Chapter 212 Perfect Acquisition
Within the Magus World, Dante felt the difference in perception brought by his increased Quantum Entanglement. Previously, if his intrusion caused a splash that made others detect him, now it was like a small drop of water striking a placid lake.
Dante had appeared outside Arcanum Haven, one of the top cities of the entire Magus World because he did not want to fight any 9th rank Mages who were curious about his arrival.
Dante first received the transmission from his subordinate chip and found where Jameson was located. He then cast a long-range spatial teleportation spell, which was the 3rd Rank Astral Gateway.
It allowed Dante to cover about 19% of the distance, so he cast 5 more and was only about 5 kilometers away from Jameson's position. The young man was currently hiding in a cave while absorbing Astral Energy, converting it into pure spiritual essence.
Due to deception by the subordinate chip, his 'system', he was convinced to 'fortify his foundation' by accumulating spiritual essence without condensing it into a core to break through. After all, if he broke through to the next realm, he would detect his 'special talent' in his brain as well as the chip which was his 'system'.
Who knew what he would do then?
In truth, it wasn't wrong to do what the subordinate chip said. It was pretty much what Dante did that granted him power above his peers, assuming he was competing using only his Magus power system, and it was also common sense among mages.
The reason why they didn't do it was that no one had the luxury of the Quantum Aetherium Conduit which granted unlimited absorption of astral energy nor did they have Dante's growth abilities through his various powers and quantum worlds.
Dante then appeared in the same cave as Jameson, but his eyes were not focused on the young man, rather on the space behind him.
Jameson, rather surprisingly, opened his eyes and smiled at Dante as if he had sensed him long ago. "So, the mastermind is finally here."
Dante glanced behind Jameson as a pocket dimension opened up to reveal an old man with a black goatee, flowing silver hair that reached his shoulders, and pencil-thin eyebrows hanging over narrow purple eyes.
He wore a casual black vest over a tailored, purple long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and suede-like black shoes. His hands were hidden by tight and stylish black gloves with esoteric runes at the back.
The moment he appeared, the very air around him seemed to warp as he glanced at Dante with coldness that was filled with slight wariness.
"Only 4 Spiritual Cores? But you have the raw spiritual power of the 9th Rank. What a monster." The goatee man muttered to himself in a voice that was similar to Kirei Kotomine.
Dante remained calm, but he was confused. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The goatee man smiled and bowed elegantly. "My name is Master Volud, and I am the Head Teacher of the Underworld Magisters of Arcanum Haven."
Dante finally understood. "Ah, you summoned Jameson after you found that his talent and progress had skyrocketed, then scanned his body and found the implants?"
Master Volud clapped his hands with appreciation. "That's right. His family is tightly bound to the Underworld Magisters, and he himself was an apprentice of ours known for his poor talent."
Master Volud folded his arms behind his back. "Then one day, I sensed a strong flow of astral energy congregating somewhere in our territory and snuck over to inspect. There I found this lad sneakily trying to break through to the 2nd Rank, aware of the commotion he might cause."
"I was shocked for I had never seen such terrifying absorption ability that was natural, not requiring one to have a meditation technique first. If it was something that could be replicated, any factions could produce 9th Rank mages within decades and even dominate the entire world!"
"Immediately, I had the lad confess everything to me, but it was confusing. After checking his body, I found the two strange mechanical implants. It was difficult enough for me to use my 9th rank mental prowess to suppress the strange waves the implant emitted and rewrite it."
"I could not trace it to its source, the best I could do was hide my discovery as well as my involvement and hope that you would one day appear for whatever reason." Master Volud concluded with a proud smile.
Ehh…
"How are you sure I am the one? Maybe I am an assassin sent by the Celestial Arcanists to take out your genius apprentice before he reaches the 9th Rank?" Dante pointed out.
Master Volud laughed. "I would have not revealed myself so easily were it not for the fact that I detected a surge of waves leaving from the implant to the source, which was likely a way for you to ascertain young Jameson's location. Then, not even 2 minutes later, you appear in a very targeted manner."
Hoh?
"That's pretty good overall, Master Volud. Since you decided to talk this much, you must have something to say. Let's hear it for the sake of civility." Dante stated as he shook his head.
"There's no need for any violence. At our level of power, a single move from us can shake the entire world and cause countless eyes to appear on us. What I want is to negotiate a trade with you." Master Volud proposed with a confident smile.
"Oh? Do you have something I want that could possibly match the value of the implant?" Dante asked with some interest.
"Of course, I wouldn't dare appear before you and ruin my element of surprise if I didn't have something that could convince you." Master Volud pointed out with a shrug.
Dante wanted to point out that Master Volud was obviously not a space element mage as his pocket dimension had been pretty clumsy and noticeable, but there was no need to fall out over dick measuring.
"And that is?" Dante asked patiently.
"Of course, what you set Jameson out to search. You may not know this, but the Underworld Magisters are a faction that mainly practices death arts and are strongly attuned to the death element."
"In order to get closer to death, we must walk the line at which life ends and death begins without fully committing. This not only allows us to attain a form of immortality and resurrection, but we also produce unique resources of those natures that no one else can get."
Master Volud saw Dante was losing interest and laughed. "Don't worry, I am not here to give you undead resurrection resource or means, given that you specified for a Nirvana Fire of a Phoenix. It's clear that you want to bring back a person not only in perfect physical, mental, and spiritual form, but you also want them to benefit from the nirvana and ascend higher."
"Someone with such high tastes would not settle for less, so I come to you with the very item you seek." Master Volud stated calmly as he took out a small porcelain bottle.
"This is the Nirvana Fire of a True Phoenix, something we acquired at the millennial auction for 9th Rank Mages by trading a huge chunk of our special undead resurrection resource. That person said they needed to mass revive a lot of people and this? flame can unfortunately only revive one person."
Master Volud shook the bottle playfully and glanced at Dante. "So since we had the means, I decided to… uhhh…"
Immediately, Master Volud found himself staring into bright golden eyes that shone with a resplendent light, at least to him. The moment he had taken out the bottle and Dante had confirmed it was actually legit Nirvana Fire of a Phoenix, he switched on his Psionics to the max and raised his Intelligence to 20,000, more than nine times that of Master Volud.
All that was left was for the man to look, which he inevitably did, and he fell into Dante's trap. In Master Volud's eyes, Dante had tried to attack him out of greed, but Master Volud being the powerhouse he was, easily killed Dante after torturing him.
Unfortunately for Master Volud, Dante refused to release the truth about the 'implant' and died. Unfortunately, in the duration of the battle, Jameson had been killed in the aftershocks, and the bottle containing the fire was broken, allowing the near-sentient fire to escape.
This caused Master Volud endless grief as he cursed Dante for being a brute that didn't know how to treasure a gentleman's deal. Even though he naturally planned to dupe Dante of the Quantum Aetherium Conduit, both sides would be alive after, just not on speaking terms.
In reality, Dante simply took the bottle from Master Volud's grasp and placed it carefully into his quantum depository. After that, he walked over to the stunned Jameson who didn't understand why Master Volud was standing there with a completely blank expression.
Dante grabbed him by the collar and waved a hand, distorting spacetime here and preventing anyone from rewinding time to see the events that happened here in case Master Volud doubted his memories and wanted to crosscheck.
Dante then tossed Jameson into a distant corner of his quantum depository to die by quantum poisoning and then left the Magus World through a quantum portal, leaving the slowly waking up Master Volud whose memories had been 'patched'.
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