Chapter 160 Advanced Knight and Martial Blood Realm
Dante watched up to this point with his spirit sense, his expression cold. After walking through Arcanum Haven the whole day, he had been subjected to many beautiful and thrilling sights than anyone from modern Earth would kill to see and feel.
Likewise, he had also seen the dark parts of this bustling city that hid underneath the veil, as well as the wealth of evil committed by a small group of people that overshadowed all the good and neutral actions by the normal people by a long shot.
So why, why oh why, did Dante choose such a horrible and despicable person to 'benefit from his power? Even if the fellow fit the template of a typical web novel protagonist, that template had been used across many archetypes.
He could have chosen a young beggar, a down and out scholar, a gang member who was betrayed, or even a crippled young genius who was now being scorned. Heck, he could have even chosen that very mermaid girl who was just here; she fit a protagonist template much more than this freak!
It seemed bizarre that Dante would do this… until you realized that Dante was not, in fact, giving out charity. Even if this 'Mark Thompson' changed Jameson Arthur and made him want to repent, that had nothing to do with Dante.
His first round of protagonists in the True Martial and Magus worlds were not chosen because he wanted to groom them into subordinates; they were experimental subjects for him, testing out the utility of this 'God of Technology' idea.
Even then, as experimental subjects, they were mostly tools for Dante to do what he did not have time to do in this world. They would set up a faction, dominate a piece of this world, and acquire necessary items and resources he could get himself but did not have the time to, or did not dare to take lest he alert the quantum AI.
Basically, the reason Dante chose them was not their goals or his goals, but their endpoint. As his first generation test subjects, he had the least control over them.
By the time Jameson became a 4th Rank Peak Knight, he would be able to sense the nanites in his body. By the time he became a 4th Rank Elite Wizard, he would be able to sense the Quantum Aetherium Conduit in his body and know the source of his 'talent'.
He would also know the true face of his 'system,' though not why it was there. And unlike in the stories, this system he had was not omnipotent because by the time he reached the 7th Rank of Archwizard, he could completely remove the two from his body, no matter how tightly bonded they were.
So, as you could imagine, Dante had no plans of allowing him to reach that stage. His job was to quickly set up a faction using the techniques that Dante had his Research AIs craft. This faction would not have a library but would inject everyone with progressively more complex subordinate AI chips.
Right now, the data from this chip would be collected from every stage. That way, future chips would have better control and concealment effects from the specifics of the power system of this world.
When the time was right, Dante would naturally 'harvest' his faction. As for those who joined it, they would not experience much change, but Jameson could not go on living. So one of Dante's criteria was that the person must have done something or did something he personally did not like.
That way, 'harvesting' him or her at the end of their usefulness would feel less troubling on his thin moral compass that was begging for water while crawling in a desert.
Hypocritical? Maybe. Dante was not sure. However, he did not plan to judge or spout lines about the magnanimity of his actions. He had accepted that it was purely for his own benefit and not a sense of justice.
Done with his first choice, Dante hesitated and left the Magus World. Originally, he planned to create two protagonists for each world but decided against it for now. One was enough, and more than one would create troublesome variables, especially if they met behind his back.
He didn't go to the True Martial World right away, rather entering the Apocalypse World as he told Beatrice in that illusion. It was time to raise up his stats once more.
He hadn't come to the Apocalypse World in over a week, bearing on almost 2 weeks, so his body was quite stiff. However, it didn't matter once his real body entered and took over.
While Dante was stretching, he couldn't help but wonder if he should generate a protagonist here. The power system here was so weak that his protagonist could probably only take technological drugs to raise his stats.
After all, apart from the superpowers for the students, the natives had to rely on their bodies and technology to get by. A native with his system could theoretically become a powerhouse, but without superpowers, they would be easily beaten by students.
He passed the thought away. He currently had control of too few power systems and magical knowledge to expand wantonly in quantum worlds. When he expanded his portfolio more, he could play around in such a manner.
Dante teleported to his quantum marker back in the spider cave and was greeted by the sight of hundreds of spiderlings that were bustling about, sealing the cave while moving captured prey down below.
It seemed the entire nest had been spooked by his repeated bullying and was planning to fortify themselves down below where the stronger ones were. Unfortunately, since their lair covered the entire dungeon and the forest outside, this had taken time, enough that despite coming back so late, Dante caught them red-handed.
When Dante appeared in their midst, he immediately spread out a ring of flames in all directions as a precautionary measure to prevent ambushes, so every inch of rock a kilometer around him in all directions was filled with flames.
This practically filled the entirety of this small cavern at the top floor, causing all the bustling spiderlings and their various quarries to die immediately. Dante glanced at this and did not bother.
Rather he checked his progress in his two physical methods.
[Physical Powers: Raging Blood Halberd Technique (Martial Warrior, Mastery level 44%), Primal Ape Technique (Level 2: Beginner Knight, 97%).]
Since he was here, he might as well complete the last bit for both his techniques and absorb a wave of stats!
Dante started with the Primal Ape Technique, opting to use his body's natural energy for now, even though he had both the magical Potion of Vitality as well as its mighty technological replacement, the Quantum Vitality Serum.
From a full tank, an hour of practice could grant him 9% of progress, so in just about 20 minutes, Dante felt the barrier that was limiting him from the next realm and then broke through it with the ease of poking a pen through paper.
In a way, you could say that Dante was talented, because although his genes were 'weak' and 'unstable' according to the Eternal Universe's standard, they also allowed him to breakthrough such bottlenecks with ease, which the True Martial World and Magus world quantified as geniuses.
So those 'trashes' were simply those with better and perfected genes? Then even if they struggle to breakthrough realms in the True Martial or Magus world, one gene serum from the Eternal universe should greatly boost them, far better than it did Dante.
Dante's expression couldn't help but change. So, should he find a trash person who cannot make any progress and then feed them a gene serum from the Eternal universe? How explosive would their growth be? Would they immediately become young emperors who could fight for the heaven's will?
He put this exciting idea aside and decided to try it out when he was done here, for he felt that this too could be another path.
Now that Dante had broken through his Knight realm, he didn't really bother to check the powers it came with before popping an Enhanced Energy Elixir and began to practice his Raging Blood Halberd technique.
As he swung his high-quality halberd that he usually kept in his quantum depository around wantonly, Dante felt his blood energy boil as it followed the various paths of the practice and then condensed into blood Qi within his heart.
His ocean-like blood energy seemed endless, but it was converted in bulk, like a giant kettle was lit and boiled all the impurities out of it. The rest that was left looked so perfect and filled with so much power that Dante felt fear just looking at it.
It felt like if he used it to actually attack someone, they might just be drowned to death and squashed beneath the high pressure before they even suffered from the physical blow or the hot nature due to the specific External Martial Art he used.
Boom!
Breakthrough complete!
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