Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 94

After spending another two hours in the viewing booth with Leah and Candice, Dante said his goodbyes with the intention of meeting the following morning.

By the time he left, the day was pretty much spent, so he decided to use the last few hours of sunlight to peruse the second section of the city and find an inn to stay at.

He had already walked through the small Shopping District when he first entered the second section of the city, so Dante continued through the ‘Hall District’ that he was currently in. Every building was massive, and seemed to have some distinct purpose that served the centralized power within Sloria.

Several of the massive signs that designated a building’s purpose caught his attention. Among them were the Artificer’s Hall, Merchant’s Hall, Marshal Hall, and Alchemist’s Hall. There were others as well, but they all seemed to fulfill far more minor tasks.

The Alchemist’s, Enchanter’s, and Artificer’s Halls were exactly what they sounded like. Areas where Alchemists, Enchanters, and Artificers could go to work or sell, mostly fulfilling jobs that the city had need of. All of the materials for those jobs were provided, and ample compensation was given for the harder tasks. After stepping into the Alchemist’s Hall, he was immediately aware of the fact that he had zero chance of completing even the basic and tedious tasks posted.

The Marshal Hall was basically a recruitment and training center. Combatants, or others with a useful Classification, could go there to try and join Sloria’s legions. It was surprisingly crowded, and judging by the somber expression of those exiting the hall, the requirements were quite high.

The Merchant’s Hall was also quite unique. Unlike the other halls, it was more of a service center. Basically, if someone was looking for a rare item, their best chance of finding it would be there. Not only that, but they would also purchase rare items outright or find buyers for clients.

Based the information he could pick up, they also had a branch in the third section of the city. That branch handled the purchasing and distribution of common goods, mostly food. They were the ones that fed the citizens in the third section of the city.

The Merchant’s Hall also had another building next to it, an Auction Hall. It was closed though, only open once a week unless there an exceedingly valuable item that needed to be sold off immediately.

After leaving the Hall District, Dante stepped into what could only be described as the barracks of Sloria. A massive section of the city was completely cut off so that the legions could be housed and trained. He could only see a small portion, as he was only allowed to walk through on a sectioned off pathway, but he could still estimate each of the five legion’s numbers at around one hundred thousand per legion.

The next district was the one he had originally set off to find. It was something of a Leisure District, containing brothels, inns, restaurants, and even spas. It was quite small, by far the smallest district he had been in, but it wasn’t hard to find a suitable inn to stay at.

After paying for a room, Dante continued through the city. There was only one other district before the Shopping District that he had initially walked through. A Residential District.

The Residential District was clearly a class above the residential areas in the third section of the city. It was the lack of clutter. It was almost as spacious as the Hall District.

Some of the manors took up massive swaths of land and were heavily guarded with their own walls. Judging by the matching mercenary bands on their arms, he could be quite sure that those manors belonged to the leaders of the groups stationed in the valley.

There were also smaller houses, likely owned by rich merchants or important officials or workers.

The district was interesting, but not overly so. After looking around briefly, Dante returned to the inn and retired for the night.

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The next morning, Dante went to the Enchanter’s Hall at first light. He was excited to learn about enchanting, but had no intention of spending the entire day doing so. Sloria had too much to offer, and there would always be time to learn enchanting in the future. It was probable that there was even an enchanter in Warlord Vidal’s army that he could learn from.

He was interested in the Combatant’s Hall though. Since he had so much free time, it would be a relatively safe way to earn more gold before he really got down to business. There was no telling what the Merchant’s Hall would have to offer in the way of treasures, but he knew that he didn’t have enough money to buy anything of real value. It was rare to even find a silver coin on the bodies he looted hunting caravans, much less any gold.

The Enchanter’s Hall was pretty much the same as the other halls – large. The building was massive, it looked like a giant stadium from the outside, but nowhere near as busy as some of the other halls. It was located close to the Artificer’s Hall, and in between the two was the smaller Smith’s Hall. The relation between the three was pretty much self-explanatory.

The first thing he noticed upon stepping inside the Enchanter’s Hall was the variety of weapons and armor created with different metals and unique enchantments that were set out for viewing. The walls on each side of the main room were lined with them, and there were buyers walking up and down the wall as they inspected them.

The enchantments seemed to be clearly divided, and most of them were tier two enchantments. There was a section of the room that had a small number of tier three weapons, but no tier three armor. From the looks of things, such armor was either hard to make or in higher demand.

Dante stepped past the small crowd of people that were just aimlessly wandering around and caught the attention of a middle-aged man that had an Enchanter’s Hall uniform on. “Excuse me sir, could you help me?”

The worker turned to face him. “Of course, feel free to ask me about anything that catches your eye. And if you are looking for something more specific, it would be a small matter to have it commissioned.”

Dante shook his head, as if dismissing the notion. “I’m not here to buy anything. I was supposed to meet with Leah this morning, do you know where I can find her?”

The worker looked somewhat surprised. “Master Stallos’ apprentice?”

Dante nodded. He actually wasn’t sure who her master was, but he doubted that there would be more than one Leah apprenticed to a master Enchanter.

The worker pointed to a staircase near the back of the main room. “If she’s in, you can usually find her working on the third floor. I would try there first.”

“Thank you.”

Dante stepped up the staircase and found himself on the second level. Unlike the first, this one was filled with actual Enchanters, and many of them were working at their own workstations.

He only paused to look momentarily before making his way to the staircase that led to the third floor.

Upon stepping onto the third floor, he was pleasantly surprised to see that Candice and Leah were already together. But that pleasant feeling was destroyed when he saw Arron standing next to the two of them with his arms crossed.

He had only met Arron briefly, and thus far, he didn’t have a high opinion of him.

Dante still plastered an amiable smile on his face as he stepped forward. “Hey Leah.”

“You came!” Leah ran up and embraced him in a brief hug, which caught him more than a little off guard. He still went along with it though.

After breaking off from Leah, Dante nodded to Candice. “Good morning.”

Candice looked between the two of them and smirked meaningfully. “Morning.”

Seeing Candice’s smirk, Dante had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. His gaze roamed past Arron before coming to a stop on the table that the three of them had been standing around. There was a strange looking trident on it, created of a golden colored alloy that had swirls of silver mixed in. And off to the side were several piles of different types of powder. From what he knew of enchanting, the piles should at least partially be made of ground down Chaos stone. “Are you making something?”

Before anyone else could answer, Arron cut in with a disgruntled tone. “We were making something.”

Dante looked at Arron in amazement. “’We?’ I didn’t know you were also an enchanter.”

Arron’s eyes narrowed in annoyance, then he looked at Leah, completely ignoring Dante. “What is he doing here?”

Leah frowned. “Dante was interested in enchantments, so I invited him over to watch us work.”

Candice pointed to one of the chairs that was located by the far wall. “Speaking of which, stop bothering us so that Leah can actually get started.”

Arron looked between the three of them with narrowed eyes. “Fine.” Then, without another word, he moved off to the side like Candice asked.

Candice looked at Dante and snorted. “Don’t worry, he just acts tough.”

He was surprised that Candice didn’t bother to lower her voice, and a momentary glance at Arron confirmed that he had heard what she said. He was glaring daggers at her.

Dante looked back at Leah. “So…”

“Oh! Come over here.” She gestured to the table. “It’s a good thing you came early. Arron wanted a tier three enchantment on his newly crafted weapon.”

It actually was a good opportunity. He had seen Victoria create a few tier two and three pills, and the process was much more involved than the tier one pills he made. It made him wonder if enchantments had a similar increase in difficulty. “What kind of enchantment?”

Leah picked up the trident and carefully studied it as she answered somewhat absentmindedly. “It’s one I created, the base is a force rune.”

Dante looked at her somewhat awkwardly. “Could you explain that in layman terms?”

Leah looked away from the weapon and smiled at him. “Sorry, it’s a habit. Runes are basically just tier one enchantments, they are compact and basic, the embodiment of what they represent. Watch carefully.”

Leah held out her hand and a blue glow of mana surrounded it. She then dipped her fingers into one of the piles of powder, the darkest of them. As soon as the mana touched the powder it was absorbed. She withdrew her hand, and the powder that absorbed the mana came with it. It almost looked like there was a ball of liquid that was resisting gravity stuck to the tip of her finger.

She carefully moved her hand to the trident and began drawing on the shaft with precision. She finished after drawing half a dozen compact lines, creating something that almost looked like a claw.

Leah flicked her hand, releasing the mana and throwing the leftover substance to the side. “This is a tier one enchantment, and the rune for force. If I was just going to leave it like this, the placement wouldn’t matter too much, but it would still effect the enchantment’s efficiency. Since I will be creating a tier three enchantment, the placement is incredibly important.”

Dante looked at where she drew the rune on the trident’s shaft. The placement seemed random, as it wasn’t at the midpoint, but about four inches below the three-pronged head. “How do you know where to place the enchantment?”

Leah shrugged. “I’m not really sure. It’s just a feeling I get when I envision the enchantment and study the weapon. It comes from my Classification.”

That wasn’t helpful. He may need to find an enchanter who didn’t have the Classification to teach him a few tricks, similar to how Victoria taught him alchemy despite not being an Alchemist.

Leah shrouded her hand in mana and dipped it into the second pile of powder. “Tier one enchantments are all the same, there are no deviations. Tier two enchantments are where the deviations begin. Force, for instance, can be adjusted in a multitude of ways. I’ve developed this second tier enchantment for penetration.”

Leah’s eyebrows narrowed in concentration as she began to retrace and extend each of the lines she had previously drawn one by one. The base lines she had drawn for the force rune were jagged and rough, but every extension she added had a flourish. The lines almost looked feminine where the force rune was masculine.

When done, Leah held out the trident. “Now, the enchantment is of the second tier. Its power has qualitatively increased, and the amount of world essence needed to power it has also drastically increased as well.” She spun the trident in her hand so the three-pronged head was facing the floor, then she rested the head against the table and activated the enchantment. The trident quickly sank into the wood as though of its own volition.

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Leah stopped the enchantment and pulled it out of the wood. “This penetration enchantment is one of many ways that a force rune can be advanced. I created it with the help of my master. In the second tier, the deviations are still somewhat limited.”

Leah dipped her hand in a new pile of powder and her eyes narrowed as she began to retrace some of the enchantment’s lines. Her progress was far slower than earlier, and beads of sweat began to form on her brow as time went on.

Unlike the tier two enchantment, she didn’t retrace all the lines, just some of them. And the way she extended those lines was through the trident’s left spear tip, not even touching the other two. When she was done, the left tip was completely covered in enchantment lines.

Leah held the trident aloft and inspected it as she let out a deep breath. She then reached toward another pile of powder.

She repeated the same process, this time the lines she extended exclusively went to the middle spear tip. After finishing with the middle spear tip, she grabbed a new powder and did the final spear tip.

By the time Leah finished with the third, her brow was drenched with sweat and her face was completely pale.

Dante had held back his questions throughout the entire process, but now that Leah was done, couldn’t hold back any longer. “Why do you use different powders like that?”

Leah gestured toward the powders that she had used. “The powder for the tier one enchantment has the highest density of Chaos stone in it at around 80%. It helps the world essence that powers the enchantment run through the first tier enchantment before moving on to the others.”

She pointed to the second powder that she used. “The second powder has around 70% Chaos stone density, but also an added substance called chenor. Chenor aids in the overall speed of the world essence when transferring through the lines, but at the cost of decreased enchantment strength.”

“Why would you add chenor if it decreases the strength of the enchantment?”

Leah motioned to the trident. “Usually, I wouldn’t. But for this specific enchantment, it will provide an increase in overall ability. The chenor will lower the activation time of the enchantment, which is important in this case.”

Leah looked at the three other powders on the table that she used for the tier three enchantment. “These are all around 50% Chaos stone density, and have a mixture of chenor as well as a composite of either alcryx, egrian, or etril.”

Dante gave her a look of bewilderment. “What?”

“Oh, right.” Leah looked slightly embarrassed. “Alcryx, egrian, and etril are minerals that world essence can naturally be channeled through, but they are mutually exclusive when activated near each other. Meaning you can activate each of three by themselves, but not two at the same time. It stops the world essence from accidentally leaking. Give me a second to finish this and I’ll show you.”

Leah dipped her hand into one of the two powders she hadn’t yet used. She drew a single line down the shaft in a way that seemed decorative. Then, she flicked her hand to remove that powder and grabbed the last powder. She began to add to the previous lines, many of them with exaggerated flourishes. They extended all the way down the shaft and filled the places that were previously empty. It gave the trident a more ‘complete’ look.

He was lost again. “Why did you do that?”

Leah looked at the trident with a hint of dissatisfaction. “That line I added is for activation. It stretches down the length of the shaft so that world essence can be easily channeled. The other lines are just decoration. I’d rather not add them, but every enchanter does it. If I didn’t, the buyer would think that something is wrong and only pay me a fraction of what the enchantment is worth.”

Leah seemed to be something of a purist when it came to enchantments. That same dissatisfied look was on her face when she explained that the enchantment in the Combatant’s Hall was changed so it could be used as a decoration.

Leah held the trident out for him to hold, a proud smile on her face. “Try it out. Just force your world essence into whichever spear tip you want to activate.”

Dante grabbed the trident and began filling it with world essence. As a tier three enchantment, it couldn’t be immediately activated and instead needed a few seconds to gather. After it was filled, he channeled the world essence into the middle spear tip.

A blade manifested from blue light shot a foot away from the spear tip before disappearing. Dante could barely believe his eyes. It was an attack. Even better than most skills.

He continued to feed world essence into the trident and experiment with it. If his concentration was fully focused, he could activate one of the spear tips every five seconds or so.

Dante stepped closer to the table, Leah didn’t have any qualms about stabbing it earlier, so he wanted to try it out. He activated one of the spear tips, and the ethereal blade that shot out easily sliced through the wood table with no resistance.

Dante looked back at Leah with a completely serious expression. “This is amazing.”

A tinge of red rushed into Leah’s cheeks. “I wouldn’t have been able to make it without my master’s help.”

Dante looked at the trident in his hands. After seeing the enchantment being created from beginning to end, it was obvious that the force rune was the focal point. “So, could anyone create a tier one enchantment by just using runes?”

Leah nodded. “With a bit of practice they can. If you mean those without an Enchanter Classification, the placement of the enchantment itself can still be problematic. If it is done too erroneously, it could damage the integrity of the weapon and cause issues in the middle of a fight.”

In other words, he would need to do a lot of testing. “What about tier two enchantments and above? Couldn’t I just copy your enchantment?”

To the side, Candice snorted. “If it was that easy, everyone would be a master enchanter.”

Dante’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked at Leah.

Leah explained it to him. “Someone’s ability in enchanting comes down to their comprehension. Runes don’t matter, because they are the direct embodiment of what they represent, but other enchantments are created with the help of the Enchanter’s will. So, without completely understanding an enchantment, recreating it would be impossible.”

Dante thought back to the suave shopkeeper in Desas that he bought his weapons from. That shopkeeper’s attainments in enchanting might have been far greater than he originally thought.

“Of course, the way an Enchanter specializes can make comprehending enchantments easier. And having the help of a Master Enchanter with higher attainments in enchanting will drastically speed things up as well. Few Enchanters actually make their own enchantments.”

He was still having trouble understanding why anyone would want to create their own enchantments. “Why would you create your own enchantment if learning someone else’s is easier?”

Leah shrugged. “You can never fully comprehend someone else’s will, even with their help. So copying someone else’s enchantment will only lead to a subpar result. Only by making your own can the full effects be shown.” Leah paused, then spoke in afterthought. “Also, the process of creating your own enchantment will deepen your understanding of enchanting in general. True masters always make their own enchantments and only use other’s when they have to.”

There was far more to enchanting than he had originally thought. “So, if I wanted to learn a tier two enchantment, how would I go about doing that?”

Both Leah and Candice furrowed their brows. Candice then spoke. “It would be challenging. You would need to fully comprehend a rune, then develop a second tier enchantment without the help of others. Every tier after that would also rely on your comprehension.”

That didn’t sound challenging, but impossible. “Why wouldn’t someone else be able to teach me?”

Leah answered. “The ability to comprehend the will of other’s by studying their enchantments is something unique to the Enchanter Classification. Without the aid of that, we could only give you some basic advice.”

That didn’t make much sense at all. But the same could be said for almost everything he had learned about enchanting thus far. He did get enough information to start though. Tier one enchantments shouldn’t give him too many problems with enough practice.

At that moment, Arron walked up and held out his hand for the trident. Dante handed it over, and right after he did, Arron completely ignored him and looked at Candice and Leah instead. “Where is Elizabeth?”

Candice answered. “Training with master. I’m not sure when they will be done.”

Arron nodded, then walked back to where he was sitting previously. It seemed that he was content to wait.

Dante looked between Candice and Leah. “Is he always like that?” Arron was behaving like a stalker.

Candice shrugged. “It’s not that simple.”

He was still a bit skeptical, but had no intention of tangling with Arron over something so trivial. Dante looked at Leah. “What runes can I use for tier one enchantments.”

Leah snapped her fingers. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She hurried across the room and pulled a large handmade book out of a drawer before returning. “Master gave us a book of all the runes she knows. You can use whichever ones you like, but only a few of them will create enchantments that have a function.”

Dante gratefully took the book from Leah. “Based on what you said, I should just choose one rune and focus on it. Would it be easier to make other second tier enchantments after successfully making one second tier enchantment?”

Leah shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Your progression on enchanting will be based on your understanding of a given rune. Things might be faster if you work on runes that are similar in nature. But the higher tier your enchantments reach, the more deviation there will be in their nature, and the less your comprehension in one will aid the other.”

So, pick one rune. Simple enough.

Dante opened the book of runes and began to tab through it. Each page had a single rune drawn on it with the runes name over the top. Most of them were simple things. Force, for example, was in there. There were elemental runes, like ice, water, fire, earth, and air. There were emotional type runes, like anger and sadness. And even plant and animal runes.

The back of the book had a far more interesting selection though. None of the runes seemed to have any relationship with each other, and more than one of them was a bit ominous. A few of the more eye catching among them were the cruelty, malevolence, and vengeance runes.

He even stumbled across a blood rune. He stopped on it for quite a while as he pondered over the possibilities. If his progress on enchanting depended on his comprehension of a rune, that might be the best choice.

He wasn’t sure how that rune would help him in combat though.

Dante looked up from the book. “What type of rune would you recommend if someone wanted to enchant a projectile?” Activating the enchantment before shooting his weapons with Manipulate Blade would be problematic, but the same problem would apply to every projectile.

Leah had a look of concentration on her face. “I’m not sure. I assume you mean the projectile itself, and not the launching mechanism?”

Dante nodded. “Correct.”

Leah stepped closer to him and began flipping through the book of runes, finally stopping on a page toward the front. “An impact rune could help. The variations that you can make for each tier are endless, and the impact rune by nature wouldn’t release added world essence until there is an impact on the projectile.”

That actually sounded like a good choice. “Do you have a piece of paper so that I can copy it down?”

Leah took off across the room, reopening the drawer the book was in earlier and pulling out a few pieces of paper. “Let me draw them. The lines need to be precise, or the enchantment’s efficiency will deteriorate. If you made a mistake now, it would only cause problems later when you are studying the rune.”

He had no arguments with that.

Leah got placed the piece of paper on her desk, then walked across the room and grabbed a bag of powder. She reached down and dipped her hand in it in preparation to draw. “Let me know which ones you’re interested in. It would be best to take a few, just in case you dislike the effects of the impact rune or other complications arise.”

He and Leah began to slowly flip through the book as she drew each rune that he found to be of interest. He even had her take down the blood rune. Thankfully, Leah didn’t bat an eye at the strange choice.

The two of them were still going through the book – Candice to the side, and Arron sitting across the room – when they all heard a loud commotion coming from the stairway. Around a dozen people stepped into the room. All but two were men, and they all ranged from around his age to their early-twenties.

He didn’t give the group more than a passing glance until he saw Leah tense up next to him. That made him reevaluate the group. When he looked up, he saw that Candice was also quite tense, and Arron looked like he was one provocation away from attacking.

In contrast, the group that entered looked to be quite at home. All of them looked confident, overly so in fact. That might have just been because of their superior numbers though.

All of them were finely dressed, so finely that it was the same caliber of Arron’s clothing. It was highly likely that these people were also quite important.

Dante went back to looking through the runes with Leah, whatever was going on, he didn’t want any part in it.

One of the younger men in the group stepped forward imposingly. “Girl, where is Elizabeth?”

Dante glanced up. A very pompous looking man was addressing Candice, who was standing idle. The man’s tone of voice might have been the most pretentious he had ever heard, and his appearance was even more annoying. The word ‘delicate’ couldn’t begin to describe him.

“Elizabeth is having a private lesson with Master Stallos.”

The man replied in a slightly whiney voice. “Then go and fetch her.” By the tone, it was obvious that he thought Candice should have gone without being asked.

“Elizabeth busy.” Arron spoke from across the room. It was amazing how much of a deterrent the cold look he gave them was.

The young man glanced at Arron, then flicked his hand at Candice, indicating that she should do as he said. Dante watched Candice frown and walk away, likely going to find Elizabeth.

Her reaction made him wonder what kind of influence these people had.

Leah flipped the page to an impulse rune. He didn’t really know what it did, but didn’t see the harm in taking it. He pointed to the rune. “That one.”

He seemed to have alerted the idiot ordering people around. That young man pointed to Leah. “Aren’t you also one of Master Stallos’ apprentices?”

Leah nodded meekly. “Yes sir.”

“Then why have you not done as I have asked?”

Leah looked slightly confused. “You didn’t ask me-”

The delicate young man flicked his wrist in Candice’s direction. “Just go.” The young man subtly glanced at Arron, as if seeing if Arron saw how much control he had over the room.

Leah was actually about to go until he reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her. Dante looked at the idiot. “We’re busy.” It had been a while since he met such an ass.

The young man’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Who are you?”

“One of Elizabeth’s friends.” In this situation, relying on Elizabeth’s social status was the easiest way to diffuse the situation. Of course, that didn’t seem to be going to well for Leah and Candice. But that was possibly because they were only acquainted from their apprenticeship.

The young man looked him up and down, as if truly noticing him for the first time. Apparently, he didn’t like what he saw, as the frown on his face only grew more pronounced as he took note of Dante’s extraordinary appearance.

“The idiot is Eric Navos, his father is the leader of the largest mercenary group stationed within the valley. I would suggest you don’t anger him.” Arron spoke up from the side of the room. He was acting surprisingly helpful.

Unfortunately, Arron’s words only made Eric even more arrogant.

Eric was visibly looking down on Leah and him. “I assumed that you have a good reason for impeding me?”

Dante stared unblinkingly at Eric for several seconds. Then, he subdued his murderous thoughts and decided to play nice. “I’m sorry, if I had known that you were so important, I wouldn’t have dared to.” It was unfortunate, but the satisfaction he would get for causing problems with Eric wouldn’t compare to the annoyance the fallout would cause afterwards.

Eric snorted, then looked down at the papers that Leah was drawing on. “What is this?”

“Just a few runes I was looking for.”

Eric looked at him, then maintained eye contact as he picked up the papers and tore them. Slowly. When he was done, he threw the pieces of paper at the table. “Since I am in such a good mood. I’ll let you off this time.” He looked at Leah. “Go fetch.”

Dante stared at Eric, he was trying to remain calm visibly, but could feel his left eye twitching.

He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Elizabeth hadn’t entered the room at that moment. She saw the expressions of those in the room, but didn’t seem surprised. With a sullen expression, she walked over to where Eric was standing. “Let’s go, I haven’t got all day.”

Eric held out his arm, which Elizabeth reluctantly grabbed hold of. Then the two of them turned to leave, Eric boasting along the way. “Of course. It won’t take all day anyways, after a few rounds, no one will dare challenge me. We will have plenty of time to grab a bite to eat afterwards. I’ve heard the new restaurant by the Triple Hen is delightful…”

Dante turned away from the staircase. Arron and Candice were glaring in Eric’s direction, and Leah was silently redrawing all of the runes he had asked her for earlier.

Dante looked Candice. “Why did Elizabeth go with him?”

Candice had an ugly expression on her face. “Eric’s father has too much influence over the mercenary groups stationed in the valley. If he chose to invade Sloria, things would be over rather quickly. The city lords have been using Elizabeth to stabilize the situation, as Eric is smitten by her.”

He thought back to Eric’s mention of being challenged. “They are going to the Combatant’s Hall?”

Surprisingly, Arron answered. “Yes, he likes to show off.”

A genuine smile spread across Dante’s face.