Chapter 63

If he could pass, then he could finally visit Asia without having to take Sun Wukong's staff to the head as punishment. Although the old sage would strike him once, it was enough to knock him out for an entire week, a massive waste of time in the blonde's eyes.

Either way…

*Glances to the left*

He would pass and finally leave this place.

[Found you.]

Tswii!

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|DxD|

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[He's worked hard.]

Sun Wukong watched in complete silence as the blonde focused on trying to find him. Igor was completely focused in sensing the various energies around him, something the old sage took great pride in teaching him.

He had dedicated a great deal of time in teaching Igor how to sense the various energies travelling through the atmosphere. He had assumed it would take the blonde a long amount of time to sense energies related to chakra. Yet to his complete surprise, a week hadn't even passed and Igor was able to sense every yokai in the mountain. It was shocking but he eventually left the reason to Igor's strange constitution that allowed him to wield ki.

To this day, the old sage could not decipher how the blonde had ki and why it was so different from normal ki. His ki was far more potent, purer, and leaned more towards destructive capabilities. Every Aryan in history he knew of only used magic, with a few being able to use touki also. There was never an outlier like Igor who used ki.

Another interesting fact is that the blonde also appeared to be immune to chakra and youki.* He had tried healing the blonde with senjutsu after a particularly nasty failure of an attempt at Kaioken x33 two years ago. To his complete shock, the blonde seemed to be in more pain when his youki went inside his body. When the old sage analysed the process, he discovered that his youki seemed to be 'eating' the blonde's ki, making him even weaker than he was. It was such a complete shock that the old sage was convinced that Igor's ki was absolutely and completely different from their ki. Even though he used lifeforce, the composition of his ki was completely different.

He was planning on teaching Igor how to use senjutsu, but he wasn't sure if he could anymore due to the differences between their respective ki, otherwise he wouldn't have spent so much time teaching the blonde how to sense aura. Truth be told, he had dived far into the topic than he initially intended to. Once the blonde had learned how to passively sense different energies nearly two years ago, he would've delved into senjutsu.

But because he was unsure whether his methods would work, he decided to turn Igor into an absolute annoyance of a sensor. The blonde was intuitive and his comprehension was astounding. He had learnt that showing Igor how it's done before going into theory was the best way to hammer things into his head. It was an odd way of learning since the opposite was the usual go-to process. But the normal way clearly didn't work for the abnormal blonde and it was only after the old sage caught the boy almost successfully emulate the method to passively sense energy that he finally changed his teaching method.

And now, his efforts had gradually paid off. The blonde was so good at sensing now that even he had to actively conceal himself just to escape his detection. Igor had become so good at sensing users of ki and chakra that few could escape his detection. And that was only when his senses were functioning passively.

If it was like now when the blonde was actively looking for him, then the old sage had to focus more than usual otherwise if he slackened a bit, then there's no doubt that Igor would find him. Most of this had to do with the fact that Igor had become extremely sensitive to his youki and slightly sensitive to nature energy. It seemed that after having injected senjutsu energy mixed with his youki into the blonde the first time, his body had become attuned to it as a precaution, almost like a vaccine. 

It was very intriguing. Him trying to heal the blonde had inadvertently help him get a feel for what nature energy is like and that came with a whole lot of its own headaches. Although Igor could not use nature energy, he had become sensitive to large concentrations of nature energy. This fact alone had become both an annoyance and a challenge for him because it was now that much harder to hide from the blonde. This was especially due to the fact that Igor was particularly sensitive to his youki to the point that on an instinctual level, the blonde would always be wary of him. Even if Igor himself didn't know it, the old sage could pick up how his ki would gradually 'tense' whenever he approached. It seemed that even after two years, his body could not forget the trauma it suffered and would always remain aware of him.

And just like now, he was interested in seeing if the blonde could detect him after he hid himself better than even most gods could even hope to try. Sun Wukong's skill level was so high that very few people could rival him when it comes to concealing himself. Of course, he wasn't doing his best to hide from the blonde right now otherwise if he did, then Igor would not find him even if the old monkey stood right in front of him.

Sun Wukong's only goal in this moment was to test if the blonde had the necessary foundation to detect the majority of enemies he would possibly encounter so he used around a fifth of his full concealing capabilities. Although the fraction appeared low, it was already much more than what the majority of the supernatural world could ever hope to achieve. If the blonde could find him, then he would have a bit more confidence that the blonde could survive for a bit longer.

And to his expectations, the blonde didn't take more than five minutes to sense him.

*Igor glances in his direction*

[I guess he can.]

Watching the blonde disappear, he stopped concealing himself.

Tswii!

Igor appeared in front of Sun Wukong with a triumphant grin on his face. Even with the blindfold on and his physical senses completely dulled, he was able to look in the right direction.

Removing the blindfold, the blonde handed it over to Sun Wukong.

"Monkey sage. You'll keep your promise, right?"

Sun Wukong took the blindfold with a grin.

"Hmph. Do what you want, kid. Go see your precious little sis-"

The blonde didn't even wait for him to finish.

Tswii!

"..."

Sun Wukong blinked once or twice before sighing.

"He didn't even blur."

With his enhanced sensing capabilities, Igor could also track different energy signatures and lock on much faster than before. This indirectly also improved his [Instant Transmission]. His lock-on speed and the strength of the connection he forms with the target of his lock-on allowed him to travel much faster. If before it was as if he was travelling on a road riddled with potholes, now he was travelling on a four-lane highway.

And although Asia's energy signature was relatively weak, he had gotten used to it to the point that he didn't even need to focus to find it. When the blonde first had to focus for over a full minute just to pick out Asia's little energy signature in a country filled with powerful humans, he had made it his first mission objective to completely memorise her energy signature so that at any point in time, he could teleport to her in an instant.

Currently, his strength was seated firmly in mid-god class. Although the strength increase wasn't much, he was almost unrivalled within the realm of god-class. With his ki-control having increased, he was able to master Kaioken x30 and keep it active for an hour before he would start to feel any strain. With his enhanced ki-control, he was able to fully make use of his already powerful physique to extend the duration of his Kaioken technique. And now, he was finally able to keep the Kaioken x2 active on a permanent basis.

Although his base power did not increase much, his foundation was strengthened and his skills were polished even further. So Sun Wukong felt that even if it was for a while, the blonde deserved to go and meet Asia after not seeing her for almost a year.

And more importantly…

"Finally…inner peace."

Putting the headband into his personal space, took in the fresh air filled with silence. With the blonde gone, he could finally rest like he always wanted. Igor was a training freak and would pester the old sage with questions. So with Igor gone, Sun Wukong could finally breathe easily.

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AN

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1. Another interesting fact is that the blonde also appeared to be immune to chakra and youki.* 

Explanation: Chakra and ki are like fire and water. They do not mix at all, atleast without some sort of intermediary. So the reason why Igor appeared immune was because his vast ki which acted like fire would immediately evaporate any particles or droplets of chakra (water) that threatened to enter his body. Now here's an explanation for youki and this may be slightly confusing. According to Nakamura, yokai fall under demons and demons use chakra. Yet here in DxD, the yokai use ki and they also call it youki. Now, we can attribute this to the fact that the world of DxD is a backwards universe that doesn't conform to the normal multiverse standards. So what yokai confuse for ki is may actually be the inherent origin chakra that they are born with or form from. Youki and nature energy are different since youki more or less falls under the category of chakra. We don't have much information at this point to come to complete conclusions, but hopefully we'll gain some proper clarity in the future. 

And let me take the time to give my thank to all the comments I'm receiving. You have no idea how inspirational they can be. And I also give my thanks to the webnovel readers who continue to give me powerstones.

Moving on, if you're interested in reading ahead, here's the link: p@tre0n.com/HolyGambler

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