Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 25

The attendant opened up the door and turned back to him. “Your private room, my lord. You have two hours and twenty-seven minutes until the end of your session.”

The attendant’s words felt like a dagger plunging directly into his heart. He had paid a full 60 silvers for just three hours in the room, so missing a little over thirty minutes had been slightly more than a ten-silver waste.

Money had never really meant much to him. In the past, it was just something he had collected for no particular reason. But since he came to the academy, and could actually buy things, he had learned to cherish every copper.

And he had, he hadn’t spent any of the money he had gotten from selling the items that he had taken off of the archers, which was about 20 silver coins and a few coppers. He hadn’t thought that he could have gotten that much, but the massive number of combatants at the academy meant a shortage of weapons.

He had felt quite pleased with himself and his newly acquired wealth, or at least did, until Mia brought reality down upon him. She was the one who told him that a private room cost a full 20 silvers an hour.

Even though he could have gone to a group room like Kayla and the rest of the nobles for as little as 2 silvers an hour, that really wasn’t an option. He would have been too restricted by trying to hide his Classifications.

He thought about creating some swords and then selling them, but there wasn’t a way that he could do that without drawing Mia’s attention. Begrudgingly, he then went and sold his enchanted stone, for only 1 gold coin.

Not only was Mia completely useless when it came to haggling prices, which surprised him, but the amount he was able to sell the stone for at the academy was significantly lower than it should have been. Enchantments at the academy, and even Kenguard, just weren’t as rare as they were in the rest of the Outer Edge region. If he were anywhere else, he could have gotten upwards of 5 gold for it.

With a slightly sullen demeanor, Dante began to walk through the door that the attendant was holding for him when he noticed Mia walking up behind him.

He turned to her and scratched the back of his head, slightly embarrassed by the situation. “Uh, maybe…”

She seemed to see the hesitation on his face and spoke up immediately with arms crossed. “I’ll be waiting for you in the main lobby.” She then turned dramatically and walked back down the hallway they had come from.

What was that?

He couldn’t understand why she was so irritated with him, it seemed like as soon as they entered the building, she was in a foul mood, which was a first since he had met her.

Dante just shrugged, then walked into the enchantment room.

The room itself seemed… problematic to use, and both the attendant and Mia had already left him, so he was completely on his own.

It was filled entirely with different runes, lines, and symbols. Their blue glow covered almost every inch of the room, including the walls and the ceiling. After seeing it, the price made much more sense.  The upkeep cost in essence crystals must have been ridiculous if this was only one of many rooms.

On one side, there was a large panel that jutted out from the wall. It seemed like that was the control area for the enchantment. Dante walked up and inspected it.

I should have tried a cheaper room to learn how to use this first…

There were a few labels on the enchantment controls, so he wasn’t entirely lost, but time was money. He looked the four labels over for a moment; Combatant, Speed, Offensive Capability, and Constitution. Each of the controls had six blank dots surrounding them in a circle.

Starting with the Combatant control, which was furthest to the left, he fed world essence into it. One of the dots surrounding it lit up blue.

Shortly after, the entire room lit up brightly, then dulled as a blue glow appeared in the shape of a human at the center of the room. As the glowing room continued to dull the figure grew more corporeal, and even though it was slightly transparent, he could see the blank features of it as it became more solid. Alexander had called them apparitions, and he couldn’t help but think the name fit rather well.

That done, he fed world essence into the Speed control until the blue light lit up, then looked over to the apparition. Nothing happened. Curious, he stepped closer to it.

It seemed that there was a safe zone around the control panel because as soon as he stepped toward it, the apparition came to life. He wasn’t sure what he had expected since he hadn’t added any Offensive Capability, but when the apparition fled from him, he just stared at it dumbly.

The apparition was slow, even though it was trying to run, so he guessed it had about half the average agility at around five or six. If each dot increased the speed by the same amount, they could be far faster than he could hit at six dots.

Creating a sword, Dante walked up to it and slashed lightly.

The apparition instantly burst into blue shards that flew everywhere, then those shards turned to mist and were sucked back into the enchantment. The room glowed blue, and a new apparition appeared in the center of the room, instantly fleeing from him.

Not bad.

He walked back over to the control panel, then added one dot to both Constitution and Offensive Capability.

There was no change when he added to the Constitution, but when he added a point to the Offensive Capability the room flashed for a brief moment, and then a blue dagger appeared in the apparition’s hand.

Interested, Dante stepped toward the apparition. It immediately charged at him, dagger first. He gritted his teeth and allowed it to stab him, curious about what would happen.

When the dagger collided with his chest, nothing happened. The blade just bounced off. Slightly disappointed he walked back to the control panel, then bumped up the Offensive Capability to three dots.

This time, when the room flashed the dagger in its hand morphed into a sword. Taking a deep breath, Dante stepped toward it again, and this time when the apparition attacked him, it was far more intimidating because its skill with the weapon had noticeably increased.

He knew because instead of running at him point first, like it did with the dagger, the apparition feinted to one side, and then slashed his other side.

Although he flinched when the sword literally went through his chest, he felt nothing. When the sword got about halfway through his body, the apparition suddenly burst apart, just like it had when he destroyed it earlier.

He looked down where the sword had cut his chest, every part of his skin or clothing where the sword would have pierced him was glowing blue. The apparition had burst apart after it ‘killed’ him, which also wasn’t very realistic when compared to a real fight, but given the circumstances, he decided that it was for the best.

The apparition reappeared in the middle, and he quickly stepped back to the control panel before it could attack him again.

Now that he had gotten the hang of things, he took the world essence out of the Offensive Capability control. Even though he wanted to practice actual combat, there was still too much he didn’t know about his skills.

Next, he set the Constitution to two dots. If Constitution was like the others controls, that would be about average for someone who didn’t gain Constitution from their Classification.

After that, he turned off the Speed. Completely immobilizing the apparitions. Then went to the Combatant control and set it to the maximum six dots.

The room flashed, and he now had six immobile apparitions with average Constitution.

Pleased with his work, he opened up his Status and checked his first skill, Blink.

Blink: Manipulate the power of space to teleport yourself or an object a short distance away.

Cost: 30 Mana

Range: up to 11 Feet

He hadn’t had time to really test the ability as much as he would have liked. Since leaving Alazel, it seemed like he was always on the run or with someone who he needed to keep his Classification hidden from.

The first thing he really needed to test was the ‘object’ part of the description.

Dante threw his sword a few feet across the room. Then, focusing on it, tried to Blink it back to himself. Nothing happened.

He didn’t know how to proceed, the usual ‘awareness’ he had, which gave him a feeling of being able to Blink anywhere in his range as long as he focused his mana, wasn’t useful when trying to Blink an object.

Dante walked over and picked up the weapon. He examined it for a moment, then pondered over how he could Blink it. It had to be possible, it was in the skill description.

Then again, maybe it only meant the objects were directly touching him. Like a sword he was wielding, or the clothing he was wearing, he already knew those were teleported with him.

That line of thinking gave him an idea.

Focusing on the location he wanted to Blink to, he slowly channeled the mana required. But this time, instead of releasing the mana directly from his body, and then into the skill; he first forced it into the sword and then the skill.

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It took him longer than usual, a few seconds to slowly and carefully push the mana into the sword, but he got the desired result. The sword in his hand vanished, then reappeared across the room.

Dante smiled, then checked his mana. It had cost him the full 30 mana to Blink the sword, which was disappointing, but at the same time exciting. If the cost didn’t shrink when he Blinked smaller items, then it might not increase when he Blinked larger items.

Another few minutes of testing, and waiting for his Mana to come back, he finally got the hang of it and was able to Blink the sword as quickly as he was able to Blink himself.

He was somewhat disappointed with the Skill. Blinking objects away wasn’t nearly as useful as Blinking objects to him. But then again…

Dante swung his arm as if throwing the blade, but right before releasing it, he Blinked it right in front of the apparition.

The swords shot out and completely destroyed the apparition, which he guessed to have around 10 Constitution. Happy with the result, he continued to Blink swords for a few more minutes, getting a feel for the timing.

He was quite glad he had discovered that momentum carries over when he used Blink. That was something that could easily kill him if he wasn't careful… what he needed now was a way to counteract that momentum.

He pocketed that thought away for later.

Not bad though, I can use this against pure magic Classifications to get through their shields.

Thinking about magic shields he had an interesting thought, he knew that he could Blink behind objects, but wasn’t sure if he could go through walls or barriers.

Closing his eyes and focusing on his Blink awareness, Dante slowly walked to the door he had entered the room through. As soon as it reached the wall, the awareness stopped.

Dante frowned. Then, not giving up, walked all the way to the door. He couldn’t feel anything past it. Even if he could, he wouldn’t have actually tried to Blink through it. Regardless, it was something to be tested later when he was alone. If he couldn’t Blink out of a room, it would be a major weakness that someone could exploit. It was likely possible to box him in with mana shields if they covered all sides.

It just meant that keeping Blink hidden to use as a last resort was paramount.

Now done with Blink, Dante opened back up his skill menu and examined Create Blade’s description, looking for clues.

Create Blade: Create a permanent bladed weapon of choice with an average quality.

Cost: up to 60 Mana

There wasn’t really much to gleam off of the skill description. Regardless, he wasn’t going to get many opportunities to experiment with it in the near future.

One thing he knew so far was that all of the weapons he created seemed to be either iron or steel, and despite trying, he couldn’t change it. He really had no idea how to tell which material it was, but if he got some time away from Mia he could bring something he created to a blacksmith to ask.

After that realization, Dante began to create different weapons from his imagination in every shape and size.

He made a few discoveries. The first development was that he did actually need a blade on whatever he created, but that seemed to be the only limitation. Spears, for example, required sharp edges on the spear tip to qualify, it couldn’t just come to a point from a round shaft.

But an easy workaround he had found was making a three-sided shaft that came to a point. The as long as he sharpened the edges before they came to a point it would be created.

Even though he still wasn’t sure how it was useful, the information was still helpful.

Another thing he discovered was that he could add to his weapons after creating them. He just had to think about the weapon in his hand, then create a blade that could be attached to it in his head.

The Mana cost was still 60 to maintain the quality of the new attachment, but it was possible that he could add his blades to other items that weren’t created by him as well. It was something that he needed to test further, but he had no items to test it on at the moment.

After that, he tried to test the upward limitations of his Create Blade skill.

He started by trying to create a sword that was about twice his height and far wider than himself. He fed the mana into the thought, but nothing happened.

Dante looked around at the floor, pondering. There were dozens of weapons all over the floor of different shapes and sizes, the skill had seemed limitless, but it seemed that there was a size limit…

He decided to start over. Without much effort, he broke up all the blades surrounding him into nothingness. Deciding to start big and work his way down to find the size limit, he tried to create a sword of similar size to the one that failed, but only slightly smaller.

He was surprised when a behemoth of a weapon smashed into the enchanted flood with a loud bang.

The crashing noise terrified him, and he instantly broke up the sword, then carefully examined the floor to see if he had accidentally broken the enchantment.

Thankfully, everything was fine underneath the sword. It seemed that the rooms were built to withstand substantial abuse.

Heaving a sigh of relief Dante then thought over the results of his last experiment. He hadn’t expected a sword that was only slightly smaller than the one he failed to have actually been created, he was just trying to be thorough. Still, it was hard to believe he found the exact size limit of his Create Blade skill on his second attempt. That seemed unlikely.

Deciding to try again, he fed mana into a sword the size of the one that had failed.

Surprisingly, it worked. Now nothing seemed to make sense. Holding his breath in anticipation, he tried to create another sword, slightly larger this time. Failed.

Dante, now confused, thought it over for a moment while his Mana regenerated, then had an idea. He broke up the large swords, then began to make regular sized swords for 5 mana each. It took a few minutes, and around fifty swords, but eventually he started to fail.

Everything made more sense now. There wasn’t a size limit, but an overall limit on the amount of metal he could create. It didn’t seem like something that would catch him off-guard in a fight since he could produce so many weapons, but it was something to be mindful of.

Dante took a moment to consider the other implications of his discovery, then cursed his stupidity.

He had thrown away at least three different weapons since he had left Alazel. He didn’t think much of it, breaking them up didn’t seem necessary when he thought there was no limit to the number of blades he could create, but now it would limit his overall abilities if he didn’t track them down and break them up.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down, he decided to close his eyes and try to break them up from a distance, he still wasn’t sure what the range was.

Usually, to break up one of his swords, he just had to feel the connection between them and sever it. It wasn’t hard to do, he had always had a close connection to weapons in general after getting his Blader Classification, but the ones he created seemed to have a stronger link.

Dante closed his eyes, trying to identify how he could feel them by using the swords scattered around him. Nothing he could think of seemed to increase that feeling.

Eventually, he tried one of Mia’s tricks. Spreading his Mana through his mind, then outward to increase his awareness. Then, when in that state, he focused on the connection between him and his weapons. It took a few more valuable minutes, but eventually, that connection became far clearer.  Almost like the weapons were connected by strings that were tethered to him.

He almost cut all of those strings, so that the weapons would break up, but decided against it so that he could be sure that he got the swords that he had left out in the wilderness. Dante paused his concentration then broke up the swords that were scattered in the room around him, then reentered his state of awareness.

He let out a breath of relief as he entered the state of focus and could still feel three ‘strings’ connecting him to the weapons that he created. Without hesitation, he severed his connection to them and broke up the weapons.

Dante looked at the timer on the wall. Still an hour and a half left.

Deciding that he had done all that he could with Create Blade, he pulled up his skill menu to examine his Blade Dancer passive.

Blade Dancer (Passive):

Increase Dexterity by 12%

Increase Agility by 12%

Increase ability with bladed weapons +2

The Agility and Dexterity bonuses were self-explanatory and needed no further testing, so he immediately dismissed them. The increased ability with bladed weapon though…

Even though he an idea of what he wanted to test out while he still had time, he was hesitant. If things went wrong, it could easily cost him his life. But everything carried around a certain amount of risk, and that included not knowing the full extent of his abilities in a life or death fight.

Dante created a new sword with Create Blade. He was curious if the increased ability with bladed weapons would help him with world essence manipulation. It was worth finding out, the wooden swords didn’t give him the same ‘alive’ feeling metal ones did, but exploding a metal sword with no healer in a soundproof room was dangerous to say the least.

Deciding he would take it slowly, and very carefully, he began to feed world essence into the weapon. He was shocked by what began to happen. The world essence began to condense itself. Not only that but as a whole, the world essence was far tamer inside of the weapon. It was still challenging to control, and it took all of his effort, but it was far easier.

He cut off the world essence that he was putting into the weapon. There was no point in testing it further when he still had no idea how to actually weaponize world essence, he would just be putting himself at risk.

That test done, Dante begrudgingly opened his Status back up. His last skill was pretty much useless, but he needed to test it while he had a chance.

Rebirth of the Revenant (Passive): Heal up to 12% of max HP every time you kill.

He didn’t think that the apparitions would even be able to trigger his Rebirth of the Revenant passive, but it was worth a shot.

The only reason he thought he might have a chance at using it was because it seemed to work by utilizing the world essence of the things he killed… but that was just a hunch.

His reasoning was due to the fact that it didn’t work when he killed small things that didn’t give him world essence, like the rabbits he hunted after leaving Alazel.  But it did work on other creatures that did give him world essence, like wolves. It also seemed somewhat unlikely that it used his mana in any way.

Since the apparition’s enchantment was powered by essence crystals, and therefore world essence, he decided to give it a shot.

First, he read the skill carefully. The key phrase was ‘up to 12%,’ and he already knew that he could adjust the total percentage, so he started at 1%.

Gritting his teeth, he created a dagger and made a small cut on his arm. Then he walked up and destroyed one of the six apparitions. As it shattered and began to turn back into mist, he could actually see some of it being sucked over to him before the enchantments could absorb it. Surprisingly, the cut on his arm started to heal. That at least proved one of his theory’s, his passive was definitely healing by using the world essence of those he killed.

1% of his total health was more than enough to heal the small cut on his arm, but Dante held his breath and waited for exhaustion to hit.

About two minutes after he killed the apparition he felt it. He was actually pleasantly surprised. Even though his body felt slightly heavier, it wasn’t even as bad as some of the lighter healings that he had gotten in the academy.

That done, he began to experiment in a multitude of ways with the Rebirth of the Revenant passive. First, he tried to heal at both 2% and 3%. 2% wasn’t too bad, but it was noticeably worse than 1%. He guessed it was about four times more exhausting.

3%, on the other hand, hit him noticeably harder than the first two, it took him a few minutes to recover, stretching out his now slightly sore body.

His takeaway was that 1% was definitely the best for a prolonged fight, but 2% might still be usable if he needed to heal himself and only ran into a few enemies. 3% would limit him severely after only one or two uses, and he didn’t even try 4%, but he assumed it would basically take him out of a fight.

After that, he spent the following 25 minutes inflicting pain upon himself and then healing it with the six apparitions. He got some useful information from it though. It seemed that the more intricate the injury, like if he had a pierced organ or vital region, the more heals it took at 1% when compared to a deep slash on his arms, legs, or nonvital areas, even if they were about the same size wound.

He also tried to manipulate the world essence in an attempt to make the healing less exhaustive, like regular healers did with mana manipulation, but he couldn’t seem to make any progress on it. It was yet another thing he noted to look into later.

That finally done, Dante sighed in relief. Inflicting severe wounds on himself wasn’t one of the most pleasant experiences that he had been through.

He looked over at the timer, 46 minutes left. It was time to get some real fighting in.

Dante walked back to the control panel, and set all of the settings to three. If his estimations from earlier were correct, it would mean he would fight against three melee combatants with about 15 points in each of their physical attributes.

He turned to look at the three apparitions, after he increased the Constitution and Offensive Capability they all had light armor on and were wielding swords. Dante’s mouth curved into a smile as he started stepping toward them.