7 The Art of Dodging is a State of Mind

Ílios POV :

I looked down at myself and realized that I was indeed still naked. 'How did I not notice I was still naked? Well, at least I look good and in shape so no need to be ashamed.' I think to myself.

"You probably don't have enough control over your powers to conjure up some clothing, so for now just go inside the cabin, there should be a spare kilt and some sandals for you to wear. After you have dressed I want you to come back at and sit in a meditative pose at the back of the boat, I can sense one of the Serpent's splinters approaching us a little beyond the first house of night, Set and Sekhmet will handle it while I go over your training." Said Khnum.

I followed his instructions swiftly dressing and sitting down and waiting for him to begin his lesson. "As I told you before, you need to get a handle on how not to project your thoughts most young gods learn this naturally after a few months but combat training would be pretty redundant if both Set and Sekhmet can hear your thoughts the entire time so we will start with that." He explained to me.

"Now, to do this I want you to clear your head of all thoughts, your mind is an empty void. Now in this void, I want you to visualize something, just one thing, try something you have a connection with like the sun. Right now your thought on the sun is being broadcast very loudly to the rest of us, to stop that I need to start visualizing this sun getting smaller and smaller until it vanishes. Don't rush it picture it slowly, I want you to repeat this cycle over and over again until I can no longer hear you thinking of the sun." ordered Khnum returning to his seat at the front of the boat.

I close my eyes and go over Khnum's instructions. 'Sun, visualize a sun, come on you got this, there's nothing else then a sun erase all other thoughts.' I tell myself while meditating.

Set POV

"So how should I handle his combat training my lord, I was thinking I oversee his hand to hand combat training while Sekhmet teaches him on weaponry," I said to the approaching Khnum.

"Hmm, yes that sounds acceptable, but you will also teach him on war tactics and leadership, he needs to be able to properly lead an army by the time he leaves, I'll also ask my son Heka if he can free some time to train him in magic every once in a while." Said lord Khnum.

"You sure are putting a lot of effort into training this you cling, tell me, what is so special about him that the great Creator himself is asking of you to train him, it can't simply be that he's a power child of Kronos, if that were the case he would've saved all 6 of Kronos' other children and asked you to train them too, there must be something special about this one." I say to him.

This question had been on my mind since Lord Ra had told me about it earlier today, I just couldn't understand why someone like the Nun, the Creator would take interest in a lowly God.

"I don't know the full story as father didn't think it necessary to tell me, but he did tell me that this one gas a great destiny, and that I should train him to be the greatest warrior he can be." Answered Ra.

"Well, that didn't answer my question at all, but I'll just leave it, things were getting boring here anyways, always the same thing, battling the same enemy. At least with Ílios here, I'll have a new sparring partner and though he's pathetically weak right now in a few years he'll be a real threat." I say in excitement. I then look over to Sekhmet and ask her "What do you think of him, now that you're not trying to kill him for wanting to bed you?"

She blushes slightly while growling at me "He's interesting, I thought he was destined to be just another average strength god before finding out that he's only less than an hour old, but now that I've learned of his situation my interest has been piqued, but he'll have to defeat me in single combat before even thinking of taking my Maidenhead." She responded.

I look to the back of the boat having noticed something and smile "you're getting distracted young one, focus on the sun, not on thoughts of taking Sekhmet's purity." I yell to him laughing."

Ílios POV

'Fuck this is annoying can't even get distracted for a second or they'll hear me. Come on concentrate, empty your mind, visualize the sun, reduce its size slowly then repeat, I can do this.' I tell myself.

This exercise was harder than I thought any time my mind strayed for even a second my thoughts would burst out and Khnum or Set would tell me to restart.

"Start over!!" Yelled Set.

'Fuck this, this method clearly isn't for me, how else can I do this, think!!' I yell at myself in frustration.

I start thinking of all the anime, books and other pieces of media I'd consumed in my past life trying to look for methods on guarding one's mind when I finally remember something 'Occlumency!'

Occlumency was the art of guarding one's mind against intention in the Harry Potter world, Harry spent his entire 5th year trying to learn it from Snape. 'How did they explain it again? Oh yeah, clear my mind of all thoughts, then pull all those thoughts together into one, then create a layer around my mind, then add additional defences around it.' I didn't know if this was the actual Occlumency from the books or something I read in fanfic but it seemed like a good idea so I tried it.

I cleared my mind of all thoughts leaving only a blank space, I then concentrated on all my thoughts and memories picturing them as tiny balls of light and pulled them all together until they formed into a giant sun that contained all my thoughts and memories. By now my body was trembling, sweat pouring down from my brow, this was taking an unbelievable amount of concentration and control. I started constructing a layer around the sun, for this I imagined the hardest substance I could think of, adamantium. The layer that surrounded my sun of thoughts and memories slowly started turning into an adamantium sphere completely surrounding my thought sun. I then visualized the strongest defence I could think of, Itachi's Yata mirror, a mirror capable of changing its nature to nullify all attacks, slowly but surely dozens of Yata mirrors started sprouting from the adamantium sphere until it was surrounded by them.

"Hugh, huff, huff, fuck that was tiring." I breathe out my body tired and my mind weary, but I had a smile on my face knowing I succeeded.

"Well now this is a surprise, you might just be a prodigy young one". Says Khnum. I turn around and see him standing over me, a wide smile on his face.

"What do you mean by prodigy? I thought you said all gods learn to do this naturally anyway, so how does this make me one?" I ask him.

"All gods learn to stop their thoughts from projecting outwards that is true, but what you did is so much more, you've built some rudimentary defences around your mind that will not only stop you from projecting outwards but will stop certain gods from entering your mind and influencing you. Some gods have the ability to affect the minds of even other gods, like your god of Sleep Hypnos or the Norse god Odr god of madness and frenzy even your father the crooked one can whisper into the dreams of others and manipulate them. Though your defences aren't strong enough to stop someone of your father's calibre it should be enough to shield you from weaker gods, but the stronger you get physically and mentally the stronger your defences will grow. I was going to teach this to you after learning to stop your thoughts from flowing out but you went above and beyond and learned it yourself, congratulations my apprentice." He said with a little bit of pride in his voice.

"Yes, yes, The young ones, talented enough of that, now that the boring lessons are done with it's my turn, first lesson dodge." Said Set appearing before me a punching me across the face sending me flying overboard and into the glowing waters of the Duat.

"You failed, let's start again, hurry back on board you don't want to stay in the waters for too long without proper training you might find yourself transported to the Serpent's home in the Sea of Chaos." He said nonchalantly, not caring at all about the danger he'd put me in.

I swam back to the boat as quickly as I could, preparing myself to get punched in the face again with one thought in my head 'I'm definitely gonna hate him as a teacher.'

A.N : I had fun writing this chapter, Set is one of my favourite characters to write, I'm trying to portray him as a dickish but loyal person, he's an ass to everyone but to Ra/Khnum/Khepri he's a loyal and diligent lieutenant and that actually is how he is in the myths, he was one of Ra's most loyal supporters. Also as always feedback is appreciated tell me how you guys feel about all my characters so far.