Chapter 170 Dante's Power Is Revealed
He scratched the back of his head and checked the time. It had only been about 3 days since the session began, and he was quite impressed that he was able to hold out for so long despite overheating.
He felt that it had a lot to do with both his high Constitution and Vitality protecting his vitals and rapidly restoring them even as they were damaged. Dante was certain now that the reason he had to leave was not entirely because he was weak, but because he ran out of juice.
It also made sense as to why the Energy Pool restored him because it did not possess any healing effects, just energy restoration. The healing was done by his body alone.
However, Dante looked at the progress he made, which was about 10%, and was left speechless. All that effort just for this? Then there was no point in rushing to comprehend until he raised his stats higher as he thought.
Since there were 4 days left in the session, Dante decided to return and absorb zero energy instead. After all, while comprehension was required for the C rank and above, there was also a requirement for energy absorption, otherwise those alumini would not care so much about the Black Land.
As such, he teleported back and spent the next four days absorbing zero energy while in a peaceful trance, reaching about 40% of the requirements needed to hit the C Rank. Dante was beginning to understand why it was so hard for students to even reach the C rank by graduation.
They got about 10 weeks a year to go to the Black Land. Their stats were leagues lower than Dante's, so even if their superpowers were mediocre, they could not comprehend as easily as he did.
Most had poor absorption speed so by the time they reached final year, they might only just have reached the D rank. There was literally no one who reached the D rank as fast as Dante, except anomalies like the headmistress who reached the A rank before graduation.
Even Humphrey and Slessor were still at the E rank, still struggling to absorb enough to reach the D rank, much less start comprehending in order to reach the C Rank. Whether it was in terms of talent or growth potential, Dante had never felt pressure from his peers.
When the session came to an end, the students were gathered by the teachers but were not dispersed. Instead, Xue Bing came forth with a smile and spoke straightforwardly.
"Today is July 15th, and we are halfway through to the opening date of the Zero Gate. As such, it's time for you lot to start your targeted training for the expedition into that dangerous place later this year."
The students were not surprised by this as this was stated in their syllabus. Besides, it was common sense to train them a little before they went in; otherwise, they would just be throwing lives away.
"Well, the content of your training is twofold. You will first enter a virtual world that is replicated from the true world behind the Zero Gate and the various known dangers inside. There is the instanced version where you will be made to fulfill various objectives on your own, and the shared version later where you will directly compete against each other."
"The second part is the survival training. This one is a mixture of training, and the school giving you some free benefits and enhancements in exchange for resources you will be tasked to bring back from the Zero Gate."
Xue Bing nodded to the students. "I assume you all understand because I can't be bothered to repeat it. First things first, all of you will follow us to the Student Enhancement Center to record your current SDI and level of enhancements you that we can gauge how to train you optimally as well as how much you can grow."
Many students did not seem worried by this, but Dante's eyes narrowed. Just as well, he wasn't scared because his circumstances pushed him to go back to that place in order to further his power, but he made sure to send a message to Beatrice just in case.
Xue Bing led the students to the student enhancement center, which was - as usual - choked to the brim. When the students saw an entire class of Unique Batch fellows being led in by a teacher, they seemed startled and realized that yeah, it was that time of the year again.
Of course, this was only for those in the second year and above. The smattering of students from the first year Normal and Elite Batch were absolutely clueless and craned their necks to see what was going on.
Luckily, the student enhancement center had a special VIP room reserved for such things and handled the students quickly. Rather than rely on their AI chips, they performed a full-body scan that was more in-depth than what the AI chip could surmise.
Dante was around the middle and went up into the scanner calmly. The other students naturally looked over, curious to know the stats of the so-called number 1 student with endless talent, while the teachers did not care.
After all, Dante's fellow students did not have access to the central AI and could not be authorized to see his stats that he uploaded when he first came here, but the teachers could.
And oh, you could be sure as hell that they researched the shit out of Dante when he first showed his brilliance. Seeing that he had 10.5 in each field, they understood that he was not a weakling but was also not someone they needed to worry about.
When the machine scanned him, it beeped and displayed the results, which was natural for schools in order to galvanize competition between students.
No matter how much you wanted to hide your results, your teachers would still announce them. However, when the students and teachers saw Dante results, there was a period of silence as everyone's jaws collectively dropped.
It was only when Dante got down from the scanner and walked casually to stand by the side, away from his fellow students and teacher, that everyone reacted.
Gasps and whispers filled the air as the Unique Batch of students crowded around the holographic display.
"Look at that SDI!"
"It can't be real, can it?"
"That human's stats are off the charts!"
"Did he cheat somehow?"
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"He's broken a record or something, right?!"
"He's a monster!"
"Oh God, what the fuck!"
"How? How?? HOW???"
The shock in the room was palpable as they all stared at the screen, unable to comprehend the incredible numbers displayed for Dante's Standard Display Index.
The five teachers, including Xue Bing, gathered around the holographic display, their expressions a mix of disbelief and astonishment.
"Look at those numbers..."
"This is unprecedented!"
"Is this some kind of error?"
"Dante... He's a true prodigy."
"I've never seen anything like this before."
Their hushed dialogue mirrored the astonishment of the students, as they tried to make sense of Dante's extraordinary Standard Display Index.
At this moment, even the headmistress, Lara, who was casually relaxing in her seat in her office, received a ping from the central AI about Dante's stats since she had put it to monitor him.
When she saw his changes, her eyes narrowed but she did not seem too impressed. Rather, what she said next would shock anyone who knew how explosive Dante's growth was.
"Too slow. He's so weak it's disgusting to look at. Should I stop bothering with him?" she muttered to herself.
She hesitated for a short while before lowering Dante's priority to just above low, which was a huge drop from high. Still, he was still second on the list as the first was, quite shockingly but understandably, Beatrice Portinari!
At this time, Dante did not know that he had been disdained and almost blacklisted by the headmistress for his results which caused his peers to froth at the mouth and his teachers to feel fear for the first time.
Then again, it was a matter of perspective. The height that Lara stood was not something that either Dante nor Beatrice could understand, and frankly, very few in the Eternal Universe did.
Just what was her goal? If she was so strong and awesome, why the heck was she sitting in this position of headmistress and not frolicking with people of her power level, whatever level that was?
The question was unanswerable at the moment. What could be answered though, was that Dante's strength revelation had put to bed many of the hostile thoughts against him by the teachers.
The reason they usually saw him as easy prey was that his SDI was so low that they could pummel him a hundred times before he could even react to a single fart of theirs.
Now, that was clearly no longer the case.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦