AN: Part 2, last one for tonight.

.

A couple disclaimers before we jump in here.

.

1: All the info I use for dates and civilizations were pulled from the recorded myths and records of actual real world historical timelines, NOT the fandom or canon of DxD. I tried to double check as much as I could from various sources, but there may be a slight issue here or there. Feel free to point it out.

.

2: I know some of this might trigger some people. If it does, I only ask that you respond politely, and I'll be sure to answer as best as I can. I hope I have enough of a reputation by now for you all to know you can ask me anything, and I'll try my best to answer and show my view point. I'm not always right, and I welcome someone providing things I missed or got wrong, as long as it's done without malice.

.

3: Important point here. Despite everything you read here, just remember one thing so there is no confusion. No matter what race you are in the world of my story, human, devil, god, or anything, they all recover energy they spend on magic or such. Doesn't matter if they have mana, demonic power, or divine energy, if their core has exactly 100 units of energy and they spend it, they will recover all 100 units with time. BUT, going beyond 100 units is where everyone struggles. Just keep that part in mind. Devils recover Demonic Energy with time, Gods recover Divine Energy with time, Humans recover Mana with time. Each type of energy has different characteristics, and Energy recovers, but expanding your max capacity is the challenge. Only exception is when you sacrifice your capacity in some way (relevant to gods here).

.

That's all I wanted to say. Hope you enjoy :).

00000

The sun was clear over the horizon by the time Leone brought him to a clearing a distance away from her house.

The two sat on earthen mounds of soft moss beside a natural waterfall pounding down into a pond in a spray of mist, lightly coating the two in a layer of dew.

"How did I not see this yesterday?"

Leone smirked at him. "I told you, there are layers to the barriers around the village; I've got a silencing ward around this place."

"Huh." He looked around the clearing with an evaluating gaze. "How many times did you have to rebuild it?"

Leone's tails twitched as she shot him a disgruntled look. "I don't destroy everything I touch, brat."

"Says the woman who broke her house without even touching it."

Hei felt the swat coming before he saw it and still couldn't dodge it as his face hit the dirt. "Focus. I can smack you around later if you want."

He pushed himself up with a chuckle and bowed his head slightly. "My apologies. Please begin."

Leone nodded in satisfaction and took on a lecturing pose. "What do you know of energy?"

"Can you specify the question?"

"Alright, what do you know of mana?"

Hei crossed his arms and answered as simply as he could. "It's the energy inside my core. I use mana to cast spells."

Leone hummed. "That's not exactly wrong, but what IS mana?"

"I don't know." Hei answered honestly. "I asked the old man once, and he told me to ponder philosophical topics on my own time."

"Of course he did." Leone rubbed the bridge of her nose with a sigh. "Ok, let's start from the beginning."

She picked up a branch off the ground and drew a circle in the dirt between them.

"Mana is the source. It's the foundation of all things. Also known as Chaos energy."

Hei raised a brow at that. "Why is it known as Chaos energy?"

"Because it can change to become any other form of energy." His teacher responded as she drew three lines from the bubble labeled 'Mana.' "As far as anyone knows, mana was the original source of everything. It exists in all things, if in changed forms."

Each of the three lines she drew led to a new bubble. "When Mana combines with the planet, it forms Nature Energy, flowing into everything formed by nature." She labeled the bubble so before moving to the next one. "When combined with the strongest desires, also known as the seven sins, it becomes demonic energy, flowing into the Underworld." She labeled a second and moved on. "When combined with Faith, it forms divine energy, flowing toward its targeted destination."

She stopped there and pointed to the four circles. "All three forms of energy and more result from mana. They become more and less than Mana. Gaining new properties while losing others. Mana can become anything; it's within everything around us in changed forms. It's the building block upon which all stand on."

Hei listened raptly and posed a question. "If mana is so great, why use other forms of energy?"

"Because most races cannot use mana." Leone answered simply. "Among the various races and pantheons, only two races naturally use raw mana in its base form. Do you know what they are?"

"Humans."

"And the other?"

Hei shook his head as his teacher smirked.

"Dragons."

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh." Leone laughed and raised two fingers. "Dragons and Humans are the only two races naturally born with the potential to utilize raw mana. However, as you know, both races are on entirely separate sides of the spectrum. Humans are born weak, with short lifespans, unaware of mana, unable to naturally grow their mana, and unable to harness it without extreme effort and talent. Dragons are born strong, breathing in mana, have long lifespans, and can utilize mana extremely easily."

"That seems unfair." Hei mused.

"It is, but that's life." Leone chuckled. "However, that's not to say there isn't a balance."

"How so?"

"Well, Dragons get all the benefits at birth, and they will continue to grow in power through maturity; however, they grow very slowly and often times rest for many years at a time. Their slowly developing minds can often get lost in their primal instincts and lose themselves entirely. And once they reach their prime, they struggle to grow beyond. They also have difficulty branching away from their natural elemental affinity. And their fertility rate is the lowest among every race.

On the other hand, humans have an affinity for every element, with certain natural inclinations depending on their egos. They can grow rapidly in strength in a shorter time span. They can mentally mature rapidly. They can channel any pantheon's energy source. And as you know, they have the highest fertility rate."

She winked at Hei teasingly to get him to flush, but Hei just rolled his eyes and ignored it. "So humans can grow beyond dragons?"

"With the right circumstances and training, sure. If you live that long." She shook her head with a sigh. "There were plenty of dragon slayers in human history, but almost every other race looks down on humans. The nail that sticks out gets hammered the hardest. There have been numerous human heroes, some demigods, others with mixed heritages, and some fully human. They rose to prominence and shined the brightest, but that light was their downfall."

Hei processed that and thought back to all the heroes he knew of.

Achilles, Heracles, Joan of Arc, Sigurd, Cu Chulain, King Arther, Merlin, the list went on.

"Are you saying the pantheons had a hand in their deaths?"

"Who knows?" Leone shrugged. "But it doesn't take much for a god to simply invoke their domain to change the outcome of events where others can't see. I can only say that humans have never reached the peak so far."

Something about that tickled Hei, and he couldn't help but ask. "Then why keep humans around at all?"

"What do you mean?"

"If the various pantheons know that humans have such potential, why don't they just eliminate the threat at the root and wipe us out? Or rule us? Earth seems to be run mostly by humans."

"Ah." Leone nodded in understanding. "Hm, to answer that will require a bit of a history lesson. But after that, we're getting back to the point of what I'm trying to teach you, understood?"

Hei nodded, and the blond went on. "To answer you the short way, I'll just say that the pantheons need humanity like a parasite needs a host."

"I don't understand."

Leone waved a hand. "Patience, brat. Ok, so you know how I said Raw Mana was the building block?"

"Yeah, and only Humans and Dragons naturally use it."

"Right. Well, one of the forms of energy mana can take is faith energy. Faith energy is formed when enough humans wholeheartedly wish for the same thing and believe in something strongly enough for their mana to change to faith energy. When enough, and I mean a shit ton, of faith energy is gathered together, it can form miracles. And since magically brainwashing humans won't generate it, the Pantheons had to inflate their myths to their followers, blurring the lines between what truly happened and what they wanted people to think happened."

Leone used her stick to draw a flat line in the dirt. "When do you think the pantheons were born?"

"Born?" Hei tilted his head at that. "I don't know; I always assumed gods were millions of years old or something."

"Mn, and that's where the various pantheons mixed shit up to inflate their egos." Leone rolled her eyes and pointed at the start of the line. "Human history is actually the most accurate guideline." She drew an X at the beginning. "The oldest human civilization that is known is the Mesopotamian civilization. Through their founding of religion, they created the Sumerian myth. And through their collective faith, they created a miracle, forming the origin of what would become the Sumerian pantheon."

"Wait, they created the pantheon?"

"No, I said they created the origin." Leone emphasized. "The miracle sparked an ego connected to a higher concept of laws. That ego came to be known as Nammu, the primal goddess who birthed the first gods and goddesses of the Sumerian Pantheon. And contrary to the ego of the gods, this happened around 7 to 8,000 years ago. The myths of their pantheon came about as they interacted with humans and shaped their religion."

Hei was taken aback by the reveal and tried to process it. "So humans created the origin, and the origin created the pantheon, which ruled over humans? Why would humans want that?"

Leone chuckled at his expression and nodded. "You ever hear the phrase: 'Be careful what you wish for?'" She lost her smile then and sighed. "Life up until a few centuries ago was brutal for humans. Plagues, wars, illnesses, hunger, and more ravaged them constantly. And comforts of today were a fantasy to most people. So in every civilization that came, religion became prominent as those who suffered blindly wished for someone to guide them."

She pointed to the line in the dirt and marked more X's as she moved along.

"Pantheons Origin gods didn't always appear when the civilization did, they appeared when enough faith was gathered for their ego's to be born.

-The Egyptians, 5000 years ago, formed Ra, who fathered Osiris and Set.

-The Babylonians, 4000 years ago, formed Anshar and Kishar and birthed Anu.

-The Mayans, 4000 years ago, formed Hunab Ku, who fathered Itzamna.

-The Hindu, 3500 years ago, formed Trimurti, who split himself into three to create Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva.

-The Chinese, 3200 years ago, formed Pangu.

-The Abrahamic, 3000 years ago, formed the God of the Bible with centuries of building faith, who created his angels.

-The Greeks, 2800 years ago, formed Gaia, who birthed Uranus and Tartarus with the energy of her birth and mated with them to begin the rest.

-The Celtics, 2500 years ago, formed Elatha Danu, who birthed Dagda.

-The Norse, whose written records go back 1500 years ago but really go back a thousand years earlier, is a bit complicated due to what happened to them.

-And the Shinto, although the written records only go back 1300 years, came about a few centuries earlier and formed Amenominakanushi and Kunitokotachi, who sacrificed themselves to create Izanagi and Izanami."

She reached the end of the line and marked it. "And that was the last pantheon to form. Those eleven pantheons shaped the world, splitting off parts to create the races and legends we know today."

Hei studied the line thoughtfully. "What about the rest of the historical pantheons? And what about all those myths of them creating the universe and such?"

Leone snorted and waved a hand. "To the second question, that's bullshit to inflate their egos. Lots of stuff happened, but how much actually happened and how much was just a story being inflated to look impressive is up for debate. Each of these civilizations believed their land was the center of the universe, but that was all in their heads, as all religions love to exaggerate to gather followers. Such as how Ra apparently fights an apocalyptic demon every morning to raise the sun. A god of Creation did not create the world; they are simply connected to the concept of Creation and have the potential to create, although they, just as everyone else, are limited by how much energy they can harness." She hummed then and thought over his first question. "As for the rest, they didn't grow to become anything major. The Roman gods were just the Greeks with different forms. Buddhism is tied to Hinduism. And the rest only existed for short times."

She pointed her stick back to the line in the dirt and drew a new X. "Before the year 1000CE, the world was constantly in flux. The eleven major pantheons were constantly fighting, warring, and making life hell for humanity in various ways. Many gods died with their egos shattered, entire pantheons were broken at the spine. Others were terribly injured and hid away where no one could find them. For thousands of years, gods and beings roamed the world and fought one another."

"Why did they fight?"

"Why not?" Leone chuckled. "At first, everyone kept to themselves and dealt with their myths and territories, such as the Greeks with their Titan ancestors. But then they all started fighting for some reason. It could have been for followers, natural treasures, for pettiness; no one I know has a clue what the actual reason was." Hei thought she looked annoyed at that but didn't comment as she moved on. "The warring pushed humanity to true desperation, and that's when the God of the Bible appeared, who embodied the concept of Salvation and took the fight to all the pantheons to bring peace."

Hei raised a brow at that. "Peace? Abrahamic religion was fucked up."

"True. But so were the rest." Leone shrugged. "It took them a very long time, but the big guy and his angels fought for the right causes anyway. They fought fire with fire for good reasons; it was just the humans who followed them who did the fucked up stuff. Although, it's not like there weren't foreign influences there."

Hei couldn't argue against that as he didn't know what actually happened. "Ok, so what changed in 1000CE?"

"The gods had enough." Leone said simply. "They got tired of new pantheons being born and all the fighting. By this point, most of the pantheons were heavily crippled. Their wars shattered most of them, with so much divine blood spilled, they called a truce under the influence of the God of the Bible who became so strong he deterred the rest from wanting to fight."

"How did he become so strong? Everyone always says the god of the Bible stood at the top of the pantheons, but wasn't he pretty young compared to the older ones who came before him?"

"Yes and no." Leone hummed. "Age for gods is kinda iffy when you consider what concepts they are connected to that could influence their minds. But age-wise, as we know it, yes, he was young in comparison to the older pantheons. As for how he became strong, there are three known reasons."

She held up three fingers to make a point. "The first is because of how much raw divine energy he had. Remember how I said humans formed the origin of each pantheon?"

"Yeah, the miracle birthed the origin."

"Well, gods fall under the Tier scale of the world. They begin at Tier 10 and move up depending on how much raw energy they have. But at those tiers, concepts and laws come into play as well. How much a god understands of their concepts is up to their own ability.

The origin source of each pantheon was born from enough faith to have a tremendous amount of raw energy, but they broke away that energy into pieces to form other beings or children. Such as how Gaia birthed Uranus and Tartarus without a mate."

She looked Hei in the eyes to make her point. "Every time a god has a child or gives life to something, they give up a portion of their divine energy. It is a big deal for a god to have a child, as how much energy they have determines the limits of what they can do with their domain. But their connection to their concept stays the same."

Hei made to cut in there. "What do you mean by connection to their concept?"

"Hm." Leone tried to think of how to form her words. "Let's say you are a god connected to the concept of lightning. To fully understand the concept, a god would need to understand 100% of it. However, most gods related to lightning barely have a 20% understanding of the concept.

A god is not the concept itself; they are simply connected to it and utilize it.

So their understanding would stay the same when they have children, but they would have to give up raw energy as a price."

"How high is the price?"

"No idea; ask a god and let me know if they don't kill you."

Hei chuckled at the blunt response. "Ok, well, this explains a lot about something the old man had always said. He always told me that the power scaling of the world depended on Raw Energy, Understanding, Tools, Skills, and Other. I guess concepts are what he meant by Understanding?"

"Yup. But you don't have to worry about Understanding for a long time."

"That's what he said."

"Well, now you know why." Leone smirked. "But back to the point, gods have issues increasing their raw power just as the rest of us do. The best method available to them is to take in the energy of Faith from human followers to increase their divine energy. However, faith is corrupted by the ego of humans, and if a god takes in too much at once, they can be changed by how humans view them. The greatest example is the whole Greek-Roman thing."

"You mean how they took on new names, concepts, and personalities?"

"Yeah. The Greeks were the most arrogant. Gods knew the risks of faith, but no one pushed it as far as the Greeks did, and it cost them terribly. It took them a long time for the survivors to put themselves back together and cut themselves off from Faith." She chuckled at the outcome. "Faith can empower, but it can also change, as it originates from countless humans and their mana."

"Are there other costs to faith?"

"Yeah. If a god connects too deeply to faith and loses themselves, they can fade away once the faith is cut off. It's like drinking poison to get stronger."

"So none of the gods take in faith anymore?"

"Well, not directly." She shook her head. "Rather than take faith in directly, they channel faith toward their pantheon center. Abrahamic with Heaven. The Greeks with Olympus. The Norse with Asgard. Their center of power takes in faith. And the center of power fuels them."

"Don't they fear being changed?"

"Not anymore. You see, the gods realized that knowledge of their myths and identity was a form of faith. A lesser form but still usable. So in the year 1000CE, the pantheons collectively created the Veil to cover Earth, separating humans from seeing the supernatural. This had the effect of stopping any further pantheons from being created, and also gave them a source of lesser faith as their myths remained strong in human minds and written history."

"Huh, so that's why people seem to turn away from supernatural creatures." Hei had noticed a few occasions of it in the previous year traveling around Spain for contracts.

"Yup. A tentative peace was formed then, and they took a hands-off approach and kept to their territories to avoid stirring up another war. But that's beside the point. I was explaining why the God of the Bible was so strong."

Hei nodded and refocused as she held up three fingers. "The first reason was Raw Power. The Christian god made his angels, which cost him power. But as he killed other gods, he took in the raw power of those he killed."

"Gods can do that?" Hei asked curiously.

"Some can." Leone waved a hand. "It depends on what concepts they understand. I'm not a hundred percent sure how it all works, but it's known that the God of the Bible could take in the raw power from other gods. He even managed to tear away bits and pieces of concepts from the slain to give to his eldest children. Lucifer, his first Creation, and the eleven archangels after, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Sariel, Raguel, Remiel, Azazel, and the rest."

She held up the second finger. "The second was his understanding of his concepts. It's said he was the closest to fully understanding a concept; perhaps he even did understand 100% of it." She shrugged. "At least my sources don't know. But then comes the last reason: that his concept gave him domain over faith. Unlike every other god, he alone could take in endless faith from humanity without being corrupted by it."

She let her hand drop then. "Those are the commonly accepted reasons he stood above the rest. And it was his actions that finally stilled the great wars between pantheons. Of course, his own Abrahamic pantheon fell to their civil war soon after, and he hasn't been heard from since. And then, a little over two centuries ago, the Devils had their own civil war, and a new ruling faction for the Devils rose from the ashes. So the numbers trickled down even further."

She tossed the stick away and wiped off her hands. "And that's the main points of history, brat. Any more questions? Ask now cuz I'm not doing this shit again. I'm not here to be your history teacher."

"Then why tell me all that?" Hei asked in amusement. "You just gave me an in-depth description of the world's history. In fact, why do you know all that? Is it common knowledge?"

"I told you because you need to understand what I will be teaching you. You need to know how mana can change and what each one it can change to has qualities of. And not all of it is common knowledge." She huffed and rested her chin on a fist. "I'm the village's spy leader, remember? Information is important to predict how various factions will act."

Hei honestly forgot she had a job. "I see."

"You forgot, didn't you?" She narrowed his eyes at him.

"I remembered." Hei imitated a statue and refused to blink.

"Mhm."

She silently stared at him to make him sweat but got nothing from her new favorite toy. "Whatever, brat. You ready to actually start my lesson now?"

"You're the one who went on a tangent."

"You want to get clawed?"

"I'll give you a bottle of beer from last night if you let this go and start the lesson."

"Deal!" Leone clapped her hands and jumped to her feet. "Let's jump right in. Stay seated." She gestured with a hand when he moved to get up after her. "Now that we are back to the subject at hand, we can get to work."

She moved around his back and put her hands on his shoulders. "Mana is the building block. It's all around us. It's in the air, in the water, in the earth. You need to close your physical eyes and open your mental ones."

"I thought we were done with philosophy?" Hei asked. "How exactly do I open my mind's eye?"

"I'll guide you for the first few times. Now shush and close your eyes."

Hei withheld a grumble and did as she said.

Leone's voice drifted into his ears over the backdrop of the nearby waterfall. "You have experience with meditation; use that now. Clear your mind, circulate your mana, feel the energy flowing through your veins, feel it brush under your skin as if you planned to cast a spell."

Meditation and mana circulation were some of the earliest things Mr. Lupa taught him. Meditate with the rising sun, calm the mind, clear the head of idle thoughts, and learn to breathe consciously.

Mr. Lupa told him it was the best tool for mental health, reflection, and patience. But it was also a way to become more conscious of the energy inside himself.

Hei focused on his breath, breathing in the nature-rich clean air of his environment, letting it fill his lungs, holding it for as long as he could, and exhaling the impurities.

Long, deep breaths.

One by one, his thoughts slowed, and his external sensory organs stopped sending him information as he fell inward.

It was an interesting day the first time Hei sensed his mana core. He used his Sacred Gear as a lifeline, tracing back the mana from the grimoire toward its origin, and found his core.

It was blurry and indistinct, like looking at a blocky black-and-white image of a glowing orb in the center of his chest.

If he cut himself open, it wouldn't be there. It existed in a state between material and immaterial, yet from it, veins or circuits spread outward into his body. When he focused on it, he could feel the mana spreading a cool warmth through his physical body as the energy danced, almost eagerly waiting for his command to act in some way.

However, even after seven years of practice, it was still blurry to him. His ability to sense how much energy he had was vague, and he did his best to measure it.

But he was inexperienced, and besides getting a measure of the 'feel' of his own energy, it was nothing more than turning on and off a light switch and marveling at the change it brought.

"You have done well to get this far on your own." Leone's voice whispered in his ears. "But there is so much more you have yet to see. Open your eyes."

Her final words rang with power as she dug sharpened nails into his shoulders. But rather than wake him from his trance, he felt an overwhelming wave of heat rush through him toward his core.

A gasp escaped his lips as his world gained focus.

A bright green backdrop washed out the black and white background, and his focus sharpened like a half-blind man gaining perfect clarity with brushes of colors appearing beneath the green world.

Suddenly before his inner eyes, he saw his mana core sharpen into clarity, witnessing for the first time what it looked like beneath the blurry Veil.

A sphere, made up of blue gas, rotating slowly.

Sparkling particles of light blue appeared drawn toward the gas giant, getting absorbed and turning a darker blue color before the gas flowed out through gaseous tendrils into his body, rather than the more orderly veins or circuits he first thought of them as.

The green backdrop illuminated this new world for him, letting him take it all in, feeling so much more than he had ever felt before.

And for half a second, Hei swore he saw something glowing white deep inside the blue gas-like core.

"Remember this feeling; this is what it means to look inward." Hei almost flinched at Leone's voice, having forgotten she was even there in his trance, but then the green backdrop began to fade rapidly, blurring his vision toward his inner world once more. "You will learn to see in clarity with time. For now, I shall show you what it means to look outward."

Hei's world spun as that fading green light grabbed hold of him and pulled.

During meditation, Hei would often compare the feeling of looking inward to compressing his view from a sphere inward, concentrating it intensely.

But Leone was showing him the exact opposite now. She pulled him out past his flesh, letting that bubble expand rather than compress.

Stretching to ten feet all around his body, Hei felt more than he ever had before.

The world was vibrant.

Glowing green wisps, swirling reds, floating blues. The world was alive like something out of an animation artist's masterpiece.

"The world breathes." Leone's voice echoed through him once more. "Recognize what you once knew in a long forgotten past, embrace it, accept it, let it flow, feel, Hei, feel."

His breath hitched as her boiling green energy flooded him, sharpening his ten-foot bubble into such clarity beyond his wildest imagination.

The outline of trees, flowers, rocks, grass, and more all came into focus with crystal-like veins flowing with pulsing energy.

It was within everything, vibrant and alive. Blue saturated the air, green saturated the world, and red swirled through like a heat haze.

The world breathed, and he breathed with it.

"Look down." Leone's voice whispered, and his mental gaze silently followed her words, only for his very soul to tremble as he beheld what lay beneath.

A river.

A river of golden light.

It had no base or walls, yet it flowed beneath him in a rushing tide.

Hei's mind tried to comprehend what was before him. The vastness of it all. The sheer power thrumming beneath his body.

It hummed with untold secrets, calling to him like nature itself, telling him to return to the cycle and shed his mortal shell.

It was beyond him, cracking away at his psyche, yet he couldn't tear himself away and gazed deeply into it.

"Enough." Leone's voice echoed as a wave of soothing calm washed over his mind, pulling a soft blind over his eyes and pulling him away into the cool darkness feeling as if he was scalded by the sun.

The bubble all around snapped back to his body like a rubber band, leaving his head pounding and ringing like a drum as a groan escaped his lips.

Unfocused eyes saw stars as his physical senses sent his brain information of all the stimuli his body always did, overwhelming him like someone lost at sea.

"Come back, Hei. Follow my voice." Leone's voice rang gently as the warmth flowed through him, rapidly healing the cracks in his psyche and wiping away the fog in his mind.

"Leone." Hei rasped with dry lips.

"Yeah, brat, I'm right here." Leone spoke softly, and he suddenly realized he had fallen backward, but rather than hit the ground, he was resting in Leone's embrace.

His eyes finally refocused as his senses refocused back in the physical world. He looked up and saw the smirking fanged grin of his blond teacher. "Had a fun ride?"

Years of mental training returned to him like a rubber band snapping back into place, and his eyes sharpened into a glare. "What the hell was that, Leone?"

A chuckle left her lips as her hand came up to run her nails along his scalp comfortingly. "That was the world, brat. Do you understand how blind you were now?"

Hei refused to show how soothing her nails were as he answered. "How did….there was so much."

"Yeah, there is." The blond laughed, and Hei idly realized just then that the soft feeling around his neck was her tails, wrapped around him like a comforting scarf. "The first time is always a wild ride for everyone." Her face took on a guilty expression then. "I might have rushed things a bit too much, though."

"What?" Hei asked while trying to ignore that his head was technically resting against a very soft pair of breasts.

"I got a little excited." Leone admitted in shame. "I haven't taught many people in my life, so I went with what my teacher did for me a long time ago. Except, you're human and not a Nekomata, let alone a Nekoshou." She stuck her tongue out innocently. "I might have broken you there for a second."

"…." Hei dryly gazed at the woman who refused to look him in the eye. "Explain."

Leone raised her offhand to scratch her cheek. "Well….Yokai are much closer in tune with nature. Nekoshou even more so. Our sub-species have an intimate connection with nature, letting us harness the deeper arts of nature that others struggle with instinctively. Humans don't have that connection, and all that stimuli can overload the brain without the support of nature."

A distant memory of the world of DxD tickled him, and he spoke unconsciously. "Senjutsu."

"Oh, you know?" Leone gave him a curious look but shrugged it off. "Yeah, the art form is called Senjutsu. It's something only a tiny percent of Yokai can utilize. And it's why Sakura Village was formed in the first place."

"I was wondering what a village of Yokai was doing in Hell." Hei mused. He had no memory from canon about the village or the people. All he could recall was the Nekoshou Kuroka killing a devil and causing some kind of backlash that left her and her sister as the last of her species. Beyond that, he was in unknown waters.

Leone brushed her nails over his scalp again, settling his thoughts as he wondered how he was letting the woman get this physical with him.

"We made a deal with the new Satans. Unclaimed nature hotspots like this are phenomenally rare and vital for our growth. You saw the river, right?"

Hei's mind shuddered at the memory, yet it longed for it once more. "What was that?" He hissed in a whisper, only for Leone's actions to soothe his rising anxiety.

"That was a lay line, a dragon spring, a natural hotspot. It has many names, but it's highly concentrated energy of nature flowing close to the surface, letting its energies bleed out into the world and rapidly altering the environment to promote life growth." She waved a free hand around the clearing. "The entire Feral Forest is affected by it, saturated with nature and creating the optimal environment for growth among Nekomata and Nekoshou."

"But why did looking at it make me so…."

"Humbled?"

"Entranced."

Leone smirked at him. "Nature is a beautiful thing, no?" Then her smile fell as a sigh left her lips. "When I flowed my own nature energy through you, I allowed you to see what I see. A ley line is part of the concept of nature, and Nekoshou can look at it without too much concern, but for a human to gaze at it is to gaze at something beyond you."

"Then why did you tell me to look down?" Hei glared without real heat, and his teacher didn't bother hiding her intentions.

"To teach you a lesson." She locked her eyes onto his with a severe expression. "I told you what Understanding meant earlier with the gods, but don't think I didn't see the gleam in your eyes. Do not pursue the concepts, Hei, not until you climb the ranks of tiers. Your mind will shatter. I only let you do it now because I was here to catch you."

Leone's eyes tore right through his inner thoughts like a knife through butter, and Hei couldn't help but click his tongue in annoyance. "Why not? It seems like getting started on it early could only be useful. And don't give me some philosophical answer."

"When have I ever done that? Do I look like that old wolf to you?" Leone snorted. "The answer is simple. Moving up the tiers is not only about how much raw energy you contain within you. It's about evolving your existence. Tiers exist between each class because our energy cores, and subsequently our souls deep within, are being brought to a higher state of being with each rank up. Mid-Class, High-Class, Ultimate, Satan, these are just verbal ranks for the tier system. Concepts are for tier 10 and up; you're less than halfway into Tier 2. Do NOT go searching for them, understand me?"

Hei could have argued back, but he wasn't someone who couldn't put down his pride to look at the facts. There was nothing to gain from concepts for him at the current moment. Just that brush with viewing the Ley Line for a few seconds cracked his mind.

"Mn." He acquiesced.

"Phew." Leone sagged in relief. "The last thing I need is the old man getting on my case about his prized inheritor killing himself while meditating."

Hei rolled his eyes at the woman's priorities. "So, mind-shattering view aside, how did you do the rest? I've never seen…so much before."

"Those are things you will learn with time." Leone stated confidently. "I used my own energy and experience to guide you this time, but now you know how to look inward and outward. Don't you?"

At her knowing gaze, Hei nodded back. "I remember."

He never knew how to expand his mana sense outward, only getting a vague feeling of how much mana was in the humans he interacted with. But now that Leone showed him where the stairs were, he could begin to climb on his own.

"Good. Becoming familiar with your internal world is something to do on your own time. Although, I'll advise you not to skimp out on it. Trust me, it plays a vital role in your future growth." She winked at him without the teasing quality to show she was serious, and Hei hummed in response.

"So what do I need you for then?"

The nails on his scalp dug in a tad as the blonde deadpanned at him. "You're lucky I'm feeling lazy, brat. And if you think me opening the door is all I have to teach you, you're in for a world of pain." She held up three fingers in his line of sight. "I'll be teaching you to compress energy within your core to the point where you become a ghost to even those you stand next to. And not only do we need to expand the bubble around you externally, but we also need to train you to be able to process, filter, and recognize the information you receive. Making it incredibly difficult for anyone to sneak up on you as well as help you distinguish what species you're fighting."

"How does it distinguish?"

"You saw different colors when I helped you before, yes?"

"Yeah. Blue, green, red, and gold in the river."

"Blue is mana, Green is nature energy, Red is Demonic Energy, and the river is concentrated golden life energy. There are other colors for different pantheons and power systems, so pay attention and don't let your guard down. It's part of the various aspects of energy sensing I'll be teaching you."

"You said I could learn to filter information?" Hei asked while grimacing as his head throbbed.

"Yup~. Unless you get a supercomputer for a brain, calculating all those tiny details will be murder on your mind. I let you experience ten feet this time, and it almost broke you. What do you think twenty feet could do?"

Hei didn't want to imagine it. It was a beautiful and enlightening experience, beautiful yet haunting. "How far can you see?"

"Me?" Leone hummed and closed her eyes for a moment. "Without using any abilities, I can see just under a thousand feet in a circle."

"A thousand?" Hei's face said it all as Leone laughed loudly and lightly noogied him.

"It doesn't sound as impressive as it is when people at higher tiers move faster than you can blink. But one step at a time, brat. I didn't get where I am in a day; trust me, I'm filtering out most things of lesser importance. When you get to my stage, you see what you want to see."

"So you sense where all the villagers are?"

"Eh, kinda." Leone waved a hand. "The village barriers screw with energy sensing. We'll get to that part of your lessons down the road. Just know that while incredibly useful, energy sensing can still be fooled. It's not almighty, but everyone has a natural inclination when using it. Some are better at sensing people, others beasts, others natural treasures, others incoming attacks, it's a wide range of what can be sensed."

Hei hummed at that and looked up at the blond. "What's your specialty?"

"Lies." Leone sent him a fanged grin. "I'm good at reading people. Can sense when their heartbeats fluctuate, body language, and such without looking at them to know if they're lying to me or have bad intentions."

"….Is that how you read me so easily when we met?"

"No, you're poker face is just shit!" Leone laughed at his glare. "Being a lie detector makes my job more fun, always able to rile people up, but I don't need it for everyone." She sent him a wink that Hei would have been more annoyed at if he wasn't feeling drowsy.

All the information she dropped on him, the first touch of seeing beyond his five senses, and the gaze at the ley line strained his mind more than his body, and he was fighting off his heavy eyelids with will alone in his curiosity to learn more.

The blond wasn't oblivious to that, though, and kept up her actions of scraping her nails against his scalp. "I think that's enough for now, brat. The suns high in the sky, and you need a good cat nap before Yoru gets her turn with you."

"I'm fine." Hei mumbled. "I can stay awake for days."

"Oh no you don't! You get angsty when you're sleep deprived. I'll start carrying around Snicker bars if you keep that shit up." She shot him a teasing look that made him sigh.

Her embrace was soft, her tails were warm, and her hand was sending him to Morpheus's realm faster than a sedative could with his poison resistance. "I hate you."

"No you don't."

"How would…." Hei looked at her smug face miming 'Lie Detector' and groaned. "Just shut up for five minutes, will you?"

Her smug look remained, but she let him have it for now.

Under the backdrop of the roaring waterfall and the fine mist, the two sat in the forest clearing under the sun's warming rays and rested.

Leone's surprisingly gentle actions sending him off to rest, and Hei surprisingly allowing the contact without paranoia eating away at him, leaving himself vulnerable for the first time in many years as the blond hummed a low tune.

00000

AN: Part 2 done.

Also, Fun Fact, According to real recorded Greek Myth, Uranus (Ouranos is not the true translation) was actually both the son and husband of Gaia. Fanon and anime often confuses things, but that's the real myth. Tartarus on the other hand was a true son of Chaos.

Although I changed things in this story, Chaos energy is Mana, and mana formed faith which birthed Gaia, and Gaia formed Tartarus, so a few more steps but still not too far off.

Hope you all enjoyed it. Next up is Yoru and body forging for Part 3.