Chapter 66: Hidden Blade

Damn.

I am tired as hell.

I worked my dick and balls off to make everything I just sold at this auction to make a very good first impression and after all that work and accomplishing my goals, the result is me feeling more tired than anything else.

But I was still very happy with the result. After my workers collected the payments I would have a whopping 108 million doubloons. After I become a high-rank devil I plan to ask for ownership of Kuoh and truly begin building my bases there.

I also needed to build more Homunculi. The current price for building an Alchemist was 2 Million, a bodyguard was 1 Million, a Manager was 1.5 Million and a basic worker was 250,000. Expensive and very annoying. Well my emporium would open soon and I would start building my true financial empire there, this auction was mostly just to establish myself as a big player in the underworld and get the big fish interested enough to ask me for my more unique services in exchange for my more unique goods.

Also, I planned to bring up fertility potions to Serafall soon, probably tomorrow or something. After that, I would sell the "Fertility Treatment" as a service in my Emporium.

Why treatment and not potions? It's simple really, I was not spending so much precious Ultimate Class Breast Milk to make All Purpose Fertility Potions.

Better to make specialized potions for each devil couple that wants a child with samples of their blood and milk and then add some ultimate milk as an additive instead of using it as a base. Plus it would allow me to grab more breast milk that would contain bloodline traits into my collection.

And if I released even a semi-limitless supply of fertility potions into the underworld I have a feeling that it would be a terrible idea. Better gatekeep having children, I will profit more that way anyway.

Anyway, after a quick nap, I plan on completing the promotion quest after buying some ingredients to make my planned Elixirs.

Ughhh, so much stuff to do... there are probably a heck ton of people who want to meet me too. I wish I had a personal secretary or something, Manager Homunculi wouldn't do for that task as they don't have enough individuality or opinion to be effective ones.

Sure, they were excellent managers but not consultants as they were very yes man-ish. Plus I wanted a hot sexy secretary I could fuck, and I don't really want to fuck my Homunculi.

Yes, I did design them specifically to be very attractive with a bombing body but I did that to appreciate their looks more like furniture than actual potential harem members. I wish I could have Grayfia do it but my conquest of her was still on hold.

How annoying.

Currently, I was taking a little nap backstage on the lap of the ones of my homunculi maids. I was just completely crashed out at this point. I was sure a lot of Nobles would be scrambling to get a meeting with me at the moment but I really wasn't interested in meeting them at this moment. As I was enjoying the soft silk-clad thighs another sharply dressed homunculi entered the room.

"Greetings my lord, someone wishes to meet you." I shot an irritated look at the homunculi who disturbed my rest, I was just monologing about not wanting to meet anyone.

"Who is it that you decided that it was worth it to bring it up to me right now despite me specifically saying I wanted no visitors."

"My lord, it is Lady Sona Sitri that requests your presence. Since you two were already acquainted I thought you might have wanted to know."

Damn, she is right.

Whelp, goodbye rest, it was nice to have you when it lasted but I kinda owed it to Sona to meet her now.

"Alright I suppose you are right, send her in." I said to my homunculi as I fixed up my shirt and sent my lap pillow away while the maid brought Sona in moments later.

Sona came into the room wearing a beautiful light blue dress that truly befitted a princess, she really dressed her best for my little auction. When she saw me she unexpectedly bowed.

"Good evening Lord Katsuragi-" I cut her off with my hand, seems like she was going to treat me like the average noble.

"Nah, no need for all of that courtesy nonsense, I dealt with plenty of that today already I'd prefer it if you just treat me casually like before." I did not want to put distance between myself and Sona unlike how I acted before. She hesitantly nodded before speaking.

"About last time I-" I cut her off.

"I'm sorry."

Sona was stunned like I hit her over the head with a comically large wooden bat or something as I bowed my head slightly in acknowledgement of my actions.

"E-excuse me?"

"Yeah, I acted like a real asshole to you last time we met. Sorry about that."

While I wasn't in full control of my emotions that was no excuse to act like a total dickbag to the younger sister of my self-proclaimed older sister, especially since she hadn't done anything to deserve it. Well, since I was in the second year and she was in the third year didn't that technically make Sona my Onee-san too?

Not that I would admit it though. Sera had hundreds of years on me mentally. While mentally speaking I would be 7 years older than Sona.

Regaining her composure Sona coughed into her fist.

"Ahem, I mean thanks for your apology Takumi-kun, I admit I also acted rashly during that time so I do not blame you, I will do as you say and treat you like usual. That aside, I wanted to congratulate you on the successful auction Takumi-kun, the items you create are truly a marvel." She said, looking at the ring on her pinky finger made of crystals, of course, the Sitri bought the ring to give to their heiress.

"I'm glad you enjoy the ring, Sona. It took some elbow grease to make that ring after all." Sona nodded with a smile, that ring would give a decent boost to her ice skills considering her power level.

"Indeed, it is a very beautiful ring. But I know you hate small talk Takumi-kun so I will cut to the chase." That's nice, while I am good at talking around things I don't like it. Plus I like an earnest Sona like this a lot more than a Sona that is treating me like a resource.

She bowed her head a little surprising me.

"Takumi-kun, I wanted to ask you for help, I know you helped Rias and her peerage and I wanted to know if you could do the same for me and my peerage. I know this may sound petty but I don't want to fall behind Rias. So I wanted to ask you to help us get stronger as well, I know I may not be able to offer you much bu-"

"Sure."

Sona froze up again before looking at me with an adorable expression conveying her confusion.

"I... had expected you to be more against the idea? You are Rias' bishop after all and last time did not go so well." In response to her, I simply shrugged and smiled.

"Well, the difference between this and last time was before, you were trying to strike a deal with the devil. Now you are simply asking for my help, honestly if you had just asked for my help from the start I probably would have accepted."

"Besides, I personally find it very difficult to resist pretty girls when they ask for my help earnestly." That made Sona blush and turn her head away but nod apprehensively.

"T-thank you very much Takumi-kun. I really appreciate it." She managed to overcome her embarrassment and give me a smile, I smiled back. I wouldn't hurt to help the pretty devil girl a little. Besides it won't hurt my grinding considering I still have my drones I can use to grind.

After that, we fell into a more casual conversation, me asking how Sona was doing and how her kingly duties were going while she wondered how my alchemy and such were going.

Eventually, we agreed on a date where I would train with her peerage and Sona had to leave with her parents.

After the auction was completely finished I decided to do the responsible move and ghost everyone who wanted to meet me right now. After all, scarcity drives up the demand for me, and I wanted some time to figure out what I wanted from who etc.

Man, this politics game was so headache-inducing but it's also fun playing all of the devil nobles for fools. Now then, since my job here was mostly done and the Emporium would mostly run itself what is on my to-do list?

Well, I needed to make an Elixir with Fallen Angel traits. Which meant I had to get Fallen Angel breast milk, thankfully I remember from one of the documents I read about the 3 factions that one of the Cadre of Grigori were actually female.

...I just needed to have Azazel convince them that getting milked by me was a great idea. Well, I would be able to make Fallen Angel Fertility potions out of them so I could probably bait them with that.

Then, I needed a lot of materials for the rest of the elixirs I needed to make for my new body. I also wanted more genetic samples to turn into bloodline abilities for my new body. Namely the power of destruction, Immortality, power of time, Crack, Hole etc.

Of course, all of them had unique problems with me getting them.

For example, I needed as close to a pure sample as possible to get the abilities as usable strains. And other than Power of Destruction I had no access to other ones.

...Hmm, there are quite a lot of clan heirs who love doing Rating Games right?

I am willing to bet if I put some elixirs on the table as a bet for the rating game I could fight them for their genetic materials. I had no problem dirtying my hands and challenging people to a fight even if I did not have a peerage and honestly did not plan to have one any time soon.

Yep, this plan would totally work. No way Devil teenagers would miss chances to get their hands on elixirs, potions, maybe even Bloodline Refinement treatments. After all, Sairaorg had quite a lot of members of forgotten clans in his peerage, didn't he? I bet someone from the Bael clan without the power of destruction would thirst so hard over the chance to awaken it.

Could I do that? Of course I could, as soon as my Alchemy hits advanced I could research the triggers and latency of bloodline powers and then get a sample of power of destruction and reinforce his bloodline powers with it for the right price of course.

Speaking of Alchemy hitting advanced...

Just a bit more...

"{Transfer}!"

My accumulated magic power transferred onto the potion in my hands as the alchemy process came to a finish.

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You created a High-Grade Elixir [Hydra Regeneration Elixir X]

Skill Promotion: Alchemy is complete!

[Alchemy (Intermediate) Lv. 10(MAX)] => [Alchemy (Advanced) Lv.4](Accumulated experience)

[Alchemy (Advanced) Lv.1]

Your alchemy has advanced beyond the simple realm that anyone could imitate. Your creations can now carry distilled concepts inside of them, allowing you to harness the more conceptual powers of the universe in your crafts.

[Insight] has been upgraded.

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That is what I am talking about baby, this is what I was missing, there was a reason why I never made a Mind potion, I could only use my potions on the level of science, while I could bend the rules I still had to abide by them but now I was no longer restricted by such things.

I love it. I have so many ideas I want to work on but having so much alchemical knowledge shoved into my brain and having my existence changed really took a lot out of me.

I was ready to clock out right about now and my mansion had a very soft bed with my name on it. Stretching I left the Alchemy Lab I had created in my mansion before stripping down to my boxers and slipping into my soft and comfortable bed.

Bed oh sweet bed.

I drifted off to sleep.

.

. .

. . .

. .

.

Unease.

Something didn't feel right. I was feeling drowsy... my mouth and nose tasted sweet and numb. My body felt weaker, I just wanted to sleep right now. My eyelids felt like lead, my thoughts felt stagnant and slow.

That wasn't right.

I balled my hand into a fist and dug my fingers into my palm until they drew blood to keep myself awake as I opened my eyes.

And my eyes immediately locked onto a robed figure emanating hostility whose hand was reaching for me.

Someone had invaded my home.

A/N: Takumi learns from his actions and he is not so prideful that he is above apologizing to people. After all, if he didn't he would just be another arrogant piece of shit, the only difference between him and Riser would be the ability to back up their words.

Plus this opens up the Sona route and paves the road to the eventual Sister Threesome. Also, his Alchemy finally levelled up and Takumi can finally pull out more than parlour tricks with his ability.

In the last scene, Takumi got a bit too confident in his political importance that he forgot that some people can just be dumbasses and do the stupid thing, disregarding the amount of people Takumi has behind him. Now, the question is who invaded his home for what?

What did you guys think of Takumi's interaction with Sona and the Alchemy upgrade as well as the intruder? I would like to hear about it, your comments help motivate me to write so make sure to leave some good ones.

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