Congratulations: You've learned Meditation (Basic)

Calms the mind, body, and soul, allowing for introspection, mental decompression, and clarity. 2x Energy Regeneration and temporarily boosts physical and mental control by 25%

Christ.

That was some skill. It seemed I'd finally hit the motherlode. I'd just assumed the skills I'd be limited to learning were the ones Dante knew, but meditation had been vital to my career in my old world. I practiced it daily after my morning sessions before I dealt with the bullshit of the day.

It'd saved my life back then, and it was doing it again.

With the 25% boost, it wasn't long before I got a feel for Angelic Energy. It squirmed out of my grasp with each mental tug, but I more or less got a handle on it.

Congratulations: You've learned Angelic Energy Manipulation: Basic.

With one hour left on the clock, I faced the impossible task of cobbling together a mental protection technique with barely any understanding of either energy.

I spent a few minutes playing with both energies. They were the opposite of each other. Demonic energy was violent and explosive, bombastic and overwhelming, while Angelic energy was elusive and pure.

I combed through my memories in meditation, searching for a single instance when I'd seen Dante or Virgil, for that matter, display any mental resistance skill.

Surprisingly, I didn't find one.

The closest thing to mental protection DMC Dante ever came close to was the mental bind or seal his father, Sparda, placed on his memories.

In this universe, I had no such restriction, thanks to Shin, but that didn't mean the seals on Dante's memories did not exist. Dante had to break them to unlock his full memories, and that hadn't happened yet.

Hoping for a link to some unexplained mystery realm was a long shot, but it was the only lead I had.

The Devil Hunter had needed a broken picture frame and a rose to trigger his transportation in the game, but I hoped a confluence of Angelic and Demonic energy would be a suitable substitute.

First, I tried manipulating a chunk of Angel Energy and sent it in the direction of my mind. The energy snaked and danced away from my grip but flowed in the general direction I intended. For the longest time, nothing happened, and then I added Demon energy.

Everything turned white, and suddenly, I found myself standing in a floating ruined city surrounded by boundless evening clouds. The air was thick with demonic energy, and the endless sea below crashed against the fractured remains of skyscrapers.

Light filtered through the cloud from a sun I couldn't quite place in the sky. Chunks of the ruin were small distances from each other. They were far enough that I couldn't quite reach them with a jump, or could I?

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I was strong enough to manhandle a fully grown man with one hand. It stood to reason that I could make the jump.

I eyed the next platform over and breathed deeply. With a run and leap, I easily cleared the distance. It'd been startlingly easy.

Maybe it was time I stopped underestimating just how strong I was.

With a shrug, I continued exploring, picking up speed and leaping my way across platforms.

The world looked exactly like I'd seen in the game, DMC, but the layout was drastically different.

There was an interconnected maze of platforms, floating ruins, and probably demons.

How that was possible in a mental realm was beyond me.

In the distance, I saw a giant bronze statue rising out of the ocean. It had an elaborate headdress of flowing metal, a gaunt body, and two ornamental female figures draped on its shoulders.

Two large chains hung from its neck, swinging so low they nearly touched the ocean before the ends climbed up to the ruins, vanishing behind obscure structures and stacked buildings.

In the game, Dante platformed over to the base of two stones and took his demonic axe, Arbiter, to them. The stone base bore glowing red markings, and the seals hid some of the most traumatic memories of his life.

Christ, I mean Mundus ripped his mother's heart out of her chest in front of him. Sparda's spell made him forget, but some part of Dante never got over it.

Speaking of which, I wondered if Mundus existed in this version of the Marvel Universe.

I was even more concerned about exactly what I would remember when I broke both seals and dreaded the possibility that I would be unable to. Dante had Arbiter to break the stones. I didn't.

Will I be stuck here for life?

Letting out a long breath, I reminded myself that I knew nothing of this universe for certain.

"Get to the Stone Seal before you start freaking out."

I gave myself that small allowance, but it wasn't long before I stumbled upon another problem. The distance between platforms was growing larger. It wouldn't be long before I wouldn't be able to make the jumps anymore.

I needed to figure out the Double Jump.

It was a skill Dante had mastered by the time you began the DMC game. It allowed you to create a platform of demonic energy in the air and use it as a springboard for a second jump.

I'd just touched Demonic Energy for the first time and was nowhere ready to attempt such a complicated move, but I hardly had a choice in the matter. So, I didn't let myself complain and got straight to strategizing.

It was my ritual each time I picked up a new goal or challenge.

First, I needed to measure how high I could jump and whether it was possible to pull off the technique instinctively.

Then, I had to practice manipulating demonic energy. If I were lucky, creating platforms would be a relatively simple trick.

Would it surprise you to learn that I was unsuccessful on both fronts?

The leaps went well. So well, I broke the world record for the highest vertical jump, easily doubling it. No panel of invisible demon energy ejected from my body as I came down, however, no matter how hard I wanted it to..

On the bright side, I found comfort in the fact that I was physically far ahead of most of the people that SHIELD and HYDRA could send after me, so I stood ahead if the Professor tried to turn me over.

My plans fell apart the moment I started demonic energy training. The energy was wild and bombastic. It didn't do neat little platforms you could double-jump on. It rushed to my limbs at the slightest prompt, but getting it to do anything beyond that was an exercise in frustration.

I finally managed to get the energy to erupt out of my finger after nearly an hour of practice, and it came out with such ferocity that it threw me off my feet and stole 50 energy points out of the already limited chunk I had.

However, the entire experience gave me an idea of how to achieve a version of the double jump.

Three hours later, I assumed a runner's crouch, staring past the edge of the floating chunk of stone I was trapped on. Several hundred meters ahead of me, there was a bobbing wall turned sideways.

I exploded into a sprint, pumping my legs past the limits of my Dexterity stat, and leaped into the air just as I reached the threshold of my small Island.

Demonic energy flooded my leg muscles as I crossed the zenith of my jump and exploded from the soles of my feet just before I started to fall, launching me upwards and across.

Congratulations: You've learned a Demonic Energy Technique: Burst.

-10 DE