Sona Peerage get addicted to Training Games

Leading Sona and her peerage downstairs to the underground training space, Masaru was already considering which ones to put up against who, it was quite easy to choose but he also needed to consider a few other things. He looked over the girls then made his choice,

"First we are going to train everyone together with this little guy"

Showing them a metal ball that was familiar to some, the girls of Masaru's teams felt pity for Sona and her peerage who will also fall prey for this hated yet addictive toy. Masaru started to explain the mechanisms behind the toy and allowed the girls to start training with it.

"My god! Urk! I forgot about that! AH! The Headache!" Momo was the first one to feel frustrated at how fast it can change patterns, even Reya who was always smiling had a serious look focusing on the lights flashing.

The ones who struggled the most were the Knights and Rooks since they did not have the Queen or Bishop characteristics that could aid them in their training. Masaru allowed his pawns to promote so they could start getting used to their bishop promotion traits, even Sona could not stop playing with the ball.

'Ingenius! Whoever made this training ball is simply a monster genius to figure out a gaming style to train energy control...' Sona thought

Once a hour of battling to win against the beloved Taunting Ball Masaru called it off and then let the girls towards the fourth training room that had puppets stationed as targets, each of them had a signboard on it, "Low Defense: Kill", "Low Defense: Kill with Minimal effort" or "Low Defense: Incapacitate" and it will go all the way to "Ultimate Defense: Incapacitate".

Seeing these signboards the girls finally understood the training phase was actually two.

"As you girls have noticed, using what you learnt with the ball. Attack each puppet according to their description, no need to worry it will automatically be replaced and it also gives you a score out of 10. This is the practical training to display your results of training with the mana measure ball, use the right amount of power will give you a 10 while too much will drop the points, similar if your attack is too weak"

Masaru went to the back looking at the girls, Shirone who was proficient in controlling her ki managed to pass the first two puppets but when it came to incapacitate, she failed miserably. Masaru did not give her any tips as this is something that needs to be found out by themselves for this hour before he can explain the true hidden functions behind these puppets.

Similar to the ball the puppets became another addictive game for the girls since the remarks that came with the score infuriated them.

Like [1/10: Are you trying or are you too dumb?]

[2/10: At least you improve by a baby step so far]

"Destroy!!!" Everest was the first to snap and vent her anger on one of the puppets because she had to micro-control her strength otherwise she will simply kill.

'Well dragons have it hard to control their strength when young, but having extreme control over the body will promote their growth further. Training Sona's team motivates my team to train harder. While Sona's team who feels already threatened by the information I hold will push them to perform harder, and this will also push my own peerage members to exceed their limits"

Masaru smirked as he enjoyed solving several things in one move, with this out of the way he could finally start. To restart his own training that had been put off for a while now, he could even feel his power had stagnate which was not good for him.

After a few hours Masaru stood up, "Once you girls had enough you can continue the training with the balls, I will be cooking dinner for everyone"

Sona realized it was late but Masaru extended an invitation she was hesitating to accept but because there was a lot of girls it was acceptable, "You girls can sleepover, I will be sleeping in the lounge"

Masaru went upstairs leaving behind the dumbfounded girls behind, they never thought that Masaru would be the one to cook for them.

"This puppet is annoying the hell out of me!" Momo felt frustrated that the puppet 'dies' too easily.

Ingvild nodded because she too struggled due to her sacred gear and bloodline boost her talent with water magic, sometimes having too much talent and power without control is not a good thing and this reflected on it. Her ability to control her large demonic energy capacity to a micro control was horrible, thus she kept herself fired up and continued to train in controlling her mana.

"How did he get these balls? It's really an amazing idea" Akeno who heard this smiled since she felt proud as a member of Masaru's peerage, she turns to answer Sona's question

"That is one of the equipment Master and Elizabeth neesan developed for the future schools" Sona realized Masaru was showing her many things today to make her seriously consider his deal with her, just this equipment alone is precious for her idea of creating a Rating Game school for lower-class devils.

"I hate this ball but it's too addictive!" Stephani was playing with the ball together with Reya.

Shirone, however, kept hitting the low defence puppet to incapacitate it. "Nyan?" She tilts her head to the side thinking what if she attacked a human at school and used that amount of force shocking the surrounding girls

[10/10: Are you trying to break my scoring board with your godlike performance!?]

"Eh!? Shirone is the first one to manage to pass it?" Some of the girls surrounded Shirone to hear the condition to clear this game.

"Is your master confident to the point he would allow us to train with you?" Akeno shook her head looking at the girls laughing while training hard together, She answered Sona's question.

"What you see there is what Master looks for, yes we are rivals. But before everything else we are allies, having good competition promotes growth to both sides since I am sure you know we don't want to lose to you girls and you feel the same to us"

Sona sighed with a smile "He really got me there, so I have to give him a fight that he approves of?"

Akeno smiled "Master already approve of you Sona, but what he wants is for you to show how resolved you are for your dreams. And also good opponents after all, since he too has a goal."

>\/<

"You dare steal my So-Tan, besides what is your motive?" Serafall's projection is displayed in the Kitchen while he was already doing prep work before he will start cooking.

"No, I am giving her an opportunity to use my team to stimulate her team's competitiveness which is the same for my team. I also challenged her directly to show the devils how serious she is about her dream.

"I'm also doing you a favour since you are simply too soft on her and too hard on her peerage, there needs to be a balance of sharing the burden. Otherwise, the peerage will become unstable due to your influence" Masaru said while glancing at the pouting Serafall, but he did not care and continued to explain.

"Besides, I need a dangerous opponent in a different sense to keep me alarmed so I can keep breaking my limits. I know how strong my father and his team his, so I need a decent amount of pressure including my team for us to reach his level or I fear I will never be able to reach it in four hundred years. That will be too late"

"Well I guess I can let this go, so why have you called me?" Masaru stopped cutting the vegetables

"I need information about Kyoto and the Yokai faction, we will be going for a school trip there and I rather prepare myself with information just in case something happens. I really don't want to head blindly in another power's territory after all"

Serafall looked at Masaru sternly, "What do I get out of it?"

Masaru was already prepared for this question as he knew, despite how this girl acted and lived her life she was still named a Devil King for a reason. "I will owe you one favour since I am not sure what you would want in exchange for such information, and I will ensure Sona and her team's safety during the trip"

Serafall was a bit surprised as she did not expect him to be so direct about it, she smiled thinking she got him to owe her one, "Very well, I accept the conditions but you can't tell So-tan!"

Masaru looked at this siscon with a stoic face, he loved his family but he still could not understand the obsession Serafall and Sirzech had. "You don't have to worry I doubt she will be happy with me either if she knew about this. So for the sake of my peaceful school life, I will ensure nothing gets leaked from my side"

Serafall said her goodbyes and went off, Masaru gazed at the window for a moment before resuming to cook.

"Ma-kun we finished!"

Masaru held the wok firmly while glancing at the door where Akeno's voice just came from, with a smile he said loud enough for the girls to hear "Lead the girls to bath and get clean, dinner should be done by the time you girls are done"

Sona peeked at the entrance to the kitchen towards Masaru sternly, "No peeking"

Masaru said nothing since that was the best way to deal with that, if he were to say anything it will end up counter-productive instead. The sight of Masaru wearing an apron cooking was quite a precious sight for the girls who sneaked a peek even Tsubasa muttered

"Won't the girls at school go nuts if this kind of view becomes spread out?"

Tsubaki nodded with a strange expression, "It will if it were to happen but that won't happen, we just managed to quell the situation thanks to Akeno and them reading specific books in public"

Momo added "It really is effective when you want to keep a boy away, there is already a rumour among the boys saying that once they see Yaoi steer clear no matter what"

>\/<

"Delicious! What food is this?"

Masaru who heard Reya's compliment began to give a short introduction of some dishes he made during his stay in South Africa in the past, "Your so lucky, you get to travel the world already!"

Momo grumbled feeling envious, Masaru only had a wry smile thinking those trips were actually dangerous missions at that time. Everyone was enjoying their meals and when it was time to sleep the girls went up while Masaru went to the Lounge to relax his mind for the upcoming training he had been stalling for a long long time now.

[So you are prepared?]

Masaru thought for a moment before confirming something, "Can you just give me a retake of the reason I am doing this?"

Drago sighed thinking this boy was probably a bit edgy when the topic is about the soul because one mistake and it will not be just a simple death but a true death.

[You have wondered about the fact your power is not stable (1), sometimes you fight at your peak perfectly without any hindrance but there is times you simply can't get yourself to peak. Despite the fact that the grimoire allows you to fight stronger opponents than yourself, you become considerably weaker when fighting without it.]

[This became more evident recently that no matter how hard you train you can't increase that control this peak state (2) that keeps rising in power and sometimes would drop. There are times you can cast spells up to Ultimate rank although this happened only once during training, but your power keep rising and falling between peak to Low high-class, this is excluding the restrictions placed on yourself to assist you with having better control on your condition]

Masaru nodded although it was still a messy explanation, he could understand that he required to face his problem if he wanted to be able to control his power state during combat more effeciently.

[Your body is that of a pureblood Devil and your soul is a human, if you had the same soul characteristics as the first Masaru then the soul would have began mutated into a pure devil soul to be able to bring a balance.]

[The unstable balance between your soul and body is what is preventing you from completely tapping into the power you have been training hard to gain, the worst part is the medicine Ajuka gave you is healing you but slower]

'Although I can't tell this boy that the Spellbook has been taking most of the medicinal effects for itself' Drago thought before continuing his explanation [The best way is to devour the soul of the first Masaru]

"I was certain he was gone by the time I woke up"

[Naturally, I did not sense him until we had a battle against that Ancient creature on the aeroplane and the spellbook protected you]

"The spell book hidden this from me?"

[I don't know, can't say either. But the solution to your problem is that soul that has devil characteristics within it, once you devour it your soul will naturally strengthen but with the newly gained Devil Characteristic the body will start to aid the process of making your soul more compatible for the body]

Masaru calmed himself since he was already aware that the dragon can't share information about the spellbook but secrets about it keep coming up that it was unsettling, the only thing the Dragon kept telling him is that the book is on his side. But is that really the case?

"How do I start the process?"

[It would have worked if your sacred gear was awake it could have pulled you easily in your soul space, but luckily you have me]

Masaru closed his eyes upon Drago's instructions before he was pulled into his soul realm.

[Remember your mindset boy, if you wish to survive you have to be cruel...]

'Sigh... This treatment will be able to speed up the healing progress several times, I guess this is why that woman did not attack me when we spoke about her... So she too is getting impatient huh?' Drago could not help but look at Masaru in his soul realm in silence.

The next moment Masaru opened his eyes, he was quite surprised at how "normal" his soul realm was. He could use his eyes to see, he practically the same as in the real world. He honestly felt that he might turn into a light bulb or something incomprehensible but this was quite a relief for him.

Looking around he noticed that the room he was in, was not decorated and simply pure white. Although there is black spiderweb-like cracks all over the place, some parts were broken similar like a window being shattered by a ball.

On the left he saw a door decorated as black as the night sky dotted with numerous stars.

On the right he saw a door decorated like a jungle theme with plants, animals but there is one particular animal that stood above them with it's back facing the west.

'So this room must be the state of my soul huh? No wonder...' Masaru thought as he could understand that there was indeed something wrong with his soul.

Since it was not yet time to enter either of these two doors he began to look around, it was difficult to see far in the white room as there is mist floating in the distance higher then he eyesight can reach standing on his toes as if to show him the borders of his soul space.

Since he did not find much, he first went over to inspect the jungle theme door not daring to open it but tried to see if there are any details he could glean off to what is behind it. But the feeling he felt when approaching the door was like as if he was walking towards a King, he was not certain why he gets this feeling but he remembered it very well.

This was the similar feeling he gained when he first met Tiamat who suppressed him, the power came to reach out for him also had a strong dignity feeling of a king.

"Sacred Gear huh?" Masaru looked at the door gently caressing the door,

"I will come to play with you soon... But first I need to find the other one who is hiding here" Masaru moved over to the Dark door but if he was never observant he would have never spotted the hidden door handle on the white wall, it was so well hidden that it could pose an extremely difficult challenge to spot it from a distance.

The feeling this door gave him was insecurity... Helplessness, sadness, anger... But at the same time, he felt a throbbing feeling within him as if telling him to enter this door. Little did he know that in order to devour the soul, he has to experience it's pain, grief, everything it experienced will be made part of him as well.

Some medicines have their own prices after all...

>\/<

The next morning Yui came down the stairs not hearing Masaru who is usually up early busy prepping breakfast, she actually woke up early to help him cook breakfast but this silence was disturbing her as she walked towards the Lounge yet there is no sound other than calm breathing.

When she entered the Lounge she saw the back of Masaru's head sitting upright, as she walks around she noticed his eyes were closed as if he was sleeping with his sword that he only use against strong opponents was on top of his lap.

"Masaru?" She called out but he did not respond back at all, she was about to shake him but a voice she never heard nor was familiar with scared her to the point she immediately gathered her energy to cast magic any moment.

[Girl, calm down for satan's sake]

Hearing the voice again she looks around vigilantly.

[Girl, I am the sword on your master's lap!]

"EH!?" Yui glanced with a shocked expression towards the sword on Masaru's lap, she knew her master was amazing but this exceeded her expectations.

[Guess that is the first reaction I will get after gaining the ability to talk with others thanks to the boy's spellbook huh?]

"Wha!? You're the sword?"

[Yep, I am Drago the sword spirit of this sword Deadheart]

'This is really too shocking just how many secrets does Masaru have!? But his safety comes first I can ask anything else later' Yui thought before asking, "Why did you stop me from waking him up?"

[Because the boy is undergoing treatment for his damaged soul, I know you since you were the one to help Ajuka scan the body and his memories Ajuka tried to erase in a hurry was incomplete so you regained them haven't you]

"This!?" This is was a safely guarded secret Yui decided to take to her grave, such information will only cause chaos in Masaru's peerage if they were to know of this, so for the sake of ensuring the peerage does not descent into chaos she never shared it with anyone at all.

[Well not that it matters, right now I want you to tell the girls Masaru is undergoing a training to awaken his sacred gear. Currently, he is actually in a deep sleep to fix or should I say place a few pieces together to help his soul heal much faster otherwise not even me will know when it will be fully healed. Can you do this Yui-chan?]

"Ye-yeah wait how you know my name!?"

[I have been watching over you girls together with my partner Masaru ever since I have been connected to him]

'Is he a pervert? or is it because of him that Masaru is slowly becoming honest to his feelings?'Yui thought as she felt the dragon was too blunt and his wording made him appear perverted, unless he really is.

Later that day it was quite the hassle to explain the situation to the girls but after agreeing that two girls will take shift patterns to look after him while the rest train, even Sona decided to stay for another night as she too felt a bit worried about Masaru.

Meanwhile in the soul scape of Masaru, within the room of the dark starry sky door, the woman was looking over Masaru who was shocked and standing still looking in front of him, the woman's feelings want to move yet her reasoning is holding her back.

She who is known yet remains unseen is currently experiencing a feeling of a mother, yet her existence compels her to stay back for the sake of her continued existence the boy's growth is required. And for the boy's survival, she needs to stay back so he can grow stronger.

"Please don't get swallowed up instead of Masaru... This is after all a battle for survival and the end will determine which soul will be the King and which will be the subject, for you to heal your soul faster you need to win and consume the subject."