Chương 20: DxD : A New Hero : Chapter 20
Devil's Guidebook :
I know that many readers don't like to read it so let me say that you CAN skip it. It will basically be like not reading the Stats on Servants in fate/stay night or the codex info in Mass Effect. This chapter details how the Evil system works in the AU. I will try to keep guide book chapters much smaller than the plot chapters so they'll be easier to digest.
The Devil's Guide is meant to add to the enjoyment so if you don't like it you can skip it.
PS. For those of you wondering, Shirou's C++ in magic, the '++' is for when he's casting sword related magic.
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Evil piece system:
There is a lot of controversy and mystery regarding how the Evil Piece system works.
This lack of understanding is primarily due to Ajuka Beelzebub, the creator of the Evil Pieces, refusing to divulge any detailed information about how the system works. This was done in an effort to prevent other factions from reverse engineering the Evil Piece system and creating a version of their own.
It was NOT because Ajuka finds people stumbling around in the dark and making utter fools of themselves when trying to figure out how to use his creation amusing. Sirzechs himself came to personally reassure us that this was not the case, and when a Demon lord with the power to wipe out your existence down to the cellular level tells you to trust him, you trust him.
Never fear however, for after years of research mixed in with pure trial and error, the Devil community has finally begun to have a solid understanding on how the Evil Piece system works.
Let us start with the two most misunderstood pieces, the mighty King and the humble Pawn.
King:
Most people are under the assumption that Devils who receive a King's Piece are not affected by the Evil Piece in anyway. That however is false. While it is true the King's Piece does not grant any benefits to the Devil in question, it does come with a cost.
When a Devil become a King, they permanently Seal away approximately 20% of their total magic reserves. That is the price that a King needs to pay to make the Evil Piece function. Have you ever wondered where the power to resurrect a dead comes from? Did you truly thing that such a thing is possible without a great cost?
To understand why so much power is needed, you need to be aware of a single fact. That in reality most Resurrected Devils are not actually alive or at least not completely.
It is a well-known fact that Devils need to magic to survive. What is less known however is that Devils need a certain amount of magic in them to live. If at any point the magic in a Devils body drops below that amount they will drop dead. In many ways a Devil's relationship with magic is similar to that of human's with blood.
The problem is that Resurrected Devils are simply incapable of producing enough magic in their bodies to support themselves. This is where the King Piece comes in. A King's true role in a Peerage is to provide to the other member of the Peerage with enough magical energy to function. Putting it bluntly, a King it basically one large battery.
I'm sure many of you have spotted the flaw in this logic. If the King is the source of the Peerage's magic then it the rest of the Peerage should be incapable of producing more than the King. It would be more accurate to say that the all the magic of the Peerage combined should equal only 20% of the Kings magic.
Now I'm sure all of you are aware that this is simply not true. Anyone who watched a single Rating Game can attest that several Bishops and Queens have been able to cast spells with just as much, if not more, magic than their King. If a King truly provide the entire magic for the Peerage, then how is this possible?
The answer is the Evil Piece.
The biggest misconception regarding the Evil Pieces when it was first created was that its sole function is to create Resurrected Devils. After many years of research we have discovered that not only is that not true, but its ability to resurrect is not even is most astonishing function.
The most remarkable things about the Evil Pieces is their ability to amplify magic. While how this is possible is unknown, the Evils Pieces within a Resurrected Devil can greatly amplify the amount of magic they received from their King. To the point that the Resurrected Devil can have more magic than their King.
When tested on an unused Evil Piece it has been found that the Piece was incapable of amplifying magic on its own. It's seems to only work when inside a living Devil. Why does it require a living Devil is unknown. When Ajuka Beelzebub was asked the very same question he declined to answer.
…Although he did snicker at the questioner for some reason. Again, we'd like to remind you that Ajuka does not take amusement at out ignorance, the really nice Maou with the power to wipe out our existence said so.
The discovery of this function has led to a unique cultural change in Devils Clans. Previous all children of the Clan, heirs or not, were awarded with their own Evil Pieces set when they have demonstrated they had the magic capacity and reserves to use them. However when the Clans discovered that the Evil Pieces can amply the magic within their children that changed.
Some of the Clans who were fortunately enough to be blessed with multiple children have stopped bestowing Evil Pieces to their youngest children and instead made them a part of one of their more powerful Clan mate's Peerage. The purpose of this is to use the Evil Pieces to magnify their children's already high magical reserves, causing them to become even more powerful than they would have been otherwise.
Ravel Phoenix is an example of such a case. She was given the place of a Bishop in her brother's Peerage when it was discovered that she was only born with an averaged sized magic reserves. However after she became a Bishop her magical reserves has drastically increased to the point that it now surpasses her brother.
This function is made especially clear when you look at stray Devils. No longer capable of drawing magic from their Kings they need another source of Mana. They often resort to devouring humans to achieve it. During the time when the Old Devil Faction ruled the underworld, it was a common practice to eat humans as a way to quickly replenish their magic supply, as even the weakest of human have some Mana within them.
This is why Resurrected Devils often remain in their King's Peerage even after they form a Peerage of their own. While it's true that most Resurrected Devils that become strong enough to get their own Peerage are often capable of sustaining themselves without the Evil Piece within them, most are simply unwilling to give up the large boost in power the Evil Piece grants them.
There are extremely rare cases however of human with such massive magic reserves that they can sustain themselves immediately after their Resurrection. However there has only been one recorded case of this happening so it unknown whether this is truly possible or just a single freak occurrence. The one human happened to be Rudiger Rosenkreutz, the Ultimate-Class Devil who is currently Ranked 7th in the Rating Games.
Children born to Resurrected Devils do not need anyone to provide them with power as they are born with enough magic to sustain themselves.
The 20% cost in power is the reason why many older generation of Devils do not have their own Peerage. They are unwilling to part with the power when they can simply hire Devils to serve them instead.
A key factor of why stronger Devils have stronger Peerages is because the amount of magic they can supply their Peerages is much higher than a weaker Devils.
Pawn:
The most confusing aspect of the Pawn piece is its unique ability to promote itself to any other piece. The question that is most commonly asked is why does the Promotion ability only function in enemy territory?
The fact of the matter is that Promotion can function anywhere, it's just that without the King's explicit permission, the Pawn Piece was programmed not to.
The purpose of this limit is to protect both the King and the Pawn. Those of you that have been reading this guide from the beginning should be aware that there is a limit to the amount of magic a Devil can reinforce his body with. That is because if a body is has more magic coursing through its system than it can safely handle the body will, well break.
Promotion in Pawns works by temporary granting the Pawn the ability to handle more magic running thought its body than what would normally be possible. But this ability isn't all powerful, there are limits. A Pawn can only hold that much power for so long before his body begins to break down.
A newly reincarnate Pawn can sustain a Queen promotion for only five full minutes before they reach the point where they begin putting their lives at risk. And that is five minutes a week as the Pawn will need at least that long to recover from its damage. That is why the limit is put in place, so that pawns won't continuously promote and end up killing themselves.
That is also the reason why Pawns are able to Promote to Knights, Rooks and Bishops instead of only Queens. The other three types of Promotions put far less strain on Pawns than Queens, allowing them to sustain their Promotion safely for longer periods of time.
There are ways to circumvent this limit however. The simplest and least effective manner is training. While a rather slow method, with time and practice a Pawn can expand the time limit of their promotion.
The second way is to simply resurrect a Pawn with several Pieces. In addition to improving the base Stats of the Pawn, the more Pieces as Pawn takes when being resurrected the better they can handle the strain of Promotion. It is estimated that a Pawn Resurrected with 9 Pawn Pieces will be able to sustain a Queen Promotion indefinitely.
In recent years it has become a popular practice among Devils hoping to create a combat based Peerage to only resurrect Pawns that cost at least three or four Pawn Pieces as it is believed that any less would not be enough to make the Pawn an asset in battle.
The other reason why Promotion is restricted is to limit the Drain of magic on the King. As we have mentioned above, it take 20% of a King's magic supply to support a Peerage consisting of 1 Queen, 2 Rooks, 2 Knights, 2 Bishops and 8 Pawns.
Now imagine what would happen if all 8 Pawns promote themselves to Queen, The King will now how to supply enough Magic to sustain 9 Queens, 2 Rook, 2 Knights and 2 Bishops. In such a scenario the drain of magic on the King will increase to several time to what it usual is. Such a huge drain at long periods will eventually learn to the death of the King or potential damage their magic system leaving crippled.
The Promotion ability is limited for a good reasons. Although there have been cases that Ajuka had been willing to remove the limit when a Pawn had proven himself capable of handling the burden of Promotion.
Knight:
The knight is a fairly simple Piece to understand. It is incredibly fast and...that's it really.
Yet where does the Knight get its speed? If it was just an increase in muscles strength than shouldn't the Knight have strength as well as speed? The secret to the knight's speed lies within their bones.
Unlike any other Piece the Knight's bones have been hollowed out, not unlike that of a bird's. In place of marrow, it is filled with the same brand of magic used that allow Devils to fly with their wings (look up the entry bellow labeled 'Flight Magic' for a better understanding).
This Magic allows Knights the ability to move in incredible speeds but leaves their bones in a brittle state. Which is why the Knight's lower legs are considered their weak point. As it is easy for a strike to directly hit a bone when aiming for the legs where there is too little muscle or fat covering the shins, knees or feet.
Another weak point that is created by the Knight's hollow bones is that they are incapable of striking an opponent when going full speed. If they do the momentum of the strike is just as likely to break their arms as it is to harm the enemy. That is why Devils who are much slower than a Knight is still capable of blocking their strikes, as there is a moment before the blow lands where the Knight has to slow down. However this is still an incredibly difficult thing to do, as even when slowing down Knights strikes are incredibly fast.
While a Knight's Piece does increase a Devil's speed it does not increase the Devil's reflexes. So newly made Knights need to train their reflexes to match their speed or else they'd be forced to slow down when in crowded areas, in places with uneven terrain or when approaching an enemy.
There has been more than one case where recently Reincarnated Knights failed to turn in time and ended up going splat against a wall…kind of like a fly on a car's windshield.
Rook:
Overwhelming strength matched with an impenetrable defensive, those are the characteristics that make up a Rook.
Yet why are Rooks slow? If they have so much strength within them then shouldn't that lead to an increase in speed as well? Especially since there is no significant increase in weight when a Devil is resurrected as a Rook.
The answer lies in their tendons. The key to the Rook's strength is not their muscles but their tendons and bones.
A common misconception is that by building up one's muscles will lead to affective increase in strength but that is simply not true. Both Devil and human muscles are capable of exerting much more strength than they normal do. But the brain prevents this because using your muscles to their full capacity will damage your body. To be more precise, your tendons will snap or your bones will splinter under the strain.
There have been cases where Devils have attempted to increase the strength of their muscles through magic but not anything else. Not surprisingly, their body was literally ripped to bits when they attempted to test their newfound strength as their muscle pulled itself off their bones.
It is actually believed that the Rook's defense was created as a result of trying to make a body sturdy enough to withstand the strain of a sharp increase in strength. That the defense was a consequence of trying to create as physically strong devil not the purpose.
The result is that Rooks have incredible hard bone. So hard that there have been Rooks that have suffered attacks strong enough to pulverize their internal organs but leave their bones completely unharmed.
The weak spot for a Rook are the areas in the body unprotect by bone such the belly, throat and eyes. Magic attacks are also potential weakness as their body is far more effective and resisting physical damage than elemental ones.
Due the tendons becoming so tough, it doesn't expand and contract as fast as it used to.
Bishop:
The Bishop is by far the easiest Piece to understand.
When a Devil is resurrected as a Bishop, their magic reserves and capacity are greatly increased. For those of you don't know the terms, magic reserves is the maximum amount of Mana a Devil can store in his body at any given moment, while the magic capacity is the amount of Mana a Devil can pour into his spells.
In simple terms the more reserves you have the more spells you can cast, while the higher your capacity the more powerful you can make your spells.
Peerage Bond (Magic Resistance):
All living creatures that are capable of casting magic have some form of Magic Resistance. The more Mana the being has the higher is its resistance.
Magic Resistance has been one of the biggest problems in Devil history. While it can be beneficial as it will block the effects of harmful spell, it also blocks the effect of benevolent spells such as healing magic. There have been many cases in the past where a powerful Devils' Magic Resistance has led to their deaths from their wounds as their body were not affected by the healing spells.
This was however been solved by the introduction of the Evil Piece system.
Since all the members of a Peerage have the magical power of their King coursing through their body, their magical signatures all resemble on another as their magic have traces of their King's within them. They resemble each other so much that a Devil's body will mistake a Peerage member's magic as their own.
This phenomena will cause a Devil's Magic Resistance to have no effect between Peerage members as their body no longer recognizes it as 'foreign' magic. This allows Peerage members to heal one another with unprecedented ease or even allow the transfer of magical energy between members.
This is why skin contact between Peerage members can help an injured Devil heal, as magical energy will transfer from the healthy Devil to the injured one. However this is a mostly ineffective method of healing and should only be used when no other forms of healing is availed.
While rare, there are magical items or Sacred Gears that are capable of bypassing Magic Resistance altogether. They are however extremely rare and highly sought after.
Twilight healing is perhaps one of the most well-known of these. Capable of not just bypassing Magic Resistance but healing with non-holy magic, thus making it possible to heal Devils, many Devils are willing to pay enough gold to buy a castle three times over to get their hands on it.
The Origin of the Evil System
A little known fact is when Ajuka Beelzebub created the Evil Piece system, he did not intend it become a method repopulate Devil Kind. It was actually for an entirely purpose entirely.
The original versions of the Evil Piece system was known as a King's Peerage (this is where the term 'Peerage' came from) was created during the early years of the Civil War. While like the modern version, the King's Peerage used Chess Pieces, they were not capable of resurrecting the recently deceased or even working on any other species but Devils.
The purpose of it was to gift the chosen devils more power, taken from their master, their King. It was supposed to grant power to a Lord's most trusted soldiers and warriors.
Only four sets of the King's Peerage was ever made and they were all given to the Devils who went on to become the current Maous.
After the Civil war, Ajuka realized the need to find a way to repopulate Devil kind after the heavy losses they suffered during the war. It was then that he discovered a method to transform Non-Devil species into Devils and combing that discovery with the King's Peerage system he created what will later be known as the Evil Piece system.
After its creation all the Maous trader in their King's Peerage for Evil Pieces instead.
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