Chapter 19

Imagining the scene where he would make Baraquiel dance to his blade and his face swollen from his fists made the blonde laugh out loud.

"HAHAHAHA!"

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|DxD|

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Feeling very content with himself, Igor surmised his current strength.

"The old man said I was a peak high-class before. But with my recent increase in strength, I should at the very least, be mid-ultimate class, right? And with the Kaioken times-two, I should be a high ultimate-class…I think. I'm not really sure how powerful ultimate classes are. I only know that Satan class can destroy countries. Or was it continents? Fuck! I need to learn these things in the future. But it doesn't matter. As long as my fist can squash their face."

With his current strength, Igor could be classified as ultimate class and with his current ki reserves, he could potentially create a big enough attack to destroy an entire country. *

And with the limitless potential of the Kaioken, it made Igor feel ecstatic at the possibilities. Because, even after over four decades had passed since he had read the novel of dxd, making him barely, if at all, remember any of the characters, only two names survived the test of time in his mind.

Those names were of the two most powerful known beings in the universe.

"If I go Kaioken x1000, can I beat Ophis and Great Red?"

It was a casual goal that had formed a few months into his training. From the start, he had only aimed to first surpass those two before looking upon further horizons. He barely knew much about their abilities, and he didn't care. Any knowledge he had about their powers had been lost to the rivers of time. The only thing he could remember was their names and that they were very powerful dragons that could tap into the power of 'concepts'.

But having thoughts about them now wasn't worth it.

"Nah. I shouldn't bother myself too much about that. Right now, I'm just a scrub to them that can be killed with one miss-timed cough." 

While that should've put a damper on his enthusiasm, it only served to do the opposite.

"Okay! I've got Kaioken x3 out of a thousand."

su su su su su su Su Su Su Su Su Su Su SU SU SU SU SU SU

"Let's see if I can push for a fourth boost!" 

Gruuuuuuuu

"Times four!"

And the effect was immediate.

"GAAAGH!"

His whole body seized up, the blazing red aura disappearing instantly. The sudden shock of his muscles tearing and the shocking experience of a mind-splitting headache made the blonde unable to maintain his levitation. With his mind floating in and out of consciousness, his descent towards the greyish ground was swift.

But anything…anything would've been better than what he experienced next.

*CRASH!*

"?!?!?!?!?!"

He was instantly brought out of his hazy state by the soul-crushing pain that spread throughout his entire body. His eyes went white from the pain, his mouth open but no screams coming out. The only thing that came out was a soft high-pitched scream before the blonde let his head fall onto the ground.

*Whimper*

The only single indication that he was alive, was a single tear trailing from his eye.

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|DxD|

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Time Chamber: 6 Months Later (1 year after entering)

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The months had passed by peacefully.

"55…56…57…"

Ever since that 'event', Igor had restarted his physical training. With his body having aged up by two-years, there was a lot more potential for the blonde to exploit.

"63…64…65…"

Currently, he was in the gym performing his second set under the bench press. Having intentionally weakened himself as much as possible, the blonde was lifting a combined weight of 500 kilograms. The flow of his ki was slowed down as much as possible without negatively affecting him too much, thus vastly limiting the amount of enhancement his muscles could get from his ki.

Although, this did come with the downside of decreasing his stamina.

"79…80…eighty…one…"

But with a strong desire for power, the blonde could easily ignore the fatigue of his muscles for a few more reps.

"90…91…92...ninety-eight, ninety…nine…one-hundred!"

Placing the barbell on its stand, Igor slowly sat up. Having worked out for a few months, there was a drastic change to his definition. He certainly appeared muscular in his current state. Having gotten used to rarely wearing a shirt, Igor's wide chest and shoulders were out for display.

The blonde sat up, his hands moving to caress his chest. The slight buzzing sensation and the pull of the muscles in his chest made him smile.

"I never get tired of this feeling."

The blonde allowed the flow of his ki to return to normal so that his muscles could recover faster. He even went so far as to use just the tiniest boost from the Kaioken to facilitate even faster muscle growth and recovery. 

It was a neat little trick he learned nearly a week after successfully activating the Kaioken. Once he began to channel his ki into the strand of divine ki, carefully regulating the amount can allow him to get the Kaioken boost in percentages instead of full multipliers. *

When the strand of divine ki began to 'excrete' demi-ki, Igor would carefully keep the same flow of ki so that the rate of excreted demi-ki remained the same. This would result in a red outline of variable thickness that would depend on what percentage of a boost he got.

Currently, Igor could safely handle a 50% boost to his power without any strain for a few hours. But that duration would decrease after a particularly intense physical workout. 

Since he was recovering from doing a hundred reps, he took out a book called 'Basic Ki Techniques For Survival'. It was the third installment in Nakamura's series of books that he had to learn. Although Igor had questioned himself why he didn't read it first, those doubts were cleared when he had seen how complicated the techniques were.

He flipped open to the page where it was titled…

…

'Volume 2: Aura-Sensing

Now we're done with ki-control. You can mold ki throughout your body like jelly and you can control your aura emissions to a good enough extent. Now, we need to focus on improving your sensory skills. To my knowledge, I've briefly taught you how to feel for strong entities through the aura they emit. Now, I'm going to teach you how to sense everything around you through their life force. Apart from demons, nearly every entity emits some sort of life force.

The reason why demons have no 'lifeforce', is because they are quite literally 'chakra given form'. Their existence is dependent on chakra, an energy that governs nearly all of reality. I could go into much more detail about how demons are formed and whatnot, but that will take too much time and will waste my ink needlessly. Just know that demons are from the combined elements of air, water, earth, fire, yang, and yin with a catalyst that could either be dense amounts of chakra or emotions.

Moving on. While I have taught you to distinguish an entity's individual power, I have not taught you how to sense if they are hiding their power. There are two reasons why I did this.

1. If you truly encountered a powerful person who was hiding their power, then there is absolutely nothing you could do if they wanted to kill you. The only difference is you'd know how hopeless everything was before you joined your ancestors.

2. It already takes a substantial amount of time to train how to sense someone through their aura. It takes even more time to train someone to accurately gauge someone's strength through their life force.

That is why I did not delve into aura sensing as deeply. But now since you have the Kaioken, we can shorten the time by a wide margin.

So let us begin.

First of all, find a quiet spot to meditate under. Make sure there are life signatures nearby, no matter how minute. Animals and other wildlife will suffice-

…

Igor closed the book with a snap and groaned. There was no life force in the time chamber other than him, making it somewhat difficult to practice this technique since he had no verification if it worked or not. 

Ever since Igor encountered Baraquiel, it irked the blonde that he could never sense how powerful the Fallen was. If he focused enough, Igor could get a vague feeling. So he knew that the fallen was somewhere around 5 to 7 times stronger than him based on their frequent spars. He was especially sure of that figurative range when he had launched a bastardized spirit bomb as a fair well 'gift'. 

Although the main reason for launching that attack was to get 'compensation' for all the suffering he received from Baraquiel, another was to force the cadre to release his full power so that the blonde would know just how much he had to train before he could beat him.

And given his recent power boosts over the year in the time chamber…

"I can beat the old man with my current power, or at the very least fight him to a draw. I don't know how many techniques he has so I can't guarantee my victory. But…"

He looked around the gym. The slightly dirty equipment and the gravity dial by the entrance gave him confidence.

"...if those hourglasses have anything to say, I still have roughly nine years to fully surpass the old man, and possibly, Uncle Azazel."

To Igor, Azazel was a complete enigma. He could sense absolutely NOTHING from the governor. Not even the tiniest wisp of energy leaked from him. And from how he saw Baraquiel treat the cadre, he suspected that Azazel was stronger.

But while those two could be easily understood, his biggest concern was Akeno.

"That little chick is the reason why I'm banging my head with this volume."

It had come as a complete shock to the blonde that she had observed him for three full years. It grated Igor to find out that a child of all things, managed to hide and observe him so easily. The blonde prided himself on his basic senses. Even without his rather elementary ki-sense, his sense of sight, hearing and smell were all at the level of a superhuman. Back then, his ears could capture the heartbeat of anything within a twenty metre radius. He couldn't differentiate between the ones of a human and wildlife so he could've heard Akeno's heartbeat once or twice on those few moments he chose to relax and listen to the wildlife. But at the very least, he should've noticed the sound of dead leaves being crushed or even the barest peek of her dresses.

When he questioned Baraquiel about all these things, he came clean about her peculiar talent for stealth. He explained about many scientific and magical things that the blonde couldn't understand fully. All he knew was that Akeno amongst her talent to hide, she could somehow subconsciously use lightning to slow her heart rate and eliminate her scent. 

He didn't understand how that worked specifically. His only guess was that millennia upon millennia of experience was inherited by Akeno when she was born. But when he questioned why she wouldn't give off energy fluctuations, there were two reasons that Baraquiel gave. One was her insane talent for energy manipulation and the other was a necklace that Azazel gifted to her. It would work to hide her fallen angel side and make her appear like a normal human. The second effect was that when within the forest, she would be shrouded with a negligible barrier of nature energy. It would serve to make the animals in the forest friendlier to her and at the same time, hide her presence from most people.

Just remembering that he got snuck up by a kid, magic tool or not, made the blonde put the book on the floor and lie down on the bench.

He cancelled his Kaioken and slowed the rate of his ki flow.

"Even if you can sneak up on me, it doesn't mean anything if you can't kill me." 

He picked up the barbell and began his reps.

"1…2…3…4…"

Counting his reps through clenched teeth, Igor lifted away his worries.

[Since the world has bullshit people that can escape my current senses, I just have to sharpen my body's instincts. As long as I can feel the displacement of air, I can react quickly enough.]

He continued lifting, that momentary revelation bringing a confident grin to his face.

[Then I can destroy them with my fists.]

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AN

1. With his current strength, Igor could be classified as ultimate class and with his current ki reserves, he could potentially create a big enough attack to destroy an entire country. *

Explanation: I would like to place great emphasis on "could". Nothing is set in stone. Until another character from the series with enough reputation says otherwise, we can't really be sure where his strength is at. You are free to speculate though.

2. It was a neat little trick he learned nearly a week after successfully activating the Kaioken. Once he began to channel his ki into the strand of divine ki, carefully regulating the amount can allow him to get the Kaioken boost in percentages instead of full multipliers. *

Explanation: I would like to give credit to Fanfiction.net user "flameclawsxx" who wrote the dragon ball fanfiction "Dragon Ball: It's About Time" for the idea about using the Kaioken in percentages. Read his work. It's honestly good.

Important Notice

As I've stated a few days ago, I will not be able to upload on Friday, Saturday, and possibly Sunday. Today is Thursday and tomorrow, I will be travelling with my parents.