Dante and Amelia simply stared at each other in terror because of what had just happened.

Perhaps if they had simply been delayed a few moments, they might now be condemned to the slow and lonely death that awaited them in that place between dimensions.

Clearly, Zargorios had deceived them, and now instead of being adequately prepared, Dante was wearing the clothes he had changed into the day before, and Amelia was in one of her various maid outfits, putting them in a difficult situation if they had to deal with extreme weather changes.

In their surroundings, apart from the tower that couldn't be more than three meters tall and closely resembled a completely ruined lighthouse, and in the middle of nowhere, all they could see were trees.

Grand trees that seemed unable to expand to a certain distance from the tower, either naturally or out of sheer fear that the monument could bring to the souls of the simplest and most sensitive.

Being in the middle of a forest is never a good idea, especially when you don't know the culture, the climate, and especially the local fauna and the possible existence of bandits. Fortunately for Dante, Amelia had long studied the location of the tower and didn't expect to encounter any difficulties on this journey.

"Are you okay?" Amelia seemed more shaken than she should have been, but after some thought, it was Dante who was the stranger in this situation, and for various reasons.

Apart from being a zombie, which naturally distorted some of his emotions, Dante, unlike Amelia, was not feeling abandoned or betrayed at this moment.

Because what had just happened was quickly understood as the work of Zargorios, who didn't even intend to communicate it and intentionally lied to create that crisis, generating a false sense of security that could have killed them brutally.

Dante finally went to help Amelia up, not out of necessity but purely out of a sense of camaraderie.

"It's not so bad," he said.

"It could be worse, much worse," Amelia replied.

Listening to this, Dante responded, "We wouldn't be in a better condition if we had left of our own accord, but it really sucks that everything happened this way."

Dante knew Amelia was right; they had already acquired everything they could from that place.

"A bath before leaving would have been nice," Dante said. "Now, the only thing to do is move forward. I don't know the dangers of this forest, and I don't think you can handle them all."

Dante looked at the position of the sun and, after a moment, said, "Do you know of any village where we could try to find shelter before nightfall?"

Amelia also looked at the position of the sun, not knowing the exact time, and said to Dante, "Yes, but it's in the opposite direction of the route we had planned."

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"There's no choice; it's better than leaving our entire future to chance."

After a few moments of silence, Dante continued, "We should go now. I don't know if these changes in the aether have had any noticeable effect on the forest, and if it has been detected by anyone."

After finally adjusting themselves, both began to follow the path marked by Amelia. She seemed to know the geography of the area very well and was serving as an excellent GPS.

Dante couldn't help but recall all the technological conveniences he would never have access to again, but he quickly dismissed these thoughts, even though they haunted his mind from time to time.

After an hour or two of walking, Dante was starting to get annoyed by the landscape, which seemed to never change, even though they were constantly moving.

Then, they were fortunate to come across a considerable river, which appeared to be the safest route to the village Amelia had designated as their next destination.

At this moment, even though Amelia was a monk with great physical endurance, she was still human and didn't need to exert herself at such an insignificant moment when she could conserve her energy for a time of need.

So when they found a good spot without trees along the river, they decided to take a fifteen-minute break so that Amelia could rest.

During this time, Dante decided that it might be the perfect opportunity for him to learn his first spell, or at least start learning it.

He didn't think he could actually cast it without several hours of practice, but on this trail, time was abundant for simple magical exercises.

Touching the ring, Dante spoke. "Y, could you fetch that spellbook for me, please? Thank you."

After a few moments, the marvelous and gigantic black leather book was finally in his hands.

He had discovered the night before that he could not only summon what he wanted by asking some of the various servants that made up the vast library but also store other items in it. Considering the immense space the library had to offer, it wasn't strange to think that this item was simply a grandiose cliché item that he had intentionally received for being the protagonist.

Of course, Dante was just making fun of his current life situation because it seemed so much like the beginning of any generic fantasy story. But it wasn't his fault; it was just a twist of fate and the damn Zargorios... just them.

Finally, he held in his hands Volume I of "Demonic Spells for Angelic Beings," a colossal book that would probably accompany him for the next few years. Even with his talent, he didn't expect to reach higher realms in a short time.

Fortunately, even among level I spells, there was already a diverse range of functionality and power, with some being weaker and consuming less magic, while others were stronger and consumed more magic, although nothing compared to level II spells in terms of complexity most of the time.

Incompetence had probably plagued many mages in this world, so Dante could see some seemingly useless level I spells being as difficult and costly to cast as any level II spell, but he didn't believe such a spell would be in a book meant to lay the foundation for the path of any beginner mage who had passed through the academy in its glory days.

The previous night, Dante had a brief conversation with the librarian, interrupting what he called his "vacation," to ask for advice on spells, especially in regard to himself, who was, as he had heard from the dragon, a "competent problem" or simply an "arcanist," a term rarely used but given to mages like him who had no elemental affinity. This meant that even though they lacked the advantage of casting elemental spells without various bonuses that someone with an affinity for a specific element would have, they could use pure aether due to their own pure aether, allowing them to cast lightning spells, which, to laypeople, would be considered another element but was nothing more than pure aether condensed and invoked in the world of actions. It was extremely cheap and highly destructive.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of significant arcanists who had passed through this world and left a written legacy, preferably well cataloged, Dante was at a loss in this regard. When it came to offensive spells, he seemed to have unexpectedly only three really useful level I spells: what could almost be defined as beginner spells, intermediate spells, and advanced spells, probably created by the same author, who, due to his rare condition, must have tried to create his own school for arcanists.

The spell he was trying to learn now, before any defensive or support spells, was "Lightning Arrow," the beginner-level I spell, which, as the name suggested, was an arrow seemingly made entirely of aether-based lightning.

In addition to its low cost, the spell seemed to have minimal difficulty in use and was extremely easy to invoke.

Using spells was quite simple. You didn't necessarily need to be a genius, but you needed to have enough determination because the first part of this arduous task was to create some kind of mental world.

It didn't need to be perfect or unchanging, but it just needed to be initially dense enough to write a spell inside it. After writing the spell, it would gradually strengthen this space, making it increasingly indistinguishable from reality.

For Dante, this part wasn't really a problem. He was a zombie, at least an intelligent one, and not easily disturbed.

After finally memorizing all aspects of this spell, its geometric shapes, and all the hundreds of strange and incomprehensible phrases they held, he finally entered a deep meditative state. In a space initially entirely white, he sought absolute focus and began writing the complex linguistic and geometric systems.