Azazel watched Junichiro leave without even saying good bye to himself or the guest. He looked at Mittelt and raised an eyebrow in question. She scoffed, "He's got something new to look at. As soon as he got his payment he was done."
Azazel let out a chuckle and shook his head before he focused on the other person in the room, "We need to go and sign that contract before you can head out, Meridia."
Meridia, the ex-soul eating yokai, nodded her head and carefully climbed to her feet. She was still feeling stuffed to the gills and honestly couldn't decide if she loved or hated the feeling. Either way she'd definitely gotten her monies worth in the exchange. Signing some binding paperwork to protect the kid's anonymity wasn't a big deal.
Once the paperwork was done, Meridia took her leave and went back to her life. Azazel, meanwhile, made his way back to the living room and sat down across from Mittelt. He gave her a small smile as he asked, "So, how have things been?"
It'd been a full year since he'd dropped in but it'd only been a week or so since Mittelt had last been to visit the Grigori base and report to Azazel. Mittelt eyed Azazel for a bit before she sighed, "Juni asked me out on a date. I accepted."
Seeing the smirk on Azazel's face just made her want to facepalm. Seducing the kid was not a part of her orders, but he was a good guy and she liked the time they spent together. The age difference didn't bother her. It couldn't bother her because no matter how old any human was, she would be thousands of years older than them. Same for most other beings aside from Gods. Yokai might live a few hundred to a thousand years, but no one knew how long Angels, even fallen ones, could live for. No single Angel had ever died of old age, they didn't age. They all looked the same as they day that Father had made them.
Though a few, like Kokobiel, did have some minor physical changes after their fall. That dude just reeked of evil and it showed physically.
Looking up at Azazel and seeing the sparkle of amusement in his eyes, she braced herself to tell him about the last week she'd spent with Junichiro. Though she secretly wondered how long their relationship could last. They might look similar in age, for now, but he'd eventually look like a mature adult and she wouldn't have changed even a bit. If he didn't want to gain a certain kind of reputation, she was sure he would dump her before he was thirty, if then. She just sighed and began to talk to Azazel while Junichiro did whatever he was doing with Sword Birth.
Junichiro sat in one of his chairs in front of his jewelry workbench. The Sword Birth amulet sat on the desk in front of him as he stared at it. His right hand was twitching and tapping the tip of a wand on the table, he was still marveling at the level of feedback he'd managed to get from the prosthetic. Meanwhile he lifted his left to take a drag on an herbal cigarette.
He was currently going over what he'd managed to gather from the scans he'd done. It was... fascinating but also slightly disappointing. The very most basic function of the Sacred Gear was essentially just conjuration. Something that just about any magical could do with the right spells. It's only saving grace is just how specific of a conjuration aide it is. With all the power of the Sacred Gear focused solely on the summoning of 'swords'.
It was all about the concept of swords and because of that it allowed the user to visualize and summon any sword they could at the cost of some magical power. The more powerful the concept of the sword, the more magical power it took to create. The Sacred Gear would act as an aide and a bit of an amplifier allowing for some conjuration limits to be breached. Such as the limit of not being able to conjure up fully magical items. There was a price for breaking that limit though, the swords were 'brittle.' Which honestly explained why Kiba's swords would shatter after exchanging a few blows with a real sword.
So, while mechanically interesting, the sword summoning function wasn't exceptionally brilliant or really all that fantastic, by itself. Junichiro already had the necessary skills to replicate that ability. No, what actually made the Sacred Gear more impressive and so fascinating was the support system built into it.
He couldn't get the full details of it, but he'd been able to get enough to understand its basic design. Everyone knew that the user of a Sacred Gear could make it stronger with need and desire. Issei got stronger by playing with Rias' boobs. Kiba got stronger when confronting that priest that killed all his friends. However, need could also be translated into desire, want, or even... a prayer. From what Junichiro could tell, a Sacred Gear grew stronger and evolved using a sort of prayer or faith system that was tuned into the user's needs and desires. The greater the desire, the greater the boost in power.
he didn't know how to make faith based items for clerics and the like, he could have easily missed the connotations and slight similarities. It all honestly made sense too. The Sacred Gears were made by the God of the Bible after all, and he was big on faith. Need and Desire worked as well because those were the main feelings people had in combat. The Need for strength. The Desire to survive, to win. Then they use the best tool at their disposal, their Sacred Gear. Thus they have faith that their Sacred Gear could fulfill their needs and desires.
Slightly convoluted, but still intriguing.
This also meant that those who had complete faith in the power of their Sacred Gear, (Cao Cao anyone?), were the strongest in their use and the most likely to evolve the Sacred Gear beyond its basic limits and thus achieve their Balance Breaker. It would become a self sustaining loop of power. The user has faith in their Sacred Gear, the Sacred Gear gets stronger, the user gains even more faith in their Sacred Gear, the Sacred Gear gets even stronger, so on and so forth.
It honestly explained Issei's growth once he had some faith in himself and his power through the use of Ddraig and the Boosted Gear. He rapidly went from a piddling weakling to one of the strongest Devils with hardly an real actual work on his part. Not that Issei didn't work his ass off at times, but compared to someone like Vali who constantly pushed himself and sought out combat? No, if it wasn't for the faith system within the Sacred Gears, Issei would have never become a match for Vali in any meaningful way.