High School DxD Crossover: Defying The Heavens

Just as Shinso said, late at night, he passed by Issei's room in order to check on his injuries and to tell him tomorrow's schedule.

Knocking on the door, Shinso said "Issei? Can I come in?"

"Yes," Was the faint reply. Seeing that, Shinso didn't waste any time on getting inside the room. After entering, he saw Issei laying on his bed beneath the covers.

"How are you feeling?"

"Much better," Issei said, somewhat bashfully, "I'll probably be able to train tomorrow."

"Good," Nodded Shinso. That's one the reasons he came to the room in the first place. "Either way, Issei, tomorrow we'll start your cultivation training. Now, there is some info that you are required to know.

It's about Martial Skills. You see, before I just merely briefed you on it. Now, I'll deepen your knowledge a little so we'll be be to progress more smoothly tomorrow," Shinso continued as he grabbed a chair and sat down in front of Issei's bed.

"Okay," Issei nodded, anxious to learn new knowledge. He was by nature attracted to information and learning new things, so he couldn't help but to be excited.

"To start with, there are two main types of Martial Skills. They are Cultivation Skills and Ability Skills. Normally, Ability Skills are just called Martial Skills and Cultivation Skills are called simply called Cultivation Skills, so most people don't know that they enter the same category. Either way, I'll refer to them as they are usually called," Shinso began.

"Now, there is are fundamental differences between Cultivation Skills and Martial Skills. Firstly, the main purpose of Cultivation Skills is to absorb energy and replenish and increase your Spiritual Power, while Martial Skills use your Spiritual Power to create things out of nothing.

As I said earlier today, Martial Skills are divided into rankings. The higher the ranking, the stronger the skills is. So, that means that if the skills is a Cultivation Skills, the bigger the amount of Spiritual Power you will be able to absorb and if it's a Martial Skill, the stronger the ability will be." Shinso then paused for a moment as he shot Issei a glance, trying to see his reaction. Not surprisingly, his countenance contained shyness. Seeing that, Shinso knew that he wasn't on what he had begun to call the sharp mode yet.

Sighing, Shinso continued, "Well, I'll talk about Martial Skills, the Ability Skills, first. You see, there are various powers that one can employ with Martial Skills. For example, this Martial Skill is called Flair Blaze," Shinso then raised up his left hand in front of Issei and raised his index finger. After entirely lifting up the sleeve that covered his arm, he murmured "Flair Blaze". Fire then began to build up on Shinso's finger. Seeing that, Issei couldn't maintain his shy expression any longer, entering sharp mode.

Seeing that he had caught the child's attention, Shinso smiled as he continued, "As you can, the Martial Skill Flair Blaze allows me to create fire. Obviously, I can control the size and intensity of the blaze. For example.." Shinso continued as the flame on his finger grew wider and stronger, "If I add more Spiritual Power, the stronger the Blaze will be."

"Obviously, the opposite is also correct," As he said that, the relatively large flame shrunk down considerably, even smaller than the original flame.

Issei kept on watching with rapt attention, his mind working on things that even Shinso couldn't figure out.

"As you can see, the higher the amount of Spiritual Power I put into the Martial Skill Flare Blaze, the stronger the flame will be, but there's a limit," At that moment, the flame on his fingers suddenly exploded outwards, covering his entire hand. Issei could feel heat, even from that distance.

"This," began Shinso, "Is the highest level of power that the Martial Skill Flare Blaze can sustain. Even if I were to place all of my Spiritual Power into it, the flame would continue the same. That's because it's only a rank 1 Martial Skill, so it obviously has its limitations."

As he finished explaining, the blaze disappeared. On Issei's face, a thoughtful expression could be seen. Seeing that the child had no questions to ask, Shinso continued, "Now, obviously, if I were to use a higher ranking Martial Skill, such as Mighty Flame, the limit would also increase and the amount of Spiritual Energy necessary to ignite the same amount of fire would be less," At that moment, Shinso's entire arm burst on fire. Thankfully, he had lift up the sleeve beforehand, or else he would have lost a rather expensive clothing.

"This is the amount of fire I can bring out while using half of the total power of the rank 2 martial Skill, Mighty Flame. If I wanted, I could ignite both arms on fire at the same time." After finishing that part of the explanation, he stopped sending Spiritual Power to the fire, making it disappear, and pulled back his sleeves.

"Now, do you have a deeper understanding about Martial Skills?"

"Yes," Issei nodded, his face not giving Shinso even a glimpse of what was going on in his sharp and genius mind.

"Now that you know the principles, there isn't much left to explain about Martial Skills.."Shinso then paused as he recalled some other info. "Oh, there's something more. Martial Skills aren't only used for attack. There are many kind of Martial Skills, hence why they are called Ability Skills and not Attack Skills.

There are skills that allows you to consolidate weapons out of Spiritual Power, to fly, to bring forth the five elements, to breath underwater, to increase your strength, to transform your body... Well, there is no limits to what Martial Skills can do. Anything you imagine, it can be done." Shinso then smiled.

"Hmm..." At that moment, Issei finally began speaking. "How, exactly, are Martial Skills learned? Do we simply make them?" He asked, his eyes flashing in curiousness.

"Ah," Shinso said as he remembered that he had forgotten about something crucial. "You see, you can only create Martial Skills after reaching the Sky Profound Realm, and even then, they would be weak. To create high ranking martial Skills, ranking 6 or above, one would need to have at least the cultivation base of the Tyrant Profound Realm.

As for how they are created, they simply imagine what type of skill they want to create, find a method to create it through using their advanced cultivation base and then write down on a scroll how to train in that skill and what it does." Shinso explained.

"Ah," Muttered Issei, understanding. So, the way of learning Martial Skill would be from reading on how to use them from scrolls, huh? Interesting.

"Well, enough of Martial Skills for now," said Shinso, "Now, I'll talk about Cultivation Skills. As the name suggests, these skills are used for absorbing energy from the atmosphere and making them your own. That process is simple, really.

First, you need to absorb Spiritual Power from the atmosphere into your body. After that, they'll naturally flow into your Profound Veins. After going through your entire body once, part of the Spiritual Power will return to the atmosphere while the other part will become forever yours to use.

Cultivation Skills consists on the way you absorb the energy from the atmosphere. To give a raking to such skills, many factors are taken in consideration. They are the amount of Spiritual Power absorbed, the speed in which it's absorbed and how much of it goes back to the atmosphere.

Obviously, the higher the ranking of the Martial Skill, the bigger the amount of Spiritual Power absorbed, the faster the speed and the lower the amount of power that goes back to the atmosphere."

Shinso then stopped, took in a breath to regain his breathing because of the non-stop talking, and then continued, "You see, the amount of Cultivation Skills pale in comparison to the amount of Martial Skills. That's also because to create a low rank Cultivation Skill, the cultivation of the Tyrant Profound Realm is required. Because of that, the amount of Cultivation Skills is sparse.

In fact, most of the cultivators of the country of the Nine Provinces only use one Cultivation Skill, which is the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Absorption. Only disciples from great sects, clans and families have access to different and more profound types of Cultivation Skills."

At the moment that Shinso said that, Issei couldn't help but to ask, "Do you have a different type of Cultivation Skill?"

"Yes," Shinso nodded, a prideful expression taking over his features, "The cultivation skills I use is a rare one that I found while exploring the continent. It was found in some expert's tomb. It's called Heavenly Energy Absorption. It's a rank 4 Cultivation Skill. Probably, in this entire country, the only ones with Cultivation Skills on that level is the Jiang Dynasty."

As he finished speaking, his face grew serious, "Issei, in my entire life, I have never taught it to anyone, but I plan to teach it to you tomorrow. You must promise me that under no circ.u.mstance will you ever reveal it to anyone else."

Quickly nodding, excitement filled Issei's face. Even if Shinso hadn't prohibited him from telling other people, he wouldn't do so anyways. He was a rather selfish person.

"Now, I'll be going now," Shinso said as he got up from his chair and stared walking away. Before reaching the door, he looked back at Issei. "Try to get a good night's rest, since tomorrow from morning until afternoon, your schedule will be cultivating non-stop in order to try to break through into the first level of the Elementary Realm withing a week,"and with that, Shinso left the room, letting Issei behind to think on what he had just learned.

"Interesting..." began Issei, a smile appearing on his face. He was rather excited to start learning, but he knew that he would have to wait until tomorrow.

"Well, the faster I sleep, the sooner I'll wake up," He muttered to himself before laying down on his bed, calming his mind and drifting into sleep.

At the moment, both Shinso and Issei were sitting facing each other in a wide and empty room. They had gone there just after breakfast. Issei would finally set foot on his cultivation journey!

Currently, Issei had his eyes closed, listening closely to Shinso's instructions.

"Before we begin to cultivate, it'd be better if you had a better understanding on you Profound System," Shinso began slowly as he watched the child in front of him.

"And what better way is there than to visualize it yourself?" Shinso asked in a rhetorical way, quickly continuing, "Viewing your own Profound System is an ability that humans from the middle realm are innately born with. It does not require Spiritual Power. Now, I'll instruct you. Do as I say."

"Okay," Nodded Issei.

"Good," Shinso said. He then begun, "First, calm your mind and spirit. Erase all thoughts from your mind."

Doing as he was told, Issei quickly shut down all the thoughts that were infesting his mind, as well as bringing down his excitement, becoming calm. That lead to a change in his breathing.

Seeing the change in breathing, Shinso couldn't help but to be astonished at the speed that Issei managed to calm himself and enter a state of clear mind. The change in breathing alone indicated that. But, Shinso quickly brought down his surprise because Issei had already done much more impressive things before.

"Now, I want you to gather your consciousness and guide it inside your body. It should take a few tries in order to do it."

Once again, he thoroughly followed Shinso's command and gathered all of his consciousness and brought it into the inside of his own body. He could feel that the Spiritual Power in the atmosphere was aiding him, which meant that to project one's own consciousness into one's body required one to be in a place with Spiritual Power, which meant that it was necessary to be in the Middle Realm.

Not surprisingly, on his first try, Issei managed to do it. At the moment, he could clearly sense all of his organs. The beating of his hear, the air in his lungs, the blood in his veins... it was all felt by him. It all felt strange to him, but at the same time pleasant. It was a sort of undescribably feeling.

He could also feel two organs that made no movement at all. One was a vast collection of things that resembled veins and the other was a round thing, roughly the same size as his heart.

Shinso could feel the change in Spiritual Power the atmosphere, and couldn't help but to be surprised. The kid actually managed to it on his first try! That was indeed praise-worthy, but he had no time to admire that.

He quickly explained the next step. "Now, that you have projected your consciousness inside your body, you should be able to see your Profound Veins and you Dantian.

Now, try to move closer to your Profound Veins. On it, there should be some round spheres on them. Those are called Profound Entrances. They are the things that absorb the Spiritual Power from the atmosphere and lead them into your Profound Veins.

In total, there are fifty four of them. Normally, on humans, out of the fifty four, only twelve of them be able to absorb energy. Those than can are considered opened and those that can't are considered closed.

Normally, it's impossible to open them. But, there are some secrets experts that posses techniques to open some of them. For example, in this country, the person who can open the most amount of Profound Entrances can open a total of five!

Either way, the more Profound Entrances you have opened, the faster your cultivation speed will be. So, it also works as a way to measure a person's talent.

Now, to differentiate opened Profound Entrances from closed ones, all you need to look is at their color. Opened are normally blue and the closed are normally black. How many of the opened ones do you have?"

As Shinso explained, Issei was observing his Profound Veins. But, suddenly, surprise appeared on his face.

He quickly counted his Profound Entrances, and upon seeing the end result, his face showed extreme surprise.

"Hmm..." Issei began, still with his eyes closed, his consciousness still observing his Profound Veins. "You said that I should have fifty four Profound Entrances?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well..." Issei began, unsure of how to explain, "Is there any occasion that a person has more or less than fifty four? Because of their type of Profound System?"

At that moment, Shinso's face showed surprise, "No, it's impossible for there to be a different number than fifty four. It doesn't matter what type of Profound System you have, the number will always remain the same."

Hearing that, Issei's expression became a bit troubled, "Well, I'm afraid we might have a problem."