Story starts with Kazuki waking up his sister, Kanae. Kanae tease's him by trying to get him to kiss her as a motivator for her to get out of bed. A humorous exchange follows and Kazuki is forced to bridal carry her out of bed instead of kissing her.

As they head to school a lot of backstory is revealed in their discussion. Due to Kazuki getting the magic stigma he's forced to go to the magic side. Not only that but because everyone get's the magic stigma at 14, this indicates that his official age is wrong. This makes him younger then Kanae but Kanae still wants him to treat her as the younger sibling (she's deredere like that).

Kanae expresses her distaste for the magic stigma changing so much and says that Kazuki had a lot of potential as a swordsman that's ruined thanks to the magic stigma. Kazuki disagrees and thinks that since it comes to this he shouldn't fight against it and give it his all. He promises Kanae that she'll be the best in the sword faction while he'll be the best at the magic faction.

Since it's Kazuki's first day at school Kanae is giving him a tour of the campus but trouble came up. The VC of the sword said, came running to Kanae to warn her about fights with students from the magic faction. Kanae doesn't want to leave Kazuki alone but is forced to.

Kazuki wonders around the campus for the magic side for a while before meeting the president of the magic side Kaguya (big breasted black haired sempai for those of you that need a image). She takes interest in him and gives him a tour of the magic side campus. Along the way she expresses sediments of getting along with the sword faction and Kazuki agrees.

As their walking Kazuki sense's a disturbance in the magic and Kaguya remarks that he's pretty sharp. Both of them rush to the scene of the disturbance where they witness Kanae bitchslapping two magic side students. Both of them were trying to chant but Kanae's to fast for them and doesn't give them the chance. Kaguya breaks up the fight before it can get worst. Although the two magic side girls still want to go at it they aren't dumb enough to oppose the strongest on their own side. They back down and Kaguya tries to berate Kanae who ignores her and greets Kazuki instead. Kaguya pushes the issue however and she and Kanae get into a argument. Kazuki's unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) caught in the middle.

Due to Kauya and Kanae's fight the tour completely fails and the enrollment ceremony begin. The important part here is that it reveals the history of magic. Basically a genius invented the philosopher stone which can grant magic however the genius was killed and the world now has a limited amount of stones since it's secrets died with the genius.

Enrollment ends with Kaguya showing off the power of a summon by killing a large dragon.

Kazuki expresses awe at that level of power and wonders if he can make it.

End of chapter 1.

(for Japan's case) and contract with them, you can use their magic. IIRC, their magic is split into 10 levels. The higher the level of magic, the higher the difficulty. At the highest level, you have a full summoning where the demon physically appears and can use his or her signature magic (e.g. Phalanx's Level 10 Magic can literally revive a dead person). At lower levels, you can "borrow" the demon's magic, but the demon itself won't physically appear. An actual appearance is really rare and can only be done by the best of the best.

For the females, whenever they activate their magic, they do a little mahou shoujo transformation (it's not called that...) and get into these sweet and revealing armors (cover girls of this series are the prime example).

15 years ago someone succeeded in making a philosophers stone that allowed people to awaken to magic.
Girls naturally have a higher amount of magic energy. There are 6 basic types of magic: Defense, Psychokinesis, Pyrokinesis, Telepathy, Enchant Aura (self-buffing), Extra Sense (6th sense, feeling for magic). Defense is reflexive as long as you have magic energy left and renders mundane weaponry useless. Thus the whole world's military quickly changed to using magic.
The guy who developed philosophers stones supposedly got him self killed (his corpse wasn't found so he should be alive somewhere, somehow), so no more new philosopher's stones, but people have started to awaken to magic by themselves. Thus by now, most people can use magic to some degree and mage-tech industry is booming.
Through a gate inside themselves, all magicians are connected to another world where gods and demons reside. Since those are basically the same, they were henceforth collectively called Deva.
Every magician can form a contract with a Deva and use their extra-powerful magic. If done wrongly, that will corrode the magician's mind over time and in the end, the Deva will take over.
Mad magicians like that running wild destroyed Tokyo in the past. Japan was saved by the 72 Demons of Solomon. They developed the Enigma(?)-Stigma contract system where the Demons pick talented magicians and on their 14th birthday, a sign appears on those people, the Enigma(?). Those are then carted into one school where they make a full-fledged contract with the Deva that chose them, the Enigma changes into a Stigma and they learn summoning magic henceforth, being now called Magika Stigma. Everyone not doing this is labelled illegal and gets killed. Only the 72 Demons know the rules so no other Deva can sneak in.
The advantage of the Enigma-Stigma contracts is safety for the casters because they don't go mad. The disadvantage is that they need long incantations to use their magic and their magic energy isn't used as effectively as it could be. Thus they need the swordsmen to take the beating while they chant their spells.
As was already mentioned, the Magika Stigma can use 10 magics, ranked Level 1 to 10, so called Summoning Magic, where they summon the power of their Deva. With the Enigma-Stigma contracts, a Deva can have multiple contractees and they can even fight each other, with the same spells. Only the final spell where the Deva is materialized is limited to one at a time. The types of spells every Deva grants are different. Asmodeus mainly grants debuffs or ways to interfere with the enemy... like summoning tentacles... all of the spells are disgusting in some way. Phenex is more combat oriented with flame bullets, a flame barrier, flame wings, I think... Baal... uhhh... grants weapon summons?


Anyway, nowadays Japan is one of the seven magic superpowers (along with America, England, Germany, Italy, China and... Russia or France, I think, but I'm not sure) and totally reliant on the 72 demons.
Other countries are implied to have other contract-systems and rely on other sets of gods and demons.

The worst part by far is the jarring incompetence among the adults. The only competent adults mentioned so far are the protag's adoptive father and his loli-sized homeroom teacher. The knight corps, read the army of one of the current superpowers, seem completely inefficient, too. One character votes to get rid of the protag because "the only deva that can be trusted are Solomon's 72 demons. Not their king. Who knows what the Lemegeton is planning. Who knows what any of the other Deva are planning. Too dangerous, kill, kill, kill." Think about what exactly he's saying for a while.

Then there's the fact of the swordsmen sucking so much (except for the protag and his little/big sister because they were taught by one of the few people who actually THINK). Same with the discrimination, its level and its general acceptance. Think about this: Summoners and swordsmen build the army, intended for real combat. Discrimination against swordsmen is based on two facts: They lack the large-scale firepower of summoners and they don't stand a chance in duels because the rules favor the summoners MASSIVELY (also, because swordsmen don't play to their strengths). With ambush tactics, or any kind of tactics at all, they could slaughter most summoners most days of the week. Makes me wonder how they arrived at a level of discrimination where 14 year old girls don't raise an eyebrow when the swordsmen are described as cannon fodder nobody cares about. Well, I guess it's no wonder why the knight corps suck so much, huh...

The way the major plot for the next few volumes was forcefully kickstarted at the end was incredibly weak, too.

While reading, I thought "bullshit" quite often. Don't remember all the instances, though, but I'm sure there were more than I mentioned here. Some of them can be forgiven if it's to get the world built and the story rolling, but I was very disappointed how poorly the end of the volume was done (with the exception of the protag). So right now I'd only recommend this novel for the protag. The girls are still too weak, character-wise, and the plot did more wrong than right. That being said, the girls can improve and the plot can get steady. But I also thought so after the initial info-dumping and first fits of stupidity to set the setting...


Edit: Ohh, the school system reminds me of Hidan no Aria, with students getting ranks and going on "quests" to help the knight corps... felt stupid, too, although I cannot quite tell why anymore. Third year students are permanently outside the school grounds, on internships with the knight corps throughout the country. But the student council president and vice president are the most powerful students... and conveniently second-years this time. Also, those two and the student council trainees among the first years are the only people from the council available, so... uhh... is it just me or does something make not add up here?

Edit 2: Beginning of Vol 2 (from the preview). Protag and Heroine go on their first quest. Completely unprepared. They are shocked by what their enemies can do. Their enemy... is a Slime. It fixes itself after it's cut. How novel. But somehow protag did anticipate it, so he was already casting a fireball. Then they are shocked that another enemy, a Red Slime, is immune to fire. Without any method of attack left for the two of them, the heroine gets herself almost slime-raped and tentacle-raped, but a classmate on her own quest saves her with ice magic. Protag and the heroine get their ego roughed up a bit, but NOW they suddenly know: There are Blue Slimes, too, and they're the ones immune to ice magic, so they warn their classmate... I think at this point I was double-facepalming. So yeah, the idiot ball goes round and round in this one...

Pretty much yes, the adults are bafoons. Some were like, "Hey, this unknown devil isn't one of the 72, let's get rid of her." The teacher was like, "..., dude. This devil knows the 'rules" of contracting. Wouldn't you think that she is somehow related to the 72 devils. Further, if you really do kill her and she really is related to the 72 devils, don't you think you're pissing off the other 72 devils? You may as well say bye bye to your position as a magic superpower."

Then there is the ending where the protag's demon identity was truly revealed. Some were still in favor of eliminating her even after it's been made bloody clear that the only reason the 72 demons are helping the country is because of the protag and his demon. Unless these bums plan on nuking Japan's position as a magic super power, they truly are idiots. In the end, the principal then stated, "Well, if the MC does go rogue, the student president (principal's daughter) can eliminate him." Yeah, except the principal's daughter is already "linked" to the MC. The student president's likeness of the MC has already exceeded 60 (the threshold) in the first volume, which means the MC can already use Asmodeus' magic.

doesn't have any abilities in herself. She simply allows our MC to use the other 72 demon's powers if he has conquered the girl because she is the lord of the 72 demons. She also gives him the Solomon's Ring. The 72 demons obey Lemegeton, but not the MC unless the MC conquers the girls. If so, he can access their magic from the 72 demons. The key is the level of likeness of the girls have for the MC. If the likeness level exceeds 60, then the MC can access the demon's powers. One of the things Lemegeton granted the MC is the ability to see how much girls like him. The MC can literally see a # and actions that increase a girl's likeness to him absorbs "hearts" into Solomon's Ring (and increase the value) while dislikes absorb darkness (and decrease the value).

This is why the MC was able to see right through the heroine's tsundere personality. By the end of volume 1, I believe the heroine's likeness already exceeded a 100. It started out at 50 something.

Even though the MC can't use high level magic yet, there is a one-time maneuver per girl that can grant the MC access to level 10 magic.

Out of curiosity why do you think the dad's competent. Don't really remember the protog's dad doing well.....anything at all this volume. He's only mentioned in passing a couple times.

Hi now, you forget to add the sword side VC to the list of people that didn't suck. You have to admit that he's impressive to fight against magic head on without precog. Takes a lot of GUTS to do that. Oh and also the girl that Kanae taught.

As for the summoners discrimination thing I think that part's more justified. Being a summoner automatically makes you a national treasure in the country's eyes because of how precious the firepower summoners bring are which I imagine is a ego boast to many and gives them the incentive to look down on people. Not only that but their still teens....... with the potential power to open the gates of hell, call upon otherworldly weapons, gain lightning speed, distort space, revive the dead etc. This probably is just a tip in the iceberg given that summoning is noted to make technology obsolete including nukes so we'll probably be seeing city destroying summoning in the future. Of course teenagers with that kind of power and status would be so arrogant.

Swordsman on the other hand are the opposite. Their a dime and a dozen so nope, no special status is granted. Their very weak in terms of destruction, comparing them to summoners is like comparing a tank and a sword. Worst of all they can't fight back even if they wanted to. No one cares about one or two swordsman dying since their easily replaceable. Summoners on the other hand are a limited resource so if a summoner gets hurt due to swordsmans acting out of line we can safely assume that the swordsman that did the deed would be getting heavy punishment. So yeah sure you can use tactics to take down a summoner. But afterwards? I won't be surprised you face capital punishment (Kanae's probably getting off free now because she hasn't really harmed a summoner yet). Most swordsman probably think that it isn't worth trying to force a point and gave up.

Combine all this together and one can see why summoners consider swordsmans useless. Albeit I admit that the books trying to force it to much and the girls are being to ignorant to the ways of a actual fight.

TBF Kaguya's still stronger then the MC as a summoner (and arguably in fights to).

Being able to use Asmodeus doesn't matter when you can't use most of his spells or you don't have the magic capacity for them.

They didn't do their research on Kaguya liking Kazuki though.

After the Freshmen enrollment ceremony the first day of class starts. Kazuki is under a lot of pressure from fellow classmates as the only guy. The loli teacher comes in (shocking everyone since the teacher looks like a kid) and is dismayed to found her class so unfocused. She calls them all bugs (or something to that extent) and berates them. She then points out that Kazuki is rank E so he's nothing special even if he's a guy. Kazuki thinks to himself that he's rank E because he's suppose to be a swordsman thus he didn't practice all the other magic tricks except strengthening therefore he couldn't do well in the ranking test. The class laughs at him but the teacher shuts them up and points out that they shouldn't get cocky just because he's rank E. Since summoner magic makes real magic look useless rankings don't matter at this point.

The teacher also points out that she has two rank A students and mutters about how troublesome this class is. She briefly introduces the two as Mio and Koyuki (to lazy to find their last names). Koyuki's the one sitting behind Kazuki (Nagato Yuki clone) and when Kazuki looks behind her he notices she's a fairy. Basically once magic was discovered mythical beings came into existence as well and she belongs to that race. Her type is particularly attuned to magic and has sharp elf like ears but besides that look no different from humans.

She notices him staring and asks if he finds her weird and unpleasant. He deny's it, but she tells him that there's no need to lie and she's already used to that discrimination. He continues denying it and in the heat of the moment tells her that he's staring because she's so beautiful. This surprises her but she quickly regains her composure and tells him that he should be aware of where they are at. Kazuki realizes their still in class and turns around embarrassed. The loli teacher berates him.

Brief class intro comes next and Mio introduces herself first. As she does she waves at Kazuki except Kazuki doesn't know her (remember her). He gets confused and doesn't acknowledge it which irritates her. As the introduction go down it gets to Kazuki. He gets nervous but manages to make a good impression until he reveals that he's a swordsman by hobby. This causes the class to break out in laughter and Mio haughtily points out that swords are useless in front of magic and mocks him for being rank E.

Kazuki feels angry at the negative reaction but doesn't let it get to him. On the bright side Koyuki stands up for him.

After that the loli teacher brings them outside to try contracting a summon. It's revealed that in order to contract a summon one must delve deep inside the mind to the abstract world to meet the summon. Because it's dangerous Kagura is here to mentor it. Also few succeed on their first try. Once they succeed they get a astral dress that boasts their magical abilities up. It's also conveniently revealing because it has to expose the stigma for some reason (read:fanservice).

As their walking to the place where they're having their contract Mio tries to talk to Kazuki. She speaks arrogantly and looks down on him but he brushes her off although he wonders if he knows her.

Anyways Mio succeeds in her contract. After her no one succeeds until Kazuki's turn.

Kazuki enters his mind and a voice talks to him asking if he has the will to change the world. He responds that he does and when he wakes up he's shocked to see a naked beautiful girl appear. She kisses him and tells him the contract is complete. She also introduces herself as Lemmy.

Lemmy is then shocked that she's naked and demands cloths. Kaguya quickly gets cloths for her and questions the loli teacher what they should do since nothing like the girl has been summoned before. Also Kazuki doesn't have a astral dress (it would be awkward if he did have one though considering how....weird all of them are) further complicating matters.

The loli teacher questions the summon by the summon brushes the questions off and falls asleep. The loli teacher decides to have a staff meeting to decide Kazuki's and the summoned girls fate.

Koyuki succeeds to in her contract after Kazuki btw.

After that class still continues and info is shared but Kazuki is distracted so he didn't catch most of it. After school Kazuki is requested to wait in a room until his fate can be decided. He's worried but when the decision finally comes to his relief it's decided that they'll monitor the situation. Furthermore in order to effectively monitor everything it's decided that Kazuki is to be put in the same dorm the student council lives in.

Kaguya's happy that they'll be living together and the loli teacher teases her. Kaguya is flustered but tells the loli teacher that she intends to train Kazuki into a magic swordsman.

With Kazuki's case temporarily settled, Kaguya leads him into the student council dorm. Kazuki's amazed at how big the dorm is. At the same time Lemmy wakes up (Kazuki was carrying her) and needs to go to the bathroom. Kaguya leads her into the bathroom, before leaving she told Kazuki to just get one of the rooms in the second floor.

Kazuki goes to pick a room and is shocked to see Mio.........naked. He quickly closes the door and rushes out. Koyuki then appears and sardonically greets him. Kazuki questions why they're here and it's revealed that rank A students become student council apprentices. They ask why he's here and he reveals his circumstances.

After that the first years plus Kaguya sit down to wait for the VC of the magic side since she's on a quest. She finally arrives and introduces herself as Hikaru. She looks and Kazuki and is amazed that there's a girl even more manly then she is. Kaguya reveals that it's actually a guy causing Hikaru to be shocked and turn shy. Hikaru reveals that she's always been at a all girls school so she doesn't know how to handle boys.

However Hikaru says she'll do her best, she then quickly becomes embarrassed again.

Chapter ends with Hikaru bringing out snacks and drinks for dinner. Kazuki's less then amused at the nutrition value of said snacks but his complaints go unnoticed.

He's a swordsman who thinks how to overcome the deficit in power with summoners without giving up. The only one, apparently. That alone is makes him one of the three most competent adults mentioned. He succeeded in creating such a style, too, and came up with the theory behind that ingenious "ultimate technique", even.

Kanae's Nr 2 and 3 didn't completely suck, yeah, but the way the guy is persuaded that he can be good, too, is questionable anyway. "I thought the prez was an exception, but now I've seen another good swordsman. Maybe I can do good, too." is questionable in general and stupid if the "other good swordsman" has the same background as the first. To me, anyway.

And no, the discrimination is not justified. It's too crass. It's like the swordsmen aren't even human. If swordsmen were born differently and everyone was drilled "swordsmen are worthless" from birth, then yes, it would be reasonable. But neither are swordsmen born differently, nor is there such conditioning. There wasn't enough time for such prejudices to root so deeply. Until a few month ago, most of the first year summoners were normal girls (who made some effort to become summoners, yes, but they were still normal).

Actually, right now I'm wondering why anyone not suicidal or desperate would ever agree to become a swordsman, considering how they're treated...

Not to mention that with some thought the general swordsman should be superior to the general summoner in live combat... (summoners who can coolly chant their little spells while a swordsman is whacking away at them are the exception, not the rule)