Dante felt it at this moment. A certain feeling of dominance and power filled him as he looked down on hundreds of millions of beings that could not match his martial and military might head-on, so were only left with the option of cowering.
This was the path he chose from the beginning, wanting to conquer. With his advantages, he could have chosen many paths both positive and negative.
He could have been a business mogul on Earth - or in the universe - who slowly sold technology and raised the level of the species while forming a new country later.
He could have been a weapons manufacturer that produced and sold high-tech weaponry from the Eternal Universe and sparked wars across the globe - or universe - to make money off it.
He could even have been a lone power who isolated himself from world - and universal politics - only focusing on increasing his strength and perfecting his relationship with Beatrice.
But no, Dante had chosen the path of a conqueror, and he must see it through to the end. The good part was that his current satisfaction aligned with his preferences and emotions, so he was in a good mood.
Dante's ships released hundreds of android guards who were equipped with custom exosuits that had the ability to move in space, not to mention they had jet thrusters. As such, they easily organized themselves and approached each planet, pointing dark matter and psionic weapons at those meditating there.
After all, even though Dante gave an eviction order, he had to consider the logistics of moving all these beings away. Just as well that he had so many ships, they could cart these fellows away piece by piece.
He ignored the ships that got busy either capturing and escorting away those of the same species back to their home planets as well as keeping some species that were unique to enhance his database.
Dante led the Stellar Vanguard II past all this and came right in front of the Zero Gate. The hulking mass of turbulent black miasma seemed intimidating, but Dante's entire body, from tip to toe, was trembling with comfort.
Dante covered himself with his vice admiral's exosuit and teleported out of the observation deck, standing in the void of space while staring at the Zero Gate before him. Dante even reached a hand out to touch the black mist that made up the gate, and he realized that it was a semi-tangible substance.
Basically, you could feel that you were touching something, but you couldn't actually grasp it or move it. When Dante touched it, he felt a reaction from some part of his soul that was not related to his superpower, asking him if he wanted to enter.
He quickly replied no and stepped back. What a joke, even Lara with multiple A-rank superpowers could not guarantee her life in the Zero Gate outside of the 30-day weakening period in December, much less him.
Besides, the fruits only go ripe in December, which was exactly why the weakening happened. If he was going to enter now, it was just to go and fight without getting any back for his suffering.
Dante glanced at the Zero Gate once more and returned to his flagship. He then had the Stellar Vanguard II place itself right in the middle of the Zero Gate's area, and Dante gave the order to begin the biggest construction he had started yet.
Build the space base!
Dante had considered building space bases in every quadrant in the universe, but even the Eternal Universe didn't do so, only relying on their quantum network to control everything, as well as their fleets.
Building planet-side bases was easy compared to building space bases because planets had gravity and atmospheres. Not only did space lack this, but the size of the base being built required the investment of more resources to control its gravity well, its stability, and its life support system unless only non-organics were meant to stay inside.
For Dante, this base was his first stage in claiming the Zero Gate and had to be able to define this area of space from the greedy ones who would want to sneak in. He knew many would come, even those with special superpowers and such fellows could not be stopped with mere technology.
Dante would have to deal with them personally, and that was just as well. He could use them as whetstones to prepare against his competitors in the Eternal universe's Zero Gate.
Huh? What did Dante mean by this?
Hahaha, well, it should be obvious.
The ambitious young man planned to enter both gates in December and claim all 20 fruits for himself!
His Quantum Entanglement was practically built for exactly such a thing, and he could easily shift between both locations with his quantum markers. It would be easy to coordinate between both as long as his power reached the sufficient levels before the time came.
With 20 real fruits in hand… who knew how many superpowers Dante could obtain?
Despite this, the young man controlled his excitement because it was not wise to count one's eggs before they hatched. With a deep breath, Dante entered the cultivation room of the Stellar Vanguard and lay in an energy pool within, raising his Psionics and Bionics to the maximum, which increased his energy consumption.
He had raised his physical methods and magical methods, but they weren't that difficult to raise anyway. He could do them all in a short period of time with enough focus and the right resources.
What he was more concerned with was the power of Quantum Entanglement and the various abilities he could get from that tree. He was now at the C level, and his abilities were already so broken, so imagine if he hit the B-level?
Thinking like this, how could he waste his time with those methods? In the end, they were derivations of Quantum Entanglement, so the stronger the superpower itself, the stronger they would be.
After reaching the C level, he could even take in one more quantum power system without any harm so he should have another 'slot' if he reached the B level. With that in mind, Dante began absorbing ambient Zero Energy and entered his Soul Space.
Within this space, he saw the familiar sights and settings. He rushed behind the gate and saw the glowing tree in the far distance as well as the tangled wires that led to it. He had only organized about 2% of it, but it was enough to send him to the C-Rank.
Dante shrugged and continued sorting out the wires carefully rather than comprehending anything. It was clear that his fastest way to grow was to sort out the tangled mess before communicating with the tree personally.
With his advanced stats and the supplication of continuous energy from the pool he was lying in, Dante was able to enter a zone of absolute dedication and focus. The good news was that he was making progress with the Zero Energy that was so potent since his ship was literally right in front of the gate itself.
The bad news was threefold. Firstly, the energy was not as condensed and forceful as when he ate the virtual quantum fruits, so he needed more effort to replicate that level of speed and efficiency.
Secondly, he was burning more energy having his stats at 20,000 than he was regenerating from passively absorbing from the energy pool. Unfortunately, while the Quantum Clone ability allowed him to split mind, it was external and not internal, so Dante could not release his Gluttonous Inferno fire at the same time as he sorted out the threads.
Thirdly, his progress was too slow overall. Even with his stats buffed and constant energy, it would take him days to achieve what he did in seconds with the virtual fruits, making Dante understand the fundamental difference between them as well as how lucky he was.
If he wanted to get that level of progression again, he would have to get a new set of 10 virtual fruits, and that was only possible if he entered the next 30-day mock exam challenge which would be him competing with his classmates.
He still had some left from this previous session, namely the three of Gem/Light, Silence, and Time. Dante had already replicated each of them using Quantum Replication and all that was left was to test whether they could be given to others.
However, what made his expression ugly was that they, unlike other quantum items, could only be replicated once. So he had the quantum version and the replicated version within his quantum depository at the moment.
He had to be careful who he gave them to, and the candidates were his family and Beatrice. However, Dante was also worried because what if they were given quantum poisoning or something from eating it?
Yes, Aisha had been okay when she used the Mutation Cores, but Dante had been perfectly willing to risk her life in testing that, but not for his family nor Beatrice.
Read 𝓁at𝙚st chapters at (f)re𝒆we(b)novel.com Only