I sighed as I walked around watching Mary attempt to teach the others how to meditate. Getting them to feel their Ki had been easy enough, but they couldn't seem to pick up how to focus on it. It was only even more clear just how much of a genius Mary was. She'd figured it out so quickly I was sure she was even faster than I'd been.

From my observations, Max was the one who was the slowest. He seemed to be far too used to using the system the Deity had set up. After a little bit of meditation, he attempted to look around for a notification, earning him a swift strike from my staff. That was my role. Once Mary had properly figured it out, I'd been happy to let her take control. It was much easier to provide the punishments.

Despite my current role, I was learning a lot too. Watching another human manipulate their Ki was an experience I needed. It seemed that Ki manipulation was slightly related to personalities. Mary's Ki, while spread out more evenly now, focused primarily in her mind, increasing her intelligence at a surprising rate.

Her abilities with magic were increasing too, though her own Ki manipulation suffered for it. It seemed that if I was an experimenter, learning from my own experiences and the ideas that popped into my head, she was the type to take a single magic to its extreme.

The magic she knew was limited, but what she did know she excelled at. It was harder for her to do things when she couldn't see the reaction from the Ki and Mana. She'd often ask me to describe what it looked like.

In turn, I asked her to show me her magic. Buff magic specifically. Since there was no support mage on their team, it fell to her to provide it. She could increase various attributes of another person, from their physical defense to their offense. Magic overlapped Ki in the body, like a knight wearing armor. Less Ki was used up to provide the same boost as using it. It was useful when you had other things to focus on. It was similar to the Blessing Magic the Kobold race used.

However, it was just a temporary measure. It was still better to develop and strengthen the body over time.

It was why training was so effective. The more a body part was used, the more often Ki went to that area to both heal and strengthen the damage area.

Which led to our next form of training after meditation. Combat training. It was more or less just me beating them up one at a time, pointing out the obvious problems and being more specific about the ones only I could see.

A single crack of my staff across Alice's backside echoed through the air "You are focusing too much on using your Ki. The Ki needs to move without your input or you'll lag behind in combat" I said hopping back from her half hearted punch. I sighed softly as I watched her Ki struggle to move through her fists, even as it attempted to focus on the pain in her back.

Ki moved at its own pace when untrained. It would go where the body needed it most. I'd explained this over and over, but they still struggled to take command of their energy. Since Ki considered any damage a priority one issue, a person could easily lose control when caused any form of harm.

I flicked my wrist, sending several stones towards her "Ki is yours, you shouldn't have to struggle when it comes to sending it where you need it"

She quickly moved dodging the projectiles. I noticed that she moved much faster when she had to do some split second thinking. She tried too hard to control her Ki instead of teaching it what she needed it to do in the moment.

It didn't help that the lack of aid from a Deity had caused their combat abilities to drop. Their Ki was improperly trained. They tried to mimic the actions but without the nudge from the Deity, the Ki was slow to respond.

All the strength and none of the skill.

I shook my head as Alice began to whine "It is pretty much just constant practice. You guys are lucky enough that you have the defense and strength to deal with Goblins. If you fought a Kobold at your current strength, they'd decimate you"

Stepping forwards, I flicked her forehead.

"Ow...Alex, you've become a lot stricter" Alice said softly before heading over to her bruised allies.

I rolled my eyes "Sorry about that. I have to be honestly. I'd already once thought you'd all died, I don't want that to one day be true" I supposed I had been a bit harder on them than I'd meant to. They hadn't seen the destruction their transportation had caused and even when I told them, they didn't seem to have the same understanding as I did.

It hadn't been long, but for a short time I'd really believed that they'd died. They didn't understand that thought. The relief I'd felt at actually knowing they were alive had been incredible, but seeing them again had brought back the feelings the relief had pushed away.

Since they weren't dead, that meant that they could one day be dead. I needed to do my best to prevent that from happening.

I shook my head and chuckled "Well, just be glad that it is mean training you, I could have Vivian train you...but her life was far more savage than ours" I looked at the large wolf as she watched us train and so did they, turning white at the idea of being smacked around by her large paws.

Vivian...she was a bit of a problem. She was doing her best to hide it but I was aware that she wasn't that happy about them being here. At first I'd been confused about it but after a bit of thinking, I was able to figure out that it was because of the way I'd just accepted them into our group.

She'd only accepted those who could provide something to her 'Pack' as I learned she considered us. I was the leader of the group, the one who led us. She considered herself as the protector and though she accepted my choices, she was always wary of potential danger.

She'd only accepted Adarna because the bird had saved my life against the Ent. He, and I was sure he was a he after asking, wasn't a detriment to the pack. He could easily take care of himself and those around him.

Max and the girls...I was sure that they could handle most back on the Deity's world and even against sufficiently strong enemies, they had powerful magic to fall back on. Most creatures couldn't point out the weaknesses in a magical barrier and definitely not as fast as I had.

But without it, they were more of a liability.

I shook my head of those thoughts and called for Vivian "I'm going to do some recon while you four heal up. Mediation helps. You need to get better control of your Ki or it'll never learn what you want it to do in an emergency"

Jumping onto the female wolf, we took off towards the throne room. I was still wary of facing off against it, but that didn't stop me from trying to figure out the Monster's weaknesses. While it responded to me attempting to enter the building, it barely noticed my Ki. To it, my Ki was a little more than an annoying mosquito it was too lazy to get up and kill. If I didn't get too close, it wouldn't respond.

It was interesting. I'd thought that it used Aura only to attack, but this Aura was filling the throne room constantly in a sort of inactive state. It seemed to take less energy to have it constantly being used than to stop and restart it whenever there was a need.

Blood Ki. From my experiences with it, I'd thought it a mindless force and perhaps it was, but it was highly efficient. It conserved energy until it was absolutely needed.

But the being it was inside was a little more than a puppet. From my own experiences with normal Ki, I could theoretically sustain my body indefinitely with Ki, as long as I did absolutely nothing. Blood Ki was obviously stronger in various regards, keeping its user alive was one of them.

It didn't need to eat or sleep, like a robot in low power mode. The Aura was a defense mechanism, to prevent excessive use of its energy until a suitable enemy was found.

In the times I was able to get my Ki close enough to attempt an invasion of the Monster's skin, I was quickly blocked by the Blood Ki. It even attempted to consume my Ki to strengthen itself. The Ki was far better than my own at improving the strength of its user's body.

Blood Ki was...similar to a virus. It consumed and grew and destroyed. Normal Ki was like regular cells, growing at a steady pace and could easily be manipulated into growing in a particular direction.

Blood Ki couldn't be controlled, only suppressed. Eventually, the user would be controlled and used to sustain the Blood Ki.

My first victory over this creature would be after I figured out how to beat its Aura. If I could prevent it from harming me, I could then get close enough to begin dealing damage myself. That wasn't a pleasant thought. If I could hit it, then it could hit me and even without its Aura it was sure to be powerful. My own experience at using Aura was hazy at best though and those memories were covered in a blood mist.

I needed a way to match its strength. To reach its level would take years, I needed a shorter path, at least temporarily. Artemis wanted me to kill this thing and wanted the same thing. It was dangerous. If it found a way to spread to the rest of Earth, at best it'd just ignore humans and at worst it would slaughter all humans.

Buff Magic and Blessing Magic would be a way to boost my strength and I was already forming an idea to handle the Aura. If it could use its Ki to attack, then maybe I could use my Ki to defend against similar attacks.

A Ki shield would be kind of cool. It wouldn't be very effective against physical attacks, but with proper application I'd be able to stop any kind of Ki based attack.

However, this was much harder than it sounded. Moving my Ki around my body in a thin bubble wasn't that hard, but I had no idea how to block attacks with it. I needed someone to attack me so that I could practice it and there was only one being in the area who could do so.

So here I was. Standing in front of the door feeling apprehensive. I wasn't against a bit of pain if it benefited me but willingly aggravating such a strong opponent to do so was a bit...

I sighed and moved closer to the door. Vivian was mainly there to get me away if something went wrong. My skin was stronger than before so I wouldn't be in such a state after getting hit, but I still wouldn't come out unscathed.

Slowly, I covered my body in Ki and pushed open the door. It was different...immediately different and uncomfortable. I now knew its power and it knew it as well.

'Blood'

I could hear it in the air, like a constant mantra. It was like a lure that drew in those with weaker minds. The Blood Ki fed on other Ki. I'd wondered how it sustained its host even with its high efficiency. This energy called weak willed beings like animals and sucked them dry and the Aura destroyed the corpses to prevent a creature from becoming wary too early.

The second I stepped into the room, the Monster's eyes turned towards me and the Aura became active and surged towards me. I moved my arms upwards and braced myself. My first attempt at blocking the Aura ended in failure as I was immediately knocked out of the room, cuts appearing across my skin, though not as deeply as before.

With a groan, I slowly sat up, stretching my fingers as my Ki quickly knitted itself back together "Damn" I mumbled.

My Ki had been torn through like a wet paper towel. But I could feel it, my Ki learned from this experience. The Aura wasn't uniform, not a wall of energy. It wasn't any better though. The Aura was more like a wave of blades, slashing out at random in a specific direction. Unlike blades made from wind magic, Aura only harmed its intended target and unless they had a strong body like I did, they wouldn't survive a single hit.

It was such a specific function of an otherwise random attack. Instead of an all around shield, I needed to be able to quickly change the strength and hardness of my Ki at an equal rate to the approaching Aura. Rain fell in a random pattern but fast enough that it was hard to dodge it.

I groaned softly "That means I'll have to do this a lot more often" I mumbled to myself. I moved a little ways away from the throne room to sit and meditate. I'd need to heal first, then it was back to getting slashed apart.

When I returned home that evening, I was covered in quite a few scars, though they were already beginning to heal. Scar tissue didn't heal as fast as an open wound, but the scars eventually disappeared like everything else.

"No, I am serious. There are other kinds of Gods and Goddesses." I said as we sat down to eat. They hadn't believed me when I said that there was a Deity for nearly every world.

"Like this place. This is Olympus, home of the Greek Gods" I grinned at them "From what I've figured out they left a long time ago but the one I know, Artemis, is using this place as a training ground for me" I gently scratched Vivian's side as I laid against her "Vivian is actually from her world. She and two other wolves were my first opponents" I raised my right arm "Also where I got this arm"

Rein shook her head "Damn. That sounds pretty rough" she said and I took it seriously. Rein was the outdoors woman of the group. She pretty much thrived on living in the wild.

"We spent a lot of our time in cushioned well designed rooms in the castle" Mary said "All the while, you were doing...this?"

I nodded chuckling "You four got lucky. Even now you are doing better than I was at the start. There were almost no animals to begin with. I had grass and wild vegetables" I'd learned a lot from Vivian about hunting and stalking a prey. I grinned as I looked towards Rein "I could probably out survive you at this point"

"Please!" Rein huffed at me "I've been doing this since I was five and the time in the other world has only increased my survival ability"

"Yeah, but you can go back to civilization when you are ready to call it quits. I'm pretty much stuck here" it sounded like we were fighting, but we were both smiling. We'd had similar arguments, ironically about my inability to survive out in the wild. I'd been more of an inside person before all of this and she'd always wanted me to get out and live.

Max bit into a piece of meat "What about the bird?" he asked me "Where'd he come from?"

I nodded my head, remembering that my brother had been interested in Ornithology "I'm not even sure about that actually. I thought he'd come from the world you guys came from"

My brother shook his head "Not from what I've seen. We've had dangerous birds before, fought quite a few" he chuckled "But nothing like him"

The bird in question landed on my shoulder, a piece of meat quickly disappearing into its mouth "That bird has some crazy strength for such a small creature"

I nodded. Adarna wasn't a push over just because he was small. I'd never even seen him get really serious, most creatures would die from a quick slash of his razor like beak.

"Enough about him" Alice interrupted "I've been wondering about your skin, whenever I've managed to land a hit on you, I've always felt that it was much harder than ours"

"Oh..well, I used Ki to increase my defense" I waved my right arm "This arm started off much stronger than the rest of me. Vivian's fur and skin are just as strong, probably even stronger. I'm sure the defense is bone deep. I adapted my Ki to the same strength as the arm over time" I grinned "Now I am like a stone"

"Awesome" Rein said grinning "Can we learn to do the same?" Alice nodded along with her.

"Probably. It is hard to do though so you have to figure out how to control your Ki properly first" I grinned "Besides, don't be so eager. It was like torture getting used to the shedding and itching skin"

"Shedding?" Mary asked frowning.

"I'm surprised you didn't notice. I was like a snake for the longest time as my skin grew and died fast enough to create a thin layer of dead skin"

Alice made a face "Sounds gross"

"It was awful" I said laughing. We'd started doing this often before we went to sleep. We just talked about random things. Our abilities, life on Earth, life on their new world Alfis. Daily stuff such as any breakthroughs in training.

It was pleasant, something I hadn't realized I was missing. It'd be a shame when they had to leave. Still, that idea just meant that I had to get strong enough to cross worlds.