After the events of the rise of the new Lord’s Manor, that also came along with the news of his rise in rank, his rise in strength and the arrival of five religious orders into the village. Waves erupted when news got out. That said, it was winter and such news had yet to get out because if it had, even in the cold midwinter season there would already be followers of these religions coming to set claim in the new land protected by these orders.

Within three days time, another change happened and that was that under the instructions of a few architects of the church, the walls around the city rose to seven meters tall with eight watch towers facing the eight directions.

The walls had only three gates, one to the south, one to the north west and the last to the north east. The north gates were to go to the mountains while the south would go to the surrounding farmlands.

At the end of the three days the village had undergone a huge transformation, being guarded by sturdy high stone walls. The Lumberjacks were very busy to cut all the remaining trees within the walls while the palisades were completely taken down to be used as wood.

The lord's manor, which lacked wood decor and such things were quickly fitted with such goods such as wooden flooring and glass windows.

The biggest event of this time period was actually when Zip and Void woke up. Opal and Jasmine cried hugging the two boys who were sore. Nil explained the events of the last week to them while Xero told them what had happened with the bit he saw of the battle.

“So our demons evolved?” Zip asked sitting on a chair while having a thick warm soup being fed to him by Jasmine.

“My body feels like I was hit by father's punch.” Void said while being fed by his mother.

“Big bro, Void, summon out your familiars, they can resolve the pain really quickly for you.” Xero said.

“They’re too big to fit in here.” Void said but saw his little brother shaking his head,

“They fit in here.” he said.

Void and Zip looked at each other wondering if he was joking with them but in the last few months Xero had shown his maturity and showed he was growing up and wouldn’t joke about this, especially considering he had built the house they were inside himself using a lot of mana from a rare rank mana stone.

The two lifted their hands with the seal. “Asher!” “Slash!” they called out together.

Two 19 cm demon cores jumped out and were covered by a ball of light that slowly took shape but they were not large. In fact they were very tiny and did not pass the size of their 6 year old little brother.

Asher grew into an upright standing position and grew two arms and legs. The size was very small and the hands had small fingers fitting for that of children. On the head, short white hair grew in a wild manner just before two black iron plated S shaped horns grew out the side of the head. Then a small light appeared next to the right hand and formed into a tiny plated tail shape while two horns wound around it with the flat side pointing the opposite way forming a hammer shape. Lastly on the lower back, a long tail grew out and black plate armor like what you find on armored dragons, appeared. The white glow on the body suddenly vanished and the entire body was revealed.

A tan skinned girl dropped down and with a thump she stood and opened her eyes revealing a white sclera and red iris. “Hi Boss!” She said to Zip and suddenly jumped and slammed into his sitting figure on the chair flipping it.

At the same time, in a similar fashion, it formed a human figure with hands and feet but on the tail, it was thin and hairy with black fur with glowing red strips while on the head two cat ear shaped glows appeared before hair grew from the tips and covered the ears in short black hair that also had red stripes.

The glow vanished and the figure dropped and landed on all fours and had tan skin as well. She opened her eyes and like the other there was a white sclera and red iris while her nose was cat like and she had a cat lip. She sniffed around before she focused on Void, “Nyaaa!” She shouted and jumped him as well.

With the two crashing into their respective masters, a loud ruckus was lifted in the house as the two boys were thrown hard on the ground.

“What... is this!?” Void said as recovered from the shock to the back of his head and his back. As his eyes open he found a shocking sight.

Hugging his chest with her legs spread while purring and rubbing her cheeks on his chest was a small tiger girl that looked no older than five while her tail slowly swing from left to right. What disturbed him the most was what she was saying, “Nya~ Nya~ Myaster~! Nya nya! Myaster~~!” She said while sniffing him and hugging him without showing sign of letting go.

“W-what is this!?” Void shouted as he tried to get up but felt pain on his back and body.

The little cat noticed his pain after sniffing and she sat up pouting. She grabbed his hand and looked at the familiar seal before giving a small bite. All her teeth were fangs but she had two sharp canine that barely pierced the skin but it caused a large surge of energy to rush into Void.

She then held his hand and licked where she bite like a little cat and purred as she rubbed her cheeks on his hand.

As for Zip, the tan horned girl sat on his chest in a similar manner but she was rubbing her cheek up against his face. “Ah~! Boss! This is my boss~! This smell filled with charcoal and iron! Ah~! These iron abs and arms~! My boss~~!” She said as she used her body to feel his chest and muscles.

“W-what is going on here~!?” Jasmine said in a fury of jealousy and embarrassment.

“I-I have no clue!” Zip said.

“Ashley.” Xero said and she came out and saw the two devils and smiled wryly. “Calm them down a bit.” He said.

“That isn’t too hard.” She said and suddenly a large blunt stone greatsword appeared in her hand and she suddenly swung hitting Asher’s head and sent her flying off Zip and did the same thing with Slash but the tiger girl was nimble and was able to barely shift her poster to ‘land’ on the wall before she fell down due to gravity.

When the two stood up, the two red glowing eyes dimmed as they looked around and began to blink before moving towards their masters but suddenly heard a scraping sound and they looked at Ashley.

Slash showed fear as she arched her back and her hair stood on end but Asher’s smile twitched a bit and she coughed, “Greetings elder sister, you could have been a little bit gentler.” She said.

“If I was any gentler you would have simply jumped back on your masters.” Ashley said and lifted the sword on her shoulder.

Asher looked depressed as she turned to look at Zip, “B-but I was having such a great time… why did you take my time from feeling Boss's Iron hard abs, his steel forged arms, his muscular legs, his steely forge smelling sweat covered bo…” she began to ramble.

“Stop this at once!”

WOOSH!

Suddenly Jasmine shouted and something shot out smashing directly into Asher’s temple and sent her spinning and landed almost unconscious from the hard object impacting her head. “Indecent little beast, stay away from my husband.” She shouted blushing violently.

Asher was dizzy while to the side, everyone was stunned by Jasmine who has always been respectful and never shown so much excessive possessiveness.

Slowly she stood up and shook her head, “Ah~! Being without my armor, that boss forged with his and my blood and sweat, is so hard.” She muttered while rubbing her head.

“Stop acting out of line, it will be hard at first to not be clinging to your master but you will get many chances in the future.” Ashley suddenly said.

Asher who was still dizzy looked at her then at the culprit of that attack and found the Gem spirit trained on her while Jasmine was blushing.

“Xero, Ashley, please explain what is going on here? I am quite clear that I saw two several meter long, several ton weighing demons appear after they broke the demon cores.” Nil said.

Xero looked at Ashley, “I want to know as well.” he said.

“Oh master, don’t look at me like that~!?” Ashley said wiggling around while holding the huge blade in her hand.

“Ashley, explain!” Xero ordered.

While still smiling she sighed, “Us Devils possess two forms. The reason why we are still called Demon lords if we reach level 90 is because besides our human form, which is how we are now, we possess a Demon form that is when we can use our full power.” She explained in a simple to understand method.

Everyone was shocked but suddenly realized now how the notes of the identifier said ‘infant’ at the end. As a devil, they were indeed infants, they were no bigger than five year olds while Ashley was just a bit bigger looking like an 8 year old.

“So you also have a demon form?” Xero asked.

“Of course master, but master cannot support me in that form.” She said.

A frown appeared on his face and he was about to ask when Asher unexpectedly answered, “Boss’s brother, when we assume demon form, our mana and what is flowing inside into your body, becomes demon mana, you cannot support her form because you are weaker than her and would suffer corruption.” Asher said

“She is right.” Ashley said and walked over to Xero and lifted his arm and showed him the tattoo on his arm and body. “Until master gets rid of every last one, I cannot assume my full power.” She said.

“Wait, does that mean your power is limited to half its power until now? Now that I think about it, against the bandits, you only used that trick with the invisibility to scare them out of their wits and kill them. While making those two do the muscle work.” Xero said.

“Eh… M-master… w-what are you thinking?” Ashley said when she suddenly saw the little boy grin in a manner that made her somewhat fearful.

The grin kept growing, “Doesn’t this mean that your defense and offensive strength is limited only to around level 11 or 12 and you’re using tricks to make yourself look strong?” Xero said.

She finally realized what he meant and in fact, it was something she had initially avoiding saying because of this exact reason but now that the cat was out of the bag.

“M-master… w-what are you thinking?” She asked.

Xero chuckled, “Nothing~!” He said almost singing as he laughed

“M-master! It’s not funny what you’re thinking~!” She said.

Xero just chuckled.

“Hey Xero, help over here!” Void suddenly shouted and everyone turned to look and saw that on the ground, Slash was acting like a little cat and rubbing against his leg while moving around his legs while rubbing his body while curling her tail around his leg while moving through it and purring.

“Why does she seem… less smart?” Nil said.

Asher’s face turned rather stone faced as she replied, “Obviously because she is a Feral Devil, early on they are little better than animals and follow their instincts.” She said crossing her arms and looked at Jasmine, “Can you put the little glittering fly away? Hmm now that I look at it, the body is pathetically weak, want me to forge it for you?” She said looking with sparkling eyes at the Gem spirit.

She suddenly froze and glared at Zip, “Boss! We need to make my skill.” She said.

When she said that Xero suddenly remembered, “Oh right, father has yet to make his Innate spells either.”

“Right, let’s all calm down for now, since we have touched this subject, let us accomplish this first, Xero and Jasmine, you two are the ones that know how to make Innate spells and skills so you two do this for us.” Nil said.

“It is better for little brother in law to do it, I do not have much confidence in my magic knowledge. It cannot compare to his so let him do it.” She said.

“Fine, Xero start with mine, I checked and because of the evolution, all of Silver’s skills became unstable, they are complete but they are moldable and as soon as something breaks it will begin changing.” He said.

“Alright father.” Xero nodded.

For the next few hours they spent time to complete all three men’s spells.

First was Nil, all the spells he had were Great howl, Claw Slash, Silver Brilliance, Moonlight Radiance, Ice Missile, Hail Breath, Tundra Field and Ice Wolf Spawn. After changing them all, there was a significant change as the amount of mana Silver had was huge and the spell nearly tripled in size making them huge and more importantly, a few spells had a Holy rune appear in the later stages of the spell sequence.

The skills evolved into, Fenrir’s Howl, Permafrost Claw Slash, Holy Brilliance, Holy Moon Radiance, Hail Fall Ice Missiles, Tundra Hail Blizzard Howl, Fenrir Tundra and finally Silver Ice Wolf Spawn. Beyond this, there was even a buffing ability for the spawn called “Silver Alpha Spawn. It sacrifices three Silver Ice Wolf to make a Alpha Silver Ice Wolf that helps command the spawns.

If someone compared the combat efficiency of Silver before and after, there would be no comparison. This ability to remake the Innate Skills and spells were a unique ability of Holy Beasts allowing their abilities to be completely remade.

That said, Xero’s knowledge was limited even now and it took very long complicated sequences for what he wanted which could have been made up if he knew better.

As for Zip and Asher, that after some conversation decided to change the name because asher is a male name, eventually ended up calling her Cinder. She gained four Innate Spells, Plated Devil’s Aura, Armor Artillery, Elemental Hammer Impact and Plated Devils’ Divine Forge.

Unlike the highly mobile ability Ashley developed with the Greatsword, the forge that Cinder had was something extremely mind blowing. Having developed a kind of blacksmith kind of mentality, the spell allowed her to summon forth a great forge alter but the material was no metal. With the main target as Spirit, Fairy or object type creatures, Cinder can literally forge their bodies, breaking their bodies to the very core without killing them quickly reaching many places and helping open mana channels. This was amazing but it wasn’t mind blowing but what was is the additional effect that Xero had no method of changing as it developed at the end.

The ability to forge the body of the Master and Familiar who is stuck at a bottleneck by forging both their bodies.

This was a kind of ability that went against heaven itself. The ability to forge a person into the next stage towards what is considered god sent. One should know that the number of people stuck at level 90 is nearly triple the number of people beyond level 90. If this skill could forge their bodies into the upper 90s what effect would it have on the world. It was indeed a dangerous ability that could cost the life of the two undergoing the process but if they survive then they will gain power.

This kind of temptation will make anyone pay a huge sum to break through.

Finally Void and Slash who is going by Ember, her new Innate skills and spells were Feral Devil Aura, Feral Soul Den , Elemental Five Claw Slash, Feral Devil’s Divine Devourer.

Similar to the Sword and Armor Artillery, she had a different kind of storage. By killing a prey or enemy, she releases the soul and keeps the body and this is dropped into the Den. The souls of Feral devils exist there and they inhabit the bodies and transforms them into other Feral devil minions that can be summoned.

As for Divine Devourer, it caused a very disturbing thought. She can, instead of making Feral Devils, assimilate prey and incorporate, temporarily, some features of these creatures in a chimera like manner. This can only work in her Demon form though so there was no way for her human form to become disfigured. The downside to both spells was that they couldn’t be used on enemy familiars as they don’t leave neither a body or parts after they die.

“In so little time, we went from a hunter’s family to a noble family with so much strength in our family. I can only say the heavens works in strange manners.” Nil said as he heard the skills he and his children possessed.

“Honey, maybe we can still try to enroll Nadir and Void into a national academy to give them at least some education.” Opal said as she as well got updated on how strong these skills would make each person.

Nil nodded slowly and looked at the two, Void was 19 but that did not mean the National academy wouldn’t accept him, they are unlike the Magic academy that are strict on age. If not for Zip’s job he might suggest the same thing. “We shall talk about that later, today we celebrate all my children being safe and sound and no longer in danger.” Nil said.

Opal happily agreed and with Nadir and Ashley, walked to the kitchen to make food.

“Let us enjoy the rest of the day for today.” Nil said.

Everyone agreed but suddenly Jasmine walked up, “You had asked to forge my familiar, how will it affect it?” She suddenly asked Cinder.

The naked tan black horned girl looked up and grinned, “It could evolve if it’s developed enough.” She replied.

“It has a few skills, Elemental mana bolt, Elemental mana Cleave, Elemental mana bomb.” She said.

“Cleave, sword cut? Did you add that sister in law?!” Xero asked.

“I tried to add something myself.” She said.

“That should be plenty.” She said swinging the air with the tiny hammer.

“So you will do it?” She asked.

Cinder shrugged, “I just need an open space.” She said and looked around and walked to the window and gripped the edge and looked outside. “Outside should be fine.” She said and with Jasmine the two walked outside.

The others followed them outside, and Void even unsummoned his familiar because she would not stop acting like a spoiled cat and ignored him.

Outside she walked around with no apparent problem with the midwinter cold as she looked around, eventually picking a spot on the west side of the open manor grounds halfway between the manor and wall. “Okay~! Plated Devil’s Divine Forge!” She shouted and suddenly a large amount of mana rose up her arm and into the small hammer that suddenly grew as tall as her and she took it before slamming it down into the snow.

The ground shook as suddenly a blood red magic formation began to take shape and slowly spread out. The snow instantly burst into a wave of steam becoming a dense mist while the area shook more and more as the temperature was rising until it finally stopped. A sudden wind swiftly blew the mist away and standing on the spot that had once been empty and covered in snow was a 6 meter wide lava pit and upon this pit was a 3 meter wide flat black rock. At the edge of the lava pool were six pillars with many engravings. Were Cinder stood was a small bridge and the tiny five year old figure had vanished.

Standing there was a 4 meters tall slightly gorilla shaped horned Demon covered in dense Iron plate holding a very large demonic hammer made of black plated tail and its own horns.

It turned slowly and looked at them making them feel cold, this was the power of a Demon’s size and intimidating power. Not to mention the Plated devil’s aura surrounding it increasing this suppressing feeling while it created a defensive aura around it.

It lifted the hand and pointed at the altar while growling.

“It seems in this form they lose the ability to speak, she must be telling us to have your spirit go onto the altar.” Nil said.

Breaking out of their shock, the men look at Jasmine and she summons the little spirit and with her order it flies into the center of the altar.

Cinder raises the hammer and knocks the base down causing everything to shake but the pillars began to shine. Mana in the surroundings began to flow inside as the magical formation began to light up and the light invaded into the gem spirit.

It began to shake but Cinder did not give it any time as she lifted the hammer and gripping with both hands, she brought it down in the same manner as swinging the hammer to forge metal.

BANG!

The hammer slammed down and crushed the gem spirit leaving it in shards but unlike what one would expect, the shards released a lot of mana and gathered the invading mana and were put back together into a living gem spirit just in time for the second impact.

Each impact shook the ground raising a powder of snow into the air filling the air with hard to breath frost but one by one the pounding continued until the 50th impact. As soon as the hammer came up the gem spirit began to shine brightly.

Cinder lifted the hammer and brought it down and the sound of shattering glass was heard but the light shined brighter.

“The real forging has begun finally.” Zip said.

Being someone connected to Cinder, he could somewhat feel what was happening, this skill was meant to bring out the potential of a familiar, in fact, it was a skill meant specifically for familiars and their masters. Of course, if this was in hell, it would be used to forge demons instead. The formation would keep the demon core and soul from returning to the spawning pits and would instead forge the core and body releasing the potential without dying. Plated Devils are recognized as nobles in hell because of their power to forge powerful demons.

For anything besides a familiar in the human world, this ability would be considered useless. Also the true forging process begins after the evolution begins as they pound more the body grinding it more allowing the evolving body to reach its peak.

After the 70th hit, Cinder stopped and her body shined a red light before it all was sucked into her Demon core and her small form appeared once more and she landed breathing hard after exhausting a large amount of mana.

On the altar the glowing was blinding but had begun to dull and slowly the light settled revealing a short crystal body.

In the shape of a young 12 year old boy. A young man who wore armor that seemed to be made of solid crystal stood. The armor was not impressive and looked more like a knight in training then a true knight. The helmet covered the entire face except for the eyes that glowed a red glow in a similar shape to Cinder’s in her demon form. Finally on his chest, there was a space that caved in and revealed a crystal core at the center beating like a heart.

“This is!” Jasmine said in shock as she looked at the little warrior that had somehow appeared from her gem spirit.

The little warrior walked off the altar and came to her before kneeling on one leg, “Mistress, this servant has allowed you to suffer for my weakness. My race is one known as Gem Knights and this servant is a Knight’s Junior. Our race requires immense energy within our bodies to be completely born but this world lacked the abundant and easy to access energy of my native world leaving this servant incapable and you, my mistress, to suffer in weak humiliation. I humbly apologize.” He said and took her hand and kissed it.

Pow!

The next second a large hammer met the side of his head as Zip looked furious at him, “Oi brat, you may be her familiar but she is my woman. Hands off before I ‘forge’ your body in another manner.” Zip said.

Jasmine looked at Zip in surprise but a bright and beautiful smile appeared on her face to see her husband jealous for her.

Unsurprisingly, the hit had completely knocked out the young knight not allowing him a single moment to resist the jealous husband wrath. In the end, he simply returned to Jasmine but she was happy to see his love and kissed him sweetly apologizing for her earlier actions when he summoned his familiar.

The other three did not interrupt but Cinder was pouting while being held back by Nil. They only broke up the loving mood when Ashley called for dinner. As for the forge, it was a permanent spawned item that Cinder created in the yard and would gather mana storing it within the lava in the pool.