Ace in the Hole: Chapter 11: The First Jump

Ace in the Hole

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 11: The First Jump

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- Ace -

I returned back home from Ajuka’s lab the next day.

Ajuka hadn’t approached me and I went straight to Mephisto.

“Ah Ace, you are back. How was your internship?” He asked, looking up from his paperwork.

“It was fine. I wanted to take a few days off if possible. I have something urgent coming up which needs attending to.”

“Oh, something I can help with?” He asked, worried.

“No. Not really. Can you reschedule my classes to a later date?”

“Alright. I will get that done. By the way, when do you want to start teaching other subjects?” He asked.

I thought for a while. “Other subjects are those which already exist and I am not yet good enough to teach them. I will need some time to master them myself. I don’t want to give subpar lectures.”

“Neither do I son, Neither do I. Very well, take your time. I will reschedule the classes.”

“Thank you.”

I left the office and went directly to my room.

Matsu was studying with Kuroka sitting beside her and watching what she was doing with curiosity. On the side, Lavy was playing with Akeno and Shirone.

“Ace!”

“Sensei!”

The girls all greeted me as they got up from their places and rushed to me.

“How are you all?”

“Good.”

“You didn’t slack off while I was gone, right?”

“No.” They answered in a chous, their expressions looking as if they wanted my praise. Their behaviour brought a smile to my face.

“Very good. I knew you were all good girls that’s why… I brought gifts for everyone.” I brought out a small suitcase from my pocket and enlarged it before opening it and revealing the gifts for everyone.

“Enchanted dress for Lavy and Akeno. Latest laptop and mobile made in the Underworld for Matsu.” I handed them their gifts and looked at Shirone who was looking at the gifts with starry eyes. Seriously, this girl was too adorable.

I smiled at her and brought out a large box. “A box of the best sweets from the Underworld for Shirone and a book on Youjutsu for Kuroka.” I passed the gifts to the two girls, looking at the brightened expression on the younger one.

“Thank you nyaa~” She thanked, her tail moving happily.

Kuroka was more subdued but thanked me too.

They all showed off their gifts to each other while Matsu was already exploring everything she could in the Devil network.

“Alright, I am a bit tired. Have you girls eaten yet? I am starving.”

“Okaa-sama is cooking. I will go and tell her that you are back.” Akeno got up and quickly ran to where Shuri was to inform her of my return.

She returned just a minute later.

“So, what did you girls do while I was gone?”

“I learned a new magic spell.” Lavy replied excitedly.

“Me too. I learned how to change a matchstick into a needle.” Akeno replied.

“Awesome.” I pulled them into a hug.

“I… I learned how to do addition nyaa.” Shirone added expectantly, her ears twitching.

“That’s great, Shirone. Who taught you?” I said, patting her head.

“Matsu nee-chan and C nee-chan did.” She answered excitedly, the swaying of her tail giving away her emotions.

I looked at the girl who was swooning over the bundle of cuteness.

“Umm… they didn’t know how to read and write so Shuri-san and I are teaching them and C.C was feeling alone so we invited her here to play.” Matsu replied.

“That’s good. Learning how to read and write is very important. Good work. By the way Matsu, can I speak to you privately for a while?”

“Hmm? Okay.” She nodded and we went to her room.

I snapped a finger and set up a barrier out of caution before looking at her. “I will be going somewhere for a while. I want you to use the Summoning Contracts to keep summoning me every hour and keep a check on me until I tell you otherwise. You don’t need to get worried if I don’t reply. I could be busy. Can you do that?”

“Are you going to… other worlds?” She asked, understanding the situation and I nodded. “Is that place dangerous?”

Dangerous?

Yes… it made DxD look tame in comparison.

My silence was good enough for her and she nodded. “Okay. I will do that. Just… don’t get in any danger.”

“Hmm. I will leave tomorrow morning.”

She looked worried so I went ahead and gave her a hug. “Don’t worry, I am strong. I will be fine.” Her face lit up just from that.

“Yes yes. My Ashikabi is the strongest.” She hugged me back.

We left the room when Matsu had all the hugging time she wanted and joined the others for food.

The atmosphere at the dining table, the scene of everyone laughing and talking, having fun… it was healing.

“Eh, will you be going out for work again, sensei?” Akeno asked when I told everyone about my next trip.

“Hmm. Got some urgent work.” I nodded casually.

“When will you be back?”

“Three days more or less but not more than a week.

I spent the rest of the day with them, teaching them new things or just playing with them and went to bed with Matsu and Lavy at night.

Kuroka and Shirone actually went to C.C because they liked her and thought she would be alone back there.

I laid on my bed with Lavy and Matsu on either side of me and after two days, I got a peaceful sleep. Back in the Underworld, I had stayed awake all the time because I was tense.

I guess sleeping at home is different.

I was awakened from my sleep late at night by a summoning call.

Looking around me, I saw Lavy snuggled to my side and Matsu on the other side, both sleeping peacefully.

I got up carefully but even then Matsu was awakened from her sleep and looked at me. It took her a moment to realise what was happening and she got up too.

Slowly, pulling the blanket on Lavy, I went to Matsu’s room which was attached to ours.

“Return safely.” She wished as she gave me one more hug.

“I will.” I replied before opening a hole in space.

Sure enough on the other side was Kilth, waving at me.

“Good day, friend. Your sorcery always surprises me. And who’s the lady?”

“She’s…”

“I am his wife.” Matsu answered enthusiastically.

“She’s… well… yeah.” I nodded after seeing the look on her face. The words cheered her up.

“Wife? My word. You looked a tad bit young to be married but who am I to know what goes on in distant lands. Greetings my Lady. I am called Kilth Copper-bearer.”

“Hello.” Matsu waved. “Please take care of him.”

“Obviously. Ace is a friend of mine.”

I smiled at his words and bid Matsu goodbye before jumping into the hole and landing near Kilth’s side. Looking back, I waved at Matsu again. “Remember what I told you.”

“Okay.” She nodded.

With that I closed the hole and looked around.

The air… felt so fresh.

“Where are we, friend?”

“A bit away from Windhelm. You can see the place if you look over that ledge.” He pointed in the direction.

I walked over the edge and sure enough there was a town in the distance.

“Let’s not waste any time, friend. Time is money and what kind of businessman would I be if I wasted money?” I smiled and the man laughed at my joke.

“A terrible kind, I’d guess?”

“And your guess wouldn’t be wrong.”

“Then let’s go. I can’t let my friend be made fun of.” He started walking towards the place and I followed him.

The journey didn’t take us long. While it could have taken us shorter had I flown there or used Shambala to teleport there, I didn’t want to do anything to let anyone know I was an outsider.

Kilth had found the White Phial shop and directly led me there.

I offered him a bottle of alcohol and asked him to wait until I talked to Nurelion. He agreed. The guy was quite an honest fellow.

Inside the shop were two figures.

The younger one greeted me as soon as I entered.

“Welcome. We have a fresh batch of ingredients delivered today. All of the finest quality. What would you like to buy?”

I asked him about what he had and if he accepted payment in Gold. The man looked like he would argue but a slight bit of mind magic made things easier.

They had a fresh stock of many things, even dozens of books on Alchemy, possession of Nurelion.

I bought everything and then turned my attention to the old man. He looked ill and was sitting in a corner.

“This shop is named the White Phial. Could it be from the legend?” I asked.

“Oh! You know of the legend?” The man asked excitedly.

With his excitement with a gentle push from Mind Magic got me the potion which was needed to open the Forsaken Crypt.

“Thank you. Here is something from me which should help you out.” I took out one of the rings with Aqua’s spells and used it on the old man, curing him of his disease.

Now, we are even.

With that, I left the shop directly to find Kilth.

I didn’t want to stay in this world any more than necessary.

“Did you get what you wanted, friend?” He asked, taking a sip from the bottle I had offered him.

“A bit. Still need a few things. Could you show me around the place? I need to go to the marketplace first.”

“Sure. It’s just round the corner.”

We walked around the place and I was led to the stores by Kilth.

I directly paid in gold and bought all the things in the stores with the use of mind magic. Potions, Spell Tomes, ingredients, Apparels, Weapons, Books, anything…

This was a real world unlike the games so they had far more items in real life than they had in the games. In fact the items were of a higher level than sold in the game too which was an unexpected profit.

It was when I entered the last shop that I encountered someone interesting there.

“Only 200 for all these books? These are the finest books on Magic you can find in Windhelm. These could fetch me thousands in other cities.” An old man was shouting at the shopkeeper who looked bored.

“Then go and sell it in other cities. This is Windhelm. These gibberish on magic won’t sell here.” The shopkeeper commented quite rudely.

Ah yes. The Nords and their mistrust of anything magical.

“Excuse me.” I called out, making the two men look at me and I addressed the older man. “Are you selling any tomes on Magic perhaps?”

“Aye… unfortunately the fools in this city don’t appreciate the books which uncover the mystery of the world.”

“Oh. If you don’t mind, I would like to check them out. I am something of a fledgling mage myself.”

“A Sorcerer, are ye?” He asked, looking suspicious so I raised a hand and a blade of ice was created in it.

The man’s eyes lit up. “Ah, a Sorcerer. How rare in these parts.”

“I am travelling to find books to increase my knowledge as well as spread the subjects all over the world.”

“That’s a noble thing you are doing, boy.”

“Thank you. By the way, I just heard that you were planning to sell some books. Are those Spell Tomes or books on magic. If so then could I buy them?”

“Oh, you want to buy my books? Sure, I’d feel much better selling these to someone who cares instead of those who think of these as useless junk. Come, come with me. I will show you my wares.”

We followed the man to the Palace of the Kings.

It turns out that the man was the Court Mage of Windhelm, Wuunferth, the Unliving.

“Wait, I don’t understand this. If you are the Court Mage of Windhelm, then why do you have to sell your books to get money? Can’t you get sponsorship from the Jarl?” I asked, confused.

“Tch… as if these people would ever understand the importance of magic. Researching magic takes a lot of money. The sponsorship I get is nothing compared to it. Just a drop in the ocean. If it hadn’t been for my research, do you think I would ever resort to selling my books to that oaf?”

Man… money mattered everywhere.

“In that case, I would be interested in buying whatever you have. You don’t need to worry. Money will never be an issue. In fact, I can also trade knowledge of different types of magic from far off lands.”

“Oh. New magic. Can you show me something?” He asked, intrigued.

I nodded and looked around. There was a broken lamp on the side. I pointed a finger at that and snapped a finger, casting Reparo.

Sure enough, the lamp was repaired instantly.

“What kind of magic is that?” He asked, surprised.

“It’s a Spell called Reparo. It’s a completely different form of magic than what people use here.”

“A completely different form of magic… sigh… no. I need to continue my research. Let’s get to those books first.”

He told Kilth to wait outside and led me inside his room.

The room had several dozen books, mostly magic tomes.

He mainly worked with Destruction Magic and had books up to the Master level in Destruction Magic.

Unfortunately, Destruction Magic was the one I was least interested in. Other magic spells were or lower level but were still there.

I did the same as I had done with others and got everything from him for gold.

The man was happy to sell everything even without using Mind Magic. He even promised that he would contact me when he gets any new books.

I agreed though I would probably just ask Kilth to summon me near the College of Winterhold. I was very interested in Alteration, Enchantment and Restoration Magic. I even bought the Arcane Enchanter from the guy.

We left the Palace of the Kings and went back to the shop where I had encountered Wuunferth and emptied that too.

By the end of the day, I had several dozen books and stacks of potions. In fact, I had almost twenty five Spell Tomes too, all dumped in my trunk. Too bad I didn’t know any enchanters here or I would have commissioned them to Enchant some useful effects on some of the robes I had.

I guess I will have to commission Kilth to do that for me later on. Some Resist Magic would always be welcome for the clothes I wear. Another useful thing I got was a World Map.

Too bad I didn’t have time or I would have loved to go around. I am on a tight schedule and there are a couple of things I need to do.

Done with everything, we got into an Inn and got a room for the night. During this I took some time to talk with Matsu who had been summoning me every hour as instructed.

With everything taken care of, the two of us left towards the Forsaken Cave.

The journey itself was easy. There weren’t many people outside in the snow covered mountains, especially in these areas.

“You sure you don’t want a coat, friend?” Kith asked, looking at me who was walking in just my Mage robes.

“Not really. This much cold is nothing for me.” In fact, I felt right at home in this kind of environment. My senses felt sharper, as if I could feel every movement in the ice.

The monster from whose blood the Demon God’s Extract was made also lived in a similar environment, in the Northern parts of the Empire, a place Esdeath was from.

When the cave was in front of us, Kith drew his sword.

“Be careful, friend. These caves look dangerous.” He warned as he took a lead.

I followed behind him, carefully looking around.

Very soon we saw what seemed like walking dead.

The monsters discovered us and raced towards us.

Kilth was about to go forward when I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let me.”

“But…”

He was about to speak when I snapped my finger and the undead were completely encased in ice.

The man was taken aback and looked at me in surprise so I explained.

“I wouldn’t be the best businessman in the world if any random person could come in and rob my shop, right?”

He looked dumbfounded at my explanation but then started to laugh.

“Well said. Then let’s go and finish your task.”

And we did just that.

The undead were… quite disappointing.

The fight with Curalmil wasn’t that hard either. He was frozen solid and then shattered into pieces.

The door to the Forsaken Crypt was opened by pouring Nurelion’s potion into the basin. I entered the room and collected everything there.

On the platform was the White Phial.

I looked at the bottle carefully and it had a crack.

Dammit.

It was really cracked.

This is something I was hoping to avoid.

Do I really have to do the entire repairing the phial quest?

Suddenly I remembered something and brought out my Elder Wand.

I remembered that the Elder Wand could fix other wands. Could it work on other magical items like the White Phial?

Please work… please, just this time… work here.

“Reparo.”

I waved the wand and suddenly felt a massive amount of my power drained from my body. The crack on the bottle however… it disappeared.

Did it work?

With my heart beating wildly in my chest, I took out a Lesser Healing Potion and poured in a few drops into the Phial and waited.

Almost five minutes later, I observed that the level of potion had increased slightly. Around fifteen minutes later, the level of potion increases even more.

It worked.

This… actually worked.

The Reparo spell worked only when the broken parts of the items were nearby and if there was a place where the broken parts of the White Phial could be, it would be here. It was for this reason I had taken this bet… and it worked.

I stored the Phial back into my magic trunk along with the Potions Table quickly and walked out.

“Did you succeed, friend?” Kilth asked as I came out.

“Yes. I got what I needed. Let’s go, have a party.”

“Hahahaha let’s do that.”

While walking back to Windhelm, I asked him about a few things and even gave him some quests to collect specific items for me as well as summoning me when he went to specific places.

I gave him a dozen sets of clothes I had bought from the Underworld to enchant.

The effects I wanted were Resist Magic, Fortify Magicka, Fortify Magicka Regen, Fortify Stamina, Fortify Stamina Regen, Fortify Alchemy as well as fortifying different types of magic.

In return I gave him several weapons and different alcohols from earth and the Underworld to enjoy.

Finally around midnight, I accepted Matsu’s summoning and left.

“Safe journey, friend.” He waved happily at me as I went through the portal back to my world.

“Thank you, friend. Remember to summon me when you find anything I told you about or anything interesting either.”

“I will.”

“Farewell then.”

I waved back before closing the portal back. Only then did I let out a sigh of relief.

That world… I would love to keep as much distance as I can keep from that world.

It’s just that the Phial… it was too good to let go.

Matsu sat down beside me. “Did you succeed?” She asked, breaking the silence in the room.

“Yes… yes, I did. Hahahaha I can’t believe that worked.” I finally came to terms with the whole thing and couldn’t help but laugh loudly. I pulled her into a hug and she happily complied. “It worked.”

“Ohh, what worked though? You didn’t tell me what you were going to do there.”

“I… yes. I need to experiment. Where is Lavy?”

“She has classes and will be returning after two hours.”

“Hmm. Then come in. I will show you what I got there.” I expanded my trunk and walked in. She followed me.

With a simple flick of my wand, the things which I had just dumped back in Skyrim, all got arranged properly on the shelves.

In the middle, on a stand rested the White Phial.

I went ahead and checked the potion inside and it had indeed refilled.

The checks showed that the quality of the potion was not compromised either.

With the types of potions I had now, I could totally open a new business. It’s just that the Phenex House would jump on me like rabid dogs if they feel their business is threatened and I am in no position to confront the richest house in the Underworld.

That said, I am totally going to order a vial of Phenex Tears through Mephisto and check if it can produce more of it or not.

As for the potions, they could be used in the Empire or even Lelouch could buy them off of me.

There was another thing I could do… I emptied the Phial and used a spell to clean it. Then I brought another thing which had been kept in another corner of the room… the leftover Demon God’s Extract I had saved for my personal research.

Very carefully I poured a drop of it inside the Phial and then left the Phial back on the counter.

Let’s see if this can really produce every liquid.

I remember that the reason Esdeath’s Ice powers were so exaggerated were because she drank all of the Demon’s Extract.

Now, we need to remember that there had been several other people who had drank from the jar before and that there was supposed to be more blood in it originally.

According to Nurelion, not only could the White Phial produce more of the liquid, it could even purify and amplify the effects to some extent in some legends. That part needed to be checked too.

If that was true then I could only wonder what it would do to the Demon God’s extract or even the Phenex Tears for that matter.

So many things to experiment.

I checked the Spell Tomes and found some which I was interested in.

Ironskin, Ebonyskin, Soul Trap, Grand Healing, Healing hands and Close Wounds. The best collection was of Destruction Spells, something I wasn’t too excited about. I could however learn the Ice and Lightning Spells for Lavy and Akeno.

Another thing I was looking forward to was the collection of books I had received from Nurelion.

There were over a hundred books on Alchemy.

I even got some weapons from Kilth which he was not using, one of them being

I stayed there and told Matsu about the adventure I just went on.

“So what did you get for me?” She asked.

“Well, the things I wanted for you all are not here yet so I asked Kilth to commission them for me. They will be here in a month or so.” I wanted to give her some  jewellery to help with her Magic studies.

“Ahh… too bad. Then…”

“Hmm?”

“Then how about a hug… you know, to make up for the delay in gifting.” She asked, looking shy at the request.

…this girl.

Well she did help me a lot.

She had been working for eighteen hours straight to summon me every hour.

“Come here.” I pulled her into a hug and she happily jumped into my arms.

We walked out of the trunk and sat in the room where she was getting her fill of Ace-energy, her words not mine.

I set things up and opened the portal and on the other side was a familiar face.

“Well hello, Lucius. You are… earlier than expected.”

The man looked like someone had killed his puppy… no, that’s not right. He would probably get off on something like that.

No. He looked like he just found out that his mother was a muggleborn.

But enough of teasing him for these.

I had much better things to do.

“I take it that you are here to make the payment?” I asked and he nodded Picking up a trunk with great difficulty and passing it over to me.

I took the trunk and checked. It was a trunk similar to the one I had right now.

“I’ll be back in a moment. Need to check everything inside.”

With that said, I entered the trunk. There were mountains of galleons inside. Literally mountains of gold. There were also twenty creatures hurdled in the corner.

The house elves.

“Did Lucius buy you all?” I asked, trying not to freak them out.

One of them nodded.

“Are you bees the new master?” She… asked.

“Yes. You can call me Ace. Do you have a name?”

“I bees called Minny.”

“Minny then. Would you all have a contract with me?”

The ears of the group perked up. “Master Ace bees wanting us?”

“Yes. I would love to have you around. In fact, I have a lot of work I need help with and you all will be saving me a lot of trouble.”

Several of them cheered.

“Yes yes, we want to.”

“Good. Then let’s make a contract.” The process was fairly easy.

After the contract, I told them to wait there while I took care of the deal. Before leaving I did confirm the amount.

Two million Galleons… not one galleon less as well as the books I had asked for.

Outside, Lucius was waiting nervously.

“It seems that you have kept your side of the deal.” I closed my eyes and snapped a finger. “There, all done. Go on. Tom Marvolo Riddle will never darken the steps of your world anymore.”

He looked at me, still pale… well paler but nodded lightly.

“Great! I really like people like you, people who know how to make proper deals. Summon me if you ever want to make any more deals. Money, information, power… as long as the price is right, I’ll be there for your service.”

“That will be all.” He replied curtly.

“Oh my. You hurt me, Lucius. I thought we were friends. We are, aren’t we?” I asked, narrowing my eyes slightly and saw him shiver. “Hahahaha no need to be scared. I have no intention of harming someone for mere words. Too much work, ya know. I am a lazy fellow after all. Alright, if you don’t want a deal, then so be it. Good bye.”

I closed the portal once more

As soon as I did that, Matsu walked from behind the door and jumped at me.

“That was so cool! You were totally badass there, Ace. Like someone right out of those movies…”

“Hahahaha I was, wasn’t I? Now come on, I will show you something.”

I took her hand and took her inside the trunk and showed her the mountains of gold I had just earned for… doing nothing… The elves also needed to be assigned.

Now I obviously couldn't keep all of them. That would be too much to explain. One or two can be explained by an accident during an experiment but all… nope.

I had, however, already thought of what to do with them.

________________________________x__________________________________

“And that’s it for today.” I completed the last Class for today. “Any questions?”

Some questions came up and I addressed them before the class ended.

I went directly back to Mephisto’s office from there.

A month has passed since my trip to Skyrim.

My schedule has become even more hectic.

Learning from Dumbledore obviously was a daily thing. I was progressing well.

It was learning the spells from Skyrim that was hard…quite hard… but it was worth it.

Especially the Healing Magic which was extremely rare in Devils. The only form of healing Devils had was healing through passing Demonic Power to other devils through skin contact. This method however could be used normally, mostly only used by partners and even then it was quite slow to use.

Obviously there were Phenex Tears but damn if those things weren’t costly.

Fifty million for one… no wonder the Phenex House were raking in money with their monopoly.

Fortunately I had the money to purchase one vial and Mephisto had the connections to order one for me.

The Phial had actually produced even the Demon God Extract and just like that so many avenues opened up.

I had produced several vials of Felix Felicis and several other liquids and observed some things about the White Phial in doing so. First, the Phial did indeed purify and amplify the effects of a substance. Not without limit, just to some extent.

Second, the stronger the substance, the longer it took to replenish. A Potion of Healing had taken an hour while a Draught of Healing had taken an hour and half.

Demon God’s Extract had taken three days to fill up. I had used these past weeks to fill up the entire Jar with the extract again. I plan to drink more and see if I can increase my power further. The extract was purified and amplified after all.

There were so many things I could do with it. Even in this world, there were so many things which could be produced.

I remember the blood of Dragons being able to grant power. The Blood of Fafnir was able to grant supernatural abilities to Seigfried, which was inherited by the kids with Siegfried DNA. Was it unique to Fafnir or could I get blood from other Dragon Kings and Heavenly Dragons too? I remember Issei’s blood allowing Gasper to control his powers.

There was also Amrita which could grant enormous power to anyone who ingests it but I doubt Indra would bestow some on me. As for the blood of the Dragons… I will have to find a way to get those…

I entered Mephisto’s office to find the man actually chilling in his office. There was another surprising guest inside.

“Ace, come in. Have a seat.” He pointed towards the empty chair in front of him. The other chair was occupied by a dragon stuffed toy… or rather Tannin who had transformed into that form to enter his office.

I gave the dragon a nod.

“I wanted to ask if I could borrow a place for some practice. Me going all out will destroy the area we have here.”

“Ah… that won’t be a problem. In fact, if it’s just training, Tannin can help you.”

“What training are we talking about?” The former dragon king asked.

“I just want to fight so that I can learn how to use my new magic in combat.” I replied.

And that was exactly what I wanted to do.

I had realised that my progress had been stagnating a bit due to the lack of combat. I still remembered the demonic beast from my first hunt and how I had frozen. Now, although not in a situation like that, I still needed a place to train my combat skills.

While learning new magic was helping out a lot, needing to use them during combat was the real thing.

“That’s not a problem at all. In fact, I haven’t stretched my muscles for so long. I wouldn’t mind getting some light exercise. Even my peerage members could go for a light spar.”

“...”

“Is something the matter?” Tannin asked, sensing my hesitation.

“Actually, I don’t want many people to know of my skills so can you just keep it between the two of us?”

“Eh, still being secretive huh? Alright, I don’t mind.” The dragon shrugged nonchalantly.

“Thank you.”

“Great!” Mephisto clapped happily. “Just curious. What kind of magic have you been working on?” He asked.

I let out a sigh. I guess I did owe him for this favour. “I have been working on a new magic. Perhaps a demonstration will be more apt.”

“Go on. Do you need a bigger space for it?”

“No, not really.” I said as I pulled up the sleeves of my robes.

I put forward my arm and created an ice scalpel before making a cut on my arm.

Then I used the spell I had learned recently.

“Healing.”

A golden-white light flashed around my hand and slowly my wound closed up. As expected, Demonic Power isn’t really suitable for healing. The power of the spell is far lower than what is mentioned in the tomes. Thankfully, I had a lot of raw power.

I looked up at the old devil who was gawking at my hand. He got up and took a hold of my hand and checked my hand once more and then looked at me.

“How did you do it?”

“It’s just something I have been working on recently. I still need time to work on higher level spells. It’s the most basic one.”

“That doesn’t matter. No wait, hold on. Do you even know what you just did?” He asked, once more checking my hand.

“I used healing magic.”

“But that shouldn’t be possible.”

“And yet it is.”

“Healing Magic is very rare. I have seen some rare Angels being able to use it. Some youkai can also heal through Senjutsu but that’s a different thing altogether. Devils… we don’t have any such thing. We use our wounds to close wounds, stop bleeding and the rest is done by medicines and demonic power’s natural healing effect. It cannot be used… like this. It’s why people who specialise in healing or have healing type Sacred Gears are valued so highly.” Tannin said. 

“Really? I thought the Sitri could do this too.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Just because they own hospitals doesn’t mean they can use Healing Magic. They mostly hire people of other races or use highly advanced medicines and technology to cure their patients. You should take some time to read more about them.”

Ah, I see.

“Actually hold on. Try it on me.” Tannin suddenly said, making me do a takeback.

I looked at the dragon. “I am not sure if the spell will be strong enough. It’s just a basic spell and you have incredible magic resistance.”

“It doesn’t matter. Try it. It would just be a scratch.” He said as he cut a part of his tail. Blood flowed and I quickly conjured a bowl below his tail to collect the blood and used Healing.

As expected, his body was resisting the magic but I pushed through and the wound did close slowly.

“Marvellous.”

“As I said, it’s just the basics. I can’t use it to heal large wounds as of now. It will take more time to develop those.”

“Then take it. Take as much time as you want. If you want, we can reduce the number of classes as long as you can fully create this magic, it doesn’t matter.” Mephisto replied.

I was taken aback by the seriousness of the man.

“It won’t be done any sooner even if you hurry me. This kind of thing… It takes time. Even this spell… it’s very inefficient. Had I taught this to a human or other races, they could have done it much more efficiently. I am still working on these matters.”

“So take your time. I am not telling you to hurry up, just to concentrate all your efforts on this. You have no idea how much of a revolutionary idea your magic can be for the entire Devil race. You could start an entirely new industry rivalling the Sitri and if you decide to share it with others, the achievement would be worthy of gaining a High Class Devil ranking, maybe even an Ultimate Class. Now… do you understand the gold mine you are standing on?”

“I… see.” I found myself stunned at his words. “Ultimate Class? Are you sure?” I asked again.

“Yes. Depending on the effectiveness of the spells it is very possible. In fact, should you be a High Class and then reveal it, there is a very good probability that you can gain the position. I will make sure you do.”

Ultimate Class Devil… the position came with several perks which other High Class Devils cannot get.

First would be a territory, a large territory of several cities under their rule to do with as you pleased.

Second would be access. They can access most of the facilities of the Underworld. Things even High Class Devils can only watch from a distance.

Third, all descendants of Ultimate Class Devils would start from High Class. They wouldn’t have to climb the stairs one by one.

It truly certified one as one of the top dogs of the Devil race, just below the Satans. Among the thirty four houses, there were twenty three who didn’t have any Devil at that rank… at least not rank wise.

At this position, not even the other Pillar Houses can touch one carelessly.

I closed my eyes and thought for a while. “We shouldn’t think about distant things. It will happen in time. What about the training grounds?”

“You want a training ground where no one can spy on you, right?” He asked.

“Hmm.”

“Alright. Done. I will arrange for it. Tannin can take care of your training.”

“Thank you.”

We talked about a schedule and I got up to leave.

Suddenly I remembered something and picked up the bowl with Tannin’s blood. ”Can I take this?” I asked.

“Blood?” The dragon asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Hmm. The blood of a high level dragon… I can think of so many uses for this.”

“Hahahaha alright, suit yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, that reminds me, your order of Phenex Tears is here.” Mephisto said, suddenly remembering something. He opened his drawer and passed me a vial. “Don’t worry about the payment. I can deduct it from your pay.”

I looked at the vial containing a colourless liquid inside and kept it in my pocket and thanked him before leaving the room.

- Saelena Lucifer -

“Did you find anything there?”

The information they had extracted from Abigory Tishmah led them to uncover a plot by the Nebiros House.

Abigory was not one of the core members and even this information was flimsy at best but it was their own chance to find more. Over the past month, they had done just that and the information they found was… strange at best.

Nebiros House was searching for some Super Weapons left by the original Satans.

To be honest, she didn’t believe the information. It sounded like some fairy tale made up by some people who couldn’t accept the results of the Civil War. If they really had any Super Weapons, they would have obviously used them in the Great War but there was no clue of any such thing ever being used.

There were, however, clues of live experiments done on other devils. One of them being used by Enakal Beelzebub who had turned into that giant miasma spreading bee with power beyond Serafall. Even she had to use her True Form to deal with him back then.

If they were indeed doing such experiments, then they couldn’t afford to overlook it.

“No. The lab was already destroyed by the time we got there. It looked like it was done recently. From what little we could find, it seemed as if they were doing some experiments on people of different races including other devils but that was not complete information. Just the bits we had managed to save.” McGregor reported. “Maybe they were finding some kind of way to increase the power of devils. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything which could connect other people with the whole research.”

“They must have figured that their spy got caught and moved away after cleaning up the evidence.” Falbium suggested.

“Hmm, could be. Do we have any other leads?”

“Not really. The ones we know of cannot be touched directly without any substantial proof. We can at best call some of them for temporary investigations on the words of a traitor. Even the labs were not discovered in their territories.”

“I don’t think they will open their mouths and then it will be our turn to answer questions. They are already angry about the whole Recommendation Games. We can only go forward if we have something substantial on them.” Falbium added.

“Why don’t you use the same method you used to extract information from them?” Serafall suggested and they looked at Ajuka. “Can’t you figure out how to make those portraits?”

“No, not really. The spell he cast on it was completely original. I have no idea what that was. Not to mention the runes on it were completely new. I tried to study them out of curiosity but the boy had enchanted it with a self destruction sequence so that if anyone tried to unravel them, the entire thing would be destroyed.

“Heh… the kid got one on you, did he?” Sera smirked, getting no reaction from Ajuka.

“Not very trusting, that kid, is he?” Falbium asked.

“Cautious would be a better word.” Ajuka replied and she could sense a reluctant respect in his words.

“Well, with the life he was living, he would be dead if he didn’t have at least this much cautiousness.”

“Didn’t he try to bait you into a trade? Why don’t you ask him what he wants for the knowledge of the Portraits or just hire him to make a couple more paintings?” Falbium suggested.

“Let’s check the other targets first. I will see what I can do.” Ajuka replied and none of them prodded.

“The spell was indeed very unique. Ace has a very unique approach towards magic.” I would love to sit down with him and discuss magic.” Mcgregor praised.

“You can go and pick him up this week in that case.” Ajuka said. “I would have asked Grayfia but if you are going there then I’d rather not disturb her.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.”

“By the way, Rudiger Rosenkreutz has made a request to meet Azazel in regards to his son’s situation. He thinks that Azazel might be able to help him since he is the foremost researcher of Sacred Gears in the world.”

“Hmm. Yes, he came to me too. I will bring it up with Azazel but that guy would probably ask for some favours.”

“Do it. The man has been worrying himself sick over his son’s health. It would be good to help the man out.” She said and Sera nodded in agreement.

They discussed some more things before the meeting ended.

Before leaving, she suddenly remembered something and looked at McGregor. “You will be the one going to pick Ace up this week, correct?”

“Yes. I was thinking about visiting Grauzaberer to attend one of his classes. I have read the book on Transfiguration and I want to attend the classes personally to see how things work more closely.”

“In that case, bring Rias with you. See if she likes the classes there. She has been down lately. Maybe it would cheer her up.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

Maybe meeting Ace could help her regain some confidence in herself.

- Ace -

I sat in my lab, the portal open in front of me as the former generals reported the progress made by the ‘Ace in the Hole’ group in the Empire.

I took a look at the files while asking. “How is the process of contracting the people from Wakoku?”

“Yes. The current continent is divided into twenty two nations and is undergoing a fierce war with each other. We discovered that while the nations might be a bit behind the Empire in some technologies, their blacksmithing skills are very good. They use weapons similar to the Teigu and Shingu and the technology to make them is actually widespread. We can commission them to make weapons but we would have to provide them with the Danger Beast materials to make them.”

“Hmm, what about sending their people to the Empire to make something here?” I asked.

“That would be difficult, not to mention costly. It just isn’t viable unless we have the raw materials from Special Class or Super Class Danger Beasts.”

“I see.” I thought of something. “Very well. Send envoys to all twenty two nations. Enquire who among them are the best in making Teigu like the Demon God’s Extract which uses the Blood of Super Class Danger Beasts. Talk to the ruler of that nation and offer them an alliance.”

“Sir?”

“The alliance will obviously not be from the Empire but rather from our group. As for what we can offer.” I summoned a crate of a dozen healing potions and stamina potions and passed it to her. “These potions can completely heal a person from injuries in moments. The other one can help recover stamina immediately. You said they were in a war. I think they would appreciate these. If they can send their blacksmiths to work for Ace in the Hole and successfully craft the Teigu I desire, I will  sell them the advanced versions of these as well as many other potions.”

Najendra looked at the potions with wide eyes.

“Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about you all either.” I passed them five crates containing the same potions as well as a piece of paper. “The paper contains the effects of the potions. Use the Elixir of Glibness when you talk to the kings of the other nations and the Elixir of Haggling before deciding the prices.”

I didn’t know how those worked in other worlds but it never hurt to try.

“Yes Sir.”

“How is the training of the members going on?”

“Good. The young ones are showing a lot of promise.”

“Who are the top five in the list?”

“The first would be Esdeath Patras. Second and third would be Najasho and Akame, the best among the kids trained by Gozuki. Fourth and fifth are actually people whom you told us about. We searched the capital and found the two girls. Leone and Sheele. Both of them are extremely talented and natural fighters. They have taken extremely well to the training and are progressing at an incredible pace.”

“What about the thing I asked about?”

I had asked them to make sure they were taught to tone down their bloodthirsty nature. Many of the people of this world, especially Esdeath had turned extremely sadistic. While a part of it might have been due to the influence of the Demon God’s Extract, some of it had come from her and her upbringing too. Right now, she is being carefully taught so that such a thing never happens. I appreciated the fighting skills and loyalty of the manga Esdeath Patras… not her sadistic and bloodthirsty nature.

She paused for a moment but nodded. “It’s being taken care of.”

“Make sure that’s your first priority when recruiting anyone. We are training protectors for the Empire, not cold blooded killers who cannot think about anything except killing.”

“Yes Sir.”

“By the way, how is the cleaning of rebels going?”

“We are almost finished with the cleaning. The… help you sent was a great help.”

“I am glad. Those little guys are always in search of work. Treat them well and remember to praise them occasionally.”

I had actually sent the House Elves to assist them.

I had kept Minny with me and given one to the Young Emperor on his birthday. The guy needed someone loyal and friendly to him who would always help him out and who was better than some house elves. The kid was happy, extremely happy by the present. He said it was the best birthday present ever.

The rest were given to the Ace in the Hole group.

House Elves were… extremely useful.

I am kinda surprised how the Wizards treated them so badly.

Those creatures could have ended all life in the Wizarding world should they go rogue. But then again, it was perhaps exactly because of this that the Wizards had put them under such heavy restrictions. Thankfully, it’s not in their nature to do such things. They were quite adorable.

House Elves were able to teleport others anywhere in the Empire as well as spy on people. Their magic could also protect anyone easily. These skills were highly valuable as spies. My subordinates had suddenly gained eighteen super powered spies to help them and the result was a one sided routing of the rebels.

Another thing which the Elves being there allowed me to do was open a portal to that world. I can use my connection to the Elves, who carry some of my magic to open a portal to that world whenever I want.

This meant that as long as Minny was alive, I could open a portal to the DxD world whenever I liked.

“Oh and one last thing.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t overwork yourself. You are after all an essential part of the team.” I smiled, taking the woman by surprise.

“Eh…”

I left her like that and closed the portal.

The Empire was doing fine for now and I had a class to teach.

________________________________x__________________________________________________________________x__________________________________

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Author’s Note:

I am back with another chapter of ‘Ace in the Hole’.

Several things happened in this chapter.

Ace went to Skyrim and got himself a pretty nifty artifact.

Lucius got scammed.

Ajuka is pouting.

Mephisto is having the time of his life.

Ace got a training partner.

The Young Emperor had the best birthday present ever.

We will see what experiments Ace does and what deals he makes in the future.

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.