40- To hell and back

After talking a little and explaining all about the reason for summoning her, her options of going back if she wants to and pretty much what to expect of this world managed to talk about ourselves for quite some time we discovered some things about each other.

This scathach was nothing like what I expected, I'm used to the more cold and pretty much human-machine like version of her who only cares about efficiency and dying.

The reason why she is different is because this scathach was trapped, in her own words, 'not long ago'.

Which could mean a lot of time but I'm not gonna poke the hornet's nest by asking her about her age.

That's pretty much why she is a lot more curious, this version of her was 'just' went through the getting bored part and not the rest where she had no hope left other than dying to be released from her prison.

'Just' probably means a lot of years for her, again not gonna ask.

This means a more eager to use what she learned and curious version of her, but this didn't stop her from being the ruthless trainer that I remembered

This seems to be the reason why she is not trying to gain access to this world version of The Land of Shadows, she may not want to learn every gimmick about this new world through the knowledge left by the spirits that are lingering in that place, and I'm not going to judge her for that

It's her choice and not mine, so for now having her around teaching and just exploring the world is more than enough.

After the introductions were done Scáthach continued with her experiments on my body and by her finds, the only way to somehow 'hurt' me while in a body made of [Ink] is to target my consciousness that is possessing it

Which even for her is not that easy, which for her means just a couple days until she gets her weapon to be able to cut through it.

An excited and eager Shisou is a scary Shishou.

I hope that her other targets are as resilient as I'm…

At the end we noted a few things.

Attacks that target the body won't do much against the body since It just remakes the missing parts and attacks that target the soul are pretty much useless since there is no soul in it.

The only way is leaving something that consumes the body but I can just leave it and make another…

So targeting my consciousness is the only way left

But this doesn't actually hurt me that much aside from a slight headache and the 'death' of the body due to me leaving it.

There was even one incident where Jalter almost went berserk after watching me 'die' in front of her, but thankfully Scathach explanation alongside Jeanne and Kei support managed to calm down the ragging Avenger

And she is the one who always says that she doesn't care about me...

Anta girl, I really need to make some time for our date.

One of the things she was impressed with was the forgotten [Asura Mist], the little thing became her next target for experimenting and thanks to her I managed to do a lot more with it, pretty much replacing [Ink] as a higher but limited material for constructing things.

If [Ink] main strength is how easy it is to make and use to form things, [Asura mist] strong point is the quality of it

Of course, using [Asura mist] has its own limitations, it is harder to work with to the point where I was just recently able to start changing colors and possessing it.

I also need to let her try Annihilation Maker in the near future and see what comes out of it, who knows what she can do with her runes…

Aside from that, the one who surprised us all is Kei after being taught runes by Shishou

I somehow predicted it since she was using a normal weapon that was barely enhanced by her Arts.

But now with the addition of an enhancement made personally by the queen herself?

Well...

I thought that she won't be much stronger so I decided to take a hit carrying her full strength with my last invention, the [Tattoo] that is around my arms and works absorbing all attacks that make contact with it.

The... result?

I had to make a new body, a new [Tattoo] and a new everything.

I literally blew up into pieces...

Good grief that at that point, they were used to seeing me being torn apart and that my insides are just a black goo preventing a gore sight…

I never thought that I was going to play a VR version of Touhou but Shishou training did…

Just that she uses a 'bullet hell' made of spears instead of… well, bullets, that's how everyone got used to seeing me getting hurt.

At least now I know how to improve the [Tattoo] but I need to work on how to stick it into the body made with [Asura mist] without it getting eaten by it.

And let's not talk about her armor. That thing is almost impossible to bypass without getting her out of the ground, now it has another barrier covering it that is recharged by the earth and everything got stronger, harder and heavier.

As for her Arts, sadly there is not much to do for her until Scáthach herself learns more about this way of casting…

So the only addition for her is better ideas, battle experience from fighting against Shishou and in the future having her constructs reinforced with runes.

On the other hand.

The one of us that was surprised by Scáthach was Mordred and the kids when she joined their training

At that moment they realised that the 'hell' that Mordred made them go through was nothing compared to a single sesión of training from her...

Poor kids.

At the end of the day Mordred is not what one would call a great teacher, the only reason why the kids advanced so much is because they are the kind of student who picks things fast and on their own.

So now they were fully corrected by Shishou while being trained both physically, mentally and emotionally

They have a great base so she only needs to correct and improve what they already have.

The same goes for Jeanne and Jalter but they focused on how to improve their respective skills making them stronger, faster and more efficient.

This goes especially for Jalter who relies on her anger to provide her with mana making her care little to nothing about how much she spends as long as it works.

Jeanne also improved her barriers under a constant attack from Scáthach.

But not even Albion was saved from her training…

Imagine the face of the dragon when she slammed some runes into the Divine Dividing and made a better connection with Its wielder…

Albion was forced to train to help Vali using his superior senses and some of other things that the Rune left open for his soul to affect like oppressing other with his Dragon Aura or simply using more basic things like a Dragon Roar boosted with magic to paralyze the enemy

This way Vali has a great chance of fighting an enemy way stronger than himself, or at least escaping.

Poor Albion, I didn't know that you could get 'muscle' pains or hurt your 'throat' from shouting too much while not having a body…

Even Mordred herself suffered under her, but at least she was somehow used to such hard training from all the ones she did while on Camelot.

This didn't stop her from complaining to me for hours tho…

At least Scathach decided to teach Le Fay about primordial runes and true to her talent, in less than a couple day they came up with a new 'tool of torture' as we call it...

It started with a 'pressure' made with runes to make our psysichal training harder but thanks to Le Fay this normal pressure became hellish...

Your mind, your soul, your body, your thought process, your control over your body of energies like mana, your balance, your breathing, your energies such as mana or life force, etc...

Everything, everything is pressured thanks to this new Rune making the training simply hellish, and if we adapt enough to it? Good luck adapting to two of them...

I almost regret picking The 'body that cannot get sick' as my wish since she is squishing the last bit from it.

Who am I lying to…

She would simply heal my body back like she does with the rest...

I think even Le Fay is regretting suggesting such a combination of runes...

Later that day...

A couple of days ago I received a response from Yasaka asking for a meeting to discuss trading between the faction and our little group which we agree on and now I'm thinking what to do.

As dumb as it sounds, this is the most important part in the future of  our faction since this is my first real reveal to the supernatural world, Serafall doesn't really count because we only worked togheter as individual and not as factions.

Yes she did reveal some things about me but nothing significant, to the point where not even Azazel or Sirzechs know anything significant about me or our group...

That's why I've been thinking about showing our fangs a little bit...

And I know the perfect person to make them know that we are not pushovers.

I went to the kitchen that Scathach made me paint for her, where she tries her cooking skills and experiments with the numerous beasts of this realm after she kills them.

Many of them are new to her or she simply wants to know their differences with the ones she knows about.

She is also eager to both try new things and make use of the skills she learned.

Even if she became a genius in something like science, tracking or hunting, how can she make use of it when lives in a barren place without any materials to work with like what the Land of Shadows is?

This is one of the biggest differences with her future self, she wants to make use of all that knowledge, all of it.

Be it cooking like now or building, hunting, painting, experimenting, research, fighting with different weapons, understanding the new magic system of this world and many, many things she accumulated after, who-knows-how-much-I-wont-ask, many time, learning from the uncountable knowledge coming from slain enemies…

She even gave each room on mindscape and the whole house a complete remoledation and reforniture...

"Scathach? " I tried to call her as soon as I reached her room as usual since I don't want to interrupt her while in the middle of something important, last time I came here she had a Cerberus in the table and some weird looking plants, as least for me since moving, brilliant and soundmakings plants are not exactly what I would call normal...

I don't even know if I want to know where she got it…

"Ahm? Are you looking for me? " She asked me while the sounds of a knife cutting flesh sounded...

What is it this time? I wondered… and as soon as I went past the door I stopped to look at her poor victim who had its face directly looking my way.

Giant lizard with magic scales and wings...

Yup, a dragon looking thing which I'm not even going to ask where it came from...

Let's just say that the Cerberus from last time was quite 'average', let's hope her next interest is not in beast taming or I will have an entire zoo in here...

No, knowing her it would be a recreation of Noah's ark...

"Yes, the Yokai faction is asking for a meeting, I would be great if you could go with me " I explained to her while observing the dragon in front of me, or at least what is left of it.

A clear hole on its neck, should be the one who did the trick...

At least this is not a true dragon but a lizard with some dragon blood on it, saving us of a possible future political mess.

"Yokai... I see, first impressions are truly important and I'm your best choice, right? '' She told me after understanding my intentions, which is not that difficult seeing how I went for her first and not to the others.

They may be strong in their own way but not as strong as her.

"Also their leader is quite strong and has a great mastery over Senjutsu, I thought you would want to see it in action and this is the best time to do so... " By the end of my explanation she seemed to ponder about it for a little bit, but it didn't take too much for her to decide.

The poor kitties didn't have much training other than the basics about fighting and body strengthening since she has yet to grasp clearly how Senjutsu works in this world.

Also, who would have thought that she is great at petting and grooming animals, the two little cats almost melt in her hands.

"Sure... I also want to look at the Leyline and how she is connected with it... they better not disappoint me. Anything else? '' She said interested in how this world's Leyline works and how people make use of them.

"Well… just remember that this is a somehow friendly meeting, so only pressure but not intimidation " Even I don't know how the meeting would go so I'm unsure of it…

" Did you perhaps forget how skilled I am at negotiation? At least better than you are in that regard… " She told me while having an amused smile that is barely noticeable.

" And you had to remind me of it? I know but sometimes you can be… overwhelming " She's been nagging me about how much I lack even the basic knowledge or skills to be a leader…

Let alone negotiate, I'm just decent even at acting which should be my forte since I can control my emotions to a certain extent…

Yet she reads me like a book, is Scáthach who we are talking about but still…

My lack of social skills is more than obvious…