Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 6

Edwin Tibbott

“I’m s-s-so s-sorry.”

Edwin brought his hand down, and a clear slap reverberated through the chamber. Greggory’s rotund form flew through the air, landing with a thud as he sprawled on the ground.

Edwin stood over Greggory’s huddling form, face crimson and panting in rage. He couldn’t believe his own offspring, the fat useless slob in front of him, could be so utterly stupid.

He had just begun to change his opinion of the boy. After Greggory had received two Classifications, he had even thought that the boy was finally shaping up to be a respectable man, and a worthy inheritor of the house name. He had even given Greggory a treasure that he had brought with him from the Outer region, and the fool actually gave it away.

That was enough to make him mad, but not furious. After all, the stone could be brought back. No, the reason he was furious was because his fucking moron of a son started a fire that burned down half of the city.

Edwin picked Greggory up by the scruff of his neck, easily holding him with one hand. “Do you think I wouldn’t have you killed just because you’re my son?” He roared directly in Greggory’s face. “I have plenty of time to have dozens of children, you FUCKING IMBECILE!” He threw the fat piece of shit to the other end of the chamber, causing him to collide with the stone wall.

Edwin turned to address his guards. “Have him flogged out in the square and see if that gives them pause. We need to stop the rioting before we lose the other half the city.”

Edwin massaged his forehead as the guards carried his sniveling son out of the room. The number of casualties were almost uncountable, they must have lost at least a thousand. That would have been bad enough, but things had gotten much worse. Since the fire spread to the merchant’s district, the trading guilds had organized a rebellion in retaliation for his son’s moronic behavior.

He could, of course, effortlessly go and put the riot down with his strength alone. But that would only cause larger problems in the future. If he began to rule Alazel with an iron fist, the church would take the opportunity to claim the moral high ground and abdicate him.

Damn it.

Edwin slammed a fist against the wall, then shouted to the guards in the hallway. “Get Joseph in here.”

It only took the guards a few minutes to collect Joseph and bring him to his chamber.

Joseph, walking into his chamber and seeing the anger on his face, instantly stood with rapt attention. “How can I serve you, my lord?”

When Edwin saw Joseph, he showed a rare smile. Joseph was one of the few retainers that he took pride in having in his service.

Joseph had the exceedingly rare Tracker Classification. Within the Outer Edge region, he had never heard of another person with the Classification that wasn’t in the service of one of the major houses.

Even though the Tracker Classification had no actual combat capabilities, Joseph could pick up the trail of anyone by their scent alone, and then track them within a certain mileage. Joseph was only level 5 in the Classification, so his range was rather limited, but he had found Joseph’s services to be beyond valuable in his years residing the Outer Edge region.

“My son gave an exceedingly valuable item to Isaac and Roderick from the guard several days ago and they haven’t returned. I need you to track them down and retrieve it. Whether they are alive or not when you are finished is of no concern, just get the enchanted stone from them, whatever the cost.” Thinking for a moment as he paced, Edwin continued. “Take Herman with you, he can deal with any problems, should you run into them. Their belongings should still be in the barracks, you can track them from the scent on them.”

“Of course, my lord. I’ll take my leave.” It was clear to see that Joseph was eager to escape him in his anger. Something that didn’t bother him in the slightest so long as Joseph actually did his job. Edwin waved his hand, dismissing the Tracker.

After Joseph left, Edwin stood in his chambers cursing inwardly. If it weren’t for the memory of his murdered wife, and his desire to not destroy her legacy, he thought he really would have killed his son.

Dante awoke with a dagger to his throat.

“Hello laddie, terribly sorry to disturb your slumber.”

Dante’s eyes snapped open. A middle-aged man with long ginger hair swept back into a ponytail, and a lazy smile on his face was straddling his chest while holding a knife to his throat. Dante looked down to check his combatant’s glove, and was relieved to see the man hadn’t taken it off, it likely meant that his Classifications were still hidden.

Just as he was going to Blink out of the hold and surprise the man, a second middle-aged man with a serious, yet tired face and stark black hair, a rarity in the Outer Edge region, came up from behind the person who was straddling him and cuffed him lightly on the head.

“Alright Edward you’ve had your fun, get off the boy before he pisses himself.”

Edward got off of him, still with a lazy smile on his face and turned to the other man. “Come on Sam, there’s no need to be so serious, the lad knew I was just joking around.”

The other man, Sam, just rubbed his eyes and let out a tired sigh. “We don’t have time for this.” He said the words meaningfully, but got no reaction from Edward. Letting out a sigh, Sam continued. “If we don’t report back to the main group by tonight they will send someone after us.”

“But look at his hair and eyes, they are so exotic.” Edward’s face was mere inches away from Dante’s as he examined his eyes. “Can we keep him?”

His emotions were a little bit chaotic as he followed the conversation the two men were having. At first, he was completely relieved that he wasn’t about to be butchered, but then, he was confused at the lack of hostility the two men showed him from his appearance. Those feelings only lasted until Edward’s last comment though. After that, he felt somewhat indignant.

Dante opened his mouth. About to interject into the conversation, when Sam cut him off. “We can’t take a boy into the dungeon with us.”

Those words gave him pause. Dungeons were one of the most sought-after locations in all of Aleria. They were created similarly to the way the Statues of the Goddess were, but were fundamentally different. Statues of the Goddess were created to utilize world essence where it was densest in any given region in order to provide anyone located near them with certain benefits, such as the ability to receive the Status.

Dungeons used the same concept but were the complete opposite. They too were in locations where the world essence is far denser than usual. The difference between the two is that instead of being discovered by humans and having a Statue of the Goddess built over the area to tap into it, a creature finds the area and taps into the world essence, infusing itself with it. The creature would then sink into the ground, causing vast caverns to form from the infusion of energy, and create the dungeon.

He was thoroughly surprised by the news that there was a dungeon nearby. If there truly was a dungeon, he shouldn’t just be finding out about it. Adventurers from across the Outer Edge region would have been flocking to the area, and Alazel would have been a prime location for them to reside in between explorations.

After a split second of hesitation, Dante cleared his throat. “Would it be possible for me to join your group?” Talking to the two of them made him quite nervous, and he acted as politely as he possibly could. Others usually didn’t take kindly to his appearance, and although Edward and Sam didn’t seem to mind it too much, he didn’t want to anger them in any way.

Edward surprised him with a hearty laugh and turned to Sam. “You see? I knew he would want to join me. How could he resist my overwhelming Charisma? You’re lucky I am here. Without me, we would have missed an opportunity to recruit such an interesting fellow.”

Edward was clearly somewhat eccentric, and he wasn’t sure how he really felt about it the man’s personality. But for now, it seemed to be working in his favor, so he didn’t question it.

“For the love of the Goddess.” Sam glanced at Dante’s young face and right hand where his combatants glove was, then let out another large sigh, he actually had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed as he addressed Dante. “I’m sorry for my friend’s behavior. Although our group is technically open to recruiting more combat Classifications for our dungeon exploration, it is impossible for you to join us. You look like you only just received your Status, without leveling your Classification a few times, it would be impossible for you to join us.” Sam shot an accusing glance back to Edward, showing that he was clearly against the entire idea.

Dante blinked in surprise, Sam had taken him off-guard with how polite he was acting. “Actually, I have already leveled my Classification a few times.” It was something of a lie, he had only leveled three of his Classifications to level two, but that gave him enough attributes to equal someone who was roughly around level seven with a single Classification.

Sam looked doubtful, and was about to open his mouth to speak when Edward cut in with a laugh. “Excellent, I expected nothing less from our new, exotic-looking friend.”

Sam visibly hesitated for a moment, but then let out another sigh. “Fine, but if he dies, it’s on you.”

He actually felt a bit bad for the Sam, he felt that Sam sighed far too often, and assumed him working with Edward wasn’t a new arrangement. Still, the way he was speaking was strange, it was almost as though there was a hidden meaning in every other thing Sam said.

“Come on then. If we don’t hurry, we won’t make it by nightfall.” Sam turned and started walking into the forest. Dante, looking up and noting that it was still early morning, followed after him. Apparently, their camp was quite a distance away.

To anyone else, the long journey through the forest that took the entire day would have been uneventful and boring, but to him, it had been anything but. The entire morning was taken up by Edward babbling question after question at him about where he came from and why he looked the way he did. For the first time in his life, he didn’t mind much, he just diverted Edward’s questions. Not only that, but he also asked Edward about his past and where he came from and was diverted in turn. Overall, it had probably been the best conversation that he had ever had in his life.

Sam walked in front of the two, completely apart from any conversation that they were having. Feeling bad for Sam, Dante broke off from Edward’s conversation after their afternoon meal and began to converse with him instead.

Unlike Edward, who seemed to enjoy conversing about things with little relevance, Sam was a wealth of information. They talked about numerous subjects briefly, most of them having to do with fighting. But eventually, they got into the topic of dungeons. He realized quite quickly that the knowledge he had picked up from the conversations that he had overheard was barely scratching the surface of what dungeons really were.

Sam noticed it as well, and after his initial questions, Sam released another deep sigh.

“Exactly what do you know about dungeons?” Sam had said it with a hint of exasperation, making his disbelief that anyone could know so little clear.

After Dante explained the little he knew about how dungeons, like how were created or formed and how they were almost like the opposite of the Statues of the Goddess. Sam, with another long sigh began to rub the bridge of his nose.

“So, you know nothing about them… and yet you still agreed to come with us…” Sam let out another deep breath, and he found that he didn’t like being the target of Sam’s constant sighing. He even briefly wondered if Edward had always been so quirky, or if Sam’s sighing had frustrated him into insanity.

“Alright, I’ll give you a brief overview of dungeons, I suggest you pay attention unless you want to get yourself killed.”

“First, the strength of the dungeon depends on two factors. The most important is the level of world essence density in the given area. Even if two locations in the Outer Edge region had dungeons, the density wouldn’t necessarily be the same. The larger the density, and therefore the larger the infusion of world essence with the monster, the more dangerous the dungeon that is formed. The other thing that the dungeon’s strength depends on is the overall strength, or even rarity, of the creature that stumbled on the area and infused itself with the world essence.”

“The creature itself usually won't make too big of a difference in the dungeon quality, because it is so unlikely that one will randomly stumble upon a dense area. I’ve heard that in the inner regions, people have actually found locations with high world essence density and brought rare creatures that they had captured to them in order to create especially powerful dungeons.”

“After the creature has infused with the world essence and creates the dungeon, it will have a Classification change, not only increasing its strength and abilities, but also making it a monster. Monsters can be killed, but only temporarily. After a monster dies, the world essence in the area begins to collect together. After enough of it is collected, the monster will come back with its full strength.”

“Another important thing about dungeons, is that the original creature that had been turned into a monster can also lure other creatures in, and turn them into monsters as well. Unlike the creature that discovered the dense area, the new monster’s overall abilities or skills won’t be altered, their numbers will also be limited by the amount of world essence in the dense area.”

“Finally, the reason dungeons are so sought after in Aleria, the monster drops. All of the monsters in the dungeon drop essence crystals, which is the world essence that condensed to form the monster. They have a multitude of uses and are very valuable. If you make yourself useful to the dungeon party, you may get a few. The two biggest uses for them are to either give world essence to anyone with a Status, or power up powerful enchantments that can’t replenish themselves. Of course, here in the Outer edge region where there aren’t any powerful enchanters, they are really only useful for giving world essence. It is a good thing they do too, monsters don’t give you their world essence for killing them like other creatures do.”

“The last type of drop is from the original creature that created the dungeon. That monster, which is far more powerful than any of the others, is called the dungeon boss. The dungeon boss drops a different type of crystal from essence crystals called a monster crystal. The monster crystal is created from the dense world essence that infused into the creature that created the dungeon, and therefore far more powerful than the other crystals.”

“When killing a dungeon boss, the monster crystal will be broken up into shards equal to the number of people who helped to kill it. When in shard form, they are just more effective than essence crystals. But when someone kills the dungeon boss by themselves, an entire boss crystal will drop. It automatically will imprint itself on the person who killed the dungeon boss, becoming completely useless for anyone else… unless someone kills that person. The full crystal will give a skill, attributes, or even unique passive skills from the monster that it came from.”

He was shocked at the new information. He would have never thought that killing a dungeon boss could actually give him new skills. Skills were already severely limited by the number of Classifications someone had, and even the type of Classification, so getting new skills was invaluable. “A unique passive skill?”

Sam nodded. “Yes, passive skills are exceedingly rare skills that generally only appear in certain Classifications. There’s a large downside though. All the monster crystal passive skills have a mana per second cost. Top combatants who are able to acquire a full set of five monster crystals have to use two Wisdom attribute crystals to keep up with the mana consumption… unless of course, they are magic Classifications that already have high wisdom.”

“What do you mean by a full set of five monster crystals?”

“You can only infuse up to five monster crystals into yourself at a time, one normal skill, two passive skills, and two attribute crystals that increase attributes.”

That was a lot to digest. His mind was reeling, and he was more than thankful for the explanation, there was no way he could have learned such detailed information from listening in on conversations in Alazel.

There would be plenty of time to think about it later though. For now, he needed to make sure the dungeon party took him with them. Slightly worried Dante entered the adventurers’ camp with Sam and Edward.