The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 142: Groundwork

Chapter 142: Groundwork

"Why wouldn’t I be alive?" Kir asked. He wasn’t ignorant of the answer, he just wanted Sreev’s take on it.

"How to make you understand..." the General rested an elbow in his hand and held his forehead. After a moment, he said, "If you knew you would grow resistant to heat with exposure, would you dive into the pressure of a volcano without first seeing if lava burns you?"

"I’d have to test that with fire, first."

"Exactly!" Sreev patted his palm with his fist. "You would find near analogs before testing the real thing! So why on Hell would you go into a pressure cooker of mana like a dungeon?"

"I didn’t have a choice," Kir said. "I was exploring the upper levels of one when I was attacked." He left out more than a few facts, like how Stella was with him.

"I’m finding it increasingly believable that you don’t have a master. A sage or archmage would never have let you into a dungeon without a plan and years of tempering. You clearly need my help before you get yourself killed, and Maledict would have my head if that happened."

The way Sreev’s hands began to tap the desk had all the nervous energy of a professor anticipating the moment he enlightened some benighted student.

"Is that the only reason you’re helping me? To not be killed by my father?" Kir crossed his arms.

"Hardly. This is for the sake of all demonkind as much as my own. House Goetia has long maintained a practice of informing its mages to the level they are able to handle, in the sure knowledge that at every level of magical development, secret-keeping for the sake of safety is ingrained in its mages. I need to see what groundwork you have." He began to move as if preparing himself.

Kir resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "If you want, I can recite the basis of magical theory and all the elemental interactions." It was all bullshit, but Kir had grown used to wading through such nonsense at the Academy before his sealing.

Sreev waved a dismissive hand. "I’m going to see for myself, if you’ll allow it." He extended a hand.

Kir stared at it. "How, if I may ask?"

"I’m sure you’re familiar with introspective awareness of your mana. Once you have reified yourself, you’ll find that you have access to more than a few senses that you weren’t aware of. One of them is the sense of power, understanding something of how those around you use their mana, and how it has shaped their magic. Rather like turning that introspection into something that can be applied to others."

"Does this means you’ve already done that? Fused your soul?" Kir asked.

"A mind-soul fusion, yes. I... lack the disposition needed to reach bodily attainment. My growth has stopped, and will remain so unless I overcome this."

Kir felt a little sadness for Sreev as he reached out and allowed the demon to take his hand, using a breath to settle into his senses and activating his manasight. At the very least he hoped to learn a bit about what the General had hinted at, since reading the powers of others could potentially give him advantages, if not help him avoid bad matchups. Part of him cringed at the memory of how he’d needed Stella to defeat Daisy the Destroyer...

"Impossible... Gods above Gods..." The General’s exclamations came out in a steady flow as he kept his eyes closed.

Kir shifted a bit, feeling uncomfortable with the sense that someone was looking at him from the inside, until at last the General released his hand and blinked rapidly, centering himself.

"What are you?" he asked. "No normal half-demon would blaze with mana like you do... Even after reifying their soul."

"Truth be told, I don’t know what I am," Kir said.

"What of your mother? What was she?"

"That... I shouldn’t say. Not if Maledict hasn’t told you." Kir could feel the tension rising, all the way down to his tail.

"Maledict is more secretive than most," Sreev sighed. "I suppose I shall wait to ask... but for now, let us focus on you, young master." He rested his hands in his lap. "To begin... your mana development is all over the place. Clearly you have a naturally vast quantity, but it is clear that you underutilized what is available to you. That said, it’s as if all echoes of your spells are efficient except where it requires the most direct application and understanding of mana itself. In those cases, you seem average at best..."

Kir’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t been called ’average’ in a while... Though Amarena called him ’mediocre’ a lot when he repeated mistakes in sparring.

"... Furthermore, you have clearly mastered working mana into its liquidus state but haven’t even begun to approach solidus, yet I can sense you are attempting form shaping with your war form. That would be like trying to carve a statue from heated lava."

"I’ve had a similar realization," Kir said. "I assumed it would come more naturally since it was something I gained without planning."

"Some demons like the cubi maintain some degree of mana solidus, but you seem to have only half of what you’d need to properly manage changing form... This confuses me as to how you’ve managed a war form in the first place... Perhaps it was a natural reaction to the mana environment of a dungeon, converting mana into a solidus form like pushing against the pressure? No... you would be trapped in that state if that were the case..." The General began muttering his way into theory until Kir cleared his throat.

"I was, actually. Trapped in my war form while I was in the dungeon, and for some time after."

"How did you get out of it without the necessary training?"

Kir shrugged. "Just exhausted myself. Spent a lot of mana to make resistance for my muscles until I got out. Oh, and I let Stella drain me sometimes."

"Stella?" The General paused. "Wait... The succubus was with you? In the dungeon?"

"Yes," Kir said, "But we were talking about my mana..."

"Right! Right." The gnossinian reached over to the desk and opened a drawer, his long fingers shifting the contents about until they emerged holding what looked like a hi-grade, red mana stone, clear as ruby. "Would you mind demonstrating the ability you spoke of earlier?"

Kir took the stone and was about to do so when he realized he felt no instinct for it. "This is just a ruby," he realized.

"Rightly so," the general opened his palm and accepted the stone back. "I was wondering if your ability might be similar to that of ashbore worms. They’re a menace to cities with enchanted walls, because they can extract mana from breaking down stone, even in the most minute amounts."

"There isn’t any mana in that," Kir said, gesturing at the ruby.

"Not detectable amounts. But it is pretty to look at, if somewhat worthless." The General opened a different drawer, this time selecting stones from across the spectrum from white to light green. Unlike before, these tugged on Kir’s senses, and he was still a bit hungry, having only sampled the bird portions of the meat tray.

The older demon gestured, and Kir began.

The white stone tasted very light, almost like dragonfruit; the Earth variety, not the Aytherian version which was a pepper that lived up to its moniker. Red tasted vaguely of cinnamon. Orange like citrus. Yellow like concentrated citrus. And green tasted crisp and cool, like celery. Kir wondered if the flavor was psychosomatic, trying to remember if these were the same flavors he’d tried before as he munched and swallowed until every bit of stone was inside him. All while being stared at intently.

"Remarkable... Your body is extremely mana-efficient... and I have never seen a demon capable of directly converting mana stone... It would seem some amount deepens your capacity very slightly while the rest transfers directly to the mana present in your body... stored as a form of free-floating solidus... Inefficent but... Ah! So that’s how you achieved war form in the first place. You did have solidus mana in you but it was like a cloud of dust instead of a proper formation. You must have eaten a lot of mana stones to achieve that."

"I did, though much of that was before I knew their value," Kir admitted. "You seem to have gotten a good look at me, for such a short amount of contact... is there anything you can recommend for me to improve my magic?"

"That would depend greatly on what you know... and what concepts you are ready for. But there is one thing I need to know before we can begin to do that work... What is that metal in your ear?"

Kir swore internally but decided on honesty. "It’s a seal... One I am in the process of overcoming."

"May I see it?" the General asked.

"Do you understand angelic script?"

"A little of it, mostly arcane. I’m nowhere near the expert your father is though."

Kir had to resist the urge to jump in his seat. Finally! Someone who could help him understand. "I have the ones I’ve already broken through, if you want," reaching into his storage, he pulled out the small bag containing the jumble of tiny discs and fragments. "I’ve been trying to understand what they do and why they broke. Please understand I cannot disclose the circumstances that led to my being sealed."

"Oh my," Sreev said. He pressed a sigil on his arm, and some lines of magic light formed at his eyes. "These are mixed up. Hmm..." he began to sort them, by what means, Kir didn’t know. Then once that was done, he stared at them intently for long moments.

"These are instruments of torture," he said after a long moment. "Ingeniously designed to punish the use of magic without outright preventing it... A crude method of teaching, but effective."

"You think someone put these in my ears to teach me?!"

"Well, not directly." He pointed at the first one. "I organized them by the degradation on their magic signatures. From what I can tell, this was meant to release at a high enough magical density." He pointed at the second. "This one is keyed to recognize bodily transfiguration... I assume your war form, based on what we’ve discussed." He pointed at the last. "This one I am not sure of. But I suspect it has something to do with... well... soul magic. Tell me, did Maledict place you under any oaths?"

"He did," Kir said, leaving out the fact that their agreement was half a year in the past. "What about this one?" He gestured at his ear.

"Well, I doubt I could tell sufficiently without dismantling it. But assuming it’s like the rest, it would be enchanted against interference - fatally so. Many of the spell forms worked into the etchings are for sensing, inverting your magic flow, and preventing tampering. All of them reinforce disinterest in contact and would use your magic to repel anyone mentally shielded enough to attempt it. Whoever worked that in must be a master of mental magics, to so subtly convert drawing your magic into creating such a specific antipathy. And, of course any one of these seals, they would kill you if removed." He said all of it in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Now, moving onto the angelic script... What I can tell from the language is that whoever enchanted these was a fluent angelic speaker, with a penchant for intentionally confusing diction. I’m not even sure half of what I could read were actually spells... but I suspect, given how these seals function perfectly with your magic, they might know your magic better than you... No offense, young master."

"None taken," Kir replied, scraping the bits of the seals back into their bag. Finally, some answers.

"May I ask... What sense do you have for how you use your magic?"

Kir quirked an eyebrow. "I fail to understand the question."

"Ah, then let me explain. Many mages often approach magic from some desire. A mage who is inclined toward destruction, for example, may subsequently be more attuned to fire or dissolution magics. My sense for the use of magic is as a means to uncover truths. Thus, I have more of an attunement toward sensory magics and those which allow for the presentation and processing of experiences," he gestured at his own arm, indicating his spell tattoos.

"The work of most young mages is to find that thing to which they would use their magic and develop a relationship with it. For some, it is as broad as understanding a concept or as narrow as manipulating one factor of the world, like the idea of heat versus making fire. Though, naturally, such ideas carry a wide degree of overlap, since nothing that exists does so alone. To an extent, mavens also tend towards crystallizing around similar lines, but their expressions are far, far more limited and arise more unpredictably."

"This doesn’t sound like what I was taught, which was more rote memorization of how others understand elemental forces." Kir ruminated for a long moment. What Sreev said made sense, and put into context why Kir had languished so much with the "entry level" courses. Then he turned his thoughts toward magic. After a long moment he answered, "I suppose if I had to condense my understanding of magic into one fundamental thing, it would be the manipulation of reality and its laws."

Sreev’s jaw dropped. "That... I don’t even know where to begin with that."

"Why not?" Kir asked.

"Because to have that as your foundation, then you would have to have a sense of what reality is. And you would need to understand its laws with certainty before you could even begin to consistently integrate..." His eyes widened. "You do know them." Suddenly the General was all movement as he opened a drawer and shuffled through until he had paper, an inkwell, and a pen. "That is why I sense so much certainty in you... Please, I must know your understanding of reality if we are to devise a way to refine your progress."

Kir flinched. In one sitting, General Sreev had seen uncomfortably far into Kir’s mind and how it worked. It made Kir realize the truth that mana did reflect both his body and mind and left him feeling as if he’d just been told he was naked to someone who could read that mana.

Yet another part of him felt a strange sort of kinship to General Sreev. A part of him connected to his past life that recognized a fellow scientist. He felt it would be a shame to leave Sreev with nothing for all the revelations and time he’d given to try to help him improve.

He thought about the technology he’d seen on the Executioners, and remembered an old saying from Earth. There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere...

Maybe, down the line, demons like Sreev could level the playing field... Though committing to teaching him, at least to Kir, meant he would likely have to commit to teaching more Aytherians the same sciences...

Byt still... Maybe, if the demons just had the right kind of knowledge, then they could overcome whatever situation it was that led to the Heavenswars, without turning it into a zero-sum situation.

Assuming they survived the present zero-sum situation.

I’ll limit myself to the concepts... no need to shred his understanding with numbers...

"Alright, General... Let’s begin..."