Chapter 41: Alchemic deals

I was currently rubbing my red irritated eyes. It turns out that trying to detect sacred gears is a bit more complicated than I first thought.

Now, I don't really need to make a sacred gear detector that detects every sacred year. Just twice criticals, I can do that by just searching for Ddraigs aura.

The problem is that I don't know if that will work or not. Because I don't have a test subject. How do I acquire the first twice critical is the biggest problem here.

...I have an idea. It may be a bit of a risk, and I may not be fully prepared but if it goes well it will give me a huge, humongous big even advantage.

My plan was to call Azazel and exchange my first batch of my soon-to-be commercially available potions on exchange for a few Twice Criticals and other materials.

According to Ddraig, Azazel would almost definitely accept this deal. I also got assurance from Ddraig that potions were absurdly rare and valuable. Even when potions are made they are never commonly available, they are almost always too valuable and powerful to be used casually.

Even more so due to the nature of my potions. If I can secure a business relationship with Azazel that will be a humongous boon.

Not only will I have the ability to get filthy rich and the option to procure supernatural materials for more potions and cursed tools but I will also gain immense clout.

Now despite the way I say it, it is immensely important. After all, I will gain the reputation of an alchemist capable of brewing multitudes of potions, and not only that I will also gain a reputation as a friend and business partner of Azazel.

That reputation will go a long way to prevent me from getting a hit put on my head. By most definitely the Phenex family if I decided to expand into Devil territory.

Speaking of, I could also try the same with Leviathan but I don't trust her one inch. The moment I discuss something with her the other 3 Satans will hear of it. And when they hear of it the actual politicians of the underworld will hear of it. Then the old satan faction will hear of it and they would most likely do something if they did.

I swear I wouldn't trust the Devil politicians with one of my fucking toenails let alone my potions.

God and I thought just dealing with Azazel was annoying. I am unfortunately not powerful enough to stick a middle finger to all politics just yet. Politics are just there for people not strong enough to avoid them.

Having made up my mind I prepared some of my signature trademarked 100yen tea from the supermarket and sat down in my living room before calling Azazel on my devilphone and asking him to meet me for a business proposition.

Soon after Azazel, the bastard teleported right into my home. I would make a sarcastic remark about the front door but I think my irritated gaze toward Azazel got my intentions through well enough.

"Yo Aki-kun, what was this business proposition I heard about? Great tea by the way." He said as he slumped down on my couch and grabbed himself the cup of tea I prepped like he owned the place.

Maybe he did? I dont even know who this house is listed under.

Normally maids are supposed to be brewing the tea but since both of my relevant maids were busy and Ratshit was in her room most likely chronically masturbating due to the penalty.

Well, at least Azazel seems to consider us friends if he is this casual.

Reaching into my shadow I pulled 9 vials, 3 red, 3 blue, 3 green. Azazel looked on with not-so-hidden interest.

"You see, I have decided to dabble on some alchemy recently as I discovered that my cursed techniques allow me to create some delightful concoctions."

Azazel had that shine of interest in his eyes as he nodded for me to go on.

"These three are the successful products that I have produced recently. The red one is a healing potion, it should heal the user by a set amount, unfortunately, the stronger that drinker the lesser the effect. The blue one is supposed to recover your magical energy, but I dont know fully how well it works due to me not having access to magical energy. And lastly, the green one is supposed to reduce physical fatigue and restore stamina." I explained calmly and concisely.

Azazel for the first time since I have seen him had a rather serious expression as he looked at the potions.

"I suppose you dont mind me trying them?" He said, that unusually serious expression staying. After I said go ahead he bit his thumb before taking the red potion and drinking it. The tiny wound on his thumb healed as Azazel's eyes shot up in surprise.

"Akira, are you aware of the implications of your ability to create these potions?"

"Well, if I wasnt then why would I call you?"

[+10 Affection with Azazel]

His serious expression broke as he gave me an honest smile.

"Well, what do you want for a batch of these potions of yours? If you want it I can secure you a steady flow of materials in exchange for your potions. Of course, I will pay generously for a batch of never seen before potions."

Man do I love withholding information. All I need to make a minor health potion is some wheat, an apple, and a glass of water from my pitcher. Of course, Azazel doesn't need to know that I can just ask him for materials for the more powerful potions in my arsenal.

"I want Twice Criticals as well as research on Sacred Gears."

Hearing my words Azazel got an interested twinkle in his eyes.

"Interested in sacred gears are you? Sure, I really want to see what you would do on the subject with your unique skillset after all. I will have the twice criticals and research delivered no questions asked."

After that, I handed him 10 each of health, mana, and stamina pots. I wasnt worried about him extracting the secrets to my pots after all. Azazel is already a genius scientist with teams under his belt yet over the thousands of years he has lived he hasn't managed to make a potion? It's not likely that he will be able to make one just from my products.

At best, he might get inspiration from them but I dont have high hope he will get anything else out of my pots.

...

"Umm, Akira-san? Are you really sure about this?" Wiz asked hesitantly as we stood in my backyard arena. I could understand her hesitation, after all, I just asked her to blast me with her freeze spell.

I had a simple reason for that. Although I did not have exceptional control over what the actual fuck my eyes did, I wanted to see if I could replicate spells using my increased perception and cursed energy sense when my eyes activate. And they only seemed to reliably activate when I was in danger soo....

Is getting blasted by a level 200 High Lich a bad idea? Definitely. But if an idea is stupid but it works then it isn't stupid.

I crossed my arms and turned up my cursed reinforcement to the absolute maximum as Wiz got the message and cast her spell with a magic circle. The moment the wave of ice-cold energy was released I watched every single minute change with my perception.

Bad idea.

Are you fucking retarded Akira?

Did you honestly think getting blasted to hell and back was a good idea?

Did your intelligence stat spontaneously drop to 2 or something?

Safe to say after getting blasted with cold energy I wasnt in the best of shape physically or mentally since I didn't manage to grasp the mechanics behind it either.

Currently, I was resting on Wiz's lap after nearly being frozen to death because unlike others I dont really need lethal injuries to die. Just enough injuries to miscellaneous body parts could end me because my hp dropped to zero.

Thankfully my beautiful pushover of a lich let me recuperate on her lap. I have had her show me her spells for a few hours while I showed her mine to see what she thought. After a while of me enjoying Wiz's soft and chilly thighs she spoke.

"Umm, Akira-san? Why dont you use magic circles when using your spells?" A simple and innocent question asked from genuine curiosity.

"I dont really need to because of how my-" The words coming out of my mouth froze.

I dont need to.

But why shouldn't I be able to? After all magic circles are basically what allows the creation of spells. What I do is basically doing what a spell circle would do but manually inside of my own body isn't it?

Now that is all fine and dandy with my innate techniques and all since those are basically instant as they are buried into my being. For spells although the presence of skills helps a lot at making it instinctual why couldn't magic circles help?

In fact, making magic circles could actually help to reduce the cost of big spells such as burning sea. Is that why Megumin used so many circles while casting explosion? Or why super tier spells in Overlord have house-sized magic circles?

Making magic circles would certainly decrease my burden while casting spells. Lessen the cast time too if I could just whip out a magic circle, it would also make my talismans stronger.

Fuck, why didn't I think of this sooner!? I am supposed to have over several hundred intelligences not be retarded.

I looked over at Wiz who had just unknowingly given me that information. Wiz best girl, Wiz is love, Wiz is love.

"Wiz I could kiss you right now."

"EHHHH!?!??"

!If you liked the chapter then please spare some stones!

Authors note: I like reading comments, dont hesitate to comment if you want to. I am always open to suggestions about gatcha and basically anything else in this work.

__________________________

Currently on P*treon: Dealing with Grafia

__________________________

-------------------------------------

❗You can read up to 10 chapters ahead on this fic and the other ones I write on my p*treon at:

p*treon.com/BronzDeck

Just replace the * with an a