Highschool DxD: Dragon's Ascent

Excitement filled my body as I raised the gauntlet up. Finally, I internally commanded the Boosted Gear to work its magic.

"{BOOST}!"

I felt magical power fill my body spreading throughout evenly and increasing basically every aspect of my body and, doubling my magic reserves and potency. But I also felt a small strain on my stamina, like I was walking on a treadmill and someone turned the speed from 3.0 to 5.0.

It felt quite weird to feel yourself slowly lose stamina even though you aren't doing anything.

Even though I felt the difference I had to pull up my status to admire it.

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Statistics:

Vitality: 35(70)

Mana: 79(158)

Endurance: 41(82)

Strength: 40(80)

Agility: 36(72)

Magic Power: 86(172)

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Yep, that's indeed a massive improvement. Let's take it up a notch. Since 10 seconds had passed, my gauntlet lit up again.

"{BOOST}!"

 I felt that same power enter my body again, improving my stats massively again. 

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Statistics:

Vitality: 35(105)

Mana: 79(237)

Endurance: 41(123)

Strength: 40(120)

Agility: 36(108)

Magic Power: 86(258)

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I see, so the multiplier is additively, that's good to know. But wow was this potent.

*Crack!* *Boom!*

I reinforced my arm which was now way easier to do after doing it once and punched the wall, digging into it and creating fissures all over while making a small shockwave. I removed my arm from the wall. Next, I sprinted across the basement for several laps, being as fast as a speeding car.

"{BOOST}!"

I felt my stats increase once again, the strain of boosts was getting a tad noticeable. 

"{BOOST}!"

Now it was actually noticeable, I was losing stamina at a constant rate without doing anything like I was jogging. It also felt like I was wearing a backpack weighing my body a little.

"{BOOST}!"

"Haah, haah."

Yeah, now I am feeling it all right. Just standing still I am losing my stamina like I am sprinting place, I felt like dumbells were placed all over my body. I doubt I can boost for a 6th time. And as proof.

"{Burst}!"

Like a hole being poked in a balloon, I felt the excess magical power in my body drain away, leaving me feeling slightly weak and lethargic. As I sat down to rest a bit I heard Ddraig's voice ring in my head.

{Well, all things considered, you did rather well. Normally, with this many sacred gears inside you, just using a single Boost would cut your lifespan by months yet you only suffer from exhaustion. Your other sacred must be the cause. So, what do you think?}

'It's great honestly, though, what do I have to do to access the other features? Am I just not good enough or are they paid DLC?'

{Well, along with the usual restriction of the gauntlet your own sacred gear is segmenting the Boosted Gear so you don't die. Normally, you would unlock the Second Liberation in a moment of crisis or extreme emotion. But now, I am not exactly sure. Also, how do you know this much about the Boosted Gear? You did not seem surprised that Issei had it and you seem to be awfully familiar with it.}

Hearing that I simply laughed and shrugged.

'Hmm? Who knows? A magician has to have his secrets. Who, knows maybe you can figure it out on your own.' Hearing my words Ddraig let out a chuckle.

{Hah, fine then, I can figure it out myself too. What now?}

"Well, now, we should get our friend down from there and then it's time to figure out what I can do with this useful little thing. And best of all, how I can abuse its mechanics to break the world over my knee."

{Haha, you are certainly a unique one partner. But I am really excited to see what it is you aim to do.}

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

After getting Issei back home at breathtaking speeds after boosting myself twice I acted like a man of my word and got back home to truly stress test.

But before getting home I remembered one obscure function of the Boosted Gear.

You can store things inside it. And the storage space inside of it is seemingly very very large. 

So... you can probably infer I put everything I possibly could into that green gem. Including the dozens of corpses and all. In fact, this whole function was a godsend for me, who needs an inventory when the Boosted Gear comes equipped with one. Though Ddraig did not seem as excited as I was.

{Really? You have a weapon capable of killing gods and you are most excited at the fact that it can store things? I don't know if I should be insulted.}

Poor guy, he doesn't know how exploitable inventories are.

Regardless, I packed everything up that was not bigger than my body(seemingly the size limitation of what could be put inside) and hauled my goods back home. Too bad I had to leave behind the extractinator but I am pretty sure it broke after I took the Boosted Gear anyway.

Ah, back home at last. Finally, I am back home. I missed the smell of not musty church air so much. And now that I got the Boosted Gear and the Absorption Line I could make a to-do list. It mainly consisted of:

-Find a way to evolve Meditation

-Raise Mana Arrow to max

-Raise Reinforcement to max

-Raise Sense Mana to Intermediate

-Raise Mana Concealment to max

-Evolve Transmutation

-Evolve Enchanting

-Train Mind Magic

-Find out whatever seals do

-Have big sex.

Hehehee, so much to do. So much room for improvement and evolution. For mind magic I first need to get a tome from Rias, maybe I can ask Akeno to help me train mana sense and concealment, she is the more experienced magician between the two of us. Maybe get a book on seals as well while I am at it.

Also, when I thought about evolving my skills it seemed like my system kicked in, as it gave me the mission to evolve them rather handily. Does it only give the quests depending on my intentions or was it lagging? Probably the former.

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[Skill Promotion: Transmution - Novice]

Create a transmutation circle for each basic element [4/6]

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Well, this wasn't too hard, I just needed to find a way to transmute Air and Fire, which are pretty adjacent in the first place. I would have done this regardless so it's fine.

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[Skill Promotion: Meditaion]

Meditate for 12 hours straight.

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Well, that's a little harsh. While I do not have ADHD sitting down and meditating for a dozen hours is a little intimidating.

Anyway, these were not that difficult. I could probably knock them off pretty quick when I put my mind to it. Speaking of something in my mind.

I need to find a way to increase my lifespan back.

Either making an eternal youth potion which... scientifically is not impossible, but restoring lost lifespan is another matter. I probably need a rather valuable ingredient to create an elixir. It is doable, I can create a lesser elixir and exchange it for the ingredient.

There is also the easy way out of just becoming a devil.

But I have plenty of time to decide.

Hah, funny, most people would shit their pants if they learned if they had a 2-month deadline until they dropped dead but not me. Because I know something.

Challenge breeds innovation.

Right now, I should practice what more I can accomplish by boosting.

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

Boosting is best.

It especially is when paired with Alchemy.

You see, Boosting increases my stamina drain right? So, I just made a stamina regeneration potion and drank it, which was potent enough to allow me to persist on tier 3 boost consistently.

Why was my stamina regeneration potion suddenly that strong? Well with Boost, since my magic power gets stronger that also means I can make stronger potions with it, not by too much since Alchemy is more of a skill thing but it helps regardless.

And once I get transfer...

Hehehe... Well, the world should better watch out then.

Would the Phenex's put a hit on my head? Almost definitely.

Do I care? Hah, fuck no. They can try, by the time they do I will be strong enough to fend for myself. I will also have enough to pull to make the consequences for daring to even think about hurting me actual hell.

Other than that, I experimented with Enchanting and Transmutation too which yielded about the same general results.

Anyway, I spent some time crafting general Healing and Mana potions before hitting the hay. Just because I can offset the stamina damage doesn't mean I won't get affected, I still get strained from carrying the boost energy for such an extended period of time.

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

Wow, I haven't been to Kuoh in a while. If I remember correctly, it should be roughly around the start of Cannon currently give or take a day. So soon, Rias' dad should start pressuring her, which will make her even more desperate to recruit me, which means she would be willing to accept more and more outrageous demands. She will also be more emotionally vulnerable if I want to be her prince on a white horse.

I cannot ignore the Phenex arranged marriage, Rias is too important and has too much potential for me to allow her to be wed to Riser. It does not matter whether I do it as a devil or a human but I will intervene one way or another. It is far more useful to have her on my side.

Besides, I am not completely heartless. Even I would feel bad taking the girl's only hope of getting out of the arranged marriage and then leaving her dry like that AFTER giving her the hope of me potentially saving her.

Also, I needed to speak with her today, I need more resources and I also accidentally ghosted her for several days so I should probably talk with her to smooth it over. As I was walking into the school building however I felt someone grip my wrist making the surrounding students gasp in shock. As I turned my head to see who it was I was met face to face with a really determined-looking Rias.

"Takumi, could you follow me, please? We really need to talk."

"Okay?"

A/N: I have changed how the Boosted Gear works because really, it never worked the way it said it did. If it did go like 2x 4x 8x 16x... Issei would have split the entire Underworld in half with a single punch. And if it went 2x 3x 4x... Issei would not have been strong enough. I will just chalk this up to the sacred gear system being buggy(Ishibumi forgot). How Boosted Gear or anything works really is not properly explained so I am going off of my own interpretation, if you have problems with it call it an AU or whatever. Also, Ddraig can only speak when the Boosted Gear is active.

What did you guys think of the Boosted Gear?

Also, we will be getting back to the flow of cannon after this, I needed to show just the sheer amount of doors the boosted gear has opened for Takumi first.

Turn into a Dragon and ascend.

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