Chapter 59 - Midnight Meditation

3 weeks have passed since the night Ddraig tried to contact Issei and this continued on till this day, but sadly Issei has yet to notice him. Though this fact disappointed me a little it wasn't like I hoped that they would make contact immediately. Since I didn't yet know the concept of Sacred Gears I couldn't really blame him for not awakening his Sacred Gear so I just continued to watch over him.

Then although the progress with Issei hasn't yet progressed, my school life on the other hand has. Though it wasn't at the level of being a true friend I didn't, in fact, make my own group of friend that I talked to on a daily basis, and one fact that I didn't expect at first was the fact that I even became friend with Kiba.

It was pretty sudden to be honest, one day while I was wondering the school ground I found him practicing his swordsmanship in the kendo hall. Being a fellow Swordsmen like him one thing lead to another and we ended up sparing. I won in the end but I kept my skills within the human limit and so did Kiba. During our practice, I even pointed out some flaws in his stances the way he swung his sword and other things.

I did this for two reasons actually one was because I thought I could get Kiba as an ally, and the other reason was because of my influence the combat power of Rias and her team isn't as strong as it was in the anime. So training Kiba was a way of paying Rias even if she didn't know.

Sadly, however, my sparring sessions didn't go unnoticed by Rias and even though she hasn't come up and talked with me personally I know that she's had Kiba try and probe where I learned my swordsmanship and other stuff. To this, I answered that most of my techniques were self-taught and that I mostly got the basics from when I was in a dojo back in primary school.

What I didn't expect though was that this caused Rias's interest in me to raise. She probably thought I could be a good servant candidate for her but, even if she asked me I would refuse because I have no plans being under someone weaker than me. I'll admit Rias is hot but, not so hot that I'd do anything for her since I have many beautiful women back in Haven.

Though in the end, I don't mind having contact with Rias since it gives me a way to calmly get in touch with Sirzechs. Actually a couple of months ago I got some intel from my friends in Egypt that someone I was looking for was probably hiding within one of the devil factions forbidden areas. Unfortunately, I already tried breaking into those areas a while back but, it was just like with my trip to England a couple of months ago to heavily guarded.

So rather than busting my ȧss trying to get into a place that probably doesn't even have the person I'm looking for I'd rather get legal entry to look into all their sites from the man in charge. I just got to make Rias owe me one or more favors and before you know it I'd already get my entry. Hell, I might even use Rias's engagement party as leverage to get that pass.

Am I evil? maybe a little but it's not like I'm some hypocrite that believes he's always right and that everything I do is in the name of justice. Besides I can wait a few years to find that person anyway, he's important but not so important that I must bring him to my side. If things go wrong I might just seal him in the place I found him since from what I heard from the other he was known for having a short temper and anger problems.

----

(Present Day)

Currently, it was around midnight and everyone was already asleep but I was wide awake. In truth, I didn't really need to sleep every day but I still did since it helped me mentally. Yet today seemed different even if I wanted to sleep I couldn't so rather than continue tossing and turning in my bed I decided to meditate on issues that I originally put on hold.

Disappearing from my room I found myself not in Haven but on top of a baby blue colored pillar. Surrounding this pillar were four other pillars. In the north was a blackish blue pillar with a statue of a turtle on it. In the south was a vermillion collared pillar with a phoenix on top. The eastern pillar was an azure colored pillar with a Chinese dragon on top. Then the western pillar was white with a tiger on top.

Swirling above my head were 4 orbs, their colors were, dark purple, yellow gold, black, and grey. The yellow gold orb had a sacred aura around it, while the dark purple had a sinister aura around it. As for the other 2 orbs, I could feel nothing from them.

After seeing this I focused my vision further past the pillars with statues and saw more pillars. There was 5 in total but only 4 had colors, red, blue, green, and brown. The last one was clear like glass. Above the orbs floating in the sky, there were rusty metal gears, while on the ground was a floor littered with swords.

This weird space was the current form of my reality marble [Unlimited Blade Works] and it was the first place I went to when I wanted to meditate or go into closed door training. How it got this way I don't know, but I believe it has to do with the blood in my veins and the energies I use.

Time in here goes 10 times slower than in the real world and I thought I'd need this time since just based on my intuition I felt like I would make some breakthrough if I went into seclusion right now.

----

12 minutes passed in the real world while 2 hours passed for me and the main thing on my mind was currently my personal strength. Though the system has told me that I'm currently at the peak of high rank in truth my power far surpasses that. Low to mid-tier ultimate rank that would be the level, I'd estimate myself but for some reason, the system won't acknowledge my strength to that level.

In the past, this bothered me, but the current me see it as reasonable. Originally I thought the system wanted me to awaken my bloodline to reach ultimate rank but that was wrong. In truth my strength is already in the ultimate rank it but that is only with the help of my skills, [Genbu's Defense], [Suzaku's Rebirth], [Seiryu's Wrath], [Byakko's Charge], and all my other abilities and skills but without them I had no chance against those in higher tiers than me.

It was then after that conclusion that I remembered the wish I made when I asked for the system. To put it in clearer words I wanted a system that would help me grow. The key word in that sentence was the word [Help], and after some thinking, I realized that one day when I no longer needed the ȧssistance of the system it would go away. Following the system would be the skills I possessed, but there was a way to keep the skills with me even if I no longer had the system and that was to train my skills without the system's ȧssistance.

That was the main reason I sealed my abilities. Originally this was just a hypothesis, but this idea soon became a fact when I saw my bloodline awaken faster every time I made a breakthrough in my mastery over a skill. So for the past few months, I trained my bloodline skills and abilities the most since I believed them to be the most important and mastered 4 skills.

These skills were [Spirit Flames], [World's Eye], [Yin Yang Palm], and [Dream World]. Of the three skills [Spirit Flames] was the easiest to master since I had used it every time I refined medicine which gave me a decent understanding of how to use it. [World's Eye] was more of a perception ability that relied on my senses so after a few weeks I mastered it but, sadly the mana consumption of my version of [World's Eye] was 10 times more than the system's. And then [Yin Yang Palm] which rather than a skill it was more like a technique that balanced out the good and bad energies of the world and turned it into a spiritual attack.

For that skill I cheated a little by focusing on the [yin yang core] in my ċhėst, this core stabilized the opposing energies in my astral body keeping from exploding. So after a few days of focusing on the cores basic functions, I mimicked them to a certain degree and, after a month of practice made basic mastery of this skill.

As for the last skill [Dream World] if I were to give an example of this skill it would be the Sharingan's Tsukuyomi. While not as good as the original I can cause anyone within 30 meters from me to fall into an illusion trapping anyone who wasn't stronger than me for about 1 hour.

Sadly besides those 4 skills, my other bloodline skills made little to no progress. [Void Demon Form] literally changed the constitution of my body which was something I could replicate easily. [Domain] allowed me to view my surrounding easily but it failed to catch minor details. [Spatial Movement] required me to use the void as a foothold to get from point A to B but, without the use of [Void Demon Form] stepping into the void was hard. My [Telekinesis] could pick up small things but that was only if it was lighter than a few grams and no bigger than a few inches. And lastly [flight] while it is possible to use mana or wind manipulation to create a foothold in the air I wanted to find a way to fly without using them as I did previously but, regrettably I have found no solution to this problem.

As for the skill [Battle Avatar], it is said to be a limit breaking skill but even with the system's ȧssistance, I can't seem to be able to use it so I left it unsealed in hopes that I can find out its capabilities in a later date.

Strangely enough though while I was able to measure the progress of those skills, I couldn't measure the progress of [Genbu's Defense], [Suzaku's Rebirth], [Seiryu's Wrath], and [Byakko's Charge]. Since they were mostly passive abilities that could raise my body's capabilities no matter how hard I tried to improve them I felt like I was going somewhere with them but at the same time going nowhere.

In the beginning, I tried to improve them by improving my body physically but that was wrong I found that out after wasting a month on physical training before feeling that what I was doing lead me nowhere. Left with no other choice I consulted the system and came to the conclusion to refine my body once more as I did in the underworld all those years ago. Along with that idea, I created a new body refining cultivation method (with the systems help and a lot of system points) out of my old method [Life and Death Spiritualization].

The difference from this one and my version was that the refining didn't require a specific type of energy sources like the previous one with life force, and demonic energy. Afterward, the only problem left was what materials would I use to refine my body.

I couldn't use materials from my guardians since they were created from drops of my blood thus having similar DNA to me making anything I used from them to refine would just be a waste of time. In the end, I both bought materials from the system shop, as well as gathered suitable materials from the outside world.

Still, while it did take some time to gather in the end, I was able to gather up materials similar to the 4 divine beasts whose blood was mixed into mine. Descendants from the Vermillion Pheonix, White Tiger, Black Turtle, and Azure Dragon even if they passed on over a millennia ago their descendants still carry a part of their genes. Using those I tried to alter the genetic composition of my body so that I can use these traits. The only cost was that while my body looked like a normal human body it was anything but a human body. Furthermore for some reason when I finished ȧssimilating the genes into my body 4 opposing energies formed in my body or to be more exact my arms, legs, ċhėst, and back.

Usually my yin yang core would be balancing these energies but, strangely enough, it couldn't. I tried to balance them out personal a few time and was able to succeed but whenever I lost focus they would separate once more, but I didn't give up. The more I tried to balance them out the easier it became the next time and I thought it wouldn't be long before I would be rid of this issue. Even to this day, I try to balance these energies when I have some time to spare only to get the same result.

However, today was different for some reason. My body was hot, and my mind wouldn't stop wondering because of this I couldn't sleep and eventually decided to once again try and perform the task that's preoccu[ied me these past few months. The only thing didn't expect was that while originally this task seemed harmless, it would actually cause not only the earth but even the Underworld and Heaven to fall into a state of panic.