Telos Karma Meta Gacha

[Hajime POV]

Yasaka brought me to the training grounds after I recovered enough energy to walk. We were currently at the shrine she and Kunou lived in, though it was much bigger than the average shrine, being a priestess of Amaterasu and leader of the yokai.

The training grounds were in the back of the shrine compound, behind the building they stayed in. Lining the back walls were several machines, each helpful in training different things. Such as a machine with nine simultaneous weights, making it easy to guess it was the help train tail strength.

While extremely powerful, Kitsunes' tails were also their weak spot. Strengthening the tail increased its durability and minimized weaknesses.

"Hajime, if you are going to train, I recommend starting lightly and focusing on physical strength today. You already fainted from magical exhaustion earlier, so you shouldn't strain your mana core more. If you must use magic, then please keep it to smaller attacks. Your body needs to get used to using magic before you use any large attacks."

"Right."

"There are some exercise machines against the wall. They all have instruction stickers if you aren't sure how to use them."

"Got it."

"And Hajime?"

"Yes?"

"If I find out you collapse again at any point, you will be banned from bounty hunting until you're 13."

"That's only four years, though. By then, I'd be strong enough to handle anything."

"Not if I flood you with so much work that you won't find time to do anything else. Don't test me." She can certainly be scary when she wants to be.

"I understand. Thanks, Aunt Yasaka." She hugged me before walking inside.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, the work of a leader never ends."

Turning back to the training field, I considered what to start with. Since my legs were still tired, I focused on other exercises. For now, I will try to do as much of Saitama's workout as possible and amp up the difficulty later.

I knew I wouldn't finish today, but that wasn't the goal of doing it. It was an effective workout, making him one of the strongest beings in his world.

A normal human adult would eventually stop doing the exercise daily. They could do it for a while, but eventually, their body won't heal the damage fast enough. However, I am neither normal nor human.

With a Laxus Dreyar template, my body will naturally grow more powerful. As a new dragon slayer, I would naturally get enough strength to fight and kill dragons, but all dragon slayers were strong. Laxus was stronger than Natsu was in the beginning, and Natsu was downright suicidal in most of his fights.

The guy would fight until he collapsed and then get back up. Undoubtedly, a large part of that was due to the healing factor that came with being a dragon slayer.

It's time to get training.

-----

It was Tuesday, and I was already at the training grounds. Yesterday's training was exhausting, but I felt fine after sleeping.

I didn't finish my exercise yesterday; I barely made it halfway through. However, considering I never trained before, that's more impressive than anything. Dragon-slaying magic is so broken. The passive healing factor I got is already showing benefits.

Anyway, I plan on rolling my gacha first. Yesterday got me something as broken as dragon-slaying magic, so I don't think I'll get something as powerful.

{ Rolling }

{ . . . }

{ You have obtained Slade Wilson. }

I was right. It's not as powerful, but I'm certainly not upset. Slade Wilson also has a healing factor. I wonder if it will stack or pick the best one.

Aside from that, he's an expert with weapons, specifically swords and guns. As an infamous assassin/mercenary, Deathstroke has many skills that allow him to complete his missions.

He's the Batman of assassins.

As helpful as his character might be, I unfortunately can't assimilate him right now. I'm already assimilating Laxus, so I can't assimilate anyone else until I finish. This wait time might be why there's the 'stacking rolls' feature. It's not fun to get characters you can't assimilate, even if characters aren't guaranteed.

Now that that's over, it's time to get to work.

I start with running the 10 kilometers. Compared to strength, speed is more critical in fights. It's always better to avoid taking damage whenever possible and be capable of leaving if needed. On top of that, my lightning magic can enhance my speed.

Even science is on my side. Since force equals mass times acceleration, increasing my acceleration as high as possible will make me hit like a truck, even if I never trained my upper body.

Considering I don't know what Yasaka has planned for my test, I must choose what to prioritize. In this case, a general workout (which prioritizes my legs) and some magic training and experiments will give me the best chance of succeeding.

What types of experiments am I planning?

Anything to tell me more about my powers. Laxus wasn't shown much in the anime, but what was shown displayed his immense strength. He wasn't an idiot, having had enough understanding to claim mastery of magic like Fairy Law. Despite his intelligence, he never tested beyond lightning attacks.

To improve Laxus' abilities, I need to know what I can do with them. Magic in Fairy Tail is vague, similar to how devil fruits work in One Piece. The common link between them is imagination in how their abilities are applied. Enel, for example, could flow lightning through gold to heat and reshape it. I should, in theory, be able to do the same thing, if not now, then later.

-----

Yesterday's training was exhausting but worth it. With my body healed, completing physical exercises is much easier than before, so I mainly focused on magic training.

I kept forming attacks to increase the total magic my body could handle, trying to make each larger than the last before firing at a target across the field. This exercise even increased my accuracy.

Today, I immediately began my exercises. I formed lightning bolts and aimed them at yesterday's target while moving around to increase the difficulty.

This exercise allowed me to train three things at once: it increased my energy use, making running more tiring; it worked on magic flow while moving, having been sitting still when training yesterday; and it trained me to aim while moving.

After a few hours of training, I was tired, having nearly drained all my magic again. Thanks to my previous experience, as well as magic training, I was still able to move, even if sluggishly.

Activating Telos Karma, I rolled for today.

{ Rolling }

{ . . . }

{ You have obtained a Power Upgrade Card. }

This must be one of those consumables mentioned before. Let's see-

{ Power Upgrade Cards can be used to upgrade the strength of any power or item you have. The stronger an item is, the more cards it will take to upgrade. This card will disappear after use. }

This was great. Plenty of powers could use an upgrade. Dragon slayer magic is a great example since they are completely helpless against god slayers.

When Natsu fought Zancrow, a fire god slayer user, his magic was utterly ineffective. Zancrow could eat Natsu's flames to recharge, but he was injured whenever Natsu tried eating Zancrow's flames. The god slayer magic was so much stronger than dragon slayer magic that Natsu was afraid when fighting for once.

The only reason Natsu won was the suicidal action of draining his magic so he could use his empty reserve to adapt to the higher-quality flames. Natsu would have burned alive if this failed, showing the difference between the two slayer magics.

While devil-slayer magic might not be mentioned as much, it is in the same vein as the other two, unable to affect those of a higher rank.

If I could either upgrade to or create a god slayer magic, there would be few who could hurt me since most of the strongest individuals in the world are gods or dragons.

Before going home, I checked the progress on assimilating Laxus, showing 11%. I smiled, seeing my progress, before closing the screen and heading home for food.

-----

It was now Thursday, and I had a better understanding of my capabilities now.

Physically, I was probably around the middle of low-class, if not a little higher. While I had gained some of Laxus' natural strength, I had focused on training my magic over the last few days.

Magic-wise, I would be around the start of mid-class. Despite the name, Dragon slayers were a form of dragon in a way. They were weaker than dragons, but as Irene showed, they could always become dragons depending on the circumstances. Unlike the others, who couldn't control it, Laxus could since his powers came from a lacrima, but he could still reach that level in time.

While I haven't tested how practical the dragon-slayer aspect was, there wasn't a need to for now. I wasn't planning on fighting dragons for a while, and I doubt a dragon would enjoy being treated as a test subject.

After gaining this understanding, I was confident I could fight anyone who was in low-class.

The rankings for strength were strange. There were rankings for strength, speed, magic reserves, and other smaller factors like regeneration, though only the first three mattered to most.

The true strength rankings were calculated by averaging the ranks of one's strength, speed, and magic reserves.

The ranks were low, mid, high, and ultimate. Past ultimate, the rankings changed by race. Devils, for example, became Satan and Super Devils, comparing the strength of their ranks to the original Satans. Fallen called their ranks Cadres, and Angels used Seraphs and Great Seraphs.

Dragons had the vaguest ranking but were the most helpful for me, given my current circumstances. After ultimate-class came Dragon King, Dragon Emperor, and finally, Dragon God.

Yokai were somewhat different. With the many types of yokai that existed, naming using races would be hard to understand if you'd never seen the strength they had. Those who were weaker didn't want their efforts to amount to being compared to naturally strong yokai.

The two ranks were supreme and transcendent, though only Yasaka was transcendent-class among yokai. Without the leylines, she would only be supreme class, along with a few yokai clan leaders, like the Oni, Tengu, and Nekomata. However, Yasaka and Nurarihyon have the title of Daiyoukai, or 'Supreme Yokai,' as leaders of the two yokai factions.

Despite the importance of the higher rankings, the ultimate and above are vague about the size of the gap between individuals.

Aside from that, low, mid, and high-class are all split into five stages to further differentiate strength. The ranks are divided into initiate, beginner, intermediate, advanced, and peak. Currently, I am advanced-stage low-class, primarily due to my high magic reserves.

After finishing my exercise, I rolled the gacha again.

{ Rolling }

{ . . . }

{ You have obtained Thanagarian Mace. }

This was amazing. The mace was made of Nth metal, and while I don't remember everything it could do, I knew it warped reality at its best. I certainly wouldn't use this unless I had a place to put it or had no other choice.

{ Thanagarian Mace }

{ A weapon of Nth metal, used by those that call Thanagar home. This weapon can only be used by those you allow. }

While the description meant nobody could steal it, it was possible to station people around it to prevent others from taking it. Worse, someone could threaten me to let them wield it.

Despite those problems, it was worth it. Its most basic ability was magic negation, something deadly in a world of magical beings.

-----

It was finally Saturday, the day of my test. The last two days gave me two more character cards.

Yesterday, I got The Hound from RWBY. A grimm with multiple forms that it could change through. Underneath the grimm flesh was a human, part of an experiment for the Grimm Queen Salem to weaponize silver-eyed warriors, a grimm's greatest weakness.

Today was a mostly regular human. I say mostly regular because his power was as broken as it came. Lelouch Lamperouge was a Geass user, and his Geass was the Power of Absolute Obedience. If Lelouch looked anyone in the eyes, he could give them as many commands as he wanted to, and once eye contact was broken, he couldn't give them any more.

Both of these characters had problems controlling their powers. The Hound, as a grimm was inherently animalistic and only listened to Salem with her control over grimm. Lelouch, meanwhile, lost control over his Geass, making him need to wear contacts to avoid controlling everyone he met. It was bad enough that the contacts were only ever a temporary measure.

Luckily for me, those problems are something that I can deal with easily. Even if I couldn't deal with them immediately, my gacha would eventually give me something to control it better, and that's only if I were to assimilate either of them as soon as possible.

With my training over the last two days, I pushed the assimilation up to 20%. I was now at the peak stage of low-class, but that meant nothing in the supernatural world.

My growth rate was cause for alarm, if anything, since it took less than a week to reach that level, starting from zero, though only a few people would likely ever know about that.

Entering the training grounds, I saw Yasaka off to the side with Kunou, who wanted to watch.

"I see you've arrived, Hajime."

"Hajime! Mom said you wanted to fight bad guys! Can I come with you? I can be your sidekick!"

Yasaka and I laughed at that. Despite her training, she is very childish, which is a given for her age.

"Sorry Kunou. The test today is to see if I'm ready to fight. If I fail, then I won't be allowed to go anyway. Besides, why settle on being a sidekick? Why not be a hero instead?"

Her eyes started sparkling at that.

"Yes! I'll be the best superhero ever! Watch out world! FoxGirl is here!"

As Kunou delved into a giggling fit at the thought of being a superhero, Yasaka stood up and walked to the center of the grounds.

"Hajime, your test is straightforward. If you can fight me for 10 minutes and remain standing afterward, I'll allow you to become a bounty hunter. If you can't, you'll only be allowed to become one when I allow you, no matter what. Got it?"

"Understood."

"Good. Then let's begin." She says before vanishing.

Less than a second later, I'm already on the ground after having her fist buried in my gut.

She wants me to lose, doesn't she?

__________

Author's Note:

With school starting up again and wanting to improve my writing, I bought Grammarly Pro. I think it's better than the last chapters, but tell me what you think.

See you all next time!