[Third Person POV]
Deep in the underworld, a territory for magical races of a darker, more sinful nature, in a large mansion within the territory of the Phenex Clan, a young boy sat in the library, reading a book on the history of the fireball spell.
The boy, Riser Phenex, had been studying magic whenever he could, with a focus that rivaled most adults. That was because he was one, mentally at least.
A few days ago, a soul transmigrated into the body of a young Riser Phenex.
As an avid anime fan, he was well aware of the future in store for him.
His fiancée would end up despising him for years to the point she'd even be willing to give her virginity to a degenerate voyeur who talks about boobs all the time. He'd be humiliated in front of his family to the point he develops a phobia of dragons. Then his sister would slowly fall in love with the same pervert who had humiliated him.
'Not this time, ' Riser thought.
-----
[Riser POV]
I had been tucked in the library for most of the last few days, learning the basics of magic. I didn't lose the memories of Riser from before my transmigration, but Riser wasn't the most diligent student, especially since he was a kid.
However, since I knew the plot, I knew I had to get stronger to survive the ExE gods. Even the regular villains out there, like Kokabiel, Cao Cao, Rizevim, Hades, and Trihexa, could kill me as I am now. Though I'm not their main target, my family's ability makes us a target they can't ignore.
Luckily, I knew which events to exploit and whom to recruit. If I wanted to, I could even ruin Rias' peerage in advance.
I am 8 years old, and just a few days before my transmigration, Ravel was born. That meant Rias was about 2 years old, give or take a few months.
That meant Akeno was around 2 years old as well. Kiba, Issei, Gasper, and Xenovia should be 1. Koneko and Asia are either newly born or soon to be. Rossweisse was possibly a year or two older, maybe more; her age wasn't mentioned in canon.
I could intercept all her peerage members and find a few people who weren't associated with major factions like Team Slash/Dog, with their two longinus, or Valerie with Sephiroth Graal.
Even with the opportunity, I'd probably ignore most of Rias's peerage for one reason or another.
Gasper? I don't want a crossdresser around me and give people the wrong ideas.
Issei? A bigger pervert than even myself, and I'm probably worse than the original Riser.
Kiba? Stable until he sees a holy sword, just a bundle of trauma that won't be resolved until Kokabiel arrives.
Akeno and Koneko? Too traumatized because of their power to use it.
Asia? Too naive and pacifistic, not to mention I don't exactly need a healer.
For Xenovia and Rossweisse, I need to wait for them to arrive. One is devoted to Heaven, the other to Odin, so I can't do anything for now.
Rias will probably get to keep her peerage, then. Honestly, the only reason I'd want to recruit Akeno or Koneko would be for my harem, and given I'll probably be engaged to Rias like with canon, I would have plenty of time to convince them.
I need to prepare myself so I don't lose the rating game. The 'fight' with Issei afterward, where he cheats with holy water, I can reject.
As for why I'd accept marrying Rias, aside from her beauty, her luck is unparalleled. Her peerage canonically fights people much stronger than themselves, yet somehow always survives. Hopefully, marrying her will rub some of her luck off on me.
There are also people from Slash/Dog, but approaching Tobio isn't possible given his Himejima heritage. Lavinia should be around my age, which means she hasn't met Glenda yet and won't have abandonment trauma.
Of course, even if I had her next to me, I wouldn't be able to reincarnate her for now, but it was still a good idea to grab her before Azazel does.
Peerage pieces are only granted to clan devils once they reach the age of 10, so if I wanted her, it was better to act sooner.
Part of the reason is that to reincarnate someone, you must be strong enough, so giving it to a child is pointless. Thankfully, it didn't matter whether I could recruit any special figures.
I had a cheat gained from transmigrating.
It was called the Tear System.
The Tear System was a shop that accepted Phenex tears as currency.
Each tear gave a point, and points could be used to buy whatever I wanted. Given the value of Phenex tears, lower-quality items such as food, clothing, and simple materials like wood could be purchased in bulk.
The really valuable stuff would cost tens, if not hundreds or thousands of tears.
In the Tear System, everything could be purchased.
On my first browse through it, I had seen things I could only dream of in my last life.
Devil Fruits, blades from all types of worlds, giant robots, and even characters or their skills from those worlds were all purchasable in the system.
Unfortunately, the more powerful something was, the more expensive it became.
Regular humans would cost less than 25 tears, depending on their skill set.
A superpowered individual like Captain America? Only worth 75.
I even saw that I could buy the powers of the One Above All and the Presence, though the cost was astronomical, costing over a million tears.
My parents only had a few thousand tears in storage at any given time, but honestly? They could easily make more. Lots more.
The requirements to make a Phenex tear weren't exactly difficult, just taking a lot of mana to make. The two of them could pump out a dozen or two before their energy ran out.
The only reason there was a lack of tears on the market was to keep prices high.
That was why I'd been studying magic as much as I could.
The Tear System was a literal cheat, and I could fuel it with my own power, which meant I needed to grow as quickly as possible.
I was close to mid-class, which meant soon I'd be able to start producing tears of my own, though I'd probably wait until I reached high-class for that.
Over the last few days, I'd managed to convince my mother, Rae Phenex, to give me access to the vaults.
She tried to pry the reason from me, but since I had no excuses, I said that access to the tears would allow me to create a powerful peerage, leaving the specifics of the system out, for now at least.
I still hadn't gotten anything from the system to know if it was real, and the memories could easily be a random prophetic magic affecting me. I needed to see if I was going crazy first.
Though she wasn't too happy with my answer, she said that if I could prove it, she'd even start sparing a few tears for me so I wouldn't need to use the vault.
Now, it was time to fulfill my promise.
I had a little over 1,000 tear points saved in my system, so I was going to buy the first member of my future peerage.
__________
Author's Note:
Glad to be back, everyone! This is the new story I hinted at. Figured I'd start the new year with a new story. Telos Karma Meta Gacha will be updated next week, then I'll alternate stories each week.
Most Riser Phenex transmigrator stories usually start around the time of Riser's rating game, making him an evil person just for the sake of it, with an overpowered system that makes him untouchable within like 50 chapters.
The one time there was actually a story with any depth, it was dropped by the author with no warning. Plus, I think that story was deleted, since I can't find it in my library.
That's why I plan to make my own story about a, well, Riser Reborn, heh.
I know the system prices and what his parents could produce are random, but at its core, all pricing is to some extent. He won't just absorb all the tears his parents have saved up or have them work to the bone making more. Riser has a year before anything happens with a named character that matters, so he has time to grow stronger.
Finally, as a little bonus for the new story, today is a triple release!
Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!