บท 9: Hidden Quest, Training

Hearing Juki's question, the brown haired exorcist called Shido Touji, answered in a polite tone.

"I was recently transferred to Japan by the headquarters. So I moved to this town with my wife and daughter. Tokyo is heavily influenced by the five principal clans and the Shinto God Faction. So, it is quite improbable for other factions to reside there. And because of the rumours of various incidents occuring in this town, I was transferred to here, since there is already a base here."

"Hm?" Juki looked surprised.

"So you married huh? Who was it? Is it that lass I met with you long ago?" Juki asked curiously. He had known Touji from long ago. Though, it had been almost seven years since he had seen him.

Touji laughed awkwardly as he nodded.

"Hmm… I guess I'll be seeing you more often then. I'll be going now. Try not to have any conflicts with other factions in this town. I don't want my young master to know of the ugly sides of the different factions so early." Juki bade farewell and disappeared from the place, leaving behind only the exorcists.

….

The next morning, Tanjiro was having his breakfast, while listening to the chirping sounds of birds coming from the garden.

At the same time, there was a blue screen in front of him, showing his status.

Tanjiro noticed that the 'Quest' option was coloured in red.

Curious, Tanjiro clicked on the Quest option.

*Ding!*

[Quest function has been activated.]

[You have currently completed a hidden mission.]

[Hidden Quest.

Task: Meet a Sacred Gear wieldier.

Reward: Stat Enhancement Card (Grade of the reward depends on the tier of the Sacred Gear possessed by the encountered entity.), Two Random Skills.

Penalty: None

Time Limit: None

Quest Type: One-time

Quest Status: completed.]

[Encountered the possessor of Boosted Gear, which is a mid-tier Longinus-class Sacred Gear.]

[Extracting Rewards from Creator's roulette…]

[You have obtained a Stat Enhancement Card (Ultra Rare grade)]

[You have obtained skill 'Dragon's Healing'.]

[You have obtained skill 'Rasengan'.]

"… System, I got rewards out of nowhere. Could you explain what this is about, please?"

[There are a few hidden quests given by the system, which can be completed by encountering various types of supernatural beings for the first time. It is sort of free rewards in simple terms. 'True Creator' Alficius arranged this instead of giving you a beginner's pack.]

"…"

Tanjiro's eyebrows raised in surprise after seeing the description of his rewards.

[Stat Enhancement Card (Item)

-Class: Enhancement/Support.

-Type: One-time use Item.

-Grade: Ultra Rare.

-Description: Permanently increases all stats, except luck, by 10 times after use. Must be used before reaching Tier 3.]

[Dragon's Healing (Skill)

-Class: Healing/Support.

-Type: Active.

-Grade: Unique.

-Description: Upgraded version of Healing. Capable of healing yourself and other entities using Dragon energy. Many times effective than most of the healing skills.]

[Rasengan (Skill)

-Class: Offensive.

-Type: Active.

-Grade: Ultra Rare.

-Description: The Rasengan is a technique that forms a spinning ball of mana in the palm of the user's hand. With rasengan as a base, the user can use various other derivations of the technique.]

The information of both the skills appeared in his mind. Tanjiro was astonished by it. Whether it was Dragon's Healing or Rasengan.

The information of various derivations of this Rasengan skill was quite a lot. The Dragon's Healing might seem simple, but it's grade alone showed it's potential. As Dragon's Healing was rated higher than Rasengan.

After sorting the information about the skills, he changed his focus to the one-time use Item.

Tanjiro thought for a bit, and decided not to use the Stat Enhancement Card now. He felt that it is a waste to use it now.

And Tanjiro remembered that, from today, Juki will start training him, to which he is looking forward to it.

….

Three months later.

In a hidden dimension, Tanjiro was seen training with Katakiri Juki.

Because of Tanjiro's young age, Juki didn't make him do anything heavy physical training. But the same couldn't be said for his training in magic.

Divine Spells, or more commonly known among the other races as 'God Slayer Magic'. Because of the past incidents where Evil Slayers have struck down gods on multiple occasions, the Divine Spells were given such a title. Even though, only the Divine Spell: Sanctification would qualify as a god-slaying spell among the various Divine Spells.

Katakiri Juki was teaching Tanjiro the Divine Spells, as much as he can. As for the Divine Spells that even Juki was unable to master, Tanjiro had to learn it himself from the records stored in the hidden dimension.

Katakiri Juki was pleasantly surprised to see that, Tanjiro's talent in Divine Spells were far more than he thought. Tanjiro had managed to learn the Divine Spell: Sanctification in just a month, which greatly shocked the old caretaker.

Juki, himself, was incapable of learning the original version of 'Sanctification'. So, he had to learn a modified version of 'Sanctification', which was inferior to the original version. But Tanjiro had managed to learn the original version of 'Sanctification', in the fastest time in history.

Though, this only encouraged Juki to increase the speed of Tanjiro's training.

During the training with Juki, Tanjiro felt that his caretaker was rushing things a bit too much. But he didn't really pay much attention to this. He had gone through much harsher training in his past life, even if it was not on supernatural aspects.

During the three months, Juki was surprised by some actions, but didn't ask anything about it. Such as swordsmanship training and mastery of fire and water magic.

Tanjiro trained his swordsmanship with a wooden sword, whenever he was not training in Divine Spells. This really surprised Juki, as he didn't know where his young master learned swordsmanship from.

….

During the past three months, Tanjiro revealed his Dragon form to Juki, which shocked the latter very much.

Because it was simply incomprehensible to Katakiri Juki. Both parents of Tanjiro were humans. So, Juki couldn't understand from where the Dragon heritage of Tanjiro originated from. Juki blindly guessed that it must have something to do with the Ouroboros Dragon, when it saved the infant Tanjiro in the past. But, Juki thought of it as a blessing, since Dragons are known to be the life forms with one of the highest potential.

But Juki had no idea that Tanjiro's Dragon heritage has nothing to do with any other dragons in this world.

Despite it being a risky decision, Tanjiro revealed his Dragon form so that, he could train his Dragon powers as well. After all, Alficius had stressed out that, he must master his Dragon powers before a certain age.

Of course, Tanjiro didn't reveal anything about his system or his past life. Despite his kind and benevolent side, Tanjiro is incredibly intelligent. He is easily able to see the pros and cons in revealing his secrets such as the system and his past life.

The cons outweighed the pros too much. So Tanjiro decided to keep these two secrets to himself, regardless of how much he trusts someone else. It was better for both sides.

Thus, Tanjiro started training in his Dragon powers, as well as mastering the use of his body in Dragon Form.

Tanjiro, in his Dragon Form, Rayquaza… had awakened an ability called 'Air Lock'. In his presence, all weather affecting abilities, magic, etc,. are negated.

In Tanjiro's opinion, this ability was quite unfair to use against those that use magic that utilize the weather around them.

Tanjiro also found out that, in his Rayquaza form, has a natural ability, with which he can float and control the speed, direction and altitude of his levitation.

And, according to system… because Rayquaza is a Dragon-type life form from a different dimension with its exclusive laws… Tanjiro's Dragon legacy will undergo many changes as it adapts to the laws of his current world.

….

During these times, Tanjiro got to learn a lot about the supernatural side of the world from Juki.

Gods, Devils, Angels, Fallen Angels, Valkyries, Vampires, Youkai etc,.

And the fact that, Dragon race stood at the top of all races in this world. Especially two certain Dragon Gods.

In this world, Dragons are beings created from large masses of energy who act freely and selfishly. Despite this, Dragons have an extremely high level of intelligence.

While many factions are at odds with each other, Dragons are the only race to be an exception. The main reason being that, the number of powerful dragons in the current age is quite low. Most of the dragons in the legends are mostly dead or missing.

After learning of Tanjiro's Dragon heritage, Juki warned him not to reveal it to others, unless the situation absolutely required it. This was to prevent him from being targeted by the other factions, mostly the three great factions.

Tanjiro also learned the power system of various races, as Juki said that he needed to be aware of it.

Needless to say, Tanjiro was fascinated by everything he learned.

And like this, Two years passed.