Julius was currently rubbing his head. It was still sore from where she whacked him after he threw her exact words back at her. The most annoying part was that he hadn’t even seen or sensed her move. One moment he was fine and the next his head was getting walloped.

The mean lady didn’t ask again, but he could tell that she was a little annoyed that he wouldn’t tell her.

She did however ask, or rather demanded another mug of it, to which he gladly passed over to her. Thankfully, that seemed to appease her a little bit and her glare was a little less painful to be subjected to.

When they arrived in front of Dante’s cabin, she had already finished the second mug. Julius stifled the smirk that tried to appear on his face. He could tell that she was tempted to ask for a third one but held off because she didn’t want to ask for another.

They didn’t have to walk up to the door to knock. Dante was already out in front with his arms crossed in front of his large chest. The old man had the same scowl as he did the last time Julius saw him. It weirdly felt a little comforting to see that expression on his face.

In truth, he might have felt more uneasy if the man had a smile on his scary face.

However, Julius did catch a small grin trying to appear on Dante’s face as he looked at the woman. The woman who he still didn’t know her name, he realized. He had forgotten to ask her among all of his other very important questions.

Dante turned to look at Julius with his dark eyes. “I see you have met Alice already,” he commented.

Ah, so her name is Alice, Julius thought to himself.

“It’s more like she stalked me, but yeah,” Julius replied to Dante when he got closer.

Dante just nodded his head as if that made perfect sense and acted as if it was completely reasonable. “If you haven’t realized it by now, but she is the thing I had in store for you.”

Julius had indeed been expecting that, so it wasn’t a surprise. “Yeah, I figured that was the case. But what is she supposed to do?” He asked interested in hearing how Dante would explain why this mystery person stalked him.

“She’s going to be your… supervisor for the time being,” Dante told him.

“So like a mentor?” Julius asked.

“No, not like a mentor. You do not deserve her to be your mentor,” Dante simultaneously told him he was wrong and insulted him at the same time.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Julius asked, just a tad bit offended at the implication.

Dante sighed and looked at him like he was stupid. Then he turned to look over at Alice who was standing there silently and then back to Julius. “Being someone’s apprentice or disciple is significant. The relationship between the two is quite close. The mentor usually shares many of their skills and techniques that their disciple will incorporate into their own path.”

“So if I am not a disciple, then what am I?” He asked.

Dante had to think about that one for a moment. “You are more like a pet or an interest that we have taken to,” he explained.

“A pet?” Julius asked incredulously.

“Yeah, like when someone finds an interesting or injured animal and decides to keep it as a pet,” Alice finally added from the side, seemingly very happy with that comparison.

Injured? He thought to himself.

Julius wanted to argue but immediately realized that he wouldn’t be getting anywhere with that. Not to mention, that both of these people were some, if not the strongest people he had met in person.

So in a way, he could see how they saw him about as interesting or dangerous as a pet. He didn’t like the comparison, but he could kind of see things from their perspective.

There was also the possibility that he was just trying to convince himself of some weird logic to make himself feel better.

“Okay, so what would a pet like me do under your supervision?” Julius asked the two of them.

“She’s gonna show you some tricks for you to do,” Dante said a little too quickly and with a little too much mirth.

Julius bit his retort that came to mind and instead asked for some clarification. “What kind of tricks?” He asked with as much genuine curiosity as he could muster.

However, before Dante could answer, Alice intervened.

“Actually, I don’t think I will be doing much showing,” she told Dante.

For the first time, Dante actually seemed quite caught off guard. He looked at Alice with a confused expression. “What do you mean? I thought we both talked about a while ago?”

Alice held both hands up in a pleading gesture. “That’s not what I mean,” she promised to Dante.

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“Then what is it?”

Alice frowned and looked at Dante with a judgemental look. “Are you really getting that old? Have you really not noticed?” She asked the older man.

Dante flinched a little bit at her reprimand. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly.

Alice pressed her lips together and sighed in disappointment. “Look at his soul, you old bag of bones.”

Me? My soul? Why would they do that? Does it have something to do with why it's been sore lately? Julius frantically thought to himself.

Dante turned to give Julius his entire attention. For the first time since Julius last saw the man, he felt the older man’s overwhelming presence lock onto Julius. It felt like someone had kidnapped him in a sack and then put him underneath a microscope to study him.

It was very uncomfortable, to say the least and much less subtle than Alice’s own observation. He even chucked a mana-constructed pebble at Dante to get him to stop looking at him like that.

Of course, the pebble dissolved into nothing before it even got close to the man, but it seemed to do its job. Dante retracted his intrusive gaze and looked at Julius with a disbelieving look on his face.

Dante then turned to look at Alice with the same look on his face. She just nodded her head as if she was telling him ‘I told you so’.

However, Julius didn’t like feeling like he was being left out of something. Not to mention something that was obviously pertaining to him and very important.

“What just happened?” He asked anxiously. He had a bad feeling growing in his stomach.

Dante turned to look back at him. The same look was still there but toned down. “How the hell did you manage to do that to your soul in a matter of a couple of months?”

What is he talking about?

He suddenly felt Alice holding his arms to the side and inspecting him. He still wasn’t able to sense her approach at all. It was annoying.

She chuckled but there was no humor in it. “It’s amazing that he’s still alive,” she said to Dante. “I have seen people die from half as bad soul damage.”

“I don’t get it,” Dante said.

“Me either. Are you sure he wasn’t this bad when you last saw him?” Alice asked the old man skeptically.

“Absolutely not. He had some signs of soul stress, but nothing even close to this level,” Dante said concerningly.

Alice didn’t say anything in response but she had stopped probing Julius and was now just staring at him with those beautiful eyes with more interest than before.

Dante rubbed his beard before asking her, “What do you think the reason for it is? You know I am not good with soul stuff.”

Alice didn’t answer him right away, she just continued to stare at Julius with intensity. And surprisingly, Dante didn’t try to force an answer out of her. He just remained silent as Alice took her time.

***

Alice POV

Alice could safely say that she had not seen such a situation like the one in front of her before. This boy had severe damage to his soul. There were several scars showing that this wasn’t the only time it had happened either.

She had mostly seen this type of damage from survivors of trauma and extremely dangerous battles. It was usually from overexertion of the soul, from pushing many skills and other abilities too far. She had also seen similar cases from some meatheads or from families who forced their children through brutal training. They trained so hard that their souls couldn’t keep up.

Yet, this was a Tier 2 boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen years old. It made her wonder what the boy had done and been through in order to accomplish such a thing. His soul was like someone had taken a whip covered in thorns to it and lashed it. Thankfully, there were spots where she could see some type of healing ability partly fixed some of the worse parts.

She had originally come at Dante’s request because he told her that he found an interesting boy with a unique perception skill that had heavy connections to spatial aspects.

However, she wasn’t expecting this.

If she was being honest, it was bad. Like really bad. She wasn’t the most knowledgeable about the soul, but she had a good grasp on it, more than most at least.

Still, she didn’t know how the boy was still alive. He should by all means have already been comatose or in the grave by now.

He was only hanging on due to a couple of reasons. One was that he had some sort of life spirit familiar that was shockingly able to heal soul damage to some extent. There was also the fact that the boy had a freakishly strong soul for his tier. That helped a lot.

And lastly, she felt some sort of Concept that was holding his soul together. She didn’t even think he understood what he was doing with it.

He was literally holding his soul together with pure willpower.

If she wasn’t so disgusted to see how a soul managed to get to this point, she might have even been impressed by his willpower.

She finally looked back to Dante with a frown.

“My best guess is that it's a mixture of several issues. One is that he has been pushing his skills really hard. I am sensing at least two epic skills and many rare skills. Some of them even superior skills.”

Dante interrupted her. “He didn’t have any epic skills the last time I saw him. He didn’t even have a Concept at that point.”

She nodded her head. That made more sense now. “That is another reason I wanted to mention. He has three different Concepts, which isn’t a problem by itself, but if you are sure that he didn’t have even one two months ago, then that would explain the issue more clearly. Rapid acquisition of Concepts without time to assimilate them properly is dangerous and stressful to the soul.”

“Three Concepts in two months?” Dante sounded worried but also had hints of being impressed.

“Yes. But if that was all there was, odds are he would be fine. His soul is strong, so it would have probably been able to take it. But I also sense signs that are common in sleep deprivation. He is most likely using some sort of skill to go without sleep.” She sighed deeply. “All of that, plus other factors that I can’t determine, are the reasons that his soul is in that condition. He quite literally pushed his soul to the breaking point.”

There was a broken pause. Not a single person spoke for a while.

“What does that mean for me?” The boy asked quietly after a minute.

“You should be grateful that you are alive. Make sure that you reward your familiar later. Without it, you would be dead,” she told him sternly and turned away from him.

What a stupid kid. What forced him to push himself to this point? Is he some sort of masochist? It’s not like he wouldn’t have been able to tell that his soul was breaking, the severe pain should have been a good enough indicator. To be fair, his focus skill might be doing a lot to hide the pain, that’s one potent focus skill and I haven’t seen the boy deactivate it the entire time he’s been with me.

She didn’t understand it. Perhaps the only person who could, would be the boy himself.