Thomas Prest: A Simple Magician

Seeing Sairaorg agree to the deal, Tom ruffled the kid's hair while laughing like a maniac in his mind before he whipped out a pre-prepared contract form bound by a contractual magic Tom made by recreating his own version of the Old Contracts.

Unfortunately, just like the Old Contracts, this creation of Tom would only work on Devils because his version also had to make use of their connection to the Concept of Exchange to establish a deal.

Tom started filling the contract, obviously adding a clause that Sairaorg would keep Tom's identity and what would happen here a secret. Tom knew there would be a lot of questions but if there was anything the devils respected, it was a secrecy clause in a contract. Sairaorg would just have to state he was bound by it and most of the bothersome busybodies would just disgruntledly go annoy someone else.

Due to the Concept of Exchange, Tom bound Sairaorg's very being to uphold the secrecy of this deal so even if the boy wanted, he would be unable to tell others what happened.

This wasn't in any way restrictive in his everyday life. Sairaorg would not even feel it. Only in the case, he attempted to speak about the upcoming events would he be restricted from proceeding.

The contract was simple enough. It exchanged Sairaorg's connection to the concept of destruction for the healing and awakening of his mother.

It was written in a way even a kid could understand and as a devil, Sairaorg had an innate understanding of what the deal entailed anyway so Tom's conscience was assuaged by the fact he wasn't exactly robbing Sairaorg. The boy agreed to a deal and that was that.

The trick was simple, though. The deal only told Sairaorg what he was gaining and losing. It didn't tell him how it would affect him. Since the kid thought he didn't possess the Power of Destruction, he might as well think he was not losing anything.

When Tom ruffled Sairaorg's hair, he peeked at what was wrong with the kid. Fortunately, he rummaged through Misla's body so he knew what to look for and because of that, this action didn't take a massive amount of magic from him.

The drain was still considerable but bearable. Tom got through it with a smile on his face and found out that Sairaorg had the misfortune of being the product of inbreeding.

It didn't affect the devils the same way as humans and some Families did it regularly... but there was a reason why most families usually took spouses from other Houses.

Unlike what one might think, Sairaorg's connection to the concept of destruction did not get stronger just because both of his parents possessed it.

The connection simply either existed or it didn't. It couldn't get weaker or stronger.

The inbreeding only made him unable to imbue his demonic power with the concept. So, while he had the exact same thing as every Bael, the poor sod was unable to use it.

This connection was not biological in the first place. Losing it wouldn't mean Sairaorg would cease to be a Bael by blood. In fact, it would help him a bit with his Demonic Power control now that his system would not be burdened by it.

Tom could even claim he helped the kid.

The devils didn't even have a way to check for it. That's why the Bael Family has to wait until their kids show the usage of Power of Destruction around seven years of age when the connection finally stabilizes to determine if they were 'worthy'.

There was no scanning device that could show to anybody that Sairaorg lost his 'bloodline' powers. Heh, there was nobody who thought he had them in the first place.

It was a perfect heist. Nothing would be missed by anybody, yet, Tom had everything to gain.

When Sairaorg signed the contract, Tom smiled at him and also put down his signature before he turned toward Natasha.

"Love, sign it here, please." He told her, making her look weirdly at him.

"Me?" Natasha blinked in confusion, showing a surprised expression.

She didn't think she would be part of... whatever was going to happen. She was here only as moral support and to make sure Tom would not do something extremely foolish.

Nobody told her that her lover wanted to drag her into his schemes.

"Yup. I'll explain later." Tom nonchalantly shrugged, and the lack of information made Natasha's eye twitch.

Deeply sighing, she approached the document and took the pen, scribbling her signature onto it while imbuing a bit of her magic into the pen just as Tom taught her.

It made her inwardly wince as she felt her body reel in protest the second her magic was used and a quarter of her reserves just disappeared like that.

As depressing as it was, Natasha knew the power rankings and she had to ashamedly admit, she was not even qualified to get a ranking right now.

Her magic did not reach even the low-class milestone yet.

She just... wasn't talented in magic. Especially not in the math-filled, science-demanding human magic that Tom was using. It rubbed her the wrong way and made her want to vomit every time she saw the complicated formulas necessary to mentally calculate the spells.

Yes, she became incredible at hacking but that was fun!

Human magic was not. It was disgustingly scholarly. It simply wasn't for Natasha.

Months of training and attempts and she simply could not get better. She spent hours upon hours trying to get it right, trying to train, trying to focus on spells... and she had nothing to show for it.

It made her feel like a failure of the greatest degree.

Until then, she could learn anything. A lot of hard work and eventually, she would excel at anything she put her mind to. But Human Magic was a seemingly insurmountable hurdle for her totally mundane brain.

No matter how much she enhanced it with mind-enhancing spells... because thank God these were just manipulating magic inside of her body which was still hard as heck but completely manageable... she just couldn't get the feel for controlling her magic the second it left her body.

She tried and tried... and failed and failed. She was not giving up anytime soon but her future prospects seemed bleak in this regard. Her mundane abilities and training could take her only so far without any supernatural ability to back it up.

Thankfully, Tom comforted her endlessly, telling her he cared about her despite her inability to use magic and would find a way to help her... And Natasha wanted to believe him. She really did. But even if he didn't and she was to serve at best as sexual relief for him, she wouldn't mind.

She only hoped he would not abandon her.

Tom didn't miss the slight shift in Natasha's expression nor the wince in her eyes when she signed the document. He inwardly wryly smiled. Yes... there was that problem.

He knew that Natasha's self-esteem was hit hard due to her failures with magic and it was making even him exasperated. He told her there were many other ways. Like Touki, or different magical systems... But it was obvious to him that his red-haired darling's self-confidence was hit hard.

Tom regretted telling her that he had high hopes for her. It put a lot of pressure on her and when she failed, again and again, it made the impact that much harder for her.

He was only glad she was too stubborn to give up despite feeling that her efforts are not bearing any fruits.

Deciding to focus on what was important right now, Tom pulled out another contract form and started filling it up, confusing Sairaorg.

"What are you doing?" The kid asked, tilting his head and trying to see what was written in the contract.

Tom put his hand on the boy's face and pushed him away, much to Sairaorg's annoyance.

"It's rude to peek at others' contracts." Tom mirthfully said, "But to answer your question, I am going to heal your mom through a contract. Cool, isn't it?" He gave the kid an easy-going smile.

Sairaorg's eyes shined, "You can do that?"

The boy was not stupid. Not by a long shot. Sairaorg actually thought really hard about how to get stronger to prove his birth family wrong. When Tom mentioned healing people via contracts, Sairaorg realized what an amazing idea that was, and that filled him with excitement.

"Of course, I can." Tom chuckled, lying with a straight face as he returned to filling the contract between him and... Misla Bael.

Tom couldn't really tell the excitable young Sairaorg that he was going to 'permanently borrow' a bit of Misla's demonic power and life energy in exchange for waking her up, now, could he?

After all, nobody said Tom was prohibited from receiving payment from both Sairaorg and Misla for healing her.