Dante left the Supreme Martial Hall and entered the city. For the first time since he had entered the True Martial World, he casually strolled to the city gates and actually exited. The gates were guarded by city guards who were at the Martial Warrior realm, demonstrating the strength of the City Lord's Mansion.
Once outside, Dante realized that there was a large radius of plains and grasslands around the city, not because it was naturally so, but for two reasons. Firstly, the lumber used to build most of the buildings in the city was harvested from nearby, and secondly, no city allowed forests within a large margin of its territory because armies and bandits could potentially hide in them.
As soon as Dante was sufficiently far from the city, he broke into a wild sprint that picked up speed as he went. Dante careened through forests, ran over bodies of water, and surged through rocky mountains head-on like an unstoppable force.
Dante's mind was not on his actions, but on his intentions. He was a 21-year-old young man with the ambition to succeed in society and prove that his bourgeoisie background wasn't the source of his success.
So he created an app that - at the time - he thought would stand out. It led to a strange accident where he was transported to this universe, and a lot of things had happened since then. He had initially been awed by everything, but now he took everything as normal.
What was bothering Dante was a growing sense of detachment and alienation. His mind and heart were unable to settle down, bouncing around various objectives like he was a character in a single-player RPG with an endless board of quests.
He came to this universe and was given a villa on futuristic earth worth so much, staffed with maids as well as caretakers who were on payroll. He was made a vice admiral of the 34th Fleet, but the fleet only existed in name and had no personnel because Beatrice was xenophobic.
He had some properties on Etonia that were gifted to him, but they were just another quantum marker to him. Even the Inferno battleship that housed his partner, Beatrice, was slowly just becoming another quantum marker.
Everything was just becoming a quantum marker, a place he could teleport to for a short time to further his goals and then head to the next point without investing time or energy into them.
This was the detachment he was feeling. Even worse was his home universe and earth. When was the last time he even went back? He felt like he had recently been in and out of the Eternal Universe and Quantum Worlds.
Especially earth. When he had first gotten his powers, he went home and fulfilled some of his parents' dreams. He enjoyed that moment and found the will to go on, but after that, when was the last time he even interacted with them?
He just fashioned together an android and tossed it over to replace him in his daily life. Honestly, given the circumstances he was in, it logically made sense for him to do that, but no matter how logic-oriented a person was, one could definitely identify something wrong with the idea.
Dante thought of his stoic father who, even though he was not happy that his son did not inherit his legacy, did not try to stop him or hinder him from achieving his own goals, and then his lovely mother, who was overworked throughout her life but made many sacrifices so that Dante could never feel neglected.
Why exactly did he chase power? Why did he work hard on those physical methods to increase his genes and his SDI? Why did he practice his magical methods to enhance his esoteric power?
Why did he go to the Eternal Academy and brave the dangers there to increase the potency of his superpower? Dante did not have the same excuse as those in the novels he read because they had no other choice.
They were in scenarios where they could die at any time, even if they hid away from it all. Even if one hid in the most remote area, a passing behemoth could casually burp and wipe it out. They lived in apocalyptic worlds where beasts had mutated into monsters or demons were descending from the abyssal plane.
However, Dante… even if he decided to never come back to the Eternal Universe today, nothing would change. He could live the entirety of his life, even as long as it was now, in peace on earth and watch the generations change.
So what exactly was he fighting for? In his mind, it was for his ambitions, for his family, and for Beatrice.
But…
His ambition was only to stand out among his peers. Given the reactions of the factions in the Eternal Universe, he definitely stood out and more. Many of his peers tossed and turned in their beds day and night, having nightmares about him.
Heck, even his seniors were all sweating, locked in meetings day and night to find ways to survive. Even the graduated alumni had placed a big red 'X' symbol on his picture, stating that no one was allowed to engage him head-on until they found another way.
So he had technically achieved that.
His parents? If he wanted to, he could bring them to his base and upgrade their quality of life tremendously, granting them power beyond what any other earthling could hope for.
Besides, could he really say he was fighting for them when he hadn't even bothered to see them for so long?
And Beatrice? Was he really fighting for her? Did Beatrice need him to fight for her? The majority of his time and effort had been spent getting here, to 2000 points in all fields so that he could achieve basic intimacy with her.
Despite how lecherous it sounded, it was not a bad goal, and Dante did not feel ashamed of it. The problem was that, why was Beatrice still at 20,000 points in all fields? Her genes were not weak like Dante's, and her passive abilities allowed her to grow her stats endlessly like her mother and become the humanoid behemoth she currently was.
So… was Beatrice deliberately limiting herself and holding herself back for him? This was something he had wanted to ask for a while, but he didn't even know how to start because he wasn't sure he would like the answer he would hear.
Dante eventually came to a stop. He noticed that he was currently in the midst of a valley and an unknown distance away from Green Wind City, and given his movement speed, he might not even be within the Great Song Kingdom anymore.
Out of habit, he left a quantum marker here and was about to leave. Unfortunately for Dante, unlike in the novels he read, he did not suddenly find epiphanies to the problems he had identified and resolve them internally.
He had raised them, but how to deal with them was not clear to him entirely.
However, he paused and thought about something. He stood there and took out a single Enhanced Energy Elixir from his quantum depository and held it in his hand silently.
Dante looked around and surveyed the area before finally smiling a little. He used more than 90% of his spiritual energy to create a powerful Pocket Dimension within a cave in this valley, placing hundreds of Enhanced Energy Elixirs within.
Dante patted his hands and had his AI chip issue a mission to the subordinate chip in Liang's brain that a great destiny had been found at Dante's location. The young man needed to secure his sister with someone trustworthy and then embark on the journey here.
After all, apart from the elixir, Dante had left one of the portable pods used by the Eternal Universe to treat injuries on the go within. If Liang could get it, he could save his sister and finally break the final shackle holding him back from going all out.
Dante found that he was quite looking forward to what Liang would do when he had no burdens on his shoulders. Would he be like Dante himself, simply fulfilling tasks to acquire power stage after stage? Or would he choose a different path? Would he stop and settle down to create a family? Would he turn into a hero who enlightened or protected the masses?
The future was a mystery.
Dante had a feeling that when he saw and understood Liang's decision, it might significantly help him with his own confusions. For now, he decided to treat the problem at the root and head back to his home.
Maybe some time spent with family and friends would help him clear his head and remind him of what exactly he wanted from this life of his.
As such, Dante sent his virtual avatar back to his room within the Supreme Martial Hall and then left the Eternal Universe with his main body.
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