Chapter 57: The Bender

I am on fire tonight.

After Sera had left I was left to my own devices as I started planning, at least the short-term ones, long term was plenty obvious.

While I was planning I was enchanting some items, trying to raise my proficiency and creating items to feature in my auction house.

I was planning to open two shops in the underworld, one was the general potion store that would sell my more general items, healing, stamina, mana, restoration etc. It would have several floors with several tiers of memberships. Why did I implement such a thing?

One. Money.

Two. Devil bastards love vanity and feel like they have status. They will compete and compare between themselves the tier of membership and the potions they will have access to. Plus it will allow me to more effectively manage my customers.

And then the way more important one.

An Auction house.

That's the place where I will sell my most important items. The things that will really get their panties in a twist and make them salivate.

I will auction Elixirs, Homunculi, pseudo-sacred Gears, Fertility Potions, and powerful artefacts.

It will give it a feeling of more exclusivity and them fighting between each other will drive up the price for me. They can bet with rare exclusive materials and even their blood.

Oh right, pseudo-sacred gears. Once my enchanting reaches Advanced I will be able to create lower-tier sacred gears once I use it in conjunction with Alchemy. Well, if I could visit the Library again I could learn how to make actual sacred gears but as it stood I just made things vaguely similar.

I should call Azazel and maybe brainstorm some ideas with him. I know he can make his own sacred gears and he can make some good ones at that.

So far my Enchanting has reached intermediate level 7 and I have created some decent items that can be auctioned, especially since I could use the potions I have created as enchantments for my items.

[Boosted Ring of Virality]

[Rank: Middle - High]

A ring crafted by Takumi Katsuragi, wearing it greatly bolsters the vitality of the wearer.

[Blade of Binding]

[Rank: Middle - Ultimate]

A black blade crafted by Takumi Katsuragi through means of both Alchemy and Enchanting. It has the ability to paralyse the opponent and seal their mana temporarily.

[Boosted Ring of Poison Resistance]

...

Point was. I made a lot of these trinkets grinding out my Enchanting skill, I'm sure I can sell them for a pretty penny. I was also having my Drone grind out potion after potion while preparing the elixir materials for me to use later.

Making High-grade elixir was no easy matter, and there was also the matter of my own body balance. If I recklessly keep consuming elixirs there is only so much path of innovation/Heavenly Comprehension can do when my body is just a giant pile of conflicting genetics.

And considering my body currently was let's see here...

Dragon's Heart, Devil Biology, Hydra's Regeneration, Enhanced Vitality and Vigor, containing one Longinus, one high-grade sacred gear, another high-grade sacred gear. On top of that while I am a devil I am connected to heaven causing my body to constantly shit itself, if I did not have regeneration I would be in a far worse position right now right now.

Currently, my body was a nuclear warhead next to an active volcano. One spark and it will all shit itself. My body was literally tearing apart at the seams. So I needed to whip it back into shape.

And I had the idea.

I just needed if I remember correctly...

Ultimate Class Devil Milk and Blood.

Ultimate Class Fallen Angel Milk(or splooge but I would rather die), Feathers and Blood.

Dragon Heart and Blood.

The Boosted Gear.

Multiple sets of elixirs and hundreds of High-Grade Recovery and Healing potions. Expensive beyond belief.

What did I need all of these for? It was a simple goal. I was going to completely remake my body. Preferably balancing the aspects of an angel and devil on the base of a dragonoid body. But that would cost a lot.

So, for now, I would just have to settle for rebalancing my body a little. Namely taking out the Absorption Line I never use and consume a Holy Resistance Elixir to stop myself from being torn apart.

Arc could easily extract it safely for me, when I get the rest of the set I would make another homunculus and give it the Vritra gears to have a bodyguard with the full set or be a greedy little goblin and crank the number of sacred gears in my body upto 5.

And then I remember Rias calling me to meet someone.

And if I was correct about who she wanted me to meet...

Well, the number would be 6.

I cannot understate just how much I wanted Gasper's eyes. The ability to stop my opponent, even for a singular moment would let me kill them easily. Because while they are stopped I could deploy my seals. Plus gaining another Longinus should be counted as a very good feat for the system.

But at the moment I could do a total of jackshit with them, there are faster ways of killing myself than taking another Longinus into myself.

Anyway, I suppose I should work on making myself a temporary fix to my Holy weakness. Well, I could kill two birds with one stone, I should also start setting up better trade relationships with Azazel, I need a more consistent source of resources after all, and Azazel's knowledge would help me immensely.

So I pulled out my phone and called the familiar number.

A few moments it was picked up and I heard the voice of Azazel on the other side.

"Hey Takumi-kun, how are you doing? Exquisite work on the Phenex brat, by the way, been a while since I have seen a Phenex get beaten so badly." So he watched that? Of course, he did, I am surprised he doesn't have cameras in my house(I checked very thoroughly)

"Say, Azazel, how about coming over for the day? I have decided to... expand my operations you could say. I started mass potion production and wanna sell out. You interested?"

"Well, that certainly sounds interesting, finally aiming to rake in the big bucks huh? Give me some time to empty my schedule, I am actually rather busy for once."

I shook my head.

"I also have some new types of alchemical wine and alcohol I made mysel-"

"I'll be right there. Just let me find Shemhazai." Damn old man, I swear he is living his best life. Shrugging I commanded one of the homunculi to bring me the Wine my drone had made. I had Hydra wine, Crystal Heart wine, Duwang Whiskey etc. It was fun to make them even if I didn't drink, they were going to be sold at an auction but whatever, it takes like 10 minutes to make a batch anyway.

Exactly a minute later a teleportation circle lit up in the middle of my living room, I should really get around to preventing people from entering my place willy-nilly. Azazel stepped into my house with an excited expression.

"Yo, Takumi-kun! I heard you decided to harness your alchemical powers for the greater good now?" I chuckled with a rueful expression.

"You drunk old man, you don't hurry when I mention mass potion trade that may change the entire 3 faction political scape but the moment I say Hydra alcohol you here before I can finish my sentence." Hearing my words Azazel held an unrepentant expression as he plopped down on the couch opposite of me.

"What can I say? One is politics that will give me a headache and the other is alcohol, my personal interest that will cure that headache. So what did you want to talk about exactly? Maybe a drink first to lighten the mood?" Shrugging I pulled out my High Grade Hydra Wine and poured us each a glass.

"As I said I started mass production of the basic potions and was thinking about setting up a more reliable and consistent trade of goods between me and the Grigori I can- oh wow this is strong." I had to cut my words as I tasted my wine, it was strong as hell, the taste was incredibly nice, the texture was impeccable but I could feel the alcohol. This was probably stronger than whatever Azazel had brought last time.

"Yeah, this is some really good stuff. Finding stuff of this quality is near impossible, even my personal stash only has a few of this quality. Hydra wine huh? You sure you don't want to sell this stuff?" He said, taking another sip of his wine with a smile on his face.

"Probably, I think we could work out a deal. Now as I was saying..."

As we were discussing the issue of my potion trade we kept drinking my stash casually. Man, the stuff I make sure is stro-

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

'..............'

Urghgjfh.

Blurh.

Hurb.

My eyes slowly fluttered open as rational thought made its way back to me. I immediately had to close my eyes again as sunlight pierced my eyes.

-Wait.

Sunlight?

Wasn't I underground negotiating with Azazel?

It feels rather... breezy? Why was my hand wet?

I tried to move my body when a wave of nausea and fatigue washed over me. I felt like I was chewed by my hydra for 10 hours straight.

Baby steps, I opened my eyes and squinted as the sun tried to molest my sensitive eyes. I turned my head, that was my house, why the hell was I outside? I turned slightly more to see my hand was dipped in one of the ponds. I was lying outside in the garden.

I tilted my head down.

Correction, I was splayed out in my garden, basically naked except for my boxers... and my socks? Why the fuck were my socks on!?

Wait.

My gear!

Where did it all go!? What the fuck happened?

"Oh, you're finally awake master." I turned my disobedient body to the side to see Kalawarner looking at me with both awe and resignment.

"Urghhh, Kawa, what hte fuck happened to me? What did I do?" I managed to force out, I knew I probably got drunk but what the fuck was this?

"Well, I think it would be easier to list what you didn't do master. Could you ask something more specific?" Uh oh, what the heck does that mean?

"Uhh, to start off with why am I lying in the garden and why am I half naked?" I said, forcing my body off of the cold rocks and taking the cold glass of water Kalawarner handed to me.

"To start off with. You said, and I quote 'My clothing are my shackles, they stifle my true genius and wisdom even the gods envy. I shall be held back no longer.' then tried to rip off your clothes, when you failed because they were too durable you simply took them off. Then complained the floor was too cold and put your socks back on."

Uhhhh.

"You are in the garden because you crashed here after 20 hours. We were too terrified to move you because you were rambling about things like, and I quote again 'Outer Machine Gods are coming to eat us' and 'I have traversed the void between universes'."

...I probably should lay it off of the alcohol.

"Kala, I didn't... break anything right?" Satan, please tell me I did not mess anything up irrecoverably.

"Quite the opposite actually. You were rather scarily driven and hyper-focused. You just hyperfocused on one thing after another while rambling things like 'Why do not have enough goth mommies?' and 'Damn supernatural home-invading bastards I'll show them.' before creating what I can only assume is a barrier around the house."

Drunk me was strangely competent. Now if I only knew what the fuck was going through his mind. Just what did I do last night?

I looked at the most recent entry in my scarily long system log.

____________________________

You have consumed [Boosted High Fuck you Devils(Holy Resistance) Elixir]

[Holy Weakness(Major)] has been turned into [Holy Weakness(Minor)]

The degradation of your body due to holy knowledge has halted.

____________________________

I also looked at my hand which I now realized held a new ring on my finger.

____________________________

[Boosted Medium Ring of Holy Resistance]

A ring of holy resistance cobbled together by Takumi 'The Katsuragi' Katsuragi to fix his weakness to the holy element. When worn gives the user [Holy Resistance - Medium]

____________________________

At least that problem was dealt with?

Now, what the actual fuck did I do last night?

A/N: While sober Takumi was doing the plans the master bender 'The Katsuragi' was doing the moves. His goals are incomprehensible to the mere mortal minds of his entourage. You probably shouldn't give the guy who was dropped into another world and is living under stress and is overworked.

Regardless, it's up to Takumi to find out and fix what the Takumi 'the Katsuragi' did. If anyone is gonna ask, no Takumi 'the Katsuragi' is not like a separate person or anything. It's just the mental nickname Takumi started calling himself which his pre-existing insanity amped by alcohol

What did you guys think about this chapter? I would love to know. Your comments help motivate me to write more so keep them up.