Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 23

Layla Calman

Layla’s eyebrows lifted as she watched Dante savagely cut off the boy’s head. Then without any change in demeanor, turn and walk out of the stadium as if nothing happened.

That’s certainly one way to handle it.

“I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised. I didn’t think Dante had… that in him.” She ceased feeding world essence into the memory stone.

Sir Andres stood across from her, stoically making his report. “Yes. Surprising, to say the least. Based on that performance, and the report that we received on him, I think he may be… unstable. I suggest we collar him before he has a chance to become a threat.”

She could feel her eyebrows narrowing at his suggestion. “Why would we do that? He is perfect.”

“Perfect?”

“I have been looking for a retainer to groom. All of my current retainers dislike getting their hands dirty...” She shot a glare at Sir Andres. “And mother won’t let me keep any of hers. Dante has the demeanor; now I just need his loyalty.” Layla drummed her fingers on the desk in front of her. “Speaking of which, did everything go smoothly in setting up the fight?”

“Yes. According to Mia’s report, he didn’t suspect anything.”

Layla smiled. “Good, we will slow things down for now. Too much, and Dante may get suspicious. Besides, I don’t have the time for this at the moment. You may leave.”

“Yes, my lady.” The Sir Andres gave a bow and turned to leave her office.

“How?” Will turned to Archie. “This isn’t fair; I’ve been working on my world essence manipulation just as much as he has.”

Archie just scratched his chin with a smile as he looked at the manipulation orb in Dante’s hand. “Not bad, not bad. It’s even denser than most when they first condense it.” Without taking his eyes off of it, he addressed Will. “I would suggest you start acting a little nicer to the boy, unless you want two people kicking your ass during your swordsmanship training.”

Dante couldn’t help but smile at Archie’s praise. In the three days that he had been banned from the arena, he had solely focused on training with his manipulation orb.

Apparently, Mia had been holding out on him before. Her peace offering after the situation with Greggory had been to help him with his training as much as possible.

There were a few small bits of information that she gave him, like meditation exercises to help your focus and control slightly. But the day after he killed Greggory, she gave him a vital tip; spreading out his awareness to harness more world essence.

Before he would just manipulate the world essence in the air around him that touched his skin directly. Mia’s tip was to actually spread his awareness out so that he could ‘feel’ more world essence, and harness it even if it wasn’t touching him directly.

It was done by channeling your mana through your mind, then spreading it immediately through your body, and then outward. As long as you can maintain a connection to the mana once you send it out of your body, you can harness any world essence in its range.

Even though it sounded simple, in practice it was extremely challenging. After two days of what felt like his mind being torn apart, he was finally able to increase his awareness to about half an inch away from his body.

Despite that, the new training, combined with Mia’s other techniques, not only almost doubled the amount of world essence he could harness, but it also significantly improved his control.

The best part was that the mana cost was negligible. It was only a tiny fraction of the mana regenerated from his Wisdom attribute. Although, Mia had said that as his efficiency in the technique increased, and therefore the amount of mana he utilized increased as well, the mana drain would also rise along with it.

It was only a short time after utilizing his new awareness that he was able to condense the world essence inside the manipulation orb. The process wasn’t challenging, after he fed enough world essence into the manipulation orb, all he needed to do was force it to the center while trying not to let any slip out of his control.

There was something strange about the world essence though, the feel of it seemed to change as he added more to the orb. When he manipulated a small amount, it was easy to shape it exactly how he wanted. But the more world essence he added, the more slippery the world essence became.

It was almost like the world essence was alive, and the more he added, and therefore the more sentient he made it, the harder it was to bend to his will.

He cut off his connection to the essence in the manipulation orb, breaking Archie out of his trance.

Archie turned to Will. “Alright, get out of here. We have real Swordsmanship training to do.” Will opened his mouth as if to say something, but then just let out a sigh of defeat and sullenly turned to leave.

Archie watched the defeated Will walk off with a smile on his face. “Yard boy! Bring me a few wooden swords.”

No healer, thank the Goddess.

As soon as the yard boy brought over the swords, Archie tossed one to him. “Alright, let's see what you’ve got. Go ahead and fill it with world essence.”

Dante just stared at him, unmoving. Whether he brought a healer or not, he didn’t trust Archie at all. Archie was unbothered though, he just stared right back at him with a smile on his face.

At some point, it became a contest. Neither of them were willing to give an inch to the other, and the two of them remained like that for several minutes, until he eventually gave in. “No.”

Archie’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Don’t tell me, you're afraid?”

I'm not afraid, I just don’t trust you…

He didn’t answer him immediately. Instead, he thought about how he could ensure that he wouldn’t end up with shards of wood lodged inside of him when training with Archie.

He couldn’t think of a single way, other than asking someone else, which didn’t seem like an option. Letting out a sigh of defeat, he raised the sword and prepared to fill it with world essence when he was interrupted.

“Oh, by the way, it might be worth mentioning that you must first isolate the essence within the core of the blade, then let it seep out, or it’ll explode again.”

Dante just stared at him, eye twitching.

How was that an afterthought?

Taking another deep breath, he began to condense the world essence into the sword.

It was different than the manipulation orb, but not substantially. There was far less resistance in the world essence as he pressed it through the hilt. But as he added more to the center of the sword, not allowing it to seep out, it became harder and harder to control.

Archie observed his progress attentively. “Good, good. Now, when you are about to lose control, allow the essence to seep out at the same rate you condense it.”

He listened to what Archie said, as soon as it felt like the world essence would wrest control from him, he began to let it seep out. It came out from the tip of the sword, wisping out for a moment, then disappearing.

“No, no. That’s all wrong, you need to let it seep out evenly, throughout the entire weapon.”

Dante renewed his focus, trying to let it seep out evenly, and at the same rate he was feeding it in. It seemed almost impossible. After attempting world essence manipulation for himself, he realized what a monster Aiden really was, he had made it look so easy.

Archie saw his struggle. “Visualize the world essence within the weapon and think of the areas where the world essence is coming out as holes. Just evenly cover the condensed world essence with those holes, then adjust their size, so the total output will match the amount of world essence you’re a pumping into the sword.”

He took the instructor’s advice, trying to add more ‘holes’ to the mass of world essence within the weapon. It wasn’t difficult per say, just time-consuming. He added each new area where the world essence leaked one at a time, then adjusted the size of all of them until they leaked the same amount while also matching his world essence input before continuing.

By the time he was done, face pale and coated with sweat, he was holding a sword that was leaking world essence. Leaking being the keyword. As soon as the essence left the sword, it wisped into the air and disappeared.

“Not bad, not bad. Now just don’t let the world essence disappear after it is released from the sword.”

How would that even be possible…?

He could barely even hold the sword aloft, and the only reason he was able to stand was because he locked his knees, and now Archie wanted him to contain it around the sword as well?

Dante gritted his teeth, focusing all his willpower on holding onto the leaking world essence. As he tried to grasp it, the condensed world essence within the sword began to slip out of his grasp.

He was losing control, and his mind felt like it was tearing apart as he held on to the slipping world essence and tried to recondense it.

While trying to recondense the world essence, he accidentally closed some of the holes where the world essence was leaking while still pumping the sword with more world essence.

Shit.

He lost control, there was way too much world essence in the sword, and there were no warning cracks this time. The world essence immediately blasted the sword apart, sending shards of wood everywhere.

There was a moment of shock, where he didn’t feel anything. He just looked down at the wooden handle in his hand. This time, it wasn’t just the tip that exploded, but the entire blade.

Goddess damn him.

He could see the blood pouring down from his new wounds, and barely had a moment to look up and glare at Archie, who was now standing a reasonable distance away, before the pain took over him.

Archie let out a laugh. “You did better than I thought you would.” Archie turned toward the side of the yard. “Healer!”

He didn’t have the energy, or the desire, to respond to the bastard. Instead, he allowed himself to fall to the floor as the pain washed over him, doing his best to slip into the painless abyss of unconsciousness.