Chapter 250 The Black Spire
Dante continued to travel forward for a few hundred meters, but all he saw was wasteland before him. Just blackened earth that was pockmarked for as far as the eye could see and a sky that was bright but never seemed to darken even as the hours went by.
If it wasn't for his constant access to his quantum chip and his ability to accurately measure the time, he might not even know what he was doing. Seeing that there was nothing but wasteland before him, Dante took the risk and used his 3rd Rank Quantum Leap to jump forward as far as his spiritual energy could carry him.
When Dante traveled he knew that he leapt over 400,000 kilometers but he still did not see any difference, which almost caused him to break down. This kind of distance and this kind of monotony was hard for a being as tiny as a human to comprehend.
Clearly, the scale of this realm was huge, and it was meant for a type of being beyond Dante's current abilities, because only they could make use of a world with such a size.
Dante refused to give up and completed multiple jumps at once, going farther and farther away without looking back in the slightest. His mind began to blur with geographic information as he could feel the weight of the distance traveled without actually spending the time on it.
If not for his already very high Intelligence, this would be problematic. A short blink spell that the series in which Quantum Leap had been upgraded from was not meant for this kind of use, but Dante could not use his long-range teleportation because it required visualization of the destination.
Then how did space mages in the Magus World find exact coordinates to teleport to in that case? There were two ways, either learn higher rank versions of the 2nd Rank Wormhole Conduit spell or use random directional teleportation.
The second method was not used at all because this one was a bit… unhinged. It was the type of teleportation that could have you 'clipping' through buildings or buried underground in sand.
Dante would not risk that and he did not have the higher upgrades of this spell. His database was limited to the 1st and 2nd ranks because he had spent weeks researching the different types of spells.
3rd rank he only looked through what he specifically needed and 4th rank he had not even touched, much less the spells at his current 5th rank. Dante shook his head and continued to teleport while steadying his mind.
Eventually, he had to stop because in the distance… he finally saw something!
Dante's eyes lit up as he cautiously gauged what he was looking at. It was a… stick? A tower?
No, it was likely a gigantic black spire that pierced down from the sky and touched the earth in an upside-down fashion. While Dante hesitated, he received the strongest feedback from his superpower, as if the cosmic tree was roaring for him to rush there as fast as he could.
It was akin to watching your younger brother play a game you had conquered in the past, and instead of finishing the level, he was dawdling in some corner looking for collectibles that did not exist.
Dante resolutely headed there, this time on foot so he could keep an eye on the area. He used his own two legs to run at his current maximum speed of over Mach 100, to cross the distance in almost a flash.
Even if this world was large, once he could visualize something on the horizon like this, it was within 5,000 to 10,000 kilometers distance, which was easy for the current him.
As Dante came to the base of the spire, he was shocked to notice that all the Zero Energy he could feel was actually being emitted from this thing! Not just that, but it radiated an aura that made his entire body tremble from top to bottom.
However, the spire was smooth without any cuts or surfaces. There was no entrance into it nor a panel he could access. It was also unresponsive to his psychic energy and his AI chip signals.
Dante hesitated and pressed his hand against the spire's body, and his face changed greatly as he felt a surge of strange power enter his body and even invade his soul space. At the same time, once this energy surged into him, he felt extremely relieved and free, like he had been carrying heavy burdens on his body the entire time.
Not to mention his connection with the cosmic tree was strengthened even further, like this spire was a signal tower that allowed them to facilitate a better resonance.
After the energy flooded him, it was called back, and Dante spent about a nanosecond in silence before a flood of information entered his mind. Luckily for him, the spire seemed to be intelligent and directly fed the information to his quantum processor AI chip to break down before shoving it into his memories.
However, the sheer quantity caused Dante to grimace and touch his temple with his free hand, rubbing it gingerly with a look of pain. He quickly raised his Intelligence using Psionics to the max, and his headache immediately subsided, becoming a piece of cake for him to process.
When he started to parse through the information, he understood many things that had been denied him and the information he had lacked. He also understood where he was and the name of this place.
The First Gate!
The Battlefield Of All Universes!
Dante's face changed many times. This place was basically a goddamn battle royale death zone for all the universes in existence to send their top fighters to decide which ones continued to exist and which ones died out.
This was why the vulture creature from earlier was so strong. It was not an outlier but the norm for this realm as everyone here had to satisfy a minimum threshold to even qualify to enter.
Dante now knew this minimum threshold. It was to have a superpower at either the C Rank or to have physical stats above the Planetary level, both conditions which Dante unfortunately satisfied.
This made him grit his teeth as he also learned that the Eternal Universe had only entered the First Gate for less than 5000 years and were considered rookies ranked near the bottom.
His home universe did not even qualify since no one had actually entered the Zero Gate and come out unscathed, so they were even 'registered'.
And speaking of registration.
.cοm Fuck!
This was what the Eternal Universe fellows had been plotting all along!
With this new information, Dante could obviously infer the information blackout he had been put under and even why. He felt it was ridiculous because it was the perfect counter to someone like him as far as they knew.
Obviously, if there saw a battlefield of all universe, the upper echelon of the Eternal universes knew that other universes existed out there. If other universes existed out there, there would be ways to travel between them, right?
And if there was a battlefield of all universes, there would be those who would employ subterfuge and espionage to achieve their goals, right?
So it was naturally possible for there to be 'external' parties in their universe trying to cause trouble. This was logical and so, looking at the sudden appearance of Dante, which defied common sense, he was already suspect of such a thing.
Dante realized that he had been in serious danger from the onset. If he did not specifically meet Beatrice in that alleyway but anyone else… would he still be free to walk around?
Beatrice was right; it was definitely fate that the two of them met.
But the funny thing was, so what? So what if Dante was a villain from an external universe? Even with his absurd growth, which was why the suspicion likely died down on him - because which universe would send their own genius to spy? - he would still fall into this trap whether he knew or not.
Because to be a spy, you have to commit to the role. Dante would have to eventually enter the First Gate and he would eventually have to come into contact with a Black Spire.
Now, what this did was to register him as a 'combatant' of the Eternal Universe.
So that was the big scheme. To make use of his ignorance - or otherwise - to force him to be tied to their life or death. Now it doesn't matter where Dante came from, if the Eternal Universe is vanquished in the First Gate, he would be vanquished along with it.
What was the best way to turn a spy or to force an uncontrollable prodigy to work with you? By tying your interests together.
The Eternal universe could rejoice; it had won this gambit.
However, they also made a despairingly fatal decision.
They did not understand who Dante was, what he was, what he represented and the sheer potential he possessed that they could not fathom.
So a victory they should celebrate would soon turn into the mournful wails of the damned!
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