Reincarnated into a Multiverse, but High School DxD

At that, Koneko's face returned to normal, though it was slightly flushed.

"Next is qi. Qi is the foundation of all things. As long as something is alive, it possesses qi. The energy that drives senjutsu is qi. Oh, right, you've read Journey to the West, meow? It's similar in nature to magical power, meow~~~"

"Then how do I sense qi?"

"Uh, well... anyway, just calm down first, close your eyes, and keep thinking about the power of qi!"

"Sigh, if Grandma Sanmao were here, she might be better at teaching than I am, meow."

Kuroka was not a good teacher, but fortunately, Koneko was a nekomata. Even among all yokai, she belonged to the group with the greatest potential.

Listening to Kuroka's half-hearted teaching from the side, Ren also tried practicing her way.

He had only been doing it for fun, but a progress bar soon appeared before his eyes.

[Receiving basic "qi" cultivation knowledge. It will automatically be interrupted once cultivation stops.]

"Wait, you're seriously doing it?"

Ren was quite surprised.

He hadn't expected this little bonus.

Still, the fact that he had to keep cultivating continuously to unlock it deserved a bad review.

Fortunately, the system did not require Ren to truly focus on sensing or understanding the existence of qi. He only needed to maintain his current state of resting with his eyes closed and patiently wait for the progress bar to finish.

However, the process was a little long, and he could not do anything else during it.

If he stopped, he would have to start over from the beginning.

Ren had come here to relax, not torture himself. At this rate, he might not last very long.

But Ren soon thought of a way to relax while cultivating at the same time.

"Lavinia, can I sleep with my head on your lap?"

"Is Ren sleepy? If so, then sure."

Lavinia readily agreed. She quickly sat down on the grass, stretched out her straight legs, and patted them.

"Come on, come on~~~"

Just Rubbing, Not Going In

Chapter 72

As he enjoyed the lap pillow, Ren's "qi" cultivation progress bar steadily filled. At this rate, he would be able to master the use of qi in less than an hour.

If other yokai or practitioners who cultivated qi knew about this learning speed, they would definitely be insanely jealous.

After all, for an ordinary person or yokai to undergo the transformation from zero to one required a rather long period of study and practice.

Ren, on the other hand, only needed to wait for the progress bar to fill before getting started. That was practically cheating.

Yet Ren had never thought cultivation was a good job.

Forget spending an entire week or even longer specializing in a skill—he could not stand even one day of it.

After obtaining the system, Ren had indeed become lazier, but he did not think there was anything wrong with that.

He was a transmigrator. Without relying on the system, it was questionable whether he could even gain a foothold in this world.

High School DxD might look like a passionate harem anime on the surface, with viewers happily watching the fanservice scenes featuring the heroines, but if you were an ordinary person, what you would face were deranged stray exorcists, stray devils that would devour you alive without reason, or being instantly killed by shockwaves like some roadside mutt when two powerful beings fought.

Even if you survived, you would still have to keep paying your mortgage and car loan after your house and car got wrecked.

And the key was that there would be no one you could reason with.

That was worse than dying.

So mindset determined everything.

Ren never forced himself to do things he did not want to do.

When people had free time, most of them enjoyed playing games. But once gaming became work, it was nothing but pure torture.

Of course, Ren thought his talent was fairly decent.

Although he had never drawn any combat techniques, he was quite proficient in using both firearms and cold weapons.

An hour later.

Ren reluctantly got up from Lavinia's lap.

He had already learned how to control the existence of "qi."

And just as Kuroka had said, qi existed in all things in the world.

The strength of each person's qi was also completely different.

Among everyone present, aside from him, Lavinia possessed the strongest qi, followed by Kuroka, then Akeno Himejima, Raynare, Koneko, Kalawarner, and Mittelt. Asia's qi was the weakest, but since she was not a combatant, it could be ignored entirely.

Kuroka, who had been teaching Koneko, looked at Ren with surprise written all over her face.

"You can manipulate the flow of qi too, meow? No, don't tell me you only just learned it, meow?!"

"Is there a problem with that?"

Ren asked in return.

"Of course there's a huge problem, meow! If you're a beginner, how could you learn faster than my little sister Shirone, meow?! You must be cheating, meow!"

Kuroka could not help crying out.

She had never seen a human with such powerful talent.

Humans could learn to manipulate qi, but whether in cultivation speed or control over qi, they were far inferior to yokai, let alone nekomata like them.

"So you found out?"

Ren raised an eyebrow. By pure coincidence, Kuroka had actually guessed correctly.

Of course, Kuroka clearly did not truly believe Ren was cheating. She was merely marveling inwardly at how frighteningly talented her cheap master was.

Wait.

Did that mean she could choose her cheap master as her mating partner, meow?!

As a cat yokai, Kuroka shared many habits with ordinary cats.

And aside from hissing, the most typical feline trait was going into heat several times a year.

Kuroka had reached the age for her first heat several years ago.

Anyone who had raised cats knew that once a cat went into heat, it would howl at the top of its lungs every night until it found a mating partner.

But as an intelligent cat yokai, Kuroka had used senjutsu to suppress her heat.

The reason was that she had been on the run these past few years and had never found anyone she liked.

Aside from that exception among the Naberius Branch devils, once a cat yokai chose a husband, she would never change her choice for the rest of her life.

Originally, Kuroka had found Ren somewhat unpleasant to look at.

But ever since he helped her younger sister untie the knot in her heart, during these short few hours, Kuroka had found Ren increasingly adorable.

On top of that, he was not weak, and his talent was powerful. He was simply the perfect candidate.

No, I can't keep thinking about this, meow. If I do, my body will start feeling strange, meow!

There would be plenty of time in the future. When her next heat came, she would find him and have kittens.

Naturally, Ren had no idea what Kuroka was thinking.

If he had known, he definitely would have suggested that tonight worked too.

Afterward, Ren learned several more senjutsu techniques from Kuroka.

They were all relatively simple beginner techniques, such as the Body Protection Spell and the Body Strengthening Spell.

The former used qi to form something like a protective barrier over the surface of the body, while the latter manipulated qi to strengthen the body inside and out. Compared with the former, the latter was more like a method of maintaining health, allowing one to nourish the flesh with qi anytime and anywhere.

As for other senjutsu, Ren truly did not have time to learn them now. Especially for those profound techniques, the time required by their progress bars was almost comparable to the development progress of Balance Breaker.

He could take it slow when he had time later.

Besides that, after learning qi, Ren could also judge the rough movements of distant enemies based on the flow of qi.

It sounded a lot like the power system from Dragon Ball, and in essence, it was pretty much the same. The only flaw was that it absorbed the evil qi and malice permeating the world.

Of course, that had no effect on Ren at all.

After all, if it came to being wicked, Ren felt that he could be even more wicked than those villains.

It was merely a matter of whether he wanted to be.

For the next period of time, Ren's life became slightly busier than before.

During the day, he sparred with Lavinia to increase the progress bar for his Balance Breaker. If he had time, he also learned a little about qi. At night, whenever Lavinia occasionally got lost and wandered into his room after going to the bathroom, he continued with his approach of just rubbing without going in, gradually testing Lavinia's limits.

Of course, Ren had not forgotten the Holy Sword investigation mission Griselda had assigned him.

It was just that the stray exorcists under Kokabiel were moving a little too slowly. Two days had already passed, and they were still in Europe.

How long would it take them to reach Kuoh Town?

Besides that, Ren had also discovered over the past two days that Kuroka's attitude toward him was getting better and better. Whenever he asked her why, she refused to say.

She only pursed her lips and secretly laughed. Sometimes, she even turned into a black cat and snuck into the bathroom while he was bathing. Once discovered, she would simply walk away with graceful catlike steps.

Several more days passed. When Ren opened the system map as usual, he discovered that the red dot marking the mission had already entered Japan.

At that moment, Ren also received a message from Griselda.

No Reinforcements

Chapter 73

"The situation is urgent. Come discuss it in person!"

As everyone knew, the fewer the words, the bigger the problem.

Griselda was so busy that she did not even have time to call him.

Still, Ren could roughly guess what it was about.

Thanks to the teleportation anchor, getting to Heaven was no trouble for Ren. After greeting Lavinia and the others, he arrived in Heaven.

He walked straight into Griselda's office without knocking, pushing the door open and entering directly.

Griselda, Xenovia, and Irina Shidou, who had been talking in the office, all turned to look at Ren.

"You're finally here, Ren."

Griselda looked somewhat uneasy. She had no mood to tease him over barging in as usual.

In all of Heaven, aside from her superior, he was the only person who dared to barge into her office without a care for whether a secret meeting was taking place inside.

At first, Griselda had found it very difficult to get used to.

Though she was still human, she was also a minor leader in Heaven, holding a higher status than ordinary angels.

Ren had even kicked the door open at first. Only after she scolded him several times had he switched to pushing it open.

Xenovia and Irina Shidou did not show any joy at seeing Ren. They merely nodded at him, their expressions grim.

Xenovia and Irina Shidou: (╰_╯)

Griselda did not waste words and got straight to the point. "Over the past two days, we've investigated the truth of the matter."

"A total of three Holy Swords were stolen. The culprits were several stray exorcists who had recently been expelled from their respective churches. The mastermind behind them was indeed one of the Grigori, but his identity is rather special... the culprit is Kokabiel, an executive of Grigori."

Griselda wanted to see surprise on Ren's face, but found him as calm as ever. She continued, "Kokabiel is no ordinary fallen angel. He survived the ancient war and is an enemy of God recorded in the Bible."

"It is said that he once even fought God."

At those words, Xenovia and Irina Shidou's hearts sank to the bottom.

But Ren had already known the plot.

Kokabiel was a turning point in the story of High School DxD.