At this moment, the sun must already be rising in all its splendor. And because the tower had no windows, it couldn't see how the world around it was. Whether it was cold or hot, an army could pass by the tower, and it would feel nothing, for it was not a colossal structure that would attract the attention of armies or other mages, but rather a small three-story tower connected to where she and Dante truly were, in one of the various pocket dimensions that made up the entire territory of the academy.
Today, if these pocket dimensions had not been completely abandoned, their entrances and exits forgotten forever, then they were in the possession of other factions, many of which undoubtedly emerged within the academy itself, and they are scattered across more than five countries.
Amelia, not wanting to leave Dante with nothing that morning and knowing his dietary limitations, decides to prepare coffee for him, as it was something the previous master liked, and Dante claimed he could consume. At least she thought he could, since even though it had the same name, the coffee in this reality could be completely different from what he was used to, making it impossible to ingest. But in the end, it's worth a try.
After having her quick but hearty breakfast, she quickly prepares a coffee with no additions for Dante and, holding a tray of the highest quality silver with a cup and a full coffee pot, she walks slowly in search of the room where Dante was supposed to have slept.
However, when she finally arrived after what felt like an eternity, and after knocking on the door several times, realizing that Dante was probably sleeping, she simply opened the door to wake him up. But she was taken aback by what she saw there.
Instead of finding a pale, silver-haired zombie nearly two meters tall sleeping comfortably in that strange room, she found, in fact, a pale, silver-haired zombie almost two meters tall meditating.
However, he wasn't meditating in the way she typically did when she had nothing more useful to do. Instead, around him, various pasty particles were clearly visible, indicating that in just one night, he had somehow learned precisely what most would take weeks to even begin practicing.
Seeing all of this, Amelia couldn't help but feel utterly shocked by the situation. It was different from other things; she could hardly understand how he had achieved this. Not even the greatest geniuses could learn at such a rapid pace. But of the two theories she had concocted, one seemed more likely to her.
One of these, which she believed wasn't the case, was that somehow, before coming to this world, Dante had learned magic and meditation and had been lying all this time. However, considering that she hadn't sensed any threat from him at any moment, and he genuinely seemed surprised by everything that had been happening, she didn't want to believe it.
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Her other theory, however, was that unlike her, he was not only a crazy self-taught individual capable of absorbing knowledge extremely quickly but also an undead. This was information she seemed to have forgotten, as unlike what she had been believing, undead creatures typically didn't sleep naturally, and when they did, high-level undead performed grand rituals to hibernate for centuries.
But he had arrived in this world less than ten hours ago. Was that really possible?
Amelia knew that these thoughts were simply foolish because the reality was right in front of her, and whether it was possible or not, it was happening. In fact, she could only see how this would be beneficial to their situation.
Meanwhile, the milky-white aether seemed to appear and disappear, as if they were a pure illusion or even dreamlike creations of a mad mind, but somehow they manifested in reality right before her eyes.
Amelia didn't recognize it, but she had also never delved deep into the study of magic, giving up as soon as she proved useless in that area. However, thinking of some old colleagues who often summoned their aether in a form they naturally had more elemental affinity with, it was perhaps likely that Dante had no such affinity.
This, in fact, further explained why the previous master had chosen this man to replace him. Such an adaptable mind, with a rare negative affinity, and not only a high-level undead but one outside of any established hierarchy.
He was simply the perfect candidate for the exchange, but Amelia had only realized this now.
Of course, her previous master shouldn't have been thinking in just a few years or even decades; he was most likely envisioning what this man could do in perhaps five hundred years.
Just the thought of it made Amelia feel somewhat apprehensive about the future of these neighboring nations. For her, a widespread and massive massacre of all the countries that had destroyed Zargorios's dream would be ideal, and she didn't care how long it would take for that to happen. Unfortunately for her, she had no idea what Dante would think about these ideas that came and went in Amelia's mind.
Amelia had already accepted that she was and always would be useless for any magical practice, and even if she had a way to change that, she was already too committed to the path of a monk to begin dividing her time among other forms of power. But now that she could see the future that Zargorios probably envisioned, she understood that she would have to train even harder to meet the minimum standards to be able to follow the man right in front of her.
After laughing to herself in a somewhat disturbed manner about these thoughts, she finally realized that she might be disturbing Dante's meditation and quickly composed herself. She decided to leave the coffee right there on his desk and only hoped that he would be able to drink it before it got cold. It would take a while since she used one of the various magical items in the tower to keep the coffee's temperature for as long as possible.
A sense of pride in someone she barely knew... but that's how this young woman's mind worked. If her goals were once about survival and strengthening herself, they were now solely about helping Dante reach the pinnacle of this world. Not that she knew what that meant, but if she could help even a little, it would be enough.
Seeing that Dante didn't seem to want to end that session anytime soon, and knowing how enjoyable the first session was for anyone, she decided to leave the room so that as soon as Dante woke up, they could finally begin planning their climb to glory, starting from the bottom but slowly rising to eternal glory.