Chapter 14 : White Thunder Shard

Using that same opening to practice, there was Jinn's team which politely and gladly stepped back to watch the free for all between the three. Jinn placed his bets on Nova, whilst Kazumi did too despite Satoru being his half-brother.

Aza, on the other hand, placed her bets on the white haired glorious boy Satoru. Each betting 10 gold pieces.

-

The first round was won by Satoru, with Nova in 2nd and Zankoku in 3rd. Since the bets go for 2 rounds overall winner, they went again but the exact same placings were once again, with both Kazumi and Jinn paying up to Aza who was thrilled.

[Kazumi's appearance : 12 years old, black custom pants, black kimono top, black short hair and black eyes]

[Jinn's appearance : 12 years old, brown short hair, red kimono top, black custom pants and blue eyes]

"Damn Satoru, you're really strong." said Nova, as he was helped up by the white haired boy.

"This was just a friendly match. It proves nothing." he said, indirectly downplaying himself, still remembering that Nova single handedly killed Hades.

"Hey so now that that's over, you wanna speak more about the shard privately?" asked Nova Satoru, slightly quietly so that the other team doesn't overhear.

They were getting closer with Aza asking Satoru when they can train for the upcoming rank up exams so he told her that tomorrow they can, which she accepted.

"I'll hang out with them. You two do what you need to." said Zankoku, going to the other squad and start to speak to them more. Satoru and Nova nodded and both of them left back towards the village, leaving the forest quickly.

They entered back into the village and Satoru said almost 100% surely : "I need to somehow get this shard inside of my body, but I don't know how."

Nova had an idea and asked Satoru : "Yo what kind of juice do you like?". It seemed out of nowhere, but the boy told him that he like apple juice. Nova gave him the nod of approval as he dragged him to a stand, buying a glass of apple juice.

Quickly, they went to the forgery where Nova placed the shard inside of a container, but without using the lid to close it. He created hellfire from his palms and used it very carefully to heat up and liquify the shard, which was effectively working.

After about a minute of melting it, it was successful so he poured it inside of the apple juice.

Satoru raised his eyebrow and looked at him until Nova met his eyes and asked him : "What?", being confused by the look.

"You expect me to drink that...?" asked Satoru, with his expression changing neutral.

Nova shrugged and murmured : "Ion kno...", closing the glass and shaking it, handing it over to Satoru, expecting him to drink it.

The boy drank the potion in a single chug and felt the energy course throughout his body, with it even flickering from his fingers uncontrollably. 

It began surrounding him similarly as the Storm Cloak but with multiple flickers of white thunder for a few seconds before Satoru was able to disperse it.

[White Thunder Shard]

[Rarity : Epic]

[Description : Allows the user to use white thunder abilities, though they must train and learn them.]

"How do you feel?" asked Nova.

"Good." said Satoru as his energy returned back to 100%.

Adding on "Though it seems that I'll have to simultaneously learn to expand my white lightning now."

[Name : Satoru]

[Species : God]

[Speed : Subsonic, 142.6m/s in base, faster in a form]

[Strength : Large building level at least]

[IQ : Genius]

[Abilities : Thunder, Fire and Earth Manipulation, White Thunder manipulation, Thunder Circus, Thunder Breaker, Storm Cloak, Single Clone Creation, Thunderbolt, Tail Beast]

They left the forgery and saw Zankoku speaking with sensei. The two went up to them and Nova asked him if they could battle him, Satoru Zankoku and him at the same time but Karoi refused.

"Okay, how about a 1v1 then against each of your students?" asked Zan to which Karoi accepted.

They quickly went to a different opening where there were no trees, only mountains and it was very close to the village. Zan wanted to go first and so he did.

He lost.

Satoru went second and was able to win against sensei, following up with Nova who went against him and surprisingly...

He lost.

"Rematch." demanded Nova as he got up after their battle, taking the stance but in the end... Sensei won once again.

"Damn.." thought Nova to himself as he got up from the grass.

Zankoku went up to sensei Karoi and asked him : "Can I get some private lessons?"

Quickly and without hesitation sensei declined but followed up with giving him some tips for things to not do and things to do differently from their sparing battle.

As soon as their conversation concluded, smoke surrounded them entirely and after a few seconds went away, with Karoi and Satoru no longer being there.

 Nova and Zankoku shrugged it off and teleported back to the village after forming the sign with their hands.

-

It had happened quick.. But Karoi was able to knock out and grab Satoru, taking him somewhere into a well illuminated cave that had a small wooden platform and water in front of it. The end of the water was unclear to say the least.

The sensei placed Satoru down as something large emerged from beneath the water. It's presence wasn't as overwhelming but it was dark.

From the water, the beast, the beast of war had emerged. It peacefully and calmly spoke with Karoi for some reason. 

"So you say. Then it seems that I'll have to use him to get closer to my goals..." said Karoi, turning towards the still unconscious Satoru and turning back with a followed up question : "Do you agree with this?" he asked the beast, which eyes dwindled and gazed upon the unconscious white haired boy for a moment before replying to him with a simple : "Yes."

Karoi gave it a nod and it submerged beneath the water, with him turning and going to Satoru, crouching down waking him up.

The boy was pretty quick to awake and sit up on the wooden floor, looking at Karoi and asking him in an angrier tone : "Why did you knock me out?"

He stood back up from the crouched down position and gazed down at the boy, asking him something that made him slightly nervous. "Did you 3 kill Janus?"

"Yes." Satoru said, ready to face the wrath of sensei which he expected but to his surprise... Sensei had smiled and said "Good.", offering the boy his hand and helping him up, commenting : "Janus wasn't in his prime state but even so, a God is still a God."

"Listen, I have a deal for you. One where you help me and I'll help you." offered the sensei to his student in hopes of him accepting. Not saying anything, Satoru lightly nodded his head and sensei began sharing the 'deal', but specifically what he needed.

"As I've told you before, there are 9 beasts and each was assigned to a specific God. To cover up the truth, they created a myth, a mere story.." said Karoi, stopping himself for a moment from continuing speaking.

Satoru was intrigued, even asking : "Then what?", making the sensei continue on telling the story.

"Well.." he stopped again for a second. "Kratos' son, Atreus, allegedly created the beast that comes to existence when all the 9 hollows are combined. It's far powerful than the beast that exists when the regular 9 are combined..." he stopped as he began walking back and forth.

"The story goes that since he didn't have a hollow for himself, that he created one for himself after giving birth to the other 9 hollows." stopping pacing back and forth, turning to Satoru and adding on : "Absurd story, but it's the cover story for something the Gods dare not to speak about and something that not even I know."

"So what exactly does this have to do with me?" asked Satoru Karoi

"Well.. For the final goal, I require the blood of the gods holding the tailed beasts." replied Karoi, hoping that Satoru knows what he's talking about.

"Do you need my blood?" asked the boy.

"No. You don't contain the hollow version of the beast. Only the 9 specific Gods hold them and I've so far got 1 of the 9 beasts, or well, their energies at least." he pointed at the water, with Satoru being lowkey clueless about it but ignoring it.

"You cannot tell the others about anything you speak about with me from today onwards, alright? And that includes Nova, Zankoku, anyone else et cetera."

"Okay." Satoru accepted, willing to listen.

"In that case, the first deity you'll have to take on is Anubis, the God of protecting the dead and holder of the hollow 1 tail." Karoi told him.

Satoru nodded as he recalled reading about him and asked his sensei : "Okay and when will we go kill him?"

Karoi leaned back against a large wooden pillar and gazed frontwards at the stone wall. "Nah, we need to train more. We need to train YOU more." he said as he turned towards Satoru.

"I see. Oh yeah! I was wondering, is there any way I'll be able to turn the beast inside of me into a hollowed one?" Satoru asked, almost hoping for it.

Karoi placed his hand on his chin and thought about it, coming to the conclusion and sharing the potential way with the boy : "Yeah. Hephaestus, the God of Fire, holds the hollow 2 tails, so you'll need it's energy and blood transferred to yourself but that's very difficult and sadly there aren't any ways I know of performing it." 

Beginning to sniff something, Karoi looked around and told Satoru to strike the entrance to the cave with his lightning. Not asking any questions, he fired a lightning beam and caused the large rocks to fall and block them in.

"Okay now with that out of the way, here's what I'll be teaching you next. It's a " he said as he quickly punched the ground, cracking it where his punch landed and sending out waves of lightning, moving similarly like waves of water, in front of himself.

He stood back up after doing so, releasing the lightning and turning to the boy once again, asking him : "But first, show me what you can now do with your lightning."

Satoru stood back, turning to be side by side with Karoi, taking a stance and beginning to show him. 

Lightning beam, white senbons, thunder breaker, thunder circus, imbuing his hands and feet with thunder, activating Storm Cloak and everything else he used during the battle of Janus, including thunderbolt.

Additionally, due to storm cloak, he was able to surround himself in a ball of thunder and emit it and even created smaller lightning bolts, similar to sticks by appearance, but made out of pure lightning and throw them casually. 

Karoi was pretty impressed and even congratulated him on figuring it all out this quickly but also : "You've absorbed the white thunder shard, so I'll teach you how to manipulate white thunder as well. It's not difficult, you just have to connect it in your subconscious to your conscious and you'll easily be able to use it with a sign at first and later once you master it, with your mind and of course how you fire it out, for example via palms, feet or something else." as he raised his finger, he told him.

Satoru nodded.

Due to him having imbuement already learnt as well as thunder breaker, Primal focused on teaching him how to use it without the axe.

Explaining the process is far easier than actually performing it but it's all the trick of fooling your mind as well as being able to actually use his god lightning without the axe, since the axe is but a tool.

-

Zankoku gave himself the task of running 100 laps around the entire village, to become faster since he was training for speed and wanted to become faster.

Nova, on the other hand, interacted with Twist but they didn't see eye to eye... Twist tried to control him and manipulate him after temporarily kidnapping him yet luckily he had resisted, despite being stabbed in the stomach and leg. 

Though Twist gave up and was able to 'grant' Nova the ability to somehow use the eyes of purity for a month...

Overall, they were training in more ways than one.

Satoru was making progress too, being able to quickly fire out Thunder Breaker out of his hands and made it land into a large boulder, shattering it. It wasn't difficult to grasp it, or so he claimed...

Seeing energy as something flexible, as something he can use to extend himself and his power, he punched the floor multiple times yet only small thunder, sparks of it shone and were visible.

Continuing on, he kept punching the ground every 5 seconds after each attempt until trying out something... He imbued lightning onto his hand, forming the fist once more and confidently punching the ground this time, having the thunder travel in the streams, in the waves, going on up to 20 meters in front of him.

[+ 1 ability]

[True Thunder]

[Divine Energy Cost in his current state : 6%]

[Type : God Lightning]

[Strength and speed : Varies on the user, in this case, Satoru]

[Rarity : Epic]

[Obtainability : Training, Transfer...]

[Description : When the streams that are sent out in front of him hit an opponent, he/she is stunned and electrocuted, even burnt by the ability. It could vary on opponents of course and terrain of usage.]

"Your capabilities are impressive as is your knowledge and quick thinking, Satoru. I don't think I've ever seen such logic come at play when figuring out something like this. Then again, you are the God of Thunder now so..." he shrugged as he left towards the cave exit, destroying the collapsed in rocks with a single punch and heading out and turning right, leaving behind the corner.

From the water, something began emerging. Something red, and something familiar... 

Instantly, Satoru was able to recognize the beast that was now smaller, yet still large, the beast with razor sharp teeth and deadly eyes.. Korama.

It didn't say anything to Satoru except bow down to him, with him returning the favor. 

Blood was splattered all of a sudden on the wooden platform due to the beast shoving it's claw through Satoru's stomach, making him fall to one knee. It didn't exactly hurt as much as he expected, yet the pain was still there nonetheless...

The blood dripped down, as Korama pulled it's claw back and spoke to Satoru before submerging back into the water : "This was because you had agreed to join, so I have stabbed you for power."

That was the only thing it said. It wasn't directly known what it was implying, who gave power to who or well.. Who took power from who, though that didn't matter as Karoi walked back inside the cave, giving Satoru a health elixir he brewed up, making him drink it up.

It tasted like toothpaste combined with mud, but it healed him quickly. Being pissed off about his clothes being destroyed, he told sensei "Later." and left, while his wound visually kept healing, yet still blood dripping onto the floor as he walked out, with the intention of heading towards his clan's compound to change clothes and rinse off.