Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 52

Somehow, the burning pain that enveloped his hand seemed to grow stronger every passing second. Building up for almost an hour and becoming an unbearable torture before it slowly started to recede.

The pain almost didn’t bother him in the slightest though. The real torture was the fear.

The fear of possibly being unable to use his Status ever again.

He even wondered if the glove would steal his Classifications like it seemed to do with all of the dead bodies he had taken the blood from. It was all he could think about while his hand burned. Compared to that fear, the pain was nothing.

As soon as the pain completely faded, the first thing he did was try to tear the glove off. But it wouldn’t budge in the slightest, still seemingly infused into his skin.

Gritting his teeth, he attempted to tear it off, regardless of the cost.

But no matter how much strength he pulled with, neither his glove or his skin would come apart. Taking a deep breath, and praying to the Goddess, he attempted to create a sword.

To his relief, a dagger instantly came into existence. The fact that his Create Blade skill still worked abated several of his fears, but definitely not all of them.

Using the dagger, he began to stab at the edge of the glove, trying to slice the glove off of his skin.

No matter how much force he applied, the dagger wouldn’t penetrate the glove or the skin underneath. He knew it wasn’t from a lack of sharpness, he could easily slice the skin anywhere else on his body.

It was strange though, when the dagger touched the glove he could feel it. Not like he usually would though, it was like the dagger was directly touching his skin and there wasn’t a glove on his hand at all. The cold steel felt as though it was in his bare hand. There was no feeling of pain coming through though, no matter how hard he stabbed the glove with the dagger.

Curious, Dante rubbed both of his hands against the floor. The texture of the ground felt the exact same with both hands. He could feel through the glove perfectly.

For some reason, he found that to be disconcerting.

Wanting to test the limits of his gloves seemingly new durability, Dante gritted his teeth and stabbed his hand as hard as he could.

The dagger bounced off as if it had hit a wall.

For a moment he thought of testing it with a world essence edge, but accidentally losing his hand because he wanted to test the limits of his glove would be stupid.

Besides, he could test his glove later. He had more pressing matters to deal with at the moment, namely his specialization. It seemed like everything had gone wrong when he specialized, and there was a possibility he still hadn’t specialized at all.

Dante fed world essence into his wrist, and was more than relieved to see his Status pop up in front of him.

But that relief only lasted for a moment. When he actually looked at his Status, he didn’t know what to think. His Status was no longer the same blue that it always was. The once bright blue that matched the color of world essence was now a dark shade of blue, as if it was being tainted by the glove.

Thankfully, his Status still worked, and it was hard not to be happy when he saw what was being displayed on it.

Choose Specialization Skill or Upgrade for Blader:

Upgrade Blade Dancer (Passive) to Blade Dancer (Classification):

Change Blader Classification to Blade Dancer Classification and choose a new skill for Blade Dancer Classification.

Choose Blade Dancer upgrade?

Yes/No

Blade Acceleration: Double agility for a short period of time.

Cost: 40 Mana

Duration: 10 seconds

Choose Blade Acceleration?

Yes/No

Rigor Mortis: Stabs an enemy and stun them temporarily.

Cost 150 Mana

Stun Duration: 2 seconds

Choose Rigor Mortis?

Yes/No

The options made him frown. Blade Acceleration and Rigor Mortis were helpful without a doubt, but changing his Classification was a complete gamble… he was definitely considering it though. The last time he chose a skill for his Blader Classification there was an offensive skill, which he was planning on choosing, but it seemed to have been replaced by Rigor Mortis.

Still, Rigor Mortis was an incredible skill. Three seconds may not be a long time, but being stunned for two seconds in a fight was a death sentence.

Blade Acceleration also wasn’t bad. It was one of the skills he had to choose from initially, and was also a good option.

But changing Classifications was so risky… even though it had the most potential by far. There was no description of the Blade Dancer Classification like there was when he chose his other Classifications. No indication of what would happen when he specialized it, or what skills there could be. He didn’t even know if it was an upgrade or a downgrade.

His Blade Dancer passive was incredibly powerful though, and he could be missing out on the chance of a lifetime if he didn’t take the Classification.

He couldn’t decide, and tried to dismiss the notification so that he could specialize a different Classification. Possibly getting an offensive skill before making his decision for his Blader Classification, but it wouldn’t close. It seemed that he had already begun to specialize and needed to finalize his decision.

Giving a silent prayer to the Goddess, which was becoming a growing habit, he chose to change his Classification.

Are you sure you want to upgrade Blade Dancer (Passive) to Blade Dancer (Classification)?

Yes/No

*Warning: any skills chosen are final*

Holding his breath, he chose yes.

Blader Classification has changed to Blade Dancer Classification, choose new skill:

Dance of Dawn: Attack enemy with a barrage of mist swords a single time each.

Mana Cost: 10 per mist sword attack

Choose Dance of Dawn?

Yes/No

Corrupted Blades: Corrupt any weapon to temporarily double its ability to penetrate (stacks with other effects)

Mana Cost: 5 per second per blade

Number of Corrupted Blades at one time: unlimited

Range: Blades within 100 feet

Yes/No

Yet another notification that he couldn’t dismiss. But he wasn’t complaining, his choice to change Classifications was definitely the right one. The skills were both fantastic offensive abilities.

His choice was still difficult, but in a completely different way now. Dance of Dawn was a hard skill to judge. He didn’t know how powerful the mist swords would be against someone with high Constitution.

Corrupted Blades, on the other hand, was an amazing skill, but the mana cost was high. Five Mana per second was quite a bit, but the fact that its ability stacked with other effects made it ideal. If it doubled the penetration of his blades while he was using world essence manipulation, it would make him a force to be reckoned with.

Not only that, but he could corrupt weapons within 100 feet. He wasn’t sure how useful the range would be, but there had to be some uses for it.

Going with the known rather than the unknown, this time at least, he chose Corrupted Blades.

Are you sure you want to choose Corrupted Blade?

Yes/No

*Warning: any skills chosen are final*

He chose yes.

Attributes changed for Blade Dancer Classification, new attribute gain per level:

+1 Dexterity

+2 Agility

After dismissing the notification, his Status returned to normal, and he closed it temporarily. Picking up the dagger he was attacking his glove with earlier, he used his Corrupted Blade skill on it.

The dagger immediately darkened, and there was a black aura that seemed to drift from it like a barely visible mist. It felt menacing.

To test it, began stabbing and slicing at his glove. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened, but it was worth a shot.

He stopped the corruption, and the blade turned back to normal. Then he created a world essence edge on the blade.

He paused. The manipulated world essence was… strange.

Not only was it now the same dark blue his Status had changed to, but it felt off. Usually, world essence felt wild. Like it was an untamable beast, but could be shaped through force. Something was different though. It was slight, but it felt polluted with the emotions that the glove had infected him with before.

He could feel the pride and bloodlust radiating off of his weapon from the world essence. It didn’t affect his emotions like it had before, but it was still worrying.

Trying to focus, Dante stabbed the dagger into the floor of the cavern. It didn’t pierce too deeply, but it still penetrated the hard dirt. Then he corrupted it and stabbed again.

There was a noticeable difference in the depth the dagger reached after corrupting it. It wasn’t quite twice as deep in the ground, but that was likely due to the increased resistance in the ground as it went deeper.

The skill seemed relatively straightforward.

He reopened his now dark blue Status and moved to his Classification tab.

World Essence waiting to be assigned: 17,587

Chronomancer lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

Blademancer lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

Blade Dancer lvl 11/20 (0/11,000 world essence)

Revenant lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

The first thing he noticed was the cost to level his Blade Dancer Classification. It seemed ridiculous that it cost even more than specializing, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was because he changed his Classification from Blader.

Choosing his next specialization was somewhat difficult, but it wasn’t too bad.

He considered Revenant, but he needed to focus on his offensive ability. Now that he had corrupted Blades to double penetration, stronger and sharper weapons would be a huge help.

Holding his breath and feeding in the required world essence, he chose Blademancer. When nothing went wrong, he let out a sigh of relief.

He had been expecting the worst, another agonizing hour with a burning glove, but instead, a notification popped up on his Status.

Choose Specialization Skill or Upgrade for Blademancer:

Upgrade Create Blade to Create Advanced Blade: Created weapons can now be manually enchanted.

New Maximum Mana: 100

Blade Manipulation: Gives the ability to control created blades through the creator’s will.

Mana Cost: 2 per second for every blade controlled

Maximum Range: 50 feet

Maximum speed: 200 feet per second

Blade Barricade: Create a wall of blades to block incoming attacks, will also impale physical attackers.

Mana Cost: 10 per second

Barricade Size: 10-foot x 10-foot wall

Thankfully, there were no Classification changes to decide this time, but that didn’t make it any easier. He had specialized Blademancer with the intention of upgrading his Create Blade skill. But looking at its description, and his other options, it might not be his best choice for now.

The first issue he noticed was that the weapon’s major change was an improvement through enchanting. The problem with that was fairly obvious, he lacked access to any type of Enchanter.

The new maximum cost of 100 Mana was nice though…

But after looking at Blade Manipulation, he couldn’t help but feel the skill necessary to choose. Even though he couldn’t pack world essence into swords he wasn’t touching, he could still corrupt them.

The other reason he thought it was necessary was because several skills were missing from when he initially chose his skills. He could always upgrade Create Blade at a later time, but if he missed out on Blade Manipulation because it wasn’t an option later, it would be something he always regretted.

Coming to a decision, he chose Blade Manipulation.

Are you sure you want to choose Blade Manipulation?

Yes/No

*Warning: any skills chosen are final*

He chose yes.

Attribute change for Blademancer Classification, new attribute gain per level:

+1 Dexterity

+1 Intelligence

+1 Wisdom

The Intelligence bonus was somewhat of a letdown. The extra mana would definitely be helpful, but he needed more mana regeneration to keep up with all of the new skills.

The first thing he checked after specializing Blademancer, was its cost to level. Opening the Classification tab back up, he uttered a curse. It was also 11,000 world essence to level.

Dante closed his Status and focused on the dagger he had been using earlier, lifting it in the air with a mere thought. Its movement felt like an extension of his mind.

After playing around with the dagger for a few minutes, he got a good feel for the skill and its capabilities. The first thing he found, was that acceleration and deceleration took time. It was still quick, but it took a second to start and reach max speed or stop altogether.

The second thing he noticed was that as the speed of the dagger increased, the directional control he had decreased. In order to make sharp turns with it, he needed to make it come to almost a complete stop.

After playing around with the dagger, he found that the 200 feet per second max speed was slightly slower than an arrow shot from a standard bow. It wasn’t disappointing in the slightest though, the swords larger mass could inflict far more damage.

After he got a feel for the ability, Dante began to practice corrupting the weapon mid-flight. The hardest part was the timing. When he corrupted the dagger in his hand it was instantaneous, but there seemed to be a delay the further it was away. It was only around a second-long delay at the 50 feet, which was the maximum range of his Blade Manipulation skill. But when each second he spent corrupting it cost a full 5 mana, every second counted.

After that, he created over twenty weapons.

Trying to find the limit of his Manipulate Blade skill, he began to pull them all in the air and make them fly to his will.

Controlling twenty weapons at once wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be. The mana drain was ridiculous at 100 per second, but it was possible. After stopping and waiting for his mana to regenerate several times, he finally got results from his test.

As long as all the blades followed a similar path it was easy. He also found that if he focused on a single target, he could spread all of the weapons out, then shoot them all at it at the same time, or one after another.

When he tried to control them each individually, he began to have problems. The blades he lost focus on would merely fall to the floor.

He also tested his corruption on the new blades. He could corrupt them all at the same time, but briefly. As soon as he did, he ran out of Mana and the weapons fell to the floor with their corruption lost.

Testing done, he broke up all of the weapons and opened his Status’ Attribute tab.

Name: Dante

HP: 200/200

Mana: 34/250 (+3.4/sec)

Strength: 20

Constitution: 20

Dexterity: 33 (+4.95)

Agility: 21 (+3.15)

Intelligence: 25

Wisdom: 34

Charisma: 10

Overall, not bad at all. Somehow his Charisma had gone up a point… again. It didn’t make much sense, the last time he had checked it was at the academy, and he shouldn’t have gotten another point in it since. He wasn’t going to complain though.

After checking his attributes, he switched to his skills tab. They should have changed slightly when he leveled his Classifications.

Blink: Manipulate the power of space to teleport yourself or an object a short distance away.

Cost: 30 Mana

Range: up to 15 Feet

Create Blade: Create permanent bladed weapon of choice with an average quality.

Cost: up to 75 Mana

Blade Manipulation: Gives the ability to control created blades through the creator’s will.

Mana Cost: 2 per second for every blade controlled

Maximum Range: 50 feet

Maximum speed: 200 feet per second

Blade Dancer (Passive):

Increase Dexterity by 15%

Increase Agility by 15%

Increase ability with bladed weapons +5

Corrupted Blades: Corrupt any weapon to temporarily double its ability to penetrate (stacks with other effects)

Mana Cost: 5 per second per blade

Number of Corrupted Blades at one time: unlimited

Range: Blades within 100 feet

Rebirth of the Revenant (Passive): Heal up to 15% of max HP every time you kill.

Looking at his Rebirth of the Revenants 15% max heal still made him somewhat bitter, but other than that, his lineup of skills were quite nice. They all pretty much complemented each other.

His manipulation ability shouldn’t have changed at all, but he still decided to check it all the same. He switched to the Manipulation tab in his Status.

World Essence Manipulation:

Maximum Mass: (1.78 + 1.05) 2.83

Form Control: (1.46 + 1.05) 2.51

Form Speed: (2.83 + 1.05) 3.88

Mana Manipulation:

Maximum Mana: (2.5 x 1.10) 2.75

Form Control: (3.4 x 1.2) 4.08

Form Speed: (3.4 x 1.1) 3.74

Dante did a doubletake when reading the numbers. They weren’t crazy high, but the world essence manipulation didn’t make any sense. The last time he had checked it the numbers had been solitary. But this time there was a +1.05 to each. It was a massive gain.

He thought back to the darker blue color of the world essence, then looked down to his glove.

It was hard to tell if it was hurting him or helping him. There was just too much that he didn’t know about it. Letting out a sigh, Dante closed his Status for the last time.

It was time to kill the dungeon boss. Without doing that, escape would be impossible.

Dante began walking to the corridor, which according to Arron should lead to the dungeon boss but stopped mid-step.

Now that he had Blade Manipulation, there was actually a benefit to coming to a fight prepared.

He began creating swords for a full 75 mana each, waiting until his mana to regenerate and forming one after the other, not stopping until he reached eleven swords.

One sword would actually be used in the fight, but the other ten could be left in reserve. As long as he kept them within Blade Manipulation’s range, they could be called forward at a moment’s notice.

Once done, Dante picked up the swords and began walking toward the final cavern.