The Grimoire’s Chosen (Worm AU/Celestial Grimoire)

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

No expies for now, though with the vote being relatively close I might still revisit the idea one day down the line. But I think we've got enough going on at the moment that we don't need to add the extra element.

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Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster. Those were the categories one could most commonly put practitioners of Blood Magic, Necromancy, and Demonic Summoning into. Now that wasn’t to say every single Blood Sorcerer, Necromancer, and Demon Summoner could fit into one of those neat little boxes, but it was still an excellent litmus test.

One might think that five years of tutelage and training in any one of those disciplines might give you a solid Expert grasp of each, maybe even bordering on Master. One would be wrong, however. That sort of thing only happened in stories, where the main character was always a prodigy and could do things in a fraction of the time that others could.

The truth was, and this was particularly the case with these three magical disciplines, learning magic was hard and dangerous and time consuming. Five years of training was enough to put one solidly in the middle of Journeyman in each discipline.

That said, there were layers to the power that Jason had bought and the knowledge that had been forcibly downloaded into his brain. It wasn’t five years of him being taught Blood Magic, Necromancy, and Demonic Summoning at the same time. It was five years of each discipline, and that meant fifteen years of magical tutelage in all. Not to mention the last perk of the power, which was that all of his spells were stronger even than someone normal would be.

With that, Jason would comfortably put himself at a High Journeyman level when it came to Demonic Summoning, mostly on account of his knowledge of Blood Magic boosting the first discipline in a number of ways.

That was all to say… he was going to take this slow, Staff of Magnus or no. Creating his first real ritual circle takes time, more time than in his memories, mostly because Jason goes over every inch of it with a fine tooth comb, not wanting to fuck up a single thing. And finally, when he summons his first demon, he does so with barely any power, seeking to summon the lowliest form of demonkind… the imp.

Everything goes off without a hitch, in the end. His caution might be unwarranted, because the imp is summoned without issue and cannot break free of the binding component of the ritual circle he’s created. Normally, at this point Jason would bind the imp to him, turning the somewhat bestial creature into his minion and using it for scouting purposes or the like. If he wanted to fight with such creatures, he would need a dozen to have any real impact.

But that isn’t the plan here. Instead, standing outside of the ritual circle, Jason points the Staff of Magnus at the imp… and activates it. The effects are immediate, with the barely intelligent creature’s beady eyes widening as much as they can as it’s tiny body spasms and shakes. Energy flows from the demon into the Staff and Jason feels an approximation of how much he gains, even as the imp grows weaker and weaker.

A single imp is a drop in the bucket of the Staff’s capacity… no, less than a drop in the bucket, but to be fair, the Staff of Magnus has an unheard of capacity for storing power. It would make more sense to compare the power he gets from the imp to the spells he could cast with it. In that case, a single imp is worth one low level spell.

Dismissing the imp back to Hell without binding it, Jason frowns for a moment and checks the time. Then, he sets about creating a slightly larger, far more intricate and complex ritual circle. He’s probably going to have to find somewhere else to do this at some point, because his apartment isn’t really big enough for some of the larger pieces of magic he’s now capable of. But for now…

Well, the ritual circle is completed soon enough, and Jason goes over it thrice this time around, making sure absolutely nothing is out of place. Then, for good measure, he creates a Blood Ward around it. The Blood Ward is a far less complex ritual circle, but one that he can feed his own power into in order to keep it up. Normally, this would be a bad idea, but with the Staff of Magnus to fuel his magic, such a Blood Ward should be able to hold long enough for him to react to any eventuality.

Only then does he summon his second demon. This time around, he’s going for something more powerful, pouring a lot more magic into the ritual. Even a little bit of the Staff’s energy reserves goes towards summoning this demon. Finally… there’s a red flash, followed by something appearing in the center of the ritual circle.

Almost immediately, massive claws lash out… but the binding component of the first ritual circle holds, leaving the Blood Ward untested. Jason watches as the hulking demon he’s brought into this world, easily five times the size of the imp, tests his circle for a few moments more before settling down. Then, it turns large red eyes in his direction.

“Summoner. What would you ask of me? What… deal would you have me make for my freedom?”

Jason shakes his head.

“Nothing and no deal.”

The demon’s eyes narrow.

“Then for what purpose have you summoned me? I will not submit myself to you without payment. You have brought me forth at great expense… for nothing?”

Under ordinary circumstances, the demon would be right. There was no point in bringing something of its power into the world without intending to use it for some purpose. But these were not ordinary circumstances… and Jason had the biggest cheat he could currently think of.

Wordlessly, he points the Staff of Magnus at the demon and begins to drain it. The creature, a grotesque monstrosity from Hell, shrieks and flails, its claws and spikes striking against the ritual circle it’s bound to, its fangs gnashing as they seek his flesh but never quite reach it.

Jason just keeps going, eyes focused intently on the demon. If there had been any lapse, if he had made a mistake of any kind, Keen Eye would have almost certainly caught it by now, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to just ignore the possibility entirely.

Finally, the demon’s struggling stops and it all but collapses to the floor of his apartment, weakened beyond belief and staring at him with naked fear. Jason pays it no mind for the moment, focusing instead on the Staff and how much power he got from this little… transaction.

Not any transaction he’d made with the demon, but rather a transaction he’d made with himself. Power spent for the summoning, in exchange for power gained. The results… are actually quite promising. He effectively got twice as much power as he spent in the first place, making this quite a good return on investment for him.

“M-Monster…”

Jason blinks and then frowns at the demon, who is looking at him with fear-filled red eyes now.

“Oi. I don’t want to hear that from you.”

Seriously, a demon from the pits of hell of all places calling HIM a monster? Rude. He moves to send the demon back, only for the creature to cry out.

“W-Wait! If you send me back as I am now, my life is forfeit!”

Jason just shrugs. This creature might be acting weak and helpless now, and for all he knew, it actually was as weak and helpless as it was acting. However, he also knew that it would have for sure tried to kill him and consume his soul if he’d messed up even a little bit. It wouldn’t have even hesitated. And then it would have gone on a rampage across the city for as long as it took to digest his soul, at which point it would have found itself back in Hell.

So yeah… no.

“Not my problem.”

With a flick of his fingers, he dismisses the demon back to Hell in its weakened state, uncaring of whether it survives or not. Then, because his time is running out before he’s expected at Vicky’s place, Jason hurriedly cleans up both ritual circles and the Blood Ward, putting his apartment back in order through use of Blood Magic, Flash Air, and the help of Keen Eye and Alchemical Prodigy.

On top of that, he discovers something rather nifty… his Transformation Pendant will store ‘accessories’, and that apparently includes things like the Staff of Magnus. Given he probably couldn’t have gotten away with walking around with the damn thing without invoking a lot of questions, Jason is more than happy to tuck it away in his pendant.

As he stands there, looking at his cleaned up apartment and reveling in what he just accomplished, Jason realizes how much he’s grown in a very short period of time. Part of it is having five years for three different magical disciplines shoved in his head, to be fair… but even still, it feels good to have power. It feels really good.

It does leave him wondering whether he should do something with all of it though. He’d never… well, he’d always been a nobody, basically. He was just a normal human being without powers and without prospects. He’d put his nose to the grindstone of course, working at the coffee shop to help make ends meet while he went to University on a scholarship and tried to impress Professor Dallon into giving him an internship at her law firm. From there, he could become a lawyer, a cushy well paid job.

He hadn’t had the power to do anything about the state of the world or anything like that. He hadn’t even had the power to do anything about the state of Brockton Bay. Parahuman Gangs ran rampant and basically treated different parts of the city like their own personal fiefdoms. The authorities, including the Protectorate and the PRT, did what they could, but what they could do simply wasn’t enough.

Previously, all Jason had been able to do was keep his head down, avoid trouble as much as possible, and hope the bigger forms of said trouble didn’t find him. He’d lived in a constant low grade state of fear for his life for so long that he’d become somewhat numb to it over time.

And yet… and yet, that all wasn’t true anymore, was it? He had power now. In more ways than one. He had power in spades, and he would only grow more powerful with time. Was it really fair to say that all he could do was keep his head down and avoid trouble? Was it fair for someone like him with as much power as he had to even do that, or did he have a responsibility to act, to try and better his city and world in some way?

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Those thoughts follow Jason all throughout his tutoring session with Vicky. Taylor actually can’t attend tonight, since calling out of work too many days in a row might endanger her job, and she doesn’t have the ability to just quit like he did. So it’s just him and Vicky and the tutoring… well, and the sex.

With Taylor and Vicky having opened his eyes to Vicky’s true nature, Jason doesn’t hesitate to take a firm hand with the blonde. Sex is the ultimate reward of course, but he’s also not above disciplining her… something Vicky clearly enjoys. Still, she doesn’t let it interfere with her studies.

Which is good, because Carol’s words from earlier in the day are also following Jason around in his head. Somehow getting in the older Dallon’s good graces left him somewhat uncertain of what he was supposed to do next. But one thing was for sure, he had been paid to do a job, and he was going to do that job to the best of his abilities. So yes, Vicky gets tutored. Then, she gets fucked.

And then Jason leaves, because without Taylor there, he doesn’t feel quite right spending the night in Vicky’s bed.

However, he hadn’t realized how much of a welcome distraction Vicky was providing until he was truly alone with his own thoughts again. Out on the streets, Jason found himself hesitating a bit instead of heading straight home. It was already mostly dark. He shouldn’t be out this late.

… But that was an old Jason thought. Old Jason would have hightailed it home and found security in the false safety of making it back to his apartment. False because if a cape fight happened nearby, just being inside wasn’t going to make you safe. He might not have ever had capes duke it out through his living room before, but they’d gotten close plenty of times, and he’d heard the horror stories from other Brocktonites more often than he could count.

New Jason wasn’t as vulnerable though. New Jason had power galore. He didn’t have to fear the night quite so much anymore. He didn’t have to rely on the false sense of security that being home in his apartment after dark provided.

He could whip up a disguise and go looking for trouble. That was what parahumans did, right? Be they villain or hero, they all patrolled their territory looking for trouble and acting on whatever they found. Jason didn’t have territory of course. He would be an Independent. But that didn’t mean he was without options. It just meant he was more likely to find trouble wherever he went.

It takes a moment for him to finally accept that he’s not going home. He’s doing this. He’s going to stay out. With that in mind, he pulls out a specific outfit he’d been toying with for days now from his transformation pendant. Dark clothes and a ski mask to conceal his identity. Staff of Magnus out in his hand to make it clear he wasn’t just some normal skulking criminal, but an actual Cape.

Hm… maybe he should have a cape to go with it, to sell the whole act. There was a parahuman over in Chicago who called himself Myrddin and claimed he was an actual wizard. Maybe Jason should lean into it and do the same.

… But that was something he could figure out later. Tonight at least, he needed to figure out where he was going. The whole city was his oyster thanks to Flash Air, but maybe he should take it easy all the same, be a bit more careful about where he went and whose toes he stepped on for his first night out.

On the other hand… maybe he was feeling particularly brave. Brave enough to throw caution to the wind…

[ ] Patrol Azn Bad Boys Territory - 7%

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A/N: Will try to keep this up to date at the end of every chapter, get on me if I forget please. Though if it gets too out of hand, might have to change it at some point.

Jason's current banked points:

0 Celestial Points

Jason's current banked power:

• Don't Give Up! (400 Points)

Jason's current powers:

• Flash Air (Gained in Chapter 1)

• Transformation Pendant (Gained in Chapter 4)

• Keen Eye (Gained in Chapter 4)

• Blood, Death, and Demons (Gained in Chapter 6)

• Alchemical Prodigy (Gained in Chapter 8)

• Staff of Magnus (Gained in Chapter 13)