The dimensional gap was silent, a vast, oppressive expanse of purple void that felt less like a sky and more like a bruise on the face of reality. The howling wind that usually tore through this erratic space had died down, cowed into submission by the lingering resonance of the punch that had just fractured Sirzechs Lucifer's absolute defense.
The Gremory peerage stood in a loose, trembling semi-circle. Their eyes were wide, darting between the shattered remnants of the landscape and the man standing casually in the center of it all. The shock hadn't faded; it sat heavy in their chests, a mixture of apprehension and the kind of reverent awe usually reserved for gods or natural disasters.
Ren Ming clapped his hands together.
CLAP.
The sound was sharp, dry, and impossibly loud, cutting through the silence like a pistol crack in a library. It snapped the Devils out of their daze, their bodies flinching instinctively.
"Alright, gather around," Ren announced. His tone was jarringly casual, a stark, jagged contrast to the apocalyptic wasteland surrounding them. It was the tone of a guy organizing a pickup basketball game, not a man who had just humbled a Satan.
He began to pace back and forth, his generic sneakers crunching rhythmically on the dry, cracked earth. "First things first. Delete everything you think you know about getting stronger. Push-ups? Useless. Magic control exercises? Boring. Standing under a waterfall screaming? Cliche."
Ren stopped, pivoting on his heel to face them, his grey eyes boring into Rias. "We aren't trying to make you better Devils right now. That's thinking too small. We're trying to upgrade your entire existence. We're rewriting the code."
He gestured vaguely at Rias and Akeno, waving a hand up and down their figures. "You guys rely way too much on your... let's call it 'software.' Clan traits, Demonic Power, Sacred Gears, elemental affinities. That's all just apps running on a device. But your 'hardware'—your physical bodies, your vessels, your souls—is, frankly, outdated. It's running on a potato computer. It's weak. It's slow. And it's leaking."
Issei raised a hesitant hand, looking thoroughly confused. "Uh, Ren-san? I don't really get the computer stuff. Are we... are we robots?"
Ren Ming raised a brow. "No, Issei. You're not robots. You're just... efficient at being inefficient."
He walked over to a dead tree stump and leaned against it, crossing his ankles. "Look, the Myriad Origin Scripture isn't magic. It's a blueprint. It's an update to your entire being. Step one is Skin Refinement."
"Skin Refinement?" Koneko tilted her head, her white hair swaying slightly with the motion. Her expression was deadpan, but curiosity flickered in her golden eyes. "Like... a beauty routine? Exfoliating?"
"Sort of, but instead of cucumber slices and mud masks, we're using raw, unfiltered atmospheric energy," Ren grinned, a shark-like expression that promised pain and gain in equal measure. "Usually, in my... let's say, 'hometown,' you need specific meridians or spiritual pathways to cultivate. You have to carve rivers into your soul. But you Devils? You guys are lucky. You won the genetic lottery. Your bodies are naturally porous to energy. You soak up mana like sponges in a bathtub."
His grin dropped, replaced by a look of disappointment. "The problem is, you let it sit there. You let it stagnate. Or worse, you burn it off moving your arm. The Scripture is going to teach you how to tighten the weave. We're turning that sponge into steel."
Ren Ming snapped his fingers.
Snap.
Space rippled. Four paper talismans manifested in thin air, hovering with a hum that vibrated in the teeth of everyone present. These weren't the sloppy, Sharpie-drawn talismans from before. These were etched with glowing, geometric lines that hurt to look at—fractal patterns that seemed to fold in on themselves.
Before anyone could react, the talismans—along with the one Rias was still clutching—dissolved into streams of liquid golden light. The light shot forward, slamming directly into their foreheads.
"Whoa!" Issei stumbled back, clutching his skull as a rush of information flooded his cortex. It wasn't a headache; it was a download.
"Relax. Just a data transfer," Ren said, watching them stumble. "Don't fight it. Follow the instructions appearing in your head. Pull the energy in, but—and this is key—do not store it in your reserves. Do not put it in your devil wings or your magic circles."
Ren Ming's voice dropped an octave, commanding and heavy. "Push it into your skin. Saturate every pore, every follicle, every square inch of your dermis until it feels like you're wearing a suit of armor made of your own flesh. Seal the vessel."
Rias closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in intense concentration. She was a genius of the Gremory clan; energy manipulation was as natural to her as breathing.
But this... this was different. This wasn't about flow; it was about compaction.
She grabbed the ambient mana of the dimension—the thick, purple residue of the underworld—and instead of shaping it into a spell, she forced it into her cells.
It felt bizarre. It felt... tight.
It was the sensation of wearing a wetsuit three sizes too small, but the wetsuit was her own skin.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. The silence returned, but now it was filled with the rhythmic breathing of the peerage.
Ren Ming watched them with a critical, appraising eye.
'Not bad,' he thought, observing the way the mana swirled around them like a whirlpool. 'The Devil physiology is actually pretty cracked. They don't have the mortal shackles of humanity. No need to open gates when the gates are already busted wide open. They just lack the right methods.'
From the sidelines, Grayfia Lucifuge watched, her pen hovering over her notebook. Her stoic mask was beginning to crack. She could see it.
The atmospheric mana around the peerage wasn't just being absorbed; it was being devoured. A vacuum was forming around Rias and Akeno.
'He is ignoring the fundamental laws of demonic growth,' Grayfia wrote, her handwriting slightly shaky. 'Demonic power is usually linked to imagination and emotion. Ren Ming is applying the physics of solid matter to magical energy. He is compressing their existence. Their passive energy density has jumped by at least 15% in less than an hour. This... this should be impossible.'
Suddenly, a change occurred.
A faint, metallic sheen appeared on Kiba's skin, shimmering like polished mercury under the purple sky. Then, Koneko's skin took on the luster of white jade.
"Hah!" Issei grunted, his eyes snapping open. His skin was glowing with a faint, ruddy hue, like iron heating up in a forge. He slammed his fists together. CLANG. It sounded like two hammers hitting an anvil.
"I feel... solid!" Issei yelled, looking at his hands in disbelief. "Like, really solid!"
Rias opened her eyes. She looked at her hands. They looked the same—pristine, pale, elegant—but when she clenched her fist, the air inside her grip popped audibly. She felt a density to her existence that hadn't been there before, a weight that grounded her to the earth.
"I feel..." Rias started, searching for the words. "My Demonic Power... it's flowing faster. There's no resistance. No leakage."
"Exactly," Ren nodded, looking pleased as he pushed himself off the tree stump. "You just turned your skin into a high-pressure containment unit. Before, you were leaking energy just by existing. You were a bucket full of holes. Now, you're a closed loop. That's the Foundation. Without that, you're just pouring water into a sieve."
"This is amazing!" Asia beamed, touching her cheeks, which felt firm and resilient. "I feel so energetic! Like I had three cups of coffee and a really good nap!"
"Don't get too excited, my dear," Ren Ming chuckled darkly. The playful vibe evaporated instantly. "That was the tutorial level. That was 'Baby's First Cultivation.' That was the participation trophy."
Ren Ming's expression shifted. The smirk remained, but it grew colder, sharper. His grey eyes lost their warmth, replaced by the abyssal calm of a creature that had seen stars die.
"The Scripture combines the best manuals from a place where people shatter planets for breakfast and treat galaxies like stepping stones. To get that kind of power, you have to stop being 'human' or 'devil' in the biological sense. You have to become a vessel for the Dao."
"Dao?" Akeno asked, the word feeling foreign and heavy on her tongue.
"The Way. The Truth. The Source. Whatever you want to call it," Ren Ming waved his hand dismissively. "Point is, your bodies are full of gunk. Impurities. Bad food, weak genetics, wasted mana, trauma, repressed emotions... it all clogs up the pipes. Skin refinement was just sealing the container. Now? We have to scrub the inside with steel wool."
He pointed a finger at them, sweeping across the group. "Flesh, organs, bones, bone marrow, brain, and soul. We're going to wash it all. And fair warning... this part is gonna suck. Like, 'stepping on a Lego barefoot while sliding down a razor blade' kind of suck."
Issei gulped, his newfound confidence wavering. "Uhhh... can we maybe take a break first? Grab a snack?"
"Nope," Ren said, popping the 'p' with annoying cheerfulness. "Time waits for no man, and Riser Phenex certainly isn't waiting to roast you alive. Sit down. Lotus position. Or whatever feels comfortable. Just don't move."
Ren Ming walked into the center of the group. He raised his hand, and the atmosphere grew unimaginably heavy.
Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique.
A heavy, grey pressure descended on the area—not to crush them, but to isolate them. It cut off the outside world, forcing their senses inward.
"Internalize the energy," Ren commanded, his voice echoing directly in their skulls, bypassing their ears. "Target your bone marrow. Force the energy into the bone. Push out the black sludge. Don't stop screaming if you have to, just don't break the cycle. If you stop, you cripple yourselves."
As the peerage began the arduous process, the first groans of discomfort rippled through the group. Then, the groans turned into whimpers.
Ren Ming watched with a calm, almost surgical detachment.
Internally, however, his mind was racing with philosophy.
'This is it,' Ren thought, watching Issei grit his teeth as black, tar-like sweat began to ooze from his pores. 'The difference between training and Cultivating.'
He had seen so many people in this world—and in the fiction he used to read—obsess over "training." They ran laps. They lifted weights to punch harder. They meditated to increase magic pools. It was all so... linear. So biological.
'Training hits a ceiling,' Ren mused, watching the veins bulge on Kiba's forehead. 'You can only make a muscle so big before it tears. You can only make a magic circle so complex before it collapses. But Cultivation? It rewrites the source code. It says, "I don't need muscles, I have the strength of a mountain conceptually grafted onto my arm."'
He hated the fanfics he used to read where the MC would come in and mock Cultivators for being "arrogant" or "inhuman." Those authors didn't get it. When you live for millions of years and can hold a sun in your hand, you aren't human anymore. You are a natural disaster given consciousness.
Ren Ming didn't have a Fate Palace to give them. He couldn't grant them the protection of the High Heavens.
But he could give them this—the Myriad Origin Scripture. It was a Frankenstein's monster of a technique he had compiled, designed to transform a mortal body into a being that could rival a Named Hero from the Emperor's Domination verse in just a few short weeks.
'If they survive this,' Ren Ming calculated, his gaze landing on Rias, who was trembling violently, sweat soaking her uniform as a foul, grey substance leaked from her skin. 'They won't just be High-Class Devils. They'll be freaks of nature. Riser won't know what hit him. He'll be fighting monsters in human skin.'
His gaze then drifted to the three with the heaviest burdens.
Akeno Himejima. The half-fallen angel who hated her own wings, seeking pain as penance.
Koneko Toujou. The Nekomata terrified of her own strength, suppressing her nature.
Yuuto Kiba. The survivor consumed by a holy sword vengeance, hollowed out by hatred.
Ren Ming knew their stories. He knew every tragic detail, every scar on their psyche. It would be so easy to say, "Hey, Akeno, your dad actually loves you," or "Kiba, the swords are a part of you, get over it."
But Ren Ming stayed silent.
'Not my place. Not yet,' Ren decided firmly. 'Trust is currency, and right now, I'm broke. If I dump their trauma on the table now, I'm just a stalker with a god-complex. They need to come to me. They need to realize their limits on their own.'
"It burns!" Asia cried out, tears streaming down her face. Her healing light flickered wildly. "It feels like my bones are melting!"
"It's supposed to!" Ren called out, his voice cutting through her panic like a knife. "That burning is weakness leaving the body! Asia, turn your Twilight Healing inward. You can't erase the fatigue, but you can keep your organs from tearing themselves apart. Heal yourself as you break yourself! Cycle it!"
He turned his gaze to the groaning brown-haired boy.
"Issei! Stop whining!" Ren barked. "You have a dragon in your arm! Ddraig is the Red Dragon Emperor of Domination! Do you think a dragon complains about growing pains? Dominate the pain! Tell your bone marrow who's boss!"
On Issei's arm, the Boosted Gear manifested, glowing with an intense, pulsing green light.
[PARTNER! HE IS RIGHT!] Ddraig's voice roared, sounding strangely motivated. [THIS PAIN IS PROOF OF EVOLUTION! DON'T LET THE HUMAN BEAT US! GRIND THAT WEAKNESS TO DUST!]
"YEAH! SCREW YOU, MARROW!" Issei roared, his aura flaring green, mixing with the gold of the cultivation. "I'M GONNA BE THE HAREM KING! I CAN'T DIE FROM BONE HURTING JUICE!"
Tiamat, watching this spectacle from her rock, looked at Ren with a strange, unreadable expression. Her reptilian eyes traced the chaotic energies Ren was orchestrating with the ease of a conductor leading a symphony.
"You are a slave driver," she muttered, though there was a grudging respect in her tone. "Dragon hatchlings are treated with more gentleness."
"I'm a personal trainer," Ren corrected with a wink, never taking his eyes off his students. "Different tax bracket. Besides, diamonds are made under pressure. I'm just supplying the squeeze."
...
Three hours later, the "Purge" was complete.
The Gremory peerage lay scattered on the ground, panting heavily. They were surrounded by puddles of a foul-smelling, black sludge that had been expelled from their bodies—a physical manifestation of toxins, wasted mana, and biological impurities. They looked like they had been dragged through a sewer, but their eyes... their eyes were shining with a terrifying clarity.
"Gross," Koneko muttered, sniffing her arm and wrinkling her nose. "I smell like rot. And sulfur."
"Go wash off," Ren said, pointing to a tear in space where he had conjured a stream of water from the void, condensing ambient mana into pure, clear liquid. "Scrub hard. You're basically brand new underneath that gunk."
As they took turns to separately wash and return, dressed in the fresh spare gym clothes Rias had the foresight to bring, the atmosphere in the dimension had shifted.
Issei, fresh and clean, jumped into the air, expecting a normal hop to stretch his legs.
WHOOSH.
He launched himself twenty feet straight up, flailing wildly.
"Whoa! crap!"
He crashed down with a heavy thud, cracking the dry earth beneath his feet.
"What the hell?!" Issei yelled, staring at his legs as if they belonged to someone else. "I barely pushed! I tapped the gas and the car flew!"
"Your muscle fibers are now roughly several times denser than they were this morning," Ren Ming explained, leaning against Tiamat's rock (much to her visible annoyance, though she didn't push him away). "And your energy channels are clean. No friction. No lag."
Rias stood apart from the group. She clenched her hand, and a sphere of the Power of Destruction appeared.
It was smaller than usual—the size of a baseball instead of a basketball. But the color... it was a deep, mesmerizing crimson, bordering on black. It didn't fizzle or spark erratically like it usually did. It hummed with a stable, terrifying vibration.
"It's... condensed," Rias whispered, entranced by the lethal beauty of her own power. "I can control it perfectly. It doesn't feel like I'm holding a storm anymore. It feels like I'm holding a sword."
"You guys have been driving with the parking brake on your whole lives," Ren said, pushing off the rock. "I just released it. And I cut the brake lines while I was at it."
He walked to the center of the group. The sun was technically setting in the human world, casting long shadows across the purple wasteland. They looked exhausted, but it was a good exhaustion. The kind that came from honest work.
"You did good," Ren said, his voice softening. The drill sergeant mask slipped, revealing a glimpse of genuine approval. "That was one of the hardest hurdle. From here on out, it's just accumulating energy and refining it. Mostly smooth sailing."
"Really?" Akeno asked, wiping her wet hair with a towel. Her usual seductive tone was replaced by genuine fatigue, stripping away her 'Ara Ara' mask for a moment. "No more... black sludge? No more melting bones?"
"No more sludge," Ren promised. "But before we wrap up for dinner, I want to show you why we do this. Why I push for Cultivation over Magic."
Ren Ming took a deep breath.
He didn't use his Bloodline this time. He didn't use the suppression or the terrifying gravity. He reached into his understanding of the Immortal Soul Bone and tapped into something far more ancient.
He tapped into the Dao of Wood—the essence of life, growth, and relentless vitality.
"Watch the ground."
Ren stomped his foot gently.
Thump.
From the dry, cracked, dead earth of the dimensional wasteland—a place where life had been forbidden for centuries—a ripple of emerald green light spread outward.
Where the light touched, reality rewrote itself.
CRACK. BLOOM.
Massive, ancient-looking trees erupted from the soil in seconds, spiraling upwards like twisting pillars of heaven. Their branches wove together to form a lush canopy that blocked out the purple void. Vibrant, glowing flowers in colors that didn't exist on the visible spectrum bloomed instantly, releasing a fragrance that cleared the mind and soothed the soul.
Vines curled around the dead stumps, turning them into thrones of emerald leaves. Soft, bioluminescent moss carpeted the jagged rocks.
In ten seconds, Ren had turned a hundred-meter circle of hellscape into a primordial paradise.
It wasn't an illusion. It wasn't a hologram. It was creation.
"Magic manipulates reality," Ren said softly, reaching out to pluck a golden flower that hummed with a soft melody. He walked over to a stunned Koneko and tucked it gently behind her ear. "Cultivation commands reality. When you reach the apex... the world doesn't just obey you. It loves you."
The girls stared at him.
Rias Gremory, the heiress who had everything money and magic could buy, looked at the garden with wide, trembling eyes. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. And the man standing in the center of it, hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, looked less like the brute who had punched her brother and more like a King in his own garden.
Akeno's cheeks flushed slightly, her heart skipping a beat. 'He creates life as easily as he destroys it,' she thought, looking at his back. 'Who is he really? And... why does he look so lonely standing there?'
Even Tiamat, the Chaos Karma Dragon King, looked around at the trees. She could feel the nature energy. It was pure. Untainted.
"You..." Tiamat murmured, reaching out to touch a leaf. It felt real. "You can manipulate the life force of the planet? This is... this is the domain of gods."
"A little bit," Ren shrugged, the moment of grandeur fading as his casual persona slipped back in place like a well-worn coat. "I mean, it's mostly for aesthetics. Helps set the vibe, you know? Can't eat dinner in a wasteland. Bad for digestion."
He turned to them, grinning. "Anyway, who's hungry? I'm starving, and I bet you guys could eat a horse. Or a dragon. No offense, Blue."
Issei looked at the garden, then at his own hands, and finally at Ren Ming.
"Dude..." Issei breathed out, "You're awesome."
"I know," Ren grinned, confident but not arrogant. "Now, let's go eat. I'm cooking. And don't worry, it tastes better than the sludge smells."