Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 33

Layla Calman

Layla’s nails clicked against the desk as drummed her fingers. The report in front of her was troubling, Kayla’s actions made no sense, unless she knew something...

Layla looked at the spymaster her father had assigned to them. “How did she even find out about him?”

“I believe Sir Andres used her to lead Greggory Tibbott to the arena.”

Layla rubbed the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t fathom how Sir Andres could have been so useless as to use Kayla from House Stavins. “Tell me, that at the very least, Dante didn’t see her in the arena.”

The spymaster in front of her finally showed some form of emotion, and seeing his hesitation, she decided she could have done without it. “It is a possibility… She sat in the Housing District 1 section during the fight.”

“Idiots!” Layla balled up the report in front of her and threw it at the spymaster, bouncing it off of his bald head. “Why would he not use someone more disposable?”

The spymaster’s calm expression didn’t change at all. “She could be disposable.”

Layla jabbed her finger toward the report she just threw. “She is in all four of his classes, in what way do you think that she is disposable now?” She took a moment to calm herself. She hadn’t met Kayla personally, but judging by some of the things in her report, Kayla should have been killed long ago. “Why wasn’t she disposed of already?”

“From what I have read, our agents have found her unique skill set to be useful for jobs that need a… subtle touch.” He motioned to the report. “Not only has she been successful in all of her missions, but she hasn’t left a trace in any of them.”

Layla snorted. “You call this not leaving a trace?”

The spymaster had the decency to at least look embarrassed. “This wasn’t the sort of job that she specializes in.”

“What of Mia’s recent reports, does he suspect Kayla of anything?”

The spymaster stepped forward, handing Layla the papers in question.

Layla read them over carefully, and the more she read, the closer her eyebrows were drawn together. “He’s taking advanced mana manipulation? How was this not in Kayla’s file.” She had a hard time processing the information through her anger. It stated that he was only taking the class because he wanted to learn more about mana manipulation, but if he had a magic Classification… Even though it was close to impossible for someone to inherit both a magic and non-magic Classification, it was still worth looking into it.

Layla raked her hand through her hair. She didn’t have time for this, she needed to continue to focus on the campaign preparations. “Where in the hell is Alexander? I don’t have time to do all of this myself, and that damn headmaster keeps getting in my way.”

The spymaster looked away. “I’m not sure.”

Layla was breathing heavily, she attempting to reign in her anger, but it was a losing battle. “Where is he?” It was hard to get the words out through her gritted teeth.

The spymaster cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “There was a new shipment of… servants, and he went to, uh… inspect them.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He should have been dealing with headmaster so she could actually get something done. “Tell Alexander that if I even see the old bastard today, I’ll have him castrated.” She was so mad that she couldn’t even think straight.

She motioned for him to leave. “As you command, my lady.” The spymaster turned to leave.

Layla rubbed her forehead. “Wait.”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Put someone you trust in his mana manipulation Class, I want a detailed report of his progress.”

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“Wake up.”

“No.”

He felt a jab to his side and released a groan. “Give me a few more minutes.”

Mia was standing over him, looking quite haggard. “I already did, get up, or you’ll be late for your advanced mana manipulation class.”

Her words drew out another groan. He couldn’t be late for his mana manipulation class, the old bastard of an instructor already hated him enough.

Dante utilized all of his willpower and threw himself off of his soft and warm bed. He laid sprawled out on the wood floor, getting a few extra moments of rest before sitting up. Three hours of sleep just wasn’t enough.

Mia looked inside his room, and seeing him awake, she smiled kindly… She looked like she was moments away from passing out.

Seeing her, Dante couldn’t help but grimace. Mia had seen better days, the bags under her eyes were well defined, making her look rather ghastly. “I think I can find my way to class today, maybe you should take the day off.”

“If you really think that’s a good idea…” Mia was unable to even finish her sentence, she just slumped to the floor and passed out.

Dante got up and stifled his yawn. The new schedule was brutal, he was averaging around three hours of sleep a night, and had only been doing it for about a week. He was beginning to regret taking four classes.

He didn’t regret it because he lacked sleep though, the new knowledge he was learning was invaluable. No, the reason he regretted it was because of what it was doing to Mia.

She had been doing her best to support him, not only following him around to his classes and making sure he kept to his schedule, but by also using the small amount of time they had during the night to prepare food for him to eat between classes the following day.

He was averaging around three hours of sleep a night, but Mia couldn’t be getting more than one.

Walking over to Mia’s unconscious body, Dante picked her up and carried her to her bed. After tucking her in, and then stifling yet another yawn, he walked back toward his room and began to get ready for the day.

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Only thirty minutes later, Dante found himself inside of the mana manipulation training room.

‘Room’ wasn’t really a good description of it, it was almost exactly like one of the arenas, but lacked the stands for spectators. Everything else was the same, down to the enchantment protection bubble surrounding the area they trained in.

“I told you we should have skipped that boring artifact class, you would have had plenty of sleep.” Kayla was standing over him. One of the neat tricks he had learned was that if he arrived before a class started, he could take a nap and Kayla would wake him up.

She smirked. “If only you could see yourself right now.”

Is she even human?

He couldn’t fathom where Kayla got so much energy. She was always with him in every single class, yet she wasn’t tired. At all. He had never even seen her yawn.

Dante shot up, Kayla only arrived just before instructor Arin each morning.

He almost made it up, when he heard the nasally voice behind him.

“Ah, I see it’s too much to ask for a student that doesn’t slack off before class each morning. Despite my constant reminders.”

Shit.

Dante spun and stood attentively towards instructor Arin. He had already sat out during a class as punishment for sleeping in the mana manipulation room. He almost preferred Archie’s form of discipline… almost.

Instructor Arin saw his expression and smiled. “I don’t have time for you today, we need to update everyone else’s Status for manipulation.”

“Pardon?”

Instructor Arin just snorted through his hooked nose, then began to speak slowly, as if to an imbecile. “When you were swinging your sword around like a savage and began to learn how to pump world essence into it, it’s the thing that your savage of an instructor forced into you.”

Dante’s expression didn’t change, he was used to the instructor’s prejudice against non-magic Classifications. “My instructor didn’t force anything into me.”

Instructor Arin smirked and reached up confidently to slick back what was possibly a full head of hair at one time. He couldn’t tell what the instructor was trying to accomplish by doing it, but it resulted in greasy strands of hair sticking the man’s shiny dome, which was sickening to say the least. “Why does that not surprise me?”

Dante tried not to react to the horrific sight in front of him, but Kayla didn’t hesitate. Her face was scrunched up in revulsion. “You’re absolutely disgusting.”

Instructor Arin’s face flushed red. “I’m terribly sorry miss Stavins.”

Despite the instructor’s many terrible qualities, the man wasn’t a hypocrite. He valued one’s ability above all else, as long as they had a magic Classification. So, even though he despised Dante, who was a ‘Warrior,' he also saw himself to be completely bellow Kayla, who he praised as a protegee in mana manipulation.

Instructor Arin cleared his throat. “As I was saying. Your instructor was most likely smashed once too many times in the head and completely forgot about updating your Status.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag.

That was unlikely, Archie had left out more than one thing he thought was useless to their training, this was likely just one of those things.  Archie may have been a demon incarnate as an instructor, but his methods were far more effective than any of the other instructors in yard one.

Instructor Arin began to dig around in his sack. “Alright everyone, fall in.”

He wasn’t sure who ‘everyone’ was, but he and Shan walked forward.

Kayla just stood back, inspecting her nails. “I’ve already eaten a manipulation crystal.”

The three of them were instructor Arin’s only students. Unlike the world essence manipulation, mana manipulation classes weren’t divided by nobility. There were too few commoners with a magic Classification to warrant a separate class, which is how they had someone like Shan in their class.

Shan was strange. The first day that he met Shan, he tried to be friendly, thinking it would be nice to talk to someone who wasn’t a noble. But the boy just completely ignored him. Every class, he would just stand and watch everyone else expressionlessly. He wasn’t sure if Shan had a poor experience with nobles in the past, making him reluctant to talk to him or Kayla, but something about Shan made him keep his guard up.

Instructor Arin held out two tiny crystals in his hand, they were the size of small seeds and looked similar to the manipulation orb that Archie had given him. “Alright, infuse these so we can get on with our lesson.”

Shan immediately took his and swallowed it, and Dante watched closely. He had severe trust issues after having Archie as an instructor. After a few minutes, there were no adverse reactions.

All the evidence in the situation led him to believe that the manipulation crystal wouldn’t harm him, so he took it and swallowed it.

“Alright, fill it with your Mana.”

He began to fill the essence crystal up with his Mana, it was tiny, only a fraction the size of his manipulation orb, so it filled rather quickly. As soon as it reached capacity, the crystal shattered and there was a burning sensation in his wrist. Dante stared down at his combatant’s glove, interested in the new development. He was itching to open his Status, but he wasn’t going to do it in front of Kayla, much less instructor Arin or Shan.

Instructor Arin saw him looking at his glove. “You can waste time on your own time.” He snorted as if it was some clever joke. “Let’s get started with the lesson. Create your mana shield.”

They all began to form their basic mana shields. Kayla was finished first, hers was by far the densest. Shan created his after, it was what Dante assumed would be average for a new student in advanced mana manipulation. Or at least, it’s what he based his on. He formed his own mana shield, it was around half Shan’s in density and took him twice as long to make.

He was pretty sure he was underperforming, even for the average Warrior Classification, but he reasoned that underperforming was far better than overperforming in his situation.

“Excellent as always miss Stavins.” Arin gave Kayla a look full of admiration. “Alright, I have already bestowed you all with the knowledge of creating a mana shield. Today we will learn to strengthen it. Begin by creating a second Mana shield.”

Arin had barely finished talking when Kayla effortlessly created her second shield.

Showoff.

Dante began to create his second shield also.

“When your second Mana shield is created, connect them with strands of Mana then pull them toward each other.”

It took him a few more minutes than Shan or Kayla, but eventually, he was able to create and maintain his second shield.

Maintaining the second shield was the hard part, it was like holding two different thoughts at the same time; he could only focus on one, but he needed to focus on both. As soon as his second shield was formed, he shot thin mana threads between the two shields and began to pull them together.

It was difficult. Mana, as a rule, was a somewhat elastic substance when formed. Meaning that it had some give, but if you yanked on it too hard, it would just use the force to rebound after the thread snapped.

“Now that the shields are close together, interweave the mana threads inside of the shield with each other.”

The entirety of the shield was actually several different threads of mana, which is why it seemed so soft and elastic. It was theoretically possible to control mana that wasn’t in thread form, but the control that it would take was ridiculous.

Mia’s technique for spreading awareness was a good example. Not only could he only get the mana about an inch away from his body before it dispersed on its own, but the mana was too loosely packed to actually help in any form of defense.

Mana strands were helpful to use because the Mana inside of the threads wouldn’t disperse unless they were severed, and they were easy to use because they would automatically stick to each other. The only thing that took focus was maintaining shape, like maintaining his current shield wall.

“Force them into the same space, interlocking the threads, and fusing them to shrink the shield.”

Dante frowned. His headache was already quite substantial, and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to make it through today’s lesson. As his two shields touched, he began to weave the threads together. Then, as the threads began to weave, he started to fuse them.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

His skull felt like it had been split by an axe, but the result was a single shield that had about twice the Mana density of the original. He couldn’t help but have a newfound respect for the noble who had beaten him in the arena. The noble made it seem so smooth and effortless, combining several shields together in the span of only a few seconds.

“Well done miss Stavins.” Kayla was fusing shields one after the other, instantly fusing each one as soon as it touched. “I suppose that the two of yours are passable.” He indicated towards Dante’s and Shan’s shield. “Focus on this until the end of class, I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

He had never thought that he would miss Archie so much. Arin only spent a few minutes with them each day, then left them to practice on their own.

Letting out a sigh, he pushed through the pain of his headache and began to practice.

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“Get up, I’m not going to sit with these commoners.” Kayla kicked him in the shin, which he was grateful for. His enchantment class was the one he looked forward to the most.

After a few hours of practicing mana manipulation, he had sprinted to his next class. He was quite pleased with how quickly he had made it with his jarring headache, and was pretty sure it was a new best time.

Happy to have almost a full 40 minutes of sleep, he sat down at his tiny desk and took his nap.  But it felt like he had just closed his eyes when Kayla woke him up.

Dante shot up and looked around. The room that had just been empty when he first rested his eyes, which felt like only a moment ago, was now fully filled with other students.

It was nice to see all of the ordinary people in his class. All of them were commoners, talking about what they were going to do after class got out or the latest gossip. He couldn’t help but look at them with longing.

On the first day of class he had tried to talk with them, but his pristine Housing District 1 uniform stood far apart from their tattered and refurbished uniforms. Needless to say, it was difficult.

And that was before throwing Kayla into the mix. He wasn’t sure if she was purposefully rude, but the ring of empty seats that surrounded the two of them was the direct result of her offhanded remarks.

It was strange that their instructor hadn’t arrived yet, Kayla usually only woke him up immediately before the start of a class, which he was grateful for. “Where is instructor Linty?”

Kayla just shrugged, she was always in a foul mood during their enchantment class. She thought the entire thing was an embarrassment. “How should I know?”

It was interesting that she always woke him up before the enchantment class, but also did her best not to talk to him.

Letting out a yawn, Dante propped himself up on his desk, doing his best to stay awake until the instructor finally arrived.

“I’m not going to ask, you do it.”

“He won’t say yes to me. You do it, you’re a girl.”

The voices caught his attention. He wouldn’t have noticed them if they weren’t trying to whisper, but their attempt only caused their voices to pierce the air.

Dante looked over to see a flustered girl with a bright red face admonishing the boy next to her. “That’s not fair. You do it.” Both of them had plain faces with brown hair and eyes. He couldn’t help but find their look refreshing after all of the ‘beautiful’ or ‘handsome’ nobles he had dealt with.

The boy briefly glanced over toward Dante. “It would-” He froze, as if just realizing that Dante was watching them. The boy stood up and hurriedly bowed toward him. “I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

He wasn’t sure what the boy was talking about, and was about to say so, when the boy picked pulled up the girl next to him and got her to bow as well. “Don’t blame my brother, my lord. It was my fault, we didn’t mean to talk about you behind your back.”

What is going on?

Dante looked at Kayla, checking to see if she knew what was going on.

Kayla had a look of amusement on her face, and her hand was covering her mouth like she was trying to hold in laughter.

“Um… Its fine, don’t worry about it.” This situation was awkward, and everyone in the class was now looking at the three of them wide-eyed. “Did you want to ask me something?”

His question made the girl break out into a broad smile, but she seemed to think it was inappropriate because it disappeared shortly after. She cleared her throat. “My lord, Haden and I are fighting in the platinum ranked tournament, but our third team member is… unable to continue in the tournament...”

She looked like she was about to tear up, leaving almost no question about what had happened to their team member. 

The boy cleared his throat. “What Jaseni was trying to say, is that we need a third member of our team to continue in the tournament, and we were wondering if your lordship,” He glanced at Kayla “or your ladyship, would be willing to grace our team with your presence.”

He was interested in fighting in the tournament, if only for the combat experience, but he didn’t have time for it. “I would be willing to help you out, but I’m afraid my schedule is full.”

The girl, Jaseni, quickly spoke up. “There are only two fights left in the tournament, and they are both tomorrow. It wouldn’t take more than a few hours of your time.”

“And If we win, you can have the dungeon boss to yourself.” Haden was also speaking quickly, he seemed overly flustered and desperate.

Those words actually got his attention though, if the tournament’s reward was access to one of the academy’s dungeons, acquiring the monster crystal could be an invaluable once in a lifetime opportunity.

He was about to accept their offer when Kayla, who was sitting next to him, snorted. “As if we would join your suicide run.” Both of their expressions instantly turned downcast. She turned to Dante. “These two morons forgot to mention that to register for the three versus three tournament they needed a full five team members, if they are looking for a new member before the semifinals it means that three of them died, not one. It’s what happens to all commoners who are stupid enough to compete.”

Jaseni wasn’t done trying. “If one of you joined our team, no one would try to hurt us.”

Kayla was having none of it. “Get lost, we’re not interested.”

Dante glared at her, that attitude was the reason everyone avoided him in the class.

He was interested in the tournament though. After all, he was quite confident in his ability to survive in a fight, at least long enough to surrender.

“There are only two fights left in the tournament?” At his words, Kayla rolled her eyes.

Jaseni nodded enthusiastically, giving him a pleading look. “Yes, the fights are both tomorrow, and we don’t know anyone who is willing to fight in a platinum rank team battle on such short notice...”

He thought it over for a moment. Fighting in the tournament would be risky for several reasons, but the reward would be massive if they won. Besides, he already had a solid grasp on mana manipulation, so he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be staying at the academy. Dante nodded. “I’ll fight in the tournament.”

Both of them had a stunned look on their faces.  Apparently, they had not expecting him to join their team. Then at the same time, they both lit up with a smile. “Thank you, my lord.”

Haden puffed up his chest. “You won’t regret this. With your help, we will win for sure.”

Jaseni nodded along to his words. “The first fight is in the platinum team arena at 8:00 am, and if we win, the second fight will be at noon.”

Skipping mana manipulation class to fight in the arena sounded terrific, and that was without mentioning the extra hour of sleep he would be able to get since the fight started an hour later than his class usually did. “That sounds good, we can meet there before the fight.”

To his dismay, as soon as they confirmed their meeting location, the two of them returned to their seats across the room. Leaving him alone with Kayla. “You do realize that you’ll regret that, right?”

Dante rolled his eyes. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” He actually wasn’t, and was somewhat worried about the outcome of the tournament, but Kayla’s attitude wasn’t helping in any way.

Kayla didn’t respond, but Dante was still curious about something. “Why were they so afraid of me at the beginning.”

Kayla shrugged. “The academy is a place to gain strength, naturally that comes with a few inherent risks.  Commoners generally aren’t treated well.” She winked at him. “Not everyone is as nice as I am.”

If that was the case, they were treated far worse than he thought…

The door to the classroom burst open, and Instructor Linty’s bulky form crossed through the doorway carrying a massive sack over her shoulder. The woman didn’t look the part of the instructor, more like a burly nursemaid, or possibly even an ordinary cook. Instructor Linty was actually his favorite instructor, she seemed the most excited to share knowledge with her students... Well, besides instructor Misa.

She walked toward the middle of the room and dropped the sack on the floor with an audible thunk. He thought that the floor actually shook slightly when it hit the ground, but wasn’t sure if it was his imagination. “You should have seen the tiny stone those stingy bastards wanted me to bring to class.” She began grinning in satisfaction. “But they couldn’t stop me. Take a gander at this pretty thing.” Instructor Linty opened up the sack, revealing a massive rock that resembled slightly translucent obsidian.

Holy shit, is that…?

Everyone in the room recoiled from the stone, even Kayla.

“By the looks of it, more than a few of you actually know what this is. This Chaos stone, although low grade, is from the Chaos region.”

No shit. But why is it here?

“But I’m sure what most of you don’t know, is that it is actually used to produce the most important ingredient for enchantments.” Instructor Linty patted the stone proudly. “Over the last week we have gone over different types of enchantments and traps, along with their uses. But today I will show you where the most important ingredient to create enchantments comes from.”

“First I will allow you all to experiment with it. Go ahead and try anything you would like. World essence manipulation, mana manipulation, or even just opening your Status.”

Even though they all knew about the Chaos region, and what a Chaos stone was, none of them had actually been near one.

This was a surprisingly good opportunity. He had been planning on crossing the Chaos region eventually, and the more information he had the better his chances would be.

Dante began by trying to manipulate world essence into his Status to open it.

As expected, there was no world essence to manipulate. He couldn’t find any in the area around him. Next, he closed his eyes, trying Mia’s technique to spread his awareness. He had slightly more luck that way. There was a small amount of world essence in the air, but as he tried to grab control of it, it seemed to be sucked out of his grasp as it shot towards the stone.

After that, he tried mana manipulation. He was able to make a small shield, startling the class, but for some reason, it was far weaker than it should have been.

“As you now know, all the world essence in the room is being sucked into this Chaos stone.” Instructor Linty pointed to the rock. “The lack of world essence also makes mana manipulation twice as difficult.” She pointed toward Dante’s weak shield. “If you ever are ensnared in a Chaos stone trap, keep in mind that you can still use your skills, but your mana will regenerate at half the normal rate.”

He had no intention of testing that. Both of his mana costing skills weren’t something that could be used in front of others inside of the academy.

“You see, Enchanters grind Chaos stones into a fine powder. The powder is the power source for all enchantments. The higher the Chaos stone’s grade, the more world essence the created powder can absorb, and therefore the larger or more complex the enchantment that can be created.”

Instructor Linty patted the stone. “As a general rule, enchantments that can be activated by a single person feeding world essence into them are made using low-grade powder. Higher grades of powder will generally require multiple people feeding in world essence, or the use of essence crystals to power them.”

That meant that the battle simulation enchantments were made with some form of higher grade powder.

Instructor Linty was getting far more excited, talking faster and becoming more enthusiastic. “There is also other types of stones in the Chaos region. For instance, one is called Superior Chaos stone, and is similar to regular Chaos stones, but is slightly red in color. Its powder can make enchantments that sustain themselves, and don’t need to be fed with world essence. But superior Chaos stone is exceedingly rare, even in its lowest grade is worth more than the entirety of most noble houses in the Outer region.” All of the commoner students in the class gasped at her last remark.

The rest of the class wasn’t that fascinating, instructor Linty just went over different methods and processes for grinding the stones down into powder, then went over the pros and cons of each approach. Needless to say, he listened with rapt attention

When the class was finally over, hours later, Dante shot out of his desk. Running past Haden and Jaseni without a word, intent on making it to the next class in time for a longer nap.

It usually took him 30 minutes to run there, but he was confident that if he didn’t pause to eat like he usually did, he could get there in 20.

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“Get up.” He received his usual kick to the shin, thoroughly waking him up. “Here.” Kayla put a cloth-wrapped bundle on his desk.

He began to carefully unwrap the bundle, slightly fearful of what may be inside. “What is it?”

Kayla sat down, head resting on her hand, this was another class that put her in a foul mood from the boredom. “Food.”

Inside of the bundle was a small loaf of bread. To his delight, it was still warm, and Dante tore into it like a ravenous animal. He hadn’t eaten since the day before. “Thanks.”

Kayla looked disgusted. “You can thank me by eating like a human and not some beast.”

Dante gave her a lopsided grin, and then the two waited for their instructor.

Basics of Acting and Lying didn’t seem like a very popular class. On the first day there were four other nobles, but after a few classes they stopped showing up, and now it was just him and Kayla.

Instructor Misa walked through the door with a strut to her step. “Ah, my darling Dante, so good to see you.” Instructor Misa walked right up to Dante, then held his face between her hands. “Today, I will fill you with greatness.”

Dante smiled back at her, doing his best to keep a straight face. Instructor Misa was a borderline elderly woman who padded herself with a mask of makeup to make herself look younger, but if anything, she just looked like some of the cheaper whores he had seen in Alazel.

Despite her looks, she was a fantastic instructor and spent absolutely all of the class time solely on him.

“We have been teaching you how to lie, now it is time to learn how to detect lies by reading someone’s facial expressions.”

That was a nice change of pace. ‘Teaching him how to lie’ was sitting in front of a mirror while instructor Misa pointed out any changes in his facial expression, body language, or eye movement for four hours.

From what he learned in her class so far, Charisma was based mostly on reading people, and your ability to stop other people from reading you, and not likability or looks like he had thought… even though those still played a role.

“I will show you how it works, Kayla tell me either a truth or a lie.” Instructor Misa turned to Kayla excitedly, ready to show her ability.

Kayla’s expression was still one of boredom. “This class is so boring that I’m considering suicide.”

Instructor Misa looked slightly put down from Kayla’s words. “Uh… that was true. Try again, maybe something that isn’t so morbid?”

Kayla smirked at her. “Dante has black hair and blue eyes.”

“Also true…” Instructor Misa looked at Dante for a moment, then felt his hair as if looking for some type of dye. She then cleared her throat. “I think you should use me for practice.”

Instructor Misa looked at him with a broad smile. “Alright Dante, it’s your turn.” She paused as if thinking about what she would say. “I am still a virgin, is that the truth or a lie?”

Is she serious…?

Dante stared into her mask of makeup, instructor Misa had to be into her 50’s, even by his lowest estimate.

Dante hid his wince, then cleared his throat. “That was the truth.”

Kayla burst out laughing, and instructor Misa smiled broadly at him. “Unfortunately, that was a lie.” Her expression turned smug. “I’m sorry, I should have started off with an easier question. That was my fault.”

He had to stop himself from sighing in relief, he had almost been honest and told her it was a lie.

“And your lying has improved tremendously, I’m so proud of you!”

Of course…

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Dante grunted as he received a jab to the ribs. That was his usual indication that his last class had started. His final class, Guide to Magic Relics and Artifacts, was located in the platinum solo arena.

Because there were only four ‘lecture’ classes each quarter, and because they only cost 25 credits, each lecture was filled to the brim with students and held within an arena. Apparently, the lectures changed each quarter and covered a wide variety of subjects.

Kayla woke him up just as instructor Kane began to step up to the makeshift stage in the center of the fighting pit.

Dante mentally prepared himself, Guide to Magic Relics and Artifacts was his hardest class by far.

Professor Kane was having a hard time getting onto his stage, not only was he incredibly short, but he was also incredibly old. The combination was truly detrimental to the weathered old man’s mobility.

It took instructor Kane almost a full minute to finally make it to the top of the stage. The old man opened his notes and then raked a hand through his surprisingly full head of white hair. “Let’s begin.”

Instructor Kane’s voice sounded far too old and tired, just those few words threatened to lapse his concentration. He sat up straighter, keeping his back off of the chair to stop himself from dozing off.

“In the past week we have finished our introductory information on magical artifacts. Today we will begin to learn about magical relics and their significance.”

Thank the Goddess.

After an entire week of learning about magical artifacts, he had learned nothing that furthered his knowledge of the glove.

“Unlike magical artifacts, magical relics aren’t created by humans, ancient or otherwise. Who or what may have created them is a hotly debated topic, some say the Goddess… which is false, some say otherwise, but that isn’t important for this course. We are not learning about possibilities that are unimportant to the matter at hand, but rather what has been proven as fact, or theories that are backed by numerous thorough studies.”

“That said, factual information on magical relics is hard to come by. All the information that we have is what has been handed down from the inner region, where these relics exist.”

“The first, and most important thing that separates artifacts from relics is their source of power. Unlike artifacts, which always use mana, relics can use a wide variety of sources depending on the relic. Some use world essence, some use rare gems or metals, some have even been said to use emotions. The quantity of the resource required depends on the relics strength itself.”

Dante perked up, instantly wide awake. So far instructor Kane’s description of relics power sources was possibly the same as his combatant’s glove and its blood absorption.

“This brings me to the most important piece of information regarding relics. Unlike artifacts which have a set strength and power when they are created, relics can evolve over time by feeding them the resource required. It is even possible for them to have more than one ability.”

Dante’s eyes were wide. Assuming the glove was a magic relic, all he needed was more blood for the glove to be useful…

“The ability to evolve may seem powerful, especially in comparison to artifacts which lack the ability, but that is rarely the case. Unlike artifacts, which are created almost exclusively for combat, relics are created for a multitude of uses. It is theorized that the creators just made whatever they thought would be useful at the time. Therefore, most of them have no practical use and are mainly kept as a show of power in the inner region.”

That was a slight let down.

“So, you may be asking yourselves, why were they created to evolve through the absorption of resources if the relics themselves were created for a direct need? But that reasoning is thinking about the situation entirely backward.”

“It is the current belief that relics deteriorate over time, or from being used, and that the resources used to restore them were the key ingredients that were used to create them originally. Even though it is still a theory, it is a widely accepted one that none of my colleagues have disputed.”

Instructor Kane spent the rest of the lecture citing his sources, and explaining the experiments that have been done to back up his theories on relics. Try as he might, Dante began to lose focus in the last hour.

He needed blood, and a lot of it.

----------------------------------------

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Upon walking into his residence, Mia met him with a deep bow.

“Its fine, I gave you the day off.”

He didn’t have the energy to placate Mia. Dante walked past her, directly into his room and onto his bed.

He was almost too tired, but his curiosity got the better of him. He opened up his Status and checked the new Manipulation tab that was inside of it.

World Essence Manipulation:

Maximum Mass: 1.78

Form Control: 1.46

Form Speed: 2.83

Mana Manipulation:

Maximum Mana: (1.7*1.10) 1.87

Form Control: (1.9*1.2) 2.28

Form Speed: (1.9*1.1) 2.09

It was surprising that the numbers for world essence manipulation and mana manipulation were so similar when he seemed to much further along in world essence manipulation. But thinking back to Mia’s words about mana manipulation being harder to utilize when its first learned, it made some sense.

The mana manipulation was strange though, at first glance, he was thoroughly confused. But after thinking over how mana manipulation was tied to Wisdom and Intelligence, he could assume that the 1.7 came from his 17 Intelligence, and the 1.9 came from his 19 Wisdom.

That meant that the max mana he could use was dependent on his Intelligence. He could also assume the form speed and control was dependent on Wisdom. The other number was probably the base amount of mana, control, or speed he had trained in his week with instructor Arin.

Dante rubbed his eyes, unsure of what he was still doing awake. He had agreed to fight in the platinum ranked arena tournament, so he needed to be awake the following day.

Closing out his Status, he went to sleep.