Chapter 237 Heretical Inferno and Master Wizard
[Magical Powers: Inferno Ascension Technique (Level 7: Heretical Inferno, 58%).]
[Level 6 - Wrathful Conflagration: The user taps into the furious fires of Wrath, channeling their fury and rage into raw power. Strikes imbued with wrathful hellfire become nearly unstoppable, and the user can momentarily enter a state of controlled rage, granting immunity to pain as well as rapid regeneration and a direct increase in power by at least two-fold, with the exact amount dependent on their Strength value.]
[Level 7 - Heretical Inferno: At this level, the user attains the ability to manipulate their sinister hellfire in ways that challenge conventional martial arts. The hellfire's heretical essence, upon contact with the foe, corrupts the opponent's mind and pollutes it, converting it into hellfire demons that you can control.]
That's right, Dante had finally achieved that broken ability where he could infuse his internal force into others and forcefully convert them into hellfire demons!
What? How was that useful compared to the Eyes of Illusion?
It was more than ten times better!
First off, the Eyes of Illusion were NOT meant to be used like that. How Dante had used them to kill the Cockatrice was one of the correct ways of using it. How he used it every other time, except when creating protagonists, was utterly wrong.
Secondly, we had to first understand what the heck a hellfire demon was. This was an elite creature in the 6th level of hell, which was Wrath. It was a Strength-based creature that had crazy endurance, a huge build, and slight ranged abilities in the form of casting hellfire outwards.
But that was not what was important about hellfire demons. Hellfire demons were only as strong as the type of hellfire they were imbued with or that their master was imbued with.
So in order words, the stronger Dante's hellfire, the stronger the hellfire demons!
Thirdly, what separated something like Harold and Lucian, who had the Eyes of Illusion used on them, and hellfire demons converted from this ability was that this ability actually scaled off the power of the person being converted as well.
Obviously, Dante could not convert someone with more than half of his current stats, but anyone below that could be converted. So an enemy who had 1000 SDI average would be turned into a hellfire demon and they would retain all their knowledge, memories, and innate abilities - excluding superpowers - plus would gain the ability of the hellfire demon.
Finally, the best part about this was not just the absolute loyalty but the full autonomy of hellfire demons. They could operate freely in any part of the universe and drew their power from themselves, not from Dante.
Even better, Dante could equip them with various abilities based on the level of hellfire he infused into them. The base was level 1 when he made a common hellfire demon. So it would have a single dantian of hellfire that could be used, and it could replenish the hellfire over time like mana by burning its base energy.
So as long as it had something like an energy pool or quantum vitality elixirs or potions, it would be able to regenerate hellfire quickly.
But if Dante wanted and was willing to pay the price, he could give them level 2 spirit sense, level 3 physical penetration up to even level 6 twofold berserk. If later he surpassed level 7 and reached level 10, he could give them any ability under level 10 itself.
Even the ability to create their own hellfire demons! Of course, it worked like an MLM scheme where the higher-ranking one was, the more authority they had, so every hellfire demon created after would be beholden to Dante at the highest level.
How else did you think Satan populated hell? You don't think demons grew on trees, did you?
Dante was thoroughly satisfied. With this, he didn't need to worry about quantum poisoning anymore, and the ability called quantum summoning had become redundant. As long as he turned any monster or quantum world being into a hellfire demon, he could summon them in reality.
Dante naturally glossed over the twofold berserk over there because it was just piling on numbers at this point. Stats were good, but esoteric abilities with auxiliary uses that could be continually dug out were far better.
In a good mood, Dante worked on his mage ability. This one was far faster and much easier, taking only a few minutes at best to gather the created spiritual essence into a spiritual core and then fill it with space elements, once more increasing Dante's spatial magic multiplier.
Unfortunately, with this one, he couldn't skip stages unless he purposefully weakened himself. Unlike Internal Force which generated en masse using base energy, spiritual essence was generated through two methods only: increasing Intelligence or converting Astral Energy.
Increasing Intelligence had to be done through meditation usually, but Dante skipped the need for that by raising his stats using his special methods. He also did not bother with Astral Energy as his current growth methods were good enough.
It was impossible to refine astral energy passively, even the Quantum Aetherium Conduit required active work. The time Dante would spend working on that could be spent doing something far more productive like raising Quantum Entanglement to the A Rank or even initiating a new power system.
Anyway, Dante was now in the next rank and his power had already surpassed the moderately strong 9th Rank mage.
[Level 6: Master Wizard (5th Rank)
Mastery over space allows Master Wizards to manipulate larger portions of the environment. They can create basic wormholes for more extensive teleportation and form stable, permanent portals between locations. Master Wizards can also merge up to 3 elemental forces, casting spells like a magma-infused storm or a toxic blizzard charged with lightning.]
One thing was important to remember was that just because Dante had chosen space for all his cores did not mean he could not use spells of other elements. He could freely do so, but since he would use the raw element in the outside world, it would be less refined and condensed like the spatial elements in his spiritual core.
Hence, no percentage boost. It would work on its own raw power (based on spell rank) coupled with Dante's own raw magic power (based on his wizard rank).
Done with his upgrade session, Dante spent the next 9 days practicing the two physical methods even further. As usual, he started with the Knight Breathing system and began to grind nonstop.
Meanwhile, about 21 days ago, Dante's quantum clone descended into the third virtual world with his other students.
[World Name: Zero Gate World (Advanced)
World Owner: Eternal Academy
World Creator: Eternal Academy
World Size: Small
World Type: Shared
World Genre: Survival/Exploration
Bionics Allowed: No
Psionics Allowed: No
Superpowers Allowed: Yes
Requirements: Student ID
Duration: 30 days
Description: This is a recreation of the world behind the Zero Gate that has been refined countless times over the centuries to suit the true nature of what exists. The world behind the Zero Gate is randomly shuffled each time upon entry, but the archetype of the dangers and benefits that exist are traceable after so many voyages within.
Objectives: Survive for 30 days to pass and acquire as many Fruits of Condensation as possible.
Limitations: No Bionics, Psionics, or AI chips like in reality. One cannot leave the world until they either die or complete the tasks. Other students of the first to fifth year are present, providing severe competition.
Provisions: Your body is perfectly scanned and replicated to its truest extent, allowing you to use all your powers and abilities freely.
Upon descent, Dante's quantum clone was on the top of a mountain, able to overlook the entire realm for miles in each direction. This made the young man pause and actually take a look with his ability to see what things would be like.
As far as he could tell, the world extended into infinitum, but there seemed to be a barrier at a certain point that prevented students from crossing over it.
SCREE!
Dante glanced backward and saw a pterodactyl-like monster with blood-red eyes swooping down towards him with a look of hunger and malice in its eyes. He raised his hand and sprayed out a thick wave of hellfire that caught the monster head-on and turned it into charred barbecue.
Dante stepped aside as the corpse crashed into the rock and dug out a hole for a short distance. Ignoring the now-dead assailant, he squatted near the edge of the cliff and looked down at the lush forests below with black trees that extended as far as the eye could see with contemplation.
Another descent meant another 10 fruits, but how should he go about claiming them this time? Last time, he secretly regretted killing all the students so quickly as that had left him bored for the rest of the time, so he definitely wasn't going to do so this time.
As he pondered, he noticed some explosions in the distance that caused some trees to shatter and slowly repair themselves over time due to the ambient zero energy. That brief opening allowed him to see three students wearing different uniforms from different years furiously fighting a rather strong and large monster.
Immediately, Dante's eyes lit up as he had an idea.
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