A demon comes out of the summoning magic. He was a well-dressed man like a black and gold adorned demonic butler. He was in a dark room, lit up by an occasional red spark from black roots.

“Ugh, that sword overdid it.”

The demon was in the demon lord’s mansion. Not his, but his master’s mansion. He was near the deepest part of the mansion’s basement.

He goes to the next room, his master’s experimentation room. He saw the roots had damaged some of his master’s experiments.

“I’m gonna have a word with that piece of sword.”

He moved to the vial rack. By his master’s order, he grabbed the smallest vial out of the three glass vials. Then he went to the throne room. He got close to the source of the black roots, A sword planted to the ground.

“Oy, you damn sword. Master told you to not overdid it and what? You overdid it.”

The sword didn’t answer.

“I can see your appendages on master’s dead body.”

The sword’s root-like appendages receded from the dead body on the throne. He grabbed the sword as if he’d yank it from the ground.

The sword finally spoke, “Get your hands off-off me!”

“Oh? So you can talk.”

“Not for the likes of you!”

The demon gave an annoyed smile. “Show your superior some courtesy would you, or I’ll show you some.” He proceeds to yank the sword off.

“Stop it! I’m protecting this place!”

“Protecting? Oh, you mean protecting master’s experiments?”

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“Wasn’t your fault? Did some bandits came and ransacked the place or something?”

The sword stayed quiet.

“Well?”

“They weren’t bandits!”

“How could you tell?”

“For one, they were too strong for the average ragtag bandits, and two, they all bore an insignia.”

“What does it look like?”

“Most with a yellow upside-down Y with four green starts and some with red and white stars.”

“I know of the red and white star, that’s Dhuma theocracy. The green stars might be a new country.”

He let go of the sword. “Keep protecting this place.”

“I need more blood! I used all the blood in the creator’s dead body for those intruders! And they took some of his blood crystals!”

“I’ll see if master could provide you some.”

The demon turned around to face the still broken door and sprouted bat-like wings from his back. He flew corridor to corridor in the mansion without slowing down even when met with turns and stairs. He heads to the sky after he got out of the mansion from its front door.

He floats in the sky and searches his master’s soul. Then he used wind magic to speed up himself to supersonic speeds within seconds. A loud boom followed him. The creatures heard the boom and made them panic. If they looked at where it was coming from, they would see a white streak dividing the sky.

From the sky, he only saw one thing that interests him, a dragon. The dragon was on top of an active volcano. It must’ve moved there as he never saw anything on the volcano before.

He continued his supersonic flight until his soul compass flipped. From it, he knows that his master was around the town below him. He grabbed a necklace with a gold bird-shaped pendant from his pocket and wore it. He shrunk and turned into a red-breasted blackbird with black horns and descends to the town. The humans down below continue their lives and never noticed the morphed demon. The only one to notice was a little girl and all she said was “Birdy.”

The demon had experience with a demon’s soul compass. Because of this, he found the exact location where his contractor, master, is. A demon’s soul compass is in the form of intuition and his intuition brought him to a small manor.

stone fences surrounded the manor. And short stone fences separate the front yard and backyard. He saw a carriage leaves the manor’s front gate and three children playing with magic in the backyard. Two boys and a girl.

One of the boys was chanting spells to a practice dummy made of iron. The boy’s magic excited the girl. The boy shot [Magicbolt] and [Earthbolt], Low-level spells. The practice dummy took them head-on, but the spells only cause it to have blacked spots.

The other boy has… his eyes on the flying demon. The demon flies circling the boy that was the soul compass’s point. Then he lands on the short stone fence the boy sat on and bows. “Master.”

“Lagios?” ‘He finally uses the device I gave him. He’s the one who chose the form, why hadn’t he ever use it before?”

Lagios puts the vial he was holding in his bird feet in front of Verda.

“You brought it.” Verda inspects the vial that’s filled with red and a hint of green liquid.

A maid shouted from the back door, “Kids! The cookies are ready!”

Her shout prompted Nevil and Eli to get the cookies in the kitchen.

‘I want some too… but this is more important!”

He pops the vial and drinks it. A blue aura starts to surround him. Lagios saw that the aura was being absorbed by his master. This process took three minutes. The cause of the aura was the liquid Verda drank. It improves his mana efficiency and increases his mana repository, among other effects.

“Blegh! Orichalcum blood is still bitter as I remember it.” He throws the empty vial behind his back. He then extends his arm to the practice dummy.

“[Firebolt],” He cast. The [Firebolt] was able to pierce the practice dummy halfway thru its head. Unlike [Magicbolt] and [Earthbolt] his brother had chanted before.

‘I need to drink one more vial before it could penetrate thru the practice dummy’s head. What about —‘

“[Ablaze].” From the practice dummy’s feet grew fire and engulfed it to its head for one minute before the fire dissipates. Leaving the blackened practice dummy’s iron body with sighs of it melted but still retained its form.

“I used to melt intruders iron armor with this spell…”

“Master,” said Lagios.

Verda looked at where Lagios was looking. He saw his brother and sister standing still in the backyard with their eyes at the practice dummy. Eli was holding a cookie in each hand and a third carried by her mouth.

‘Now I need to make something up...’ He facepalmed.