After spending several hours inside Ernest, Pou exited while Ernest remained with the green aura as the mana kept flowing in a peaceful and steady flow following how it had been set. The large hole in the leg had already closed under the effect of the magic, it was clear the spell wasn’t a fast acting spell but from the strange liquid that was coming out of the boy, it had many more effects than just healing.

Several times he coughed up a large ball of black blood and rested again and only after 12 hours did he wake up when the sun was setting.

Being constantly washed, his body was left mostly in his underwear to make it easiest for the servants to constantly change his sheets and remaining clothing.

When he woke up, he got up completely okay though he was limping due to the pain. There was a scar where the wound had entered and it was still sensitive so he was given a crutch so as to not put pressure on his leg for now.

He was brought to the dining hall where the family had gathered after hearing he was awake and had prepared something for him.

Francis asked what happened but because Ernest was hungry, he summoned Night to explain but that was less than helpful.

“THAT BITCH!” he roared upon being summoned then laughed, “I told her that if she doesn’t kill us I would find her.” he said with a mad shine in his eye.

Only after receiving an impact from the commander knight and crushing him into the ground once did he finally relax a bit and began to explain from the start.

“That bitch, Silvia, started it all. Master had accepted several missions to transport several dozen demon weapons that were sealed by the Light Church here in Radiance empire. It was to be taken to the Dark Holy Church because it was purchased by them to be used by some of the high ranking familiars while some would use it as food because of ‘peculiar’ bodies and eating habits.” he sneered and was almost spitting, “When we got this mission, we obviously had to come and had the registration to fly in the nation done beforehand but the border barrier had the ability to identify all passers and so we were obviously identified. From that that bitch probably knew we were here and probably took the chance by using the backing she had here. Her mission was a basic sweep of the monsters near the border and when she saw us she thought up of some self righteous shit calling us demon worshipers because my race originates from Demons.” He said.

Francis sighed, “The Holy Light church is getting more bold. If not for the threat of the Space crack that was finally found and suppressed for now, they might have already erupted into hostilities with the Light church for sole control of the Radiance empire.” he said but he chuckled, “Of course, such a thing wouldn’t happen since the Light church has more followers, are less radical and has the support of my firm that sustains most of the nation.” He said chuckling.

“Young man, I do not suggest for you to continue towards the Light church. It is best to return to the academy and report this.” The commander knight said.

“That is where the problem lay.” Vincent said and pulled out a paper.

“Border closing. Due to several criminals being on the loose, all crossing through the barrier in and out of Radiance empire is strictly controlled. Until all criminals are found and killed the borders shall remain under strict security.”

“They have really gone too far this time.” Francis was furious.

“The church probably thinks that we have not left yet so they probably wanted to lock us in here.” Ernest said after drinking some juice. “I don’t really know why they are after me though.” he said.

“It’s probably because there is a chance for you to become an idol for the Dark Holy Church.” Xero said and explained the history of the church and the demon who merged Holy and demon magic.

“So that is why I had so much prejudice against me by all the Holy Light. It’s against everything they believe. Demon and Holy huh?” He sat pondering.

“You should be careful child, Chaos spells are not to be trifled with. There was a recent incident with a young miss of the Crost Family that tapped into Chaos spells and ended up destroying a chunk of 300 meter of land around where the spell was cast and this was using Ice and Fire. If you use Holy and Demon to merge then it will go against all principles of nature itself and the effect would be so huge that it could whip an entire city clean off the map.” the knight said.

“Until now I have focused only on light magic except for Night’s Holy wings to boost his speed. That came as an Innate spell already with the Holy rune in place so it began adding it to his body.” He said.

“Don’t worry boys, we will resolve this problem.” Francis said.

“If you can get in contact with Everlight academy they will probably come. If you can get a letter specifically to Grunt Crack then he would smash apart the barrier if needed and come pick us up.” Xero said.

Meldie paled, “Xero, please don’t joke, he would literally rampage if he came.” Meldie said serious.

Xero just smiled.

“For now you are guests at our house so please relax, in here we will make sure nothing bad happens to you boys.” Francis said.

With that the family also cheered agreeing.

In the corner Night floated over to Vincent and handed a paper, “Here this is the list I mentioned I needed. Get me these within at least two nights if possible. The cost shouldn’t be to high.” He said.

“It’s not but what do you plan to do with this?” he asked.

The Dark Cherub’s yellow eyes burned with rage as he opened and closed his hands as if preparing to attack something, “Revenge.” He said simply and flew out after Ernest that was limping outside to enjoy the last bit of sunlight of the day.

“To think we would meet again like this.” Ernest said and sat down looking up.

“Yeah, I really didn’t expect the Radiance empire to be so paranoid though? How come the Holy Light church can so casually close the borders like this?” Xero asked.

“They can’t, most likely this will last at most a month before the royal army makes its move. Even if 30% of the court is under their control, there is 25% controlled by the Light church itself and another 15% by the merchant’s alliance headed by the Donima firm while the remaining 30% is under the king’s personal rule. Because the borders are closed, it will affect the merchants and the Light church will not accept the boldness of the Holy Light church pushing the force against the Holy Light Order to be 70% against 30% the border lock would instantly be lifted within a short time.” he said. “So, how is Ashley? Did you progress a lot with your training?” He asked.

Xero nodded and happily raised the sleeve on his shirt to expose the tattoo that did not even reach his shoulder anymore.

“Ashley.” Xero called out and the 1 cm crystal demon core appeared but suddenly her Sword Devil aura burst out and the core vanished.

BANG!

When the two reacted, Ashley was standing with her bare feet on top of the head of the Dark Cherub while grinding it into the ground.

“So I finally get to see you, you bastard. You think I will easily forget the face and smell of the bastard that hurt master so much?!” She said and stomped on his head.

“Ashley what are you doing!?” Xero asked.

“I still remember master, 8 months ago I said that when I see this bastard I would cut off his balls and make him eat it for crushing my core with you unprepared for the impact. It’s time that he pays up!” She said as a long sharp blade appeared with a dangerously keen edge.

BOOM!

An explosion happened and Night finally burst as he grabbed her leg and began to flip her on the ground smashing her several times before tossing her up and holding his hand to the side and creating a black mana trident and tossing at her causing a sonic boom and stabbing Ashley through and through.

The girl vanished the next instant. “That fucking bitch, I’m already pissed and she pulled a fucking stunt like that!” Night said completely pissed off.

“She seems well.” Ernest said, not taking the fight between the demon angel and the Devil seriously. After all at the moment Ashley was only around level 22 or 23 while her accessible strength was at level 19 or 20. The fact that she could sneak attack Night was a praiseworthy achievement.

“Oh right.” Xero said and pulled out three books. Two were the tool summoning books and the third was a personal notebook Xero wrote. “I’ve been needing help, Ashley asked me to make a spell to spawn a forge for her so that she could improve her swords but the spell for it is really complex. I haven’t studied third year magical knowledge so I was wondering if you could help me out and explain the principles?” Xero asked.

“Sure why not. Let me see.” he said and picked up the notebook and began to flip.

He took the other book on basics and found a small section on the information and used the complete spell as reference and began to explain new more complex sequences so that Xero would be able to trade off the huge sequences for smaller ones but that had better efficiency.

In a single hour, Xero asked dozens of questions and cleared several initial problems he was finding and said that he would see what he could do before coming for more help.

Because it was night time they eventually went to sleep but Xero remained awake late into the night as he began to develop a new Magic formula using the bits of new information he learned.

It shortened the first three sections of the spell by more than 10 times but it caused Xero to find out that the later stage sequences would not handle the efficiency further increasing their size so that he would be able to stabilize the formula.

Unlike the five formula forge spell that the librarian gave him, Xero had made Seven Formula Forge spell. Spawning Hammer, Anvil, Forge, then Fire starting, Heat containment, Tool strengthening, mana gathering.

The complex part starts by properly laying down the formula overlapping seven formula together to act together in an orderly fashion.

Until now, Xero was only able to resolve the Forge summon due to the tips that Ernest gave earlier. All the rest had far too much waste due the impromptu sequences meant only to stabilize it.

Once Xero had the first few sections worked out he went to bed. The following morning he went back to Ernest and he continued getting tutored. Meldie got interested halfway through and joined in since she would eventually learn some of it so she wanted to start early with a friend.

With a week's time, the magic formula that once occupied more than 50 pages just to stabilize the spell and make it work was reduced to a grand total of 10 pages. Not only was the spell complete, it was done with upgrades. For one, the tool summon was made that the material would adapt to the mana type making it easier to handle and makes it stronger depending the level of the monster. The fire starting formation, it was improved by incorporating into the spell imp flame as the fire type since it was stronger than common flame.

The mana gathering would happen within five short crystal spikes that appear around the forge and the heat containment was improved to not leak at all and would be unaffected by the demon flame.

It was finally time for Xero to properly place the spell in Ashley.

Ashley was bubbly as she watched Xero holding the book and carving out the Magical formula inside her. She watched and felt the mana slowly flow in more and more. In Xero’s hand was an uncommon mana stone with fire element that he was using to feed the consumption of mana since he was already very tired.

“Finally, it's done!” Xero said as he finally finished imprinting the spell.

“YAY! THANK YOU MASTER!” Ashley suddenly said jumping up and jumping into his arms.

Suddenly the familiar seal began to flash and Ashley suddenly jumped back.

“What's going on?” Ernest asked when he saw Ashley suddenly jump back.

At this moment the three children and the dark Cherub began to feel the mana around them move towards the little devil.

“Oi! She is evolving!” Night suddenly said.

As these words left his mouth, Ashley’s body broke down into mana and her clothing dropped to the ground while her 1 cm core appeared in their eye. Mana began to move towards her like a tsunami and slowly a second layer started to form until it reached 2 cm large.

Even then the mana kept being sucked in and suddenly the familiar seal shined and Xero felt the mana flowing into him.

He thought a moment before standing up. He was slowly starting to feel bloated so without warning he began to do Grunt’s consumption technique and ‘consume’ the mana into his body.

Even then his body started to turn red from the heat being generated as he burned the energy that seemed endless.

“What’s going on Night?” Ernest asked.

“The girl is absorbing more energy than needed and supplying it to her master to train his mana pool and body making him need to ‘eat’ the mana and use it to nourish his muscles.” Night said and quickly flew over to the swords that Xero left on the ground and picked one up but felt a lot of resistance. He still flashed and swung at Xero and suddenly his right sleeve was shredded while he was still in motion.

Night appeared once more and put down the sword.

Looking at Xero’s arm as he moved around, The tattoos were glowing and slowly they retracted with each movement. This went on for almost ten minutes until the tattoo retracted to the elbow.

Finally he stopped breathing heavily.

Ashley’s core then flashed and from it, mana began to exit and take the form of a person but this time taller. Soon all of Ashley’s features appeared but unlike before where she looked like an 8 year old, now she looked like a 11 years old. Her hair was hanging down behind while some of the hair hung over the front of her body. Her previously flat chest was now budding breasts. Her previous childish charm had grown older and gained a slightly more mature charm. Her large childish eyes slightly smaller and a bit more than half open making it look long and sharp like a sword. On her back the two small bat wings and the tail were longer and larger as well as stronger looking while her two black horns were also slightly longer on her head.

Her blue eyes shined and the slit pupil in her eyes soon focused. She soon looked down and turned to see her now more grown and budding body. “Master~! I evolved! I’m no longer a lesser being!” She said happily, the childish voice still greatly present as she turned and jumped into his arms.

“Her power rose, she is at least level 25 now.” Night said crossing his little arms. His yellow eyes shined as he looked at her.

“Ashley, put some clothes on first!” Xero said.

“Huh?! Master, are you embarrassed now that I look masters age?” She said and pressed closer to him grinning like a devil that she was.

“Go put clothes on!” Xero shouted and she pouted,

“Pooo~! Master is boring.” She said and walked to the clothing on the ground and picked up the shirt and overall hot pants and measured it. “Master, it’s too small now~!” Ashley said and turned around to see Xero removing a bundle of bandages, a large baggy pants and a hair rubber to tie up her hair.

She pouted as she took the pants and put it on and the bandages and wrapping her chest. She looked like a swordswoman after doing this and after reaching this she nodded and stuck her hand out and a simple sword of green stone appeared in her hand and she held it completing the image.

“Wow~! She looks like a real swordswoman.” Meldie said as she looked amazed at the transformation of the devil into a blue skinned black haired swordswoman.

Ashley was quite prideful of herself sticking her chest out, “Oh right master, Imp Flame and Blue Imp Flame Claw can be upgraded, I no longer need imp flames so master should improve it. The claw should also be changed to sword.” She said.

Xero was surprised by the sudden improvement but nodded as he looked at the spells. They were shining differently but Xero looked over them. He then started with the Imp fire and broke the Fire rune and added Fire and Wind to improve to Blue fire.

The spell broke apart and began to rearrange itself but it took no more than a minute for Xero to gasp and open his eyes. “Ashley, why does the Imp fire suddenly have a Holy Rune in it!?” He asked.

She blinked confused.

“It's because Sword Devil Fire isn’t an attack based flame, even if it can be used as one. It's a forging flame.” Night suddenly said.

“Night, you know about Sword Devils?” Ernest asked.

He snorted, “I’m not some newborn demon, I’ve been around for several tens of thousands of years. Sword Devils are a feared existence in hell. To them, everything is just material to be made into their weapons and then turned into food. Their flame is said to burn and melt the skin of even the hardest demon because of the trace of holy magic in the flame. It’s also said that only with this flame can they create their countless minions.” Night said in a solemn manner as he looked at Ashley.

“Master, you should focus.” Ashley said.

Xero was shocked but quickly turned back and found the spell had advanced.

He asked help from Ernest because some sections were more advanced already so the two slowly worked out the ways to improve the efficiency but one thing to note was that not once had the name of the flame changed from Sword Devil’s Flame. Only when it finished the spell settled down and they moved on to the Blue Imp Flame Claw. Not changing the runes, Xero instead changed the rune for Claw into Sword.

Similar to the simple flame, it evolved into Sword Devil’s Flaming Slice. Doing one final sweep of all the spells, Xero found that the recently added forging spell was actually breaking down on the Fire starting section that incorporated the Imp Fire Spell. The Spell evolved eventually becoming the Sword Devil’s Flame and from there, several tiny but key changes happened to the forge and tools that switched the material to something neither of the boys knew what the runes meant while the mana gathering improved.

“Seems the forging spell has become her own now. It will probably grow on its own from now on.” Ernest said as he watched the changes with Xero and Meldie.

“Master, I think master’s swords can be forged, they have grown a lot since master made them so I can forge master’s swords into Ego Sword’s similar to the annoying child you fly on.” Ashley said in a bubbly mood and wanted to try her strength out in forging.

The three looked at each other and at Meldie, “Is it alright to spawn the forge here?” Xero asked.

“It might be better on the north side, the yard has lots of plants and the sudden surge of heat might kill them but the north side is the training field and most of the space is covered in stone.” Meldie said.

With a nod the group of five walked to the north section of the huge manor and found that the place was indeed very barren without vegetation but the young guards here were all training or walking around.

After some discussing they found a corner clear of anyone.

“Alright, let's see.” Xero said.

“Alright~!” Ashley nearly sang in glee as her hand spread out and five swords, made of black metal with a blue gemstone at the pummel of the hilt, the size of 30 cm daggers and shot out in a star formation and landed 8 meters away from each other and planted each into the ground.

Then from each, mystical magical formulas in the shape of formations formed around all five before a line connected the five.

“This is a pentagram Mana gathering formation!” Ernest said in shock.

Magic formations weren’t hard to make but mana gathering formations were somewhat expensive to make but with the spell of a devil and five spawned dagger sized sword she set up one without much cost.

Ashley spawned another and it flew right at the center of the formation and landed in the center. From the five magic formations, another set of blue lines came and connected to the sword at the center before a much larger formation began to appear. The magic formations for mana gathering were 1 meters wide each and there was still 6 meters between each of them but when this formation formed, it grew to 6 meters and it touched the side of each magic formation and combined them allowing the mana from them to flow into the main formation.

“Now it a summoning formation, this is probably the main Furnace summoning formation.” Ernest said just as another dagger shot out and landed in an empty section of the magic formation and filled it.

“That makes it three formations.” Xero said.

Suddenly another four daggers appeared and hit different empty sections filling all sections of the formation.

Suddenly it blazed as a small black object shot out and drew an arch in the air to Ashley how stuck her hand out and grabbed it. When it landed, the three saw that it was a hammer made of volcanic rock.

The ground began to shake as the five mana gathering swords sunk into the ground and formed five crystal spikes in the ground that were half a meter long and 20 cm thick. Then an even more intense shaking came as something that looked like a volcanic anvil made of a mix of metal and volcanic magma. Finally from the very center the furnace began to appear. The spell always adapts to the summoner so slowly what appeared looked like the head of a massive fangless beast.

One by one the Fire Starting, heat containment and tool strengthening formations lit up and all the objects linked to the spell lit up with several runes as the strengthening took effect while the furnace suddenly burst out an inferno like Blue white flame inside that looked like the gate to a fiery hell.

“AH~! My very own Sword Devil’s Forge!” Ashley said in an almost love struck manner as she floated over and rubbed her cheeks against the black rock furnace then went to anvil and lifted the little hammer before slamming down with full force.

DING!

The sound of metal hitting metal was, strangely, heard from the two rock materials. “Ah~! Hellish Volcanic alloy~! Is there anything that can be better for smithing then a metal that constantly heats up the metal being forged!” She said almost drooling.

“It’s like I’m seeing Ashley when I met her again.” Xero muttered.

“That is obvious, the reason she was a Lesser Sword Devil was because she lacked her own forge, having one and not having one actually affects them racially. Previously she wasn’t even a true Sword Devil.” Night said.

“Master~! Let me upgrade your swords! They won’t be so horribly ugly after I finish with them!” She said and without care, she took the huge stone sword.

“W-wait!” Xero said but sadly he could do nothing as the sword that he had put blood sweat and tears into filling with many strong sword spells was thrown into the furnace.

What happened next shocked them all. The sword flew into the mouth of the burning furnace and stopped at the center. The flames licked it and slowly the sword began to melt but instead of dripping, all that molten rock began to compress in on itself while more and more spilled out.

Ashley was controlling the forge and flame already and the material was being processed slowly becoming smaller but more powerful as mana surged into it.

Then a scene that scared Xero witless, the sword spirit exited the sword and Ashley stuck her hand in and pulled it out and put it on the anvil before swinging the black hammer.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

After several hits, the Spirit was very injured and seemed compressed but Ashley just went ahead smiling and pushed the spirit right back into the mass of compressed molten material where the spirit hid inside the crystal core of the sword.

That said, this is what Ashley wanted because as it entered once more, the blue white flames surged on the sword and into the crystal itself.

“What is going on?” Meldie asked.

“It is said only Holy mana can make a spirit into a soul, this is why the Sword Devil’s Fire has it.” Night said.

When that was said, the sword suddenly shined and Ashley put her hand inside and pulled it out quickly while it was still bathed in flames that were glued to it. The flames climbed her body and began to burn her but she ignored it and lifted her hammer and began to pound the flame covered sword vigorously. First it sounded like she was hitting stone but slowly a faint ‘Ding’ started to appear and soon the ringing was loud.

By now the guards were watching the devil bathed in strangely holy but devilish flames. Her skin had already been burned by her own fires but she kept going banging away until she put the sword back in the furnace and waved her hand causing the flames to vanish and mysteriously her skin rapidly regrew along with her clothing as if everything was an illusion.

“Was that an illusion?” Ernest said in shock.

“It was, that was the desire of the spirit in the sword that was bathed in flames. Even so she was truly burned by them but it attacked her souls and not her body.” Night replied.

Ashley continued for several turns until she finally she hit the sword one last time and the flames on it were extinguished and what was revealed caused the warriors to gasp.

From a block of stone, she had forged a shining double edge long sword that was yellow in color and seemed slim and easy to wield. The crystal of the spirit had turned into a topaz gemstone on the hilt.

She sighed and grinned, “Finally masters first sword is complete.” She said with a smile in her eyes as she lifted the sword letting the light hit it. She looked at the edges and with one finger, a blade of blue white fire flashed out thin like a blade but as thin as a hair. It landed on one face of the blade and did a simple pass yet this simple pass of the flame left behind it a shining blade that looked as if it had been polished and sharpened.

She did one pass on all sides before tossing it up and letting it spin. Strangely it almost landed before it suddenly stopped in the air and fixed itself until it was upright.

Ashley nodded, “Not bad for my first try, it's all because of masters careful planning when making it. Master, this is an Ego sword, it’s a rank above the Spirit sword and it has a conscious mind. I forged the Sword spirit improving it then it was bathed several times under my flame. It is the same rank as that little blade you fly on but its magic ability is many times greater. It chooses its own master but because master is master it will accept you as his master as well. It can’t talk yet though but they do have one ability the little flying one doesn’t.” Ashley said and snapped her finger.

Suddenly the topaz gemstone shined blinding almost everyone but when they looked they sucked in a cold breath. Standing with two meters in height while holding the previously floating sword which now lacked the gemstone, was a large knight in thick plated armor.

“This is my own brand of minions master, this is my Sword Demon Minion.” She said.

“This looks strong.” Meldie said and all the men around them nodded.

Then they saw the body glow and was absorbed into the empty space on the sword.

“Because they are just ‘born’ they don’t have much mana master so they need to gather sufficient mana to maintain that form.” Ashley explained and waved her hand making the sword float slowly over to Xero who took the sword.

Touching the sword he felt a strong connection and he felt the interior.

There was absolutely no change to any of the spells but the still broken ones were flashing every so often and the complete ones had some runes that flashed.

“As master can see, as long as the spirit is alive the spells master made are safe. To make it better, it can now learn to make spells.” Ashley said and walked over but suddenly tripped, “Eh?” She said as she felt extremely tired.

Night sighed, “Figures, even if she was able to make a blade, she didn’t use her true form to do it and probably the holy magic is started to backlash now.” Night said.

As he said that small yellow lines from Ashleys chest began to spread until blue white flames began to appear.

Tsss!

The sound of something burning while the flame hissed like a snake and started to break her skin all over and started to burn her.

Soon Ashley’s ‘life’ burned out and she returned to seal.

With her, the forge broke down into mana and dispersed into the air releasing abundant mana it had gathered.

The only proof that anything happened was the yellow blade with the topaz gemstone that remained in Xero’s hand and he lifted it up and wanted to test this out.

“I wonder, is there any of you Sir’s who would spar with me?” Xero asked while he held the sword.

The warriors looked at his sword curiously and one of them stepped up, “Come on kid, let’s see your metal.” He said and the two stepped up.

Far in the corner of the field, Night was watching bored when he found that Francis had appeared behind him holding a small sized Magic bag. “I have your request.” He said.

The Dark Cherub grinned and took it and looked through everything and grinned wider. He pulled out a few mana stones and the halfling nodded walking away.

Night’s yellow eyes flashed a sinister light as he leaned against a tree. Slowly the shadows seem to come alive and his body slowly melted into the shadows.

With the mental link of the familiar seal, Ernest suddenly heard “Don’t look for me for a few days.” Night said.

Ernest looked around but found that the Cherub was gone.