Chapter 8- Growth

[Skye Hunt PoV]

It has been 2 year since I met the Sally who I almost consider a mother and Percy who I consider a little brother. In fact while I was there I manipulated him into calling me big sister.

A year since I have left them and I still have no access to the Mist. Of course the spell of hiding a powerful demigod would come at a cost. For me the cost was to lose my ability to manipulate the Mist and even a decrease in sensitivity to the Mist itself.

This was a boon according to Scathach as I was getting overly reliant on the Mist to move in the mortal world. But I was fine with that. It is quite convenient especially for me because, you know, me being a child who no one will take seriously!

Still I got around fairly well enough. Even before I cast the spell though I felt a huge concentration of Mist somewhere on Long Island and I didn't dare to investigate incase of it being a moster lair. I was not and still am not ready to face an army of monsters and their various methods of detection that I have no knowledge about.

'Going clueless into a fight is almost suicide' as Scathach always tells me.

I retraced my steps south looking for monsters. Especially a certain cyclops that I had to run away from at one time. I will kill it.

I also didn't try shadow travel for long distances again because if someone manipulated it for me to reach a 'safe zone' then the opposite might also happen.

So no taking risks that big for me, yet.I fought a few monsters that came to me because I did very little to hide my scent except when I find a place to sleep.

The only remaining means to hide my scent is the blanket which is quite amazing as I realized it is resistant to most damage including from fire, heat and also corrosive poison.

I found this when I fought with a basilisk. The basilisk is a little green snake with an expandable collar of white spikes around its necks. It's eyes were pale yellow. It could breathe fire and it's very touch is poisonous. It was as long as a man's arm.

It was quite a troublesome enemy and I only won unscathed due to luck and the blanket.

The only reason I was carrying the blanket then was due to just waking up and finishing training. I had left it out in the open.

I don't really need to worry about it getting lost as it always appears in my shadow.

When I was training I didn't realize the small bugger had come so close to me, only noticing the withering grass and disintegrating rocks did I notice the level of danger. When I finally found the snake hiding in the grass it was already ready and sprung at me.

I ducked and rolled while instinctively pulling my blanket over me. The basilisk crashed into my blanket but nothing happened. Both of us were confused for a moment and both of us paused for a second. I recovered faster and pulled the blanket up for defence as the basilisk spit fire at me. I threw both moon darts at it which it dodged but wasn't able to dodge when they returned like a boomerang.

One thing I noticed is that monsters don't usually leave behind remains unless they are specifically mentioned in any myth.

Like a random basilisk will give nothing but if it was a named basilisk that is known for whatever snake thing it did then it will probably leave behind what I call game loot.

I also got better at fighting in any way, either hand-to-hand combat or even with my moon darts. Scathach even made me practice with many different kinds of weapons like daggers, swords, spears, javelins, bow and arrow, and even with a warhammer.

I wasn't very well versed in fighting with the different kinds of weapons but I could at least weird them in a fight. Daggers and the moon darts I practiced the most for very obvious reasons.

I realized though that my reach was very limited even if I could throw the darts.

I didn't choose another main weapon to fight. Scathach had chosen the spear for herself but I don't know if I will get one of appropriate quality so I didn't focus on the spear.

I would practice all the weapons and wait till I found a good weapon before choosing my path.

Scathach finally started teaching beyond the basics which she considered I completed after all these years.

First thing she did is teach me how to breathe. Apparently I breathe wrong along with 99%, of the population breathes wrong not letting the correct regulated amount of oxygen reaching the corners of our body and not properly letting out the carbon dioxide and other unnecessary gasses.

This was some demon slayer kind of training that I went through.

She also taught me how to control my muscles as I breathe and also how to make minimal movements and generate maximum force with little fatigue.

The training was torturous and took the better part of the year to get some small level of mastery on these arts. This is also where she started my weapon and hand-to-hand training.

In the beginning it was too dangerous to use the new techniques in my hunting and fights but by the time Independence Day came by I could already see in an improvement in my fights.

They were becoming easier and I no longer had to specifically place traps and use shadows. I fought head on because that gave me the greatest excitement.

I still practiced controlling and manipulating the darkness and shadows though.

I found a new ability of my blanket. It was again pure accident and I am getting more and more grateful to whoever gave me this.

Whenever I eat I first sacrifice food to my parent, whoever gave me the cloak(these two might be the same but i am not sure),to Lady Artemis and also to Lady Hestia because I still remember that delicious food.

Lady Hestia responded once and gave me a large pepperoni pizza that was even tastier than any pizza I have had before.

One of the days in my journey just after I had taken a bath in a stream, I wrapped myself in the blanket and just wished for clothes to wear as mine were still drying under the sun.

A lot of my clothes got damaged during fights or my clothes got dirty too fast and had just been washed.

When I made the wish my blanket kinda just melted and clung to me before turning into full sleeve T-shirt and jeans under which it also formed underwear.

In my opinion this was even better than the scent hiding function because this material never got dirty and was damage resistant, flame resistant, poison resistant and kept me at a comfortable temperature.

Truly a godly work.

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I am still trying to find that cyclops that took me as prey. I wanted revenge. I ran from him. A shame I intend to wash off with his blood.

I didn't find him south so I retraced my steps back north and went further this time crossing Manhattan to go towards either Bridgeport or New Haven before taking another direction.

On my way to Bridgeport I noticed some bizarre happenings in Darien which led me to finding 3 young demigods.