Dante's Immortality: Beginnings

by Antonio Terzini

  Even though he wanted to fight again immediately, he didn’t think of himself as above the rest of those waiting. So, in an effort to maintain some form of fairness, he waited until it would have been his turn again before going back to the attendant.

  Around thirty minutes later Dante stood and stretched himself out. It was hard to believe how much he had changed in the three short months he had spent at the academy. He had to be refitted by the seamstress several times so that his uniform would fit properly. Mia seemed to make it her goal to change his physique. He wasn’t sure what exactly she was feeding him, but the rare plants, foods, and pills had a dramatic effect. His figure was now more in line with some of the other nobles who had eaten well and trained vigorously for years.

  Stretching done, Dante walked back to the attendant, ready to fight in the arena again, and hopefully against someone stronger.

  As soon as the attendant saw him, he stopped what he was doing and hurriedly walked over with his hands clasped together. “Ah, my lord, would you like to re-enter the arena?”

  Dante nodded in response. “That would be wonderful.”

  The attendant led him to the entrance of the arena’s fighting pit, waiting for the current fight to finish.

  Dante watched the fighters intently. He could assume that both of them were just Warrior Classifications. Their sluggish movement, yet high strength was indication enough.

  He was disappointed to see that neither of them were actually using world essence manipulation. Mia had told him that no one would actually utilize world essence or mana manipulation until he was at least in the gold rank arena. ‘At least’ seemed to be the key phrase.

  Just as his disappointment was beginning to settle in, from the corner of his eye he could see the faint blue glow of world essence.

  He began to watch the fight carefully, paying close attention to the one who was about to utilize world essence manipulation. Just as the world essence on the blade began to move, in the attempt to weaponize, the other fighter took advantage the moment’s vulnerability and stabbed him through the gut.

  The same moderator from earlier shouted immediately. “Healer!”

  Dante couldn’t help but release a sigh. It made sense why no one used world essence manipulation, it took too long to manipulate the world essence for beginners.

  It was actually what Archie made him focus on the most. Instead of training in making his blade sharper, or world essence denser, he focused the last two months on manipulation speed. Archie laid out a rather good case for it, even though he did it through beating him half to death a few times, and from what he had just seen the instructor had been right.

  Although the time it took to properly form the world essence depended on the quantity used, his overall forming speed was about twice as fast as it had been before Archie trained him in it. His control with the weapon, or in other words sharpness of the blade, as well as the amount of world essence he could condense also increased, although only marginally.

  “You may now enter, my lord.” The attendant wasted no time, allowing him to enter as soon as the protection shield lowered.

  Mentally crossing his fingers, Dante entered the arena.

  His opponent did not disappoint. It was a stocky noble boy from Housing District 2 who seemed to be bursting with confidence as he walked out.

  Dante smiled at the noble, his strongest opponent thus far was the single noble he had fought from Housing District 2, so he had high hopes for the encounter.

  Seeing his smile, appearance, and Housing District 1 uniform, the noble had a panic-stricken look cross his face.

  Dante stopped smiling instantly, trying to make himself look as non-threatening as possible. It wasn’t uncommon for his opponents to surrender as soon as they saw his uniform. Not only were nobles from Housing District 1 generally far stronger, but they also had the power to make someone disappear if they were angry enough. Even though someone from Housing District 2 shouldn’t be afraid of him for those reasons, he still wouldn’t put it past the panicking noble to surrender before the fight.

  The blue protection enchantment went up, and the moderator shouted from his booth. “Begin!”

  Much to the noble’s surprise, he didn’t move at all. He wasn’t going to do anything without trying to bait out world essence or mana manipulation from his opponent.

  He wasn’t disappointed, shortly after the moderator shouted for the fight to begin, the noble focused on his defense, erecting a translucent shield wall of Mana.

  The sight brought the smile back to his face.

  The noble was a magic Classification, and he had just been handed a perfect opportunity to study mana manipulation.

  Magic Classifications were rare, even for nobles, so he hadn’t fought a single person who could use mana manipulation in the arena so far.

  The translucent blue shield seemed to be getting thicker, then compressing and becoming less translucent. Not being able to see clearly, Dante faked a swagger and walked forward slowly. It allowed him to both take a closer look, as well as let the noble build up his shield.

  The closer he got, the more unusual the shield looked. The shield itself was solid, as was the new mana the boy was adding, but when the two solids compressed, they seemed to stitch together. It was like the two different sources of mana were reaching out toward each other, then carefully interweaving until they were nearly indistinguishable.

  After that, the noble started to add a new layer. He had thought that the shield was just one giant mass of Mana, but in actuality, the shield seemed to be several different pieces of Mana that were individually combined together.

  The noble behind the shield, who was now pale-faced, narrowed his eyes in concentration. Dante continued to watch with interest, waiting to see what would be next. But he was disappointed when the noble just made two fireballs appear, one in each hand.

  A simple fireball skill was nothing he hadn’t seen before, and he was about to rush the shield to test its strength when the noble extended both his hands outward.

  The two fireballs floated out of the noble’s hand, not stopping until they were both outside of the shield’s protection. Then the noble flung his hands forward, and the fireballs on either side flew toward him.

  That’s interesting, I wonder if it’s a part of mana manipulation.

  He wasn’t worried about losing, a loss in the arena meant nothing unless you died. So, Dante stepped forward brazenly, almost begging to be hit. Then, at the last moment he jumped to the side, surprising the noble with his speed while he narrowly dodged the attack.

  Without even acknowledging the noble’s presence, Dante stepped forward and inspected the shield. He started by tapping on it with his fist to get a feel for it. Then, he began to slam the pommel of his sword against it.

  The reaction from the shield was surprising to him. Instead of being completely solid like he thought, the different layers that were threaded together pulled on each other, spreading the impact throughout the entirety of the shield.

  Looks like blunt weapons won’t work…

  Dante lifted his sword and slashed at the shield. He had a far better result this time, the sword had actually managed to slice several layers, and Dante watched in amazement as the shield stitched itself back together.

  I wonder how much Mana it takes to make and maintain a shield like this.

  The noble sat behind the shield and watched Dante slowly test out the barrier. With a slightly perturbed expression, he created another two fireballs.

  Dante saw the red light flickering in the corner of his eye and glanced up to see the two fireballs, but he completely ignored them.

  The fireballs were too slow to hit him, and even if they weren’t, he could wait until they were pushed outside of the protection of the shield before blocking them anyway.

  Full of nonchalance, Dante filled his sword with world essence. It only took him about five seconds to create an edge on his blade because he didn’t even utilize half th
e world essence that he could have.

  Dante lazily swung out his sword, ripping through the shield with almost no resistance. It wasn’t nearly as effective as he would have hoped.

  The noble behind the shield seemed to have been waiting for that moment because as soon as he sliced a hole into the shield, the noble flung the two fireballs forward. One aimed directly at Dante and the other to his side.

  Confident in his world essence manipulation, Dante didn’t move at all. Using the power of his Blade Dancer passive, he pulled the sword up and sliced the incoming fireball, disintegrating it as the other fireball flew past his left side.

  Without any warning, he felt a massive pull on his left side. His sword shot out to block the incoming attack but was a fraction of a second too late.

  As soon as he realized what had happened, Dante threw himself to the floor in an attempt to put out the flame. The burning pain was excruciating, one of the worst things he had ever experienced.

  The moderator yelled out with the same lack of interest as earlier. “Healer!”

  * * *

  He walked out into the academy streets in a sour mood, only to see a giddy Mia. “You should be a little bit more careful next time.” She was visibly trying to hold in her laughter.

  His voice was completely deadpan. “Ha-Ha.” He wasn’t in the mood for her attitude. “What happened? I know I dodged that attack.”

  Mia had a rather smug look on her face. “You were stupidly careless in the middle of a fight and got what you deserved. I told you that would happen.”

  That was one of the worst things about the fight. Mia had told him, and she wasn’t going to let it go anytime soon.

  Because his opponents were so weak, he had been using them to test out a multitude of different things, mostly different ways to use Swordsmanship in a fight. “You know that wasn’t what I meant.”

  Mia stuck her tongue out at him, upset that he didn’t acknowledge his mistake. “He packed manipulated mana into the skill to change the trajectory.”

  Dante just stared at her for a moment. Something like that was possible, and no one had told him? It seemed like pretty pertinent information. “That information would have been useful.” he shot a glare at Mia.

  His anger caused Mia to laugh again. “If you hadn’t just stood there bashing his shield like a simpleton, it wouldn’t have been a problem.”

  Fair point.

  It was nice that he and Mia were back on good terms. Actually, their relationship was far closer than it was before. It seemed that when two people came together against a mutual enemy, it only strengthened their bond.

  Mia yanked him by the arm. “If you are going to sign up for classes today, we need to get going.”

  “Good point, we sho-”

  “Dante!”

  Shit.

  He knew that voice, it was their mutual enemy.

  Mia quickly stood in front of him with her arms outstretched in a practiced manner, it was her usual defensive position, and she was now ready to block any incoming sneak attacks.

  Mia barely got there in time.

  Kayla shot out of the crowd, intent on getting to him, but was successfully blocked by Mia. Dante sighed in relief.

  The two of them scrambled for a moment, Kayla was trying to claw her way through but was unable to bypass Mia with her lack of strength.

  Kayla began to pout. “Get out of my way, I heard my Dante was hurt in the arena.”

  The way she said ‘my Dante’ sent shivers down his spine. Dante cleared his throat. “There’s no need to worry, I’m fine… How did you know that I was hurt?”

  Kayla snorted. “The moron who did it was bragging about it to anyone who would listen.” She flashed him a smile. “But don’t worry, I had it handled.”

  What does that even mean?

  It was like after the party Kayla became a completely different person. Now she would thoroughly harass him at every opportunity she got. He had been turning down her advances for almost two and a half months, but she wouldn’t stop.

  He knew something must have happened, but the only thing he remembered about the party after the ‘meeting’ was his hangover the next morning.

  Mia spoke up before Kayla could, also eager to get rid of her. “We don’t have time for you today, Dante needs to choose his classes for the next quarter.”

  Kayla looked at Dante and broke out into a broad smile. “That’s great! I also haven’t chosen my classes yet.”

  Dante didn’t bother holding back his groan.

  Shit.

  Chapter 31

  Dante’s Immortality - Chapter 31

  Dante watched Kayla wearily as he and Mia walked toward the signup building. Her brown hair was bouncing merrily as she skipped down the road beside them.

  She was now the creature of his nightmares.

  What happened?

  His first thought when he woke up hungover after the party and noticed Kayla’s behavior, was that he had messed up monumentally and let his Classifications slip. But as time went on, it seemed far less likely.

  If Kayla knew his Classifications, the Calmans should have as well, and if that were the case, it didn’t make sense why only Kayla was trying to get closer to him.

  He had also considered that Kayla really did hate the Calmans and therefore not told them. He had learned that her story was true by asking Will. But he didn’t see how getting closer to him would be beneficial to her. He was too weak to be useful.

  He didn’t put it past Kayla to be planning something though, so he had been waiting cautiously, expecting some form of blackmail to keep his secret.

  But when that never happened, he didn’t know what to think.

  He even considered the possibility that he and Kayla had done something when he was intoxicated, but he didn’t see how it could result in this situation.

  Why did I have to drink?

  Dante was mentally bashing his head against a wall, angry at his own stupidity. This entire situation was too much of a mess because he didn’t remember anything. He didn’t even know how to best handle the situation, or even what the situation was.

  He didn’t know what could have possessed him to do it, he had been so cautious. Unwilling to try alcohol for the first time in a situation where he needed his guard up. Something must have happened to make him do it, but he didn’t know what.

  Kayla turned back to him and winked, causing him to freeze. It was almost as if she knew what he was thinking about. “So, what classes are we going to take?”

  It was actually a good question, and he didn’t even know what his options were. “I’m not sure. How many classes can I choose?”

  Kayla opened her mouth to answer, but Mia was quick to cut her off. “Theoretically you can choose up to four, but you should only sign up for two at the very most. All classes are four hours long, so you wouldn’t have time to do anything else.”

  That was more than disappointing, there were several subjects he was curious about. “Can’t I just take four and skip class when I need to do anything else?” That was something he had learned from Will. After a particularly brutal day of swordsmanship training, Will had the great idea of skipping class.

  He was happy he didn’t skip with him, because when Will returned, Archie was more than pleased to dole out punishment.

  His question didn’t make her happy. Mia’s jet-black eyes narrowed at him. “You can’t just-”

  “What an excellent idea!” Kayla was quick to interrupt Mia, earning a glare. “There is no punishment for a Housing District 1 student to skip class.”

  Mia, although slightly put off, wasn’t finished. “That’s improper, besides it would be a massive waste of your credits.”

  Dante pulled out his identification card. “How much could they cost?”

  Name: Dante

  Classification(s): Warrior

  Living Quarters: Housing District 1 – Building 43 – Floor 3

  Arena Rank: Gold (232/825 Credit Earned)
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  Arena Team: None

  Arena Team Rank: N/A

  Credit: 232

  It had taken him 25 credits to move from bronze to silver, at 2 credits per win. Then to get to gold rank, he needed to reach 225 credits total, at 4 credits per win. And from the gold match he had won earlier, he had earned 6 credits.

  Getting to his current total had taken quite a while, and a lot of saving, so he was quite proud of his 232 credits.

  Mia thought about it for a moment. “It depends on the class, some of them are more expensive due to instructor limitations, and others can be more expensive if they require the use of valuable resources… I think that almost all of them are between 25 and 1,000 credits.”

  Dante’s heart skipped a beat. “1,000?”

  That wasn’t good news, he had been counting on abusing all that the academy had to offer as quickly as possible so that he could leave. It seemed like everywhere he looked, someone was trying to use him for something, and Kayla’s new attitude was only making the feeling much worse. The main reason he hadn’t just run off in the middle of the night was because he still hadn’t learned mana manipulation, it was something that he would need before leaving the academy.

  Kayla saw Dante’s reaction and smiled mischievously. “Actually, the most expensive class is 10,000 credits.”

  Dante looked back down to his identification card, and the 232 credits he had been so proud of only moment ago.

  Mia just rolled her eyes at Kayla, visibly annoyed. “Only one class is that expensive. And that’s only because House Calman supplies the creatures for taming from their own bestiaries.”

  His head perked up. “How does taming work?”

  Kayla covered her giggle with her hand. “It’s so cute when you act like a simpleton.”

  Dante glared at her. He was pretty sure that if she weren’t acting so nice to him, the insult wouldn’t have been blunted by calling him ‘cute.’