Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 102

After arriving back at the camp, the days passed by rather quickly. Which was to be expected when he spent almost all of his free time training with Victoria until he was exhausted. Between learning the third level of the spectral attunement, training with various weapons, and improving his lackluster alchemy skills, there was always something to learn or improve on.

When she was done with him, he suffered through the lack of sleep and attempted enchanting. ‘Attempted’ being the operating word. After a few weeks of scattered practice he had almost zero progress to show for it. Drawing the runes became easy, eventually, but getting some effect out of them proved to be quite a challenge. Every time he fed world essence into a rune he drew, the weapon would immediately break apart. Sometimes they would even disintegrate altogether. He was just thankful that the weapons didn’t explode like when he began world essence manipulation with Archie.

He was running out of swords though. The ones he created with Create Blade didn’t take to the enchantment powder like a regular sword would, which made sense. After all, the upgrade for Create Blade when he last specialized Blademancer explicitly stated that it would allow for his blades to be enchanted.

Despite running out of the weapons in his storage, Dante didn’t take more from the army’s supply. Resources were already far too limited, and it wasn’t worth the waste when he wasn’t making any progress.

The lack of weapons to enchant freed up some time in his schedule for testing. Testing his Blood Essence Absorption skill in particular. The first thing he discovered was that he could pull blood directly from a body without injuring that person first. All he had to do was place his uncovered hand against a person’s skin and activate the skill. And from collecting blood from a few prisoners, he confirmed it worked even if the target was alive. Their constitution did slow things down slightly if there wasn’t an open wound though.

He also found out that a draining a person fully didn’t matter. Only the first few seconds did. Each person gave him one blood essence per Classification, which he still hadn’t found a use for.

He did find a prisoner with a Classification he didn’t have though. Draining the blood from the prisoner gave him a new symbol, this one on his wrist instead of his hand. It wasn’t too eye catching on its own, but since his glove didn’t extend that far it was clearly visible and made wearing shirts with long sleeves necessary.

The new Classification symbol also changed the number next to his Blood Immortal Classification to 51, and made the maximum blood essence he could have 51 as well.

Besides his regular training, Dante also involved himself in every skirmish they had with Warlord Karabell’s army. The attacks came infrequently, as Warlord Karabell was trying to starve them out and minimalize his losses, but every time their sense of alertness lowered a raiding force was sent to harass them.

Those exchanges were brief, and the losses on both sides rarely totaled over one hundred, but they were still an excellent opportunity for him to hone his skills.

Fighting with his new senses was… strange. And overwhelming. In large-scale fights, it was hard to know which mana belonged to his allies and which mana belonged to his enemies. Victoria had to bail him out more than once, especially in the first few fights.

It only took him three weeks and more than a few battles to earn the 19,000 world essence that he needed to specialize his Bladmancer Classification. And when provided the option, he chose to upgrade Create Blade.

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

New Maximum Mana: 100

The specialization also brought a change in the attributes he received every time he leveled his Blademancer Classification. He now received 2 Dexterity, 1 Intelligence, and 1 Wisdom per level. It was slightly annoying, as he had been hoping to increase his Wisdom after losing his attribute monster crystal. The Dexterity increase also didn’t make much sense to him, at least in correlation to the skill he chose to upgrade.

Aside from the Create Blade’s upgrade, the other choices were somewhat interesting. Especially Manipulate Blade’s upgrade, which increased the speed by 50 feet per second.

Upgrade Manipulate Blade to Accelerated Manipulate Blade: Gives the ability to control created blades through the creator’s will.

Mana Cost: 2 per second for every blade controlled

Maximum Range: 75 feet

Maximum speed: 250 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

Phantom Blade: Create a phantom weapon from mana. Weapon can pass through all non-world essence or mana attacks or objects in accordance to the users will.

Mana Cost: 15 per second

The choice hadn’t been an easy one, but after talking it over with Victoria, the two of them decided that Create Blade’s upgrade was the best choice. Not only would the upgrade be immediately useful for enchanting, but the future upgrades for the skill also had high potential.

After specializing his Classification, Dante immediately tested his upgraded skill. The weapons he created were different than before. Not only did the craftsmanship in the way that the blades were forged appear to be of a finer quality, but even the type of metal they were created from seemed to have changed. Instead of being an almost steel like substance material as they were before, the weapons were now made of a slightly darker material that almost looked grey. And after testing it with enchanting powder, Dante discovered that there was a new awareness that he had when he tried to enchant the weapons he created.

Specializing his Blademancer Classification also brought other changes. Not only did his sensitivity to world essence and mana increase, but there was also a new and uncomfortable feeling. He didn’t know what it was, but there was always… something that was bothering him. It was subtle and never went away. He had asked Victoria about it, but she didn’t have any knowledge about what it could be.

After sorting through all of the new changes, Dante wholeheartedly threw himself back into his training.

And as time passed, he went through a qualitative change in almost every possible aspect.

He mastered the third level of the spectral attunement in the span of only three short months, completely shocking Victoria. The third level focused on increased control, allowing him to deftly and abruptly change the direction of his movement midstride. It also reduced the impact of his movement, easing the strain on his muscles and joints while also reducing the noise that each step produced. The third level alone made his capabilities on the battlefield dramatically increase, as well as increased the time he could stay in combat while using the spectral attunement.

He then spent the four months that came after working on the fourth level of the spectral attunement, which was the last level he was able to learn without being an actual member of the guild. His progress, although staggeringly fast according to Victoria, was miniscule. The fourth level of the spectral attunement was the same as the previous levels in essence, but such a description didn’t do it justice.

To master it, one’s control needed to be ridiculously precise. The aim was to maintain the speed of the previous levels, but to drastically increase the control and mobility. When Victoria demonstrated it for him she mesmerizingly and silently glided across the floor, each step was so delicate that even the grass underneath her feet was undamaged where she stepped. It’s usefulness in assassination missions was obvious for all to see, and he was beginning to understand how the spectral attunement got its name.

Needless to say, fully comprehending and completing the fourth level was currently beyond him.

Other than working with Victoria on the spectral attunement, the two of them also worked on his proficiencies with various weapons. They mainly focused on his spear or sword and dagger combo, drastically increasing his performance with both them. He also began training with a third style of fighting, one that was focused on Victoria’s insidious dagger techniques. ‘Insidious’ was the only way to describe them. All it took was a momentary lapse in an opponent’s judgement, a break in their concentration, or a hole in their guard. If any of those mistakes occurred, they would be mercilessly maimed or killed. There were no exceptions. Once the attack was initiated, it had to be carried out to the fullest effect, or the attacker would be in a disadvantageous position and suffer a counterattack.

Using the two daggers and Victoria’s technique to quickly slaughter his enemies, Dante wreaked absolute havoc on the battlefield.

His ability in alchemy also increased by leaps and bounds. Not only did he completely master tier one pill recipes, but his success rate with tier two was also well above 50%. Even some of the simpler tier three recipes weren’t out of his reach.

He made great use of his new alchemic ability by creating dozens of tier two Inutilia pills.

The pills didn’t have a massive effect if consumed, in fact, many would consider them to be a waste of effort and resources. But for practicing his alchemy, they weren’t a bad option. Each pill would heal his body for half an HP point if consumed. With the number he had, he could consume them all at once if he needed a single quick heal.

Other than those, he pumped out a lesser form of the evil energy pills that Victoria made him eat. He didn’t eat a single one though, just gave them to Jayden so that they could be distributed among the guards that were on patrol.

His skill in enchanting also rose with practice, and the help of his upgraded Create Blade skill. For some reason, he had a far greater understanding when it came to the runes’ size and positioning. It allowed him to make tier one enchantments in a way that usually didn’t break the weapons that he enchanted.

Dante tried testing several different types of runes, even the blood rune, but the impact rune that Leah had recommended worked the best by far. He could place the runes on a weapon, fill the enchantment with world essence, then launch them at the enemy to greatly increase the force that the weapons had upon impact.

The impact rune’s effectiveness was somewhat varied. Sometimes he would draw the rune well, and the weapons that were enchanted could easily punch through mana shields and armor without slowing. But other times, the rune would be drawn with the slightest mistake and the effects it produced were negligible. It was a problem he was still trying to correct when he ran out of enchantment powder.

Dante’s position as a commander also became unquestionable as he progressed in his training, which in turn further eroded Warlord Vidal's authority. It wasn’t just from the respect that was given to an officer who fought side by side with his men on the frontlines. It was also the fear he evoked in others.

It wasn’t his red world essence or mana, which were enough to make hardened men mutter prayers to the Goddess under their breath, nor was it his surprisingly young age. It was the way he fought that truly caused them to be frozen with terror. It didn’t matter who it was, there was only one result for those who fought him on the battlefield. Death.

He was just beginning to become comfortable with his new lifestyle when Victoria told him that it was time to wrap things up. Seven months had passed since he returned to the camp from Sloria, eleven since Victoria had signed the mana contract for his fight with Jace. It was almost time to return to Dead Man’s Range and fight for the dungeon.