Author's note: Officially on my more than well deserved vacation today. So more chapters should come out the next few days. There's a little more build up in this chapter.
The ki refining technique will be named in the next chapter before anyone asks... Enjoy the new chapter.
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Golden particles slowly started to appear near Zaran while he was gathering the nearby world ki. After an hour of gathering it, a golden-colored fog slowly started to surround Zaran. However this golden-colored fog did not enter Zaran and just enveloped him tightly, very slowly forming a tiny cloud around him that fully concealed him. Beads of sweat dripped down Zaran's face and body continuously while he was concentrating on not letting the ki enter his body just yet.
The cloud grew denser and denser as Zaran forced it to condense. The cloud grew denser and denser, getting ever closer to his body, yet it couldn't enter it as Zaran was stopping it from doing so. The beads of sweat soon transformed into rivers of sweat as a large amount of effort was required to keep the ki cloud in its current state. Zaran kept compressing the cloud and after another hour black steam started to escape from the cloud. This black steam was the unpurified part of the ki and after it spiraled upwards in the sky small explosions bursted forth from the steam.
Now comes the hardest part! Zaran thought while a keeping his full concentration to condensing the cloud further. The ki refining technique he had chosen had an immense difficulty level. While explaining it might seem easy, even the tiniest lapse in concentration would waste hours of effort and could tremendously backfire upon one's body. Half of the time a lapse of concentration with this refining technique would result in death, the other half there was a 50% chance that the dantian would be destroyed, causing one to be unable to refine ki ever again.
Luckily Kirin kept guard and as there was nothing nearby that could beat her Zaran could utilize this particular technique. On top of that this was a game world so even if he died he could just start anew. Still Zaran felt uneasy because if there was a lapse in his concentration and he would no longer be able to refine ki as a result he would have really wasted hours for nothing.
The sweat now formed a puddle around Zaran as more and more black steam started emanating from the cloud. He had to keep a very close watch to the purity of the cloud since if it was too pure his body would not be able to withstand the brute strength of the ki, while if it was too unpurified he had to cleanse his body from ki and start anew. After letting the black steam escape for yet another hour the ki cloud finally reached an acceptable level of purity.
Slowly and very carefully Zaran allowed a part of the most unpurified ki enter his body and slowly course through his ki channels and dantians. These particles were about 40% purified while the best were about 75% purified. After letting it course through his ki channels a few times Zaran expelled them again and gold steam escaped from his nose as all the ki left his body. After the ki left his body Zaran investigated the current situation in his ki channels while still keeping the cloud condensed. As the cloud didn't need further condensation, naturally the amount of concentration needed drastically reduced as well.
He was pleasantly surprised as he noticed that his ki channels were rapidly recovering from the ki that he had let run through them. This recovery rate was quite a few times faster than normal and just a few minutes later he could let another part of the most unpurified ki run through his ki channels. He had to slowly let his body grow accustomed to purified ki, as letting pure ki enter a body that had never experienced it would immediately cause the ki to explode, causing one to die. After letting the ki course through his ki channels and letting himself recover from it nine more times, his body had finally grown accustomed to the most unpurified ki.
Zaran removed this ki from his body and started working his way up until his body got accustomed to the 75% purified ki. A full day had now passed since he started cultivating and most of the golden cloud had now disappeared, leaving only a barely noticeable cloud behind. A smile appeared on Zaran's face as he noticed that his body had grown accustomed to the most purified ki. He quickly drew in the last bit of the cloud that remained and stored it in his dantian. From the initially large and dense cloud only a few drops were now in his dantian. He quickly checked the character screen and saw that he now had 5/5 ki. He would have to repeat the condensing of the cloud process a few more time over the next days.
Zaran remembered that 2 days had passed which equaled to 4.8 hours so he quickly messaged his sister that it was about time to eat. After she replied that she'd log off in a few minutes Zaran quit the game.
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Zaran got out of the pod and headed towards the kitchen. Yet as soon as he set foot in the hallway, he heard the front doorbell ring.
"Eh? We were not expecting visitors... Who could it be at this time?" Zaran muttered as he slowly turned around and headed to the front door.
The front door was made of dark oaken wood and had a window next to it that was the same length as the door. A light brown curtain covered the window, blocking the view from the outside. Zaran shifted the Curtain to the side so he could see who was ringing the doorbell. Upon seeing the golden haired beauty with the luscious body in front of his door, Zaran's expression turned in to one of shock.
Seeing Zaran look at her with his shocked expression Isis couldn't help but laugh and gesticulate that he should quickly open the door. Zaran quickly opened the door and welcomed Isis.
"Milady, forgive this one for being unable to kneel! What brings milady to my ever so humble abode?" Zaran said as he gave an ever so slight bow.
"Oh Zaran will you stop it already? You know there's no reason for you to stand on ceremony with me. We'll be equals sooner or later."
"Milady..." Zaran wanted to say something but quickly stopped, they have had this same exchange many times over but he could never win it.
"Hey Zaran who's there?" Sylphie suddenly said from the living room.
Zaran wanted to say something but Isis put a finger on his mouth.
"Shh, let me handle it okay?" Isis quickly whispered. A few seconds later Sylphie came in the hallway and shock filled her eyes as she saw Isis. Isis was wearing her long white dress with the deep cut and a tailored white overcoat that similarly had a deep cut. Her overcoat still couldn't hide her luscious body and her golden colored hair dropped down to her behind. Isis's green eyes seemed like they could entrance Sylphie at any moment.
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"Goddess..." Sylphie mumbled in astonishment. She had never seen a women so beautiful as this and although Sylphie was beautiful herself, she still felt that compared to Isis, her beauty wasn't even worth mentioning.
"Fufufu" Isis giggled as she heard the word 'Goddess' from Sylphie's mouth.
If only she knew how spot on she is. Zaran thought. He was wondering how Isis would handle the situation.
"So, this must be your sister Sylphie right Zaran? I'm Isis, pleased to meet you." Isis said as she extended her hand towards Sylphie, who weakly shook Isis's hand. She was too stunned to muster any strength at the moment. While shaking her hand Sylphie looked into Isis's eyes again which suddenly gave of a bright light. Sylphie was quickly shown Isis's real identity and her power over the mortal realm. Along with this Isis had made it so that Sylphie would never be able to mention her identity or name to other people unless it was Zaran.
Sylphie's eyes widened the next instant and she instantly prostrated in front of Isis. "Please forgive this one for casually touching you."
"No need to prostrate yourself for that my child." Isis said as she casually waved her hand. "Now... could you lead me to the living room? There's something I wish to discuss with Zaran." Isis said.
"O-Ofcourse!" Sylphie said as she quickly showed Isis the way to the living room. Isis took a seat in the sofa and waited for Zaran to finish taking a seat too. Sylphie quickly left for the kitchen and closed the door behind her. For some reason she thought that she better not hear this conversation.
"What a beautiful sister you have Zaran."
"Thank you milady. Excuse me for being direct, but what brings you here?"
"Battlefield of the Gods."
After saying these four words Zaran's eyes almost popped out of his head. "WHAT?!?" Zaran yelled.
"Shhh... your sister will hear us." Isis quickly said.
"... you could set up a barrier so she can't hear us?"
"Don't want to."
Zaran had to try his hardest to stop himself from laughing. An almighty Goddess couldn't be bothered to create something as simple as a barrier? Zaran quickly gathered himself again and a very serious expression showed on his face. "When? Where?"
Isis just pointed at the two pods that sat in the corner of the living room.
"W...what?"
"When we noticed how advanced this world had gotten and that they were creating virtual reality games we all decided that instead of just dropping all of you in a world, making a virtual reality game out of it would be far more entertaining. If we dropped you in any other world, you would only have one life, however in a game world you would have many more, making it far more interesting for us Gods. On top of that we wouldn't need to expend our power on trying to revive a world that you guys demolished during the fighting."
"We decided to let all of you in on this once you got used to the game world, however Akhuath has already told his champions, thus I decided to do the same." Isis gently smiled as she finished talking for a moment, giving Zaran the time to let it all sink in. He had been in one Battlefield of the Gods in the past and it had been a brutal experience. Geniuses suddenly popped up all over in a world and during training their way to the top they would at some point in time be told to gather up with the other champions that belonged to their God and fight it out with those of an opposing God. Those fights were beyond bloody and most of the world was destroyed in the process.
The winning party's God or Goddess would receive an enormous boost in power and the opposing god would receive a large decrease in power. Zaran had won every fight along with other champions of Isis at that time and Isis's power had instantly reached the top, causing her to be the most powerful being within the overgods. For the realms above the overgods... She would still need a large amount of victories before being able to ascent to those.
"So... what's my task?" Zaran asked once he let it all sink in.
"No task, just enjoy your time in the game, but keep in mind that... I might call upon you sooner or later so please train diligently." Isis said in her sweet voice. " Akhuath might send more champions after you the next time but... I am sure that after today you'll be more than ready for them."
"Are there any others of your champions near me?" Zaran suddenly asked.
"You will see that for yourself soon enough Zaran. Even though Akhuath is not playing by the rules, I do not wish to drop down to his pathetic level."
"I see... thanks for warning me."
"Then I shall take my leave now." Isis said as quickly kissed Zaran's lips before she walked to the front door. "No need to see me out, I can do that myself. You hurry up and go back to the game."
Zaran hurried to the kitchen and ate. Sylphie asked what he and Isis had been talking about, which Zaran replied to that he had to get stronger in the game ASAP and although he didn't know why the Goddess wanted that, he couldn't possibly ignore her request. Sylphie seemed content with that and let Zaran disappear from the kitchen as soon as he was done eating.
No time to waste! Zaran thought as he entered the game with renewed vigor.