.

The problem with that power is that it needed an incredible degree of training, or to master the use of a youkai art called senjutsu.

I did not want to train, and I didn't have the talent (more like bloodline) to learn senjutsu.

So I went in a different way. Couldn't I absorb the life energy in the air like in these Chinese novels ? The problem is that I didn't want to spend the next 500 years sitting like a monk absorbing energy in a cave. So I thought of creating a medium that would suck life energy for me in a very fast way.

There were only two problems.

The first problem was about corruption. In the world of DxD, life energy is kinda influenced by the malice and ill will of the world. Making the one who use it go wonky in the head if they aren't careful. It's what allegedly happened to Kuroka, the sister of Koneko. The story said she got crazy with the power of senjutsu and killed her king and several other devils in the vicinity.

So I needed to find a way to purify the energy before absorbing it.

The second problem was materials and medium. If I wanted to absorb said life energy inside me without a chance for a backlash, my medium needed to be forever embedded in me, and close to my skin. Furthermore, the material needed to be of an mythical quality to help me absorb the energy at an incredible fast speed.

And thus, came the idea of creating my very first magical tattoo.