Chapter 180 8 Fruits and Some Tests
The first one was a fruit that resembled a miniature sun, radiating intense heat and light. Its skin was a fiery red-orange, and tiny flames danced across its surface. It was likely that anyone who consumed this fruit gained the power to create and control fire in bursts, erupting with flames in a spectacular display of pyrotechnics.
The second one was a fruit that was like a swirling vortex frozen in time. Its exterior was a deep shade of indigo, and a perpetual miniature storm with miniature bolts of lightning raged within it. Dante was willing to bet that those who partook in this fruit would develop control over the wind and storm elements, allowing them to summon gusts of wind and unleash lightning bolts at will.
The third fruit was as dark as the abyss, with a deep black exterior that seemed to absorb all light. There was a good chance that anyone who tasted its flesh could probably blend into shadows effortlessly, becoming nearly invisible in darkness and gaining the ability to move unseen.
The fourth fruit deeply resembled a thundercloud that was shrunken down. Unlike the second fruit, this one boasted a dark gray-blue skin with tiny arcs of electricity that played across its surface like SSJ2 and above. There was a good reason to believe that ingesting this fruit granted a person the power to summon thunderstorms, manipulate lightning, or even become an electric conduit.
The fifth fruit was honestly a stunning spectacle of geometric brilliance. Its exterior was transparent like crystal, refracting light into a rainbow of colors. Dante could not be sure whether this fruit would give one the power to control gems or crystals as an element or bend and manipulate light while making themselves invisible at will.
The sixth fruit in Dante's hands looked like a miniature mountain range, with a rough, earthy surface that resembled the landscape. This one was a no-brainer, it definitely granted its consumer the incredible power to cause earthquakes and manipulate the very ground beneath their feet.
The seventh fruit was rather strange, and it was a study in silence. Its skin was a deep, velvety black, and it had feathers that resembled the wings of an owl. Dante was not sure, but due to the fact that he couldn't even hear the reverberation when he smacked the fruit, it was likely that eating it granted the ability to silence sound in a specific area, rendering it utterly silent and undetectable.
The eighth and final fruit was the most magnificent, resembling an intricately designed hourglass. This fruit had a grayish-black exterior with a glassy, transparent center. Dante was willing to bet once again that those who consumed it would gain control over time, allowing them to slow, stop, or even rewind time within a limited radius.
Holding them, Dante's eyes narrowed, and he was not excited. In fact, he finally understood how the school had gained the information for these fruits to be able to partly replicate them.
It was likely that these virtual fruits were modeled after fruits that were brought out of the Zero Gate in the past and had been researched using special methods, allowing them to extract a part of what made them special!
The reason for Dante's confidence was especially the last fruit, the time one. A time-related superpower fruit of condensation had only ever been brought out once, and that was obviously by Lara Sanguis, the headmistress!
At that time, she was in her fifth year as a student, but she had already reached the A Rank in her initial superpower which was Pyrogenesis. It was said that her flames could even reach the temperature of an exploding star, so battleships and the like were useless against her because she could burn them into slag in an instant.
When she had brought it out, the entire universe was like a boiling keg and many began to froth at the mouth. The ability to control time was too overpowered, and while many coveted it, what they feared the most was that their enemy would acquire it.
After all, who knew how they could be toyed with in stopped time, or have time continually rewind when they made a victory for their enemy to turn it into a loss? It was too problematic to be left out there, especially for the political powerhouses.
So a lot of pressure fell onto the shoulders of the young Lara, who did not seem fazed and basically in non-verbal terms, told the entire universe to fuck off. Naturally, many attempts were made on her, but all were slaughtered publicly and brutally, to the point that even the cruel serial killers felt nauseous.
Eventually, everyone was left speechless by her power and her willingness to use it so 'creatively', so they left her alone. The legends about Lara Sanguis were never overexaggerated and were mostly underexaggerated because the things she had done embarrassed the others.
She probably even had the arrogance to drop her fruit off at the school's research institute for them to check it out for this world's details before taking it back and eating it before unlocking that time superpower of hers.
That would probably explain why this fruit was here.
He then took the fire fruit and decided to begin his first test. Dante converged his hellfire over the fire fruit and began to refine it using Gluttonous Inferno, trying to see whether he could discover some unique utility or way to absorb such virtual fruits for his own use.
In the end, he speechlessly found that his fire did nothing to the fruit despite its high temperatures, and to his embarrassment, the fruit had eaten a lot of his hellfire and significantly depleted his Internal Force without him being able to get it back.
In fact, the fruit looked even more radiant and lifelike, making Dante feel robbed. However, he did take out his space element fruit and imbue raw space element from his core into them, noticing that it also consumed them without any rejection.
This fact made Dante ponder. Would this also occur to real fruits? Could they be empowered by filling them with energy from a similar element as themselves? And if so, what benefit did it yield?
Did it increase the success rate of unlocking the superpower on consumption? Did it increase the rank of the superpower itself, granting it more potential? Did it make the user advance from F rank to E Rank right from the start in terms of potency?
Too many questions, too little answers. He could only know the full story using the real fruits, so he directly imbued both fruits with more elements for about a day of 12 hours each and then consumed them.
The reaction was the same, he didn't unlock anything, but he felt a surge of energy enter his Quantum Entanglement superpower. Unfortunately, his hours of imbuement seemed to be a waste as the range was still 10% per fruit.
He now had the level raised to 70% of the needed amount for the C Rank, but that did not make him feel happy as he could make this progress on his own just by meditating in the Black Land.
He gave up on this train of thought and tried another. He went over to the golden tree's area and found the collapsed golden ape which had lost its entire left leg. It was still lying there unconscious in a pool of blood.
Dante cast his Celestial tether and connected his mind to that of the ape.
"I know you're awake, stop pretending," he said with amusement in his voice.
The Golden Ape was stunned by the voice in its head and the fact that it could perfectly comprehend it, but it forced itself not to move for fear of being discovered. No matter what, it did not want to tangle with Dante again after seeing his power.
"Alright then, since you're dead, I shall cut up your corpse and roast it for barbecue," Dante stated menacingly, walking over while his Blood Battle Halberd began to glow with an ominous light.
Immediately, the Golden Ape trembled and jumped to its feet, entering a begging posture as it bowed its head. "Ying ying ying ying!"
It made a strange amusing sound that could be roughly translated into 'spare my life great one!' or something like that and continuously remained in a kneeling position.
Satisfied, Dante put his weapons away and glanced at it up and down. Apart from its stump where the left leg should be, it was relatively unharmed. Dante did this intentionally when he first attacked because he wanted to leave one monster alive to test his various theories on, and what better than an ape which was said to be closest to a human?
In fact, Dante himself only resonated with the Primal Ape breathing technique because of the 0.01% of his genetic makeup that still contained traces of his evolutionary path from the ape to a human over the course of generations.
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