Unique Peerage System

(A/N: Didn't expect that eh?)

Julian took a deep breath, the air feeling sweeter than ever.

Standing up, he felt full of energy, unstoppable. His muscles were filled with might a magnitude higher than an instant before. His magical reserves multiple times what they were.

But more than that, he could feel a qualitative change in himself. Something that came mainly from his blood and strangly, his back.

It took but a second for Julian to stand in stunned silence as he witnessed his new wings for the first time.

The first thought that came to his mind was that they were beautiful, a work of art only unadultered power and profound meaning could craft.

In an instant, he understood their signifiance and the meaning of the symbol painted on them.

They were his Nephalem wings, representing the being he was in all its point.

The eye on his white wing represented many things, which awareness and the seeking of truth were one.

The scale on his black wing, as for it was whatever he wanted it to be, be it justice, balance, or judgement. Depend on his mood really.

Playing with them for a bit with a smile on his face, Julian stopped abruptly when his white wing clipped the side of his bed, cleanly slicing through it.

Shrugging, a wave of orange magic covered the cut and restored it. Making him realise that somehow, the manipulation of the energy came a bit more naturally to him.

After that, he proceded to use every one of his magics to see exactly how much more his magic had grown.

It was during this process that he realized with shock that his conversion of demonic and holy power to EC was more efficient. Even if just by a bit.

If begore the conversion rate was 100:1 for his Nephalem magic, now it was roughly 90:1.

This quickly made him bring up his status to see for any change.

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Essence of: Julian Håberjorgen-Marquis.

Race: Premature-Newborn (1 pair of wings) Second-Order Nephalem.

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The change was obvious to see, he had somehow become a Second-Order Nephalem. He was also a not just Newborn but a premature one now apparently. Maybe because his first pair arrived before it was supposed to?

That would make sense, it would also supposedly qualify him to reach a higher order.

At this thought, his eyes flashed. From the benefit he got from reaching a higher Order, being premature was a desirable thing.

(A/N: Always has been... Sorry.)

With what happened just now to reach this state, it was easy to piece together that the way to achieve a level up was to somehow outpace his natural growth with his own means until his current Order(?) couldn't take it anymore.

Rethinking to the unimaginable pain he was in just a moment before, he shuddered. Cold sweat coating his body.

Shaking his head, Julian dismissed the thought for now. It had taken weeks for the itch to begin and for his transformation to occur. He would continue to grow his strength with his new wings, and only if this method didn't prove enough would he think about a faster way to gain strength.

Finally taking in his room, he noticed the grey and gold thick substance staining his bed and his walls as well as the faint golden mist loitering above the floor.

He could think about ways to become taller and get a bigger dick later. In hindsight, these particular changes were unnecessary.

For now, he should probably clean his room.

—————

In the basement of the abbandoned church that was formerly Raynare's and her band base of operation. Julian could be seen occasionally reading from a book while tracing a huge magical circle with blood, his own, to be exact.

You see, as a Nephalem. Julian found his blood to be by far the most magically potent thing he could get his hands on right now. In fact, there was a great chance that a dragon heart blood wouldn't even compare to it. But in the end, it was pretty relative, since the potency was closely tied to the strength of the subject.

What he was doing was something he had been wanting to do since the idea of having his own peerage got into his head. So since his reincarnation, really.

But before, he never really had the means to do it. Now he did.

He was trying to create his own, unique peerage system.

He didn't want his peerage to be simple devils when he could offer them better.

So there he was, doing ritualistic magic.

When studying Ajuka peerage system and its mechanisms. He had found that sets were something indepedently produced by the monolith present in each of the demon Kings' territory.

Nodding as he revised every millimeters of the magic circle and found nothing out of place. Julian went to the corner of the room where he had stored all his prepared materials and with ease, heaved one of two very familiar black monolith lying there onto his shoulders and brought it in the middle of the bloody circle.

Ritualistic magic was simple, you sacrifice something to obtain a specific thing. It could be an object, an effect, or anything really. Not direct power thought, that was a messy subject.

With these effects, it wasn't farfetched for him to conclude that this magic had a certain role in creating sacred gears.

As he began drawing gibberish at a blinding speed in and out of the circle, Julian thought about the reasons this magic wasn't more known and used.

Firstly the exchange rate between the sacrifice and the result was actually pretty weak.

Secondly, and the principal reason. Was that for ritualistic magic to be made viable in the first place. You had to be able to write in a certain dialect. And this dialect was so alien and ancient to begin with, that it was nothing but a lifetime long endeavor to even hope to understand it.

Luckily, Julian was pretty smart and talented. And he had linguist for parents.

Oh yeah, he also had an all powerful Goddess spying on him at all time who knew the langage. But that was secondary.

Finishing, he brought up all the precious materials and ingredients he planned to sacrifice and put them on the area prepared for them.

Among them was a pheonix tear and a portion of the ichor he cleaned up from his room.

He even added a couple of immaculate feathers from both his wings to be sure.

To be clear, you couldn't get back what you sacrificed. No matter the method used. That's why he couldn't simply offer his entire wings as sacrifice and regenerate them later. At least he will certainly not try it just for the off chance that he was an exception or that his Nephalem magic would bypass that.

Thruthfully, he wasn't sure what the result would be. But unlike Ajuka he had not the time to find a formulae for the exchange rate of every precious materials based on their supposed value.

What? Ajuka certainly sounded like the kind of guy who would do that.

Anyway, since he wasn't sure of the result because of his lack of time researching the subject. And found himself even less sure given his goal. He hadn't planned to try it this soon. But proceed only after accumulating more rare materials and more time to consolidate his knowledge. As well as rising his spark of Impossibility as a failsafe.

But with his windfall of Lord Phenex doubling his earning and his breakthrough. He decided to give it a go.

Because now, even if he failed, he would have a second set of material.

"Well, let's get this over with." Smiling, Julian sent a dose of EC to the Monolith and the circle and kickstarted the ritual with an incantation.

Beginning to glow an orange light, the blood making the circle pulsed two times.

With a hissing sound, the sacrifices bursted in multicolored fire. Quickly melting under the strange flame.

The symbols he had drawn all over the circle signifying his wished effects came to life as they crawled inward and up the Monolith.

Continuing his incantations, Julian surveyed the entire process. Noticing a crack appearing on the monotlith, he actived the latent magic he had sent in it earlier and repared it.

Repeating the process for a good minute as more and more fractures appeared on the rock. Julian's mouth twitched as the black stone suddenly shone brightly for a moment before exploding.

Acting rapidly, Julian clenched a fist and made all the individual broken pieces rewind in time and reatach themselves.

After doing that, the ritual seemed to be over as the orange circle began to disintegrate and the runes who had crawled on the monolith melded with it and disappeared.

Seeing the ending of it all, Julian frowned in annoyance.

The Monolith wasn't supposed to be damaged at all during the ritual. It wasn't even an issue with the material. It just seemed the energy his sacrifices provided was too much potency for the rock.

All worked fine in the end, but still was a waste. After all, too much naturally didn't equal better.

Either he had taken too seriously the pathetic exchange rate between sacrifice and effect. Or he had vastly underestimated the value of the ichor and his feathers.

It was probably the later, now that he thought about it.

Shaking his head, Julian approached the seemingly unchanged Monolith and placed his palm against it.

Unlike last time he did something like this, his heart didn't resound like a thunderclap. Instead, the Monolith simply lit up in orange and carved his name at the very top.

Smiling, Julian brought out his peerage pieces and made them touch the black surface. Simply watching passively as each one were absorbed in itself.

Finding that nothing was happening, Julian frowned in concentration as he rubbed his index and thumb together before snapping them.

From the move, a couple of illusion like yellow sparks lit up and landed on the monolith.

What he had used just now was his concept of Impossibility, or his one spark of it to be more precise. After all, for what he wanted to create. A bit of it was needed.

Looking like it absorbed the sparks, the monolith stayed silent before it crumbled to dust.

Nonplussed, Julian crouched and ruffled the dust. Searching for something.

Seeing a weak glint of orange, he grinned and swept the dust away.

Picking multiple objects up, he let himself fall on his ass and inspected his prize.

They were his peerage pieces, just that instead of the pitch black they were before. They were now a faded grey with tiny veins of orange coursing like blood through them.

Sighing in contentment, Julian lept to his feet and waved his hand. The dust on the ground promptly reforming the Monolith in response.

Before leaving, a wave of orange magic left his feet and rippled across the entire basement before settling and covering its every walls. The monolith lightning up once before it used its own magic reserve to preserve the effect.

—————

"It's been some time since you girls unwillingly came under my protection. You've shown surprising adaptability to being human. And now I think is time to prove me that you can be thrusted to be more than simple maids." Julian said, calmly passing his gaze over his three former fallen angel servants.

"I'll be giving you back power, much more than you would get otherwise. I have to warn you though, with that. There's no second chance. This is your second chance. So You fuck up. You die." Uncaring about the seriousness of the subject, he nonchalently warned them.

Opening his palm, he showed them three grey pawns. "Only thing you have to do is place this against your heart. And if it wasn't clear, if you accept. You'll be stuck with me until I don't want you around anymore."

"Any voluntary?" Julian smirked.

Mittelt rolled her eyes. "Do we even have a choice? Besides, you're telling us to choose between power and servitude or weakness and servitude. That's some fair deal."

Julian shrugged. He was indeed very fair. Even more so after considering he didn't just execute them when he had all the reasons to.

Kalawarner stepped forward. "I followed and admired Azazel for his strength. But really, there's not much difference if it's you or him. You both are way out of my league. And at least you I can fuck, eventually."

Raising an eyebrow, Julian smiled mutedly as he gave her a pawn.

As Kalawarner inspected the curious piece, it was Raynare's turn to talk.

"After having so long to look back on how I ended here, I finally realized I was just unlucky. And dumb. I almost lost myself in the beggining, but after having Kalawarner and Mittelt to accompany me. Becoming human wasn't that hard. In fact, looking back, I don't really have much attachement to my ancient life."

Julian squinted at that, a reasonable Raynare?

As she stepped up and took a pawn, she continued. A strange look in her eyes. "The past doesn't matter. For in the future, whatever you want me to do, I'll obey."

Whitout delay, she placed the pawn against her heart. Looking Julian straight in the eyes and smiling seductively.

Sighing, Julian caught Raynare as she fell unconscious. Then gazing at the other two. He threw the last pawn at Mittelt. "Hurry up, I don't want to wait for you to wake up."

"Now you're not servants anymore, but subordinates. So act the part, will you?"