AN: EDIT: Sorry! To all of you who saw the update, that was my bad. I fudged up the chapter I was posting with another chapter I wrote previously. Annoying mix up that required quick adjustments between both.
Anyway, hopefully I didn't leave grammar mistakes due to my efforts. Lets try this again. Enjoy!
A quick note for something that was brought to my attention. In the last chapter, I was attempting to show in detail that Virgo and Dante did NOT fall in love or lust after each other during the bond.
The bond was supposed to be soul deep and extremely personal, and I wanted to show a lot of emotion from the two. I was implying that the two were finding something incredibly precious and were developing massive crush's, but a crush is not love or lust.
I do not believe love can form instantly, and no matter how old Dante's soul, he was physically to young for either of them to lust for each other. Virgo's kiss was purely emotional.
With that said, this is a five year time skip, so it was during those years that love slowly blossomed into what it is now.
This chapter will go into more detail there. I hope you all enjoy the ride.
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"Somebody speaking."
'Somebody thinking.'
{Telepathy}
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, or any other anime/novel/manga/fanfic that I may use.
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Chapter 4: The Journey Part 2 – The Morning, The Path Taken, and The Magic
'Stupid lovable sexy maid making me start my day…' Seventeen-year-old Dante grumbled in fake annoyance as he rubbed his head with a hand towel to dry off from his shower.
Despite his petty thoughts, he wasn't actually annoyed at waking up early. He usually wakes up early with Virgo in his arms and has no problem. It was just that he pulled a late night working on a potion, and he barely got four hours before the love of his life pushed him out of bed.
The fact that she was by his side the whole night as well was beside the point since she could always just pop over to the celestial realm, to her own personal pocket dimension, and just sleep on a time ratio which was cheating.
He wanted to cheat time like that, stupid magic. 'Meh, who cares, she would just use it as an excuse to wring me dry more often.' Dante chuckled to himself as he made his way downstairs to the kitchen.
Dressed in a loose V-neck cotton white shirt that hugged his center and baggy black sweatpants, he strolled into the kitchen with a yawn, getting the coffee maker going as his bare feet stepped on the warmed wooden flooring. 'Create a home from a magical tree, have endless warm floors, I should market that.'
That amused thought crossed his mind as he stared at the machine and hung his towel from his neck. Staring at it brought a reminiscent smile to his face. Around two years before, Dante's craving for coffee became too strong, and he was sick and tired of using his cauldrons and potion tools to do it, so he improvised.
The people of Fiore imported coffee beans from their neighboring tropical nation of Caelum, but they had never made a goddamn coffee machine! The Neanderthals were not scientifically progressed enough in the way of hot caffeinated liquid and used old, crude methods to destroy the beans.
A god damn travesty.
He wouldn't stand for it.
He would destroy the beans a better way.
With the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, Dante scoured his connections across the lands and sent his trusty maid out on her mighty stead into the horizon, searching high and low for what he desired.
Or, in reality, he just sent out a mission request to the guilds and let them contact him.
Dante was good with potions, not enchanting, smithing, or crafting. After a few interviews, he ended up dealing with a small-time but reputable town magic item craftsman in the country of Seven. The northeastern neighbor to Fiore.
He went back and forth with the crafter, an artisan passionate about his work. Dozens of prototypes were made and discarded as many nights were spent wide-eyed with determined grit before, on the morning of one fateful day, they were finally satisfied with the final model and cheered as the holy coffee machine was officially brought into the world of Fairy Tail.
The world would never be the same.
The original model went to his kitchen as it was made of expensive hardy materials with a superior quality power lacrima that would last a decade, but the design was left with the creator, who suddenly found himself with dozens of ideas on how to customize or alter the machine with cheaper materials.
Under Dante's advice, the man patented the design. After the two agreed on a contract going 70-30, with 30 going Dante's way for his contribution, the man went public with the product. He became a rising star in the business industry.
Coffee machines spread across the peninsula like a plague, enchanting poor human minds with their addictive ways and enticing scents. Dante may or may not have had a few good evil Sith laughs at seeing the profits before his maid slapped him back to general insanity, but it was worth it.
The proceeds from the deal went straight into his account at the Bank of Ishgar, where he could access his funds through a lacrima debit card in most legal stores. For a cost of one hundred thousand jewels, anyone can have a lacrima debit card keyed to their mana signature. Dante only bothered to keep twenty million Jewels in his small Requip space in case of emergencies.
The profits from the coffee machine deal quickly trailed off after the initial rush as competition appeared, and the original crafter began making new models to stay ahead and discontinued the old one, so it was more short-term profit for Dante, and he was okay with that. His profession was about making liquids, not machines that make liquids.
Feeling like pumpkin spice for the day, Dante threw the pods containing ground roasted beans, pumpkin, cloves, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg into the machine and let it run. An enchanted pipe on the side heating and foaming the milk before Dante expertly poured the froth into the steaming black liquid, forming a heart-shaped design in the foam for Virgo and a leaf for himself.
An extra grating of cinnamon for Virgo's cup, and he was satisfied while the machine went to cleaning itself.
Despite her being his personal maid, Dante wasn't an ungrateful dick. He cherished his woman, so despite her major maid kink, and she really did enjoy doing chores, he always did things with the intention of it being for two. A relationship goes two ways, and the second you stop doing things for the other is the moment you begin to take things for granted. The big things matter, but it's the little everyday things that make love thrive.
He also enjoyed making coffee, so win-win in his mind. That didn't stop Virgo from getting fondly exasperated with him, however.
She came down the stairs in only a pair of panties and one of his larger shirts, leaving her smooth legs on display, and patting her own damp chest-length pink hair with a towel, having let it grow at his request and narrowed her eyes at him in the kitchen with a low growl. Dante smirked at her over his shoulder as she prowled forward. "Master is a brute, being so rough with my hair this morning and then servicing his maid. Are you trying to take my duties from me?"
Dante chuckled and carried over both cups, leaning down to capture her soft and pouting lips. Her expression melting with a near silent whine as the two were locked in a silent battle before he pulled back, play biting her lower lip as he did, and handing her the heart-foamed cup as he walked passed her to the lounge with a satisfied smile.
A lounge outfitted with leather chairs from Bosco, strange for an underground crime-rich land, was the home to artisans of furniture the rest of the peninsula just couldn't match in skill. The two of them may have had to leave a body or a dozen to grow cold to encourage others to let them shop in peace, but the payoff was worth it as he sank into his favorite leather chair with a sigh of pleasure.
Virgo grumbled with the same pout as she held her cup and followed along. "Master is a bully." Dante's smirk melted her own frown as she wasn't really mad. With a huff, she placed her cup on the table and dropped into his lap, satisfied with the small 'oof' that left his lips.
He gave her a disgruntled look. "Was that really necessary?" She stuck her tongue out at him, and he had to resist the urge to steal that pink appendage as he sipped his coffee. A flick of a finger summoned a small flame into the hearth, igniting the dry wood waiting inside with a crackle.
Virgo enjoyed her small victory and snuggled into his side with a sigh of pleasure as she floated her cup to her hands and smiled at the foam design. Her legs kicking up over the side of the armrest as Dante ran a hand gently over her smooth pale skin.
The two breathed in sync as the beats of their hearts resounded in each other's souls, enjoying a peaceful morning moment as emotions flowed in tune over the bond without words. A little game of soul-poking each other went unsaid like a game of mental footsie. No matter how old the two got, no matter where they went, they would always be children with each other.
The drinks passed as Dante put his cup down and gently ran his palm down Virgo's back, sending tingles through her skin and causing her to raise a smooth leg to rub up against him as she send him a narrowed look that threatened him to finish whatever he starts. He smiled back at her look and leaned down for a tender kiss but pulled back before Virgo could start getting into it. "Shh love, we have things to go over."
At the sound of work, she growled but acceded with a nod, her mask as a professional personal maid sliding into place with ease despite her not actually moving from her snuggling position. Something Dante had to ease her into as she had initially gone on and on about a proper maid standing behind her master respectfully.
It took years, but he convinced the love of his life that she was his woman as well as his maid, and she could be both no matter where they were if she wished. Once the inhibitions dropped, she never missed a chance for affection, and he never once rejected giving it to her.
In a few areas, things were rocky at the start as she took the whole 'personal maid' thing seriously. She never stopped with some habits, like introducing herself under her job title to others or trying to poke things to irritate him. Dante was confident of her kinks when she seemed to always make some form of trouble for him to get him to punish her.
Fortunately and contrary to what the anime portrayed, the Virgo he knew was indeed a major S&M, but she was nowhere close to the original. Or at least far more in control of herself, he would say. At this point, she just does things to get a rise out of him and make him rougher in bed when she wants to mix things up.
Despite her words to the contrary, Virgo knew where things were heading after the bond. The day and night of the bond forming were like meeting and understanding one another on a soul deep level while forming a significant crush. But it was in the weeks and months after that that love blossomed.
Dante was too physically young to reciprocate well, so they took things slow and focused on the emotional. But as someone who prides themselves as a personal maid, Virgo was very familiar with nutrition and practically funneled food into his mouth as he went through puberty. If she mixed some herbs from the celestial realm in there, whether it was allowed or not, she wasn't admitting or denying, but he grew like a bamboo shoot.
Along with the hundreds of life-and-death battles with magic beasts and the years of intensive training, he grew and filled out like a ripening fruit, and farmer Virgo came to harvest one day.
Forget being a maiden; the woman was a succubus in love. She was insatiable, and he drowned in her taste. Intoxicated with her scent. The two were inseparable from the formation of the bond and never looked back a single time with anything but fond reminisce.
There were difficulties, small arguments, disagreements, and heated moments, but they worked through them. In recent years that work ended with quite a bit of physical activity.
The main existing argument was about the long-term game plan. Virgo was immortal; he was mortal; he refused to accept that, and she refused to hope.
But Dante was a potion master; no effect was beyond his reach. As Snape had once said, "I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death." The possibilities of potions were endless. All he needed was the recipes, the ingredients, and the skill.
And he was well on his way.
Virgo and Dante had been through a lot in the last five years.
She watched and instructed as he dove into danger willingly, always being there to give commentary and put him back together, sealing his wounds and bandaging him up. Making sure he ate and slept, continued his studies, and never missed a chance to tease him along the way.
She was an angel and devil in one, and he would have been dead a dozen times over if it weren't for her. He dove into things with a reckless wonder of a man seeing magic for the first time and thrilling in combat, and she pulled his ass out of the fire when he got in over his head and lectured him for it.
When they discovered the dwarf tree, it was her that designed the home from scratch with his input on ideas, and the two went to work under her direction. Her magic was helpful for the inner workings, like plumbing and delicate parts. Still, she wanted to use the opportunity as a training exercise for him, both encouraging and pushing him to improve his mana control.
Virgo gave the house a woman's necessary touch, and he was happy seeing her happy. Without her, Dante would have just built a simple crude cabin and been happy with it. He didn't intentionally half-ass things, but he was just satisfied with simple things sometimes.
Virgo was everywhere.
She helped with his magic, got upset if he did any of the chores, was a source of information on magic animals and plants, was an occasional sparring partner, watched over his information network, organized his schedule, and was a fantastic friend, lover, and partner.
And when her inhibitions were dropped, he saw the brutality she was capable of and fell for her harder. Both in the wild and in bed.
It wasn't even a question of why he did every possible thing he could to make her smile. She completed him in a way he wasn't sure he could live without, brought a light to every sunrise, gave him a greater purpose to grow and learn, and he lived to find every little thing that made her smile.
And Dante was to her what she was to him. He was always there for her, with simple thoughts or deep discussions. His experience was minuscule compared to hers, but his fresh and open perspective helped her work through things that stuck with her.
He gave her love, companionship, affection, and his whole heart and soul with open arms. With her he was calm, compassionate, and eager to learn. In a fight he was wild, brutal, and territorial. He was the hearth she found in the winter. A heavy soul weary from the cold winds finding shelter in his warm embrace that threatened to burn anything that threatened her.
He was hard working to an inhuman level without letting it compromise his relationship. He gave his all to every task, didn't give up without a fight, and showed no regret for dropping any work to assist her. He understood her kinks, fed them, controlled them, and became a rock for her to gauge on.
Whenever he saw her doing a chore and wasn't busy, he would butt in and take half her burden, not letting her do everything on her own. He left her exasperated, and she loved him for it, no matter how much she complained when he stepped in.
The things he did with potions amazed her, having never heard of the magic style before. She had to ask a spirit of knowledge and discovered it was a lost ancient magic style. Not Lostmagic, but Ancient magic that simply hadn't had a host in millennia, for no one was born with its aptitude.
Dante was something special, and she wanted to see everything he could create. Potions had long existed, and recipes were stumbled on, but it was all by trial and error from those without references. Counterfeits or broken records of a bygone era doing untold damage rather than helping.
And that wasn't even mentioning a certain suspicion she held since first laying eyes on the young man those years ago as she gazed into his soul, and later confirmed as she witnessed the symbol of his soul placed on her core.
The two were madly in love and wanted to see the other soar and smile.
Virgo's perfectly shaped panty clad rear ground into his lap as she adjusted her position to have her back lay entirely against his chest with her smooth legs crossed in front of her. Dantes's arms naturally came to wrap around her petite waist to rest on her full hips and secure her to him possessively.
Virgo's maid façade cracked a bit as she looked up over her shoulder at him and spoke with a breathless tone. "What order of business should we start with master?" She wasn't too happy with losing the last round of teasing.
Dante growled as the tone of her voice, the feel of her slowly grinding shapely rear, and lustful intentions were sent over the bond, trying to overwhelm his self-control and give her a metaphorical win in their endless contest to get a raise out of each other.
He bit down gently onto her collarbone and got a slight gasp of pleasure from the spirit as he nibbled there. "Work first love, behave." The slight commanding tone sent a thrill of pleasure down her spine as she acknowledged him. "Yes master."
She stopped teasing him over the bond, but her hips never stopped their slow grind as a book flew across the room into her waiting hands. "First order of business, we are low on a few ingredients. Starlight Bark, White Caps, Olive Roots, Chameleon Vines…I have planned your route to collect them efficiently." She listed over two dozen ingredients before showing him a map with a path lined out through various ecosystems.
Dante withheld his groan as he responded with his chin on her shoulder. "What would I do without you?" A hand reached up over her shoulder to gently lay against his cheek as she kissed the opposite one. "Crash and burn master." He chuckled and kissed her palm. "Continue."
She turned the page and went on. "Your orders for Baron Tip, Merchant Han, and Fredrick Terk have successfully arrived last night by delivery bird, the payments were made in full. A message was received from Mr. West, he is demanding a refund in the form of additional products as he claims his order never arrived."
"Did the carrier bird confirm the delivery?"
"It did."
"Your thoughts?"
"He's a wrinkly old man with erectile disfunction who wants more stamina restoration potions to play with prostitutes but doesn't want to spend the money."
"My thoughts exactly, blacklist him and send his wife a copy of the receipt."
Virgo giggled sadistically as she noted it down. "Yes master."
The two went down a list over the next hour, from orders pending, to reviews, to supplies needing restocking for the house and an assortment of things. She spoke clearly and professionally as the two went down his schedule, doing their best to focus without giving the other the win for distracting the other.
They came to a close when talking about his communication network. A collection of people and lacrima utterly separate from each other that fed him rumors and knowledge he needed while living off the grid and hidden from the world.
"Oh, and it seems your friend is making a few waves in the headlines." Dante raised a brow at that comment. "Which one?" Virgo's response was entirely unhelpful. "The loud one."
He rolled his eyes at how little that narrowed things down. "Just leave it on my desk, I'll look later. Anything else?"
Virgo snapped the folder shut with a notable clap and looked back at him over her shoulder as she tossed the folder on an opposite chair. "Just one more thing, m-a-s-t-e-r~." She pressed down hard into the steel rod she had been grinding her increasingly damp core into for the past hour. "There seems to be a leak I could use your help in…plugging up."
The bond was flooded with lust and love, and Dante reaffirmed for the umpteenth time that the spirit must have been directly related to a succubus as his hands reached for the edge of her shirt and took care of his love's needs. It was a morning ritual he hoped never ended.
*Line Break*
Closer to noon than morning, Dante finally managed to pull himself free from Virgo's warm embrace and deadly leg lock to head outside and go through his routine. 'It's not like sex with her isn't a hell of a workout as I fight for my life against the snu-snu, but if I want to keep growing stronger, I need to keep pushing things.'
The front of his home had a simple courtyard of cleared forest with his personal crest encircling it with the symbol of the ouroboros. The crest covered an enchantment underneath that kept the forest at bay from encroaching and obscured the view of his home from outside the clearing. Only those who had their mana signature tied into the security enchantment could see through it.
An extra bonus was that those tied into it would always have a sense of where the property was once they got within a certain radius. Useful for allies while retaining the security of his home.
He began a set of calisthenics stretches, showing the years of his intensive training as he bent like an acrobatic, dropping into a split and moving into a handstand, rotating his legs to various angles while keeping his fingertips planted in the dirt like tree roots.
He came a long way from the thin kid who robbed Everlue's mansion all those years ago with just shy of two weeks of magical self-training. Sure his mind was older and more mature, but it didn't change the fact that his body was no more fit than an active twelve-year-old and had the mana reserves of a level two RPG mage.
He needed a training montage, things to fight and push him, a base of operations, and a teacher. Luckily for him, he had the last and was a stone's throw away from the other three.
A simple question of what the wall of fog in the distance was from where he was camped out after bonding with Virgo resulted in her explaining what Danger Zones were to him and how they affected the world around them.
The Mirage Mountains were fascinating to him, having never heard of such a thing in canon, and he decided to head straight for them. Numerous dangers of the fog became prevalent to him in the following months through firsthand experience.
The fog formed illusions of increasing depth and complexity the farther one traveled into them, pulling memories from the targets through their mana to confound them in layers of illusions. Dante witnessed everything from the horrors he saw in service as a marine, to the heartbreaks of his youth, to the burials of friends and families, and everything in between.
His mind and soul were strained every day in the fog as they were battered by waves of mental and emotional turmoil. Only Virgo's constant connection through the bond, soothing and supporting him like a sole anchor keeping his small boat still in the raging oceans, kept him going. His will was forged in those weeks, one hammer blow at a time, as a gleaming edge that would cut through everything in his way was birthed. He was a young wolf that found his fangs and claws, never hesitating to take action or retreat once decided.
But that wasn't the only danger of the fog. There was a reason only S-class mages were a minimum requirement for entering.
The fog was a parasite that fed on a mage's mana. It craved the refined liquid mana of lifeforms like a horde of ants smelling honey.
The illusions formed resulted from the fog feasting on the target's mana. It had a sticky quality that clung to lifeforms with mana until they were drained of every last drop as they walked in endless circles within the miles of fog. It was a good reason for the low lethality rating of the fog since it never directly attacked anyone. Civilians without a mana core would be more or less only slightly affected, while mages were drained viciously.
The real threat to life wasn't the fog itself but the inhabitants of said fog. Monsters adapted and birthed in the fog that sought the flesh of whatever fell prey to the illusions. Ugly blobs of shadowy monstrosities with dozens of fleshy tentacles waited patiently for prey to move close enough and swallow them whole.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on who you asked, Dante was in a unique position. His reserves were small, meaning he was constantly in a state of deep illusion and reality, snapping in and out of trances with all the turmoil involved. But his mana regeneration was higher than the drain of the fog, meaning his trances never stopped taking him in and out of reality. He could barely use any mana for fear of going empty and collapsing.
A mage hitting complete empty in their core was going out like a light no matter how they fought it. They might push beyond it with their life force, but the following days would have their own challenges and consequences.
His core was constantly battered, never filling and never hitting empty. It was an endless cycle of pressure that forced it to grow daily.
The fog's terrain was constantly changing, from flat earth to heavy forestry, quicksand pits, random ravines, and a dozen more natural barriers.
He was forced to push through with his physical traits, which weren't much. Instincts, reflexes, reaction speed, sensitivity to movement, and recognizing lifeforms through the haze of thick ethernano making up the fog became his life in those weeks as his only tools to live.
It seemingly had everything it needed to slow down a lifeform as long as possible to feed.
Virgo wasn't happy with him going through the challenge but understood his drive to grow and adventure, so she gave him a place to center himself, providing him with nutrient-rich food for every meal and keeping him safe while he slept, the fog not affecting her in the slightest due to her celestial energy. She let him learn through experience and only stepped in if he was a step away from severe injury.
Slowly his own style of combat was forged through the constant attacks. The marine corps never actually taught him how to fight against such things. They taught tactics, hot weapons, team strategies, critical thinking, and various survival tactics. But pure fighting style? No, they went for lethality and taught you how to act in guerilla warfare, going for the eyes, throat, or groin with vicious focus and eliminating a threat. Others were free to take on actual martial arts, but the marines went straight for practical use rather than style with MCMAP.
Dante only knew the basics of martial arts and did his best to form his style through repetition. Making every attack, counterattack, dodge, and movement as close to the same as possible. As Bruce Lee once said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
Three months it took. Three months of a true crucible, putting him to the test and trying to break him before it spat him out the other side a refined ore. Rapidly expanding his mana reserves to ten times their original size and putting his core in a fragile state as it tried to heal from surface fractures.
It took weeks of sitting by the edge of the fog for his paranoia of what was reality to settle as Virgo helped him through it. She talked to him about her own life and experiences, sharing stories of amusing situations she found herself in over the years.
She got him to talk of his own experiences to reassure himself of his reality and where he was.
The two grew closer in that time, learning more about the other in a way the bond couldn't share. They felt emotions, saw who the other was deep down, and were connected by soul and energy, but memories were their own.
They had to actually speak or share them for the other to know of them. Dante's mind wouldn't be able to comprehend or handle the strain of Virgo's memories, and Virgo wasn't interested in anything he wouldn't share.
Deep in his pain, with Virgo watching over him by a fire and sharing her experiences, Dante told her of his life, and she didn't even bat an eye at him being a transmigrated soul. Having mentioned she met a few others over the years who said similar things.
Although a few of them had her questioning their mental states and the look she sent Dante got her a forehead flick for her cheek.
All he said about the anime itself was that he saw a potential future path of the world, and she never asked anything more. She explained clearly that people who focused on the future stopped living in the moment and often created self-fulfilling prophecies. Dante felt the ancient weight of her words and assumed she had long since researched the area for whatever reason before dropping the topic. She never asked about it again.
There was never any risk of sharing his life with her. She was incapable of betrayal through desire or the rules of a spirit. Dante didn't even care about his past life being a secret, but he still decided to keep it close to his chest, letting the past pass away as his new life was built on the ashes of his past. There was never a need to share that past with others besides Virgo.
The two bonded as friends, allies, and companions, and a heavy crush slowly blossomed into love. They became more affectionate, soft touches and cuddling becoming the norm. As he physically grew, kisses became more common and progressed into more exploration. And eventually, as he physically developed enough, it came to its climax, and they never came down.
It took years for things to come to that climax, and the flames never lowered in intensity. But at that point, after his first trip through the fog, they enjoyed the slow budding feelings over their bond.
Ironically enough, it was only on the inner side of the fog that Dante discovered a particular flower that could be used to create a potion to become immune to the fog for a brief time. Vengeance came upon the inhabitants of the fog in a way that would go down in legend if it were ever recorded.
It says something when Virgo has to be the one to stop him from inflicting punishment. When it wasn't on her anyway.
The two journeyed through the Mirage Mountains in the months after, crossing one unique and diverse ecosystem after another as Dante was pushed and torn apart by the elements and beasts that made the environment their own under Virgo's strict teaching. She sadistically poked every beast just barely within his ability to fight and led them toward him.
She took his desires and fulfilled them to the very best of her ability as a personal maid. Dante was half convinced she just enjoyed bandaging him up and having him at her mercy to fuss over. The rough animalistic make-out sessions that often followed only seemed to drive her on further to ignite his responses.
Despite that, he loved every minute. He fell in love with the Mirage Mountains as they called to a primal part of him that grew with every day. It was a fantasy wonderland of ecosystems that took his breath away one after the other.
Floating mountains, waterfalls that flowed up, crystal forests, fauna and flora forests straight out of an Avatar movie, lands that rained lightning, living icebergs, hell, he even saw a mountain-sized turtle that generated its own liquor spring on its back.
And the magical beasts that lived in these environments were as diverse as they could come. The monstrosities of the fog were at the bottom of the food chain as scavengers compared to the world inside.
A flashback to an old Indiana Jones movie where a man was dragged off by a horde of ants flashed through his mind the one time he stumbled on a nest of giant dog-sized ants and accidentally stepped on an ant larva, seeing thousands of eyes turn his way.
The war of pure chaos that he started that day by running for his life, chased by hundreds of furious ants, as Virgo sadistically laughed maniacally and spanked every single sign of animal life they passed continued for three days before calming down as that ecosystem was painted red.
She had the nerve to look at his half-dead body lying in the dirt and ask for punishment. Dante spanked her for a minute for every instance he almost lost his life in those three days. Dante's knowledge of dirty talk grew three sizes that day as Virgo went off hard enough to cause a sailors great grandaddy to get slapped. He was very grateful no other intelligent life was in the vicinity, but the pair of parrots watching aptly didn't speak well for the future of that ecosystem.
It was over a year after passing through the fog that they entered the ecosystem of redwood trees. The dwarf redwood was stumbled onto by pure accident as Dante tore through the woods in battle with three giant monkey magical beasts. They were like the much more brutal and hungry versions of Vulcans who traded lust for wrath.
Virgo picked up his bloody and bruised body at the base of the dwarf redwood where he had finished off the last monkey, and the two looked upon the tree with a strange feeling. The two matched eyes and suddenly knew they wanted to set down in that spot. The tree was assuredly magical and called to them in a way, speaking of protection and warmth.
Dante had pitched the idea of calling it Big Bertha as a joke before getting slapped on the back of the head by his maid for it. The fact that that moment started a furious make-out session beneath the burrows of the tree went unsaid, but they found their place.
The following year was spent carving out their home. An interesting fact about trees that Dante came to learn was that the inner portions of wood were not needed for a tree to survive and thrive. The outer bark and layers, as well as the roots, were what a tree required to take in nutrients, meaning the tree remained alive and well with their burrowing. The two went to great lengths to not harm its vital parts.
The building process was used by Virgo to train his control of his magic more than anything else. In those early years, his mana reserves was his main weak area, so she wanted to ensure he could use every bit efficiently. There was nothing like precise construction and carving work to force someone to focus. Especially when it was your own home and you had those glowing eyes threatening to go poke something if you failed hovering over your shoulder.
It didn't matter if he punished her for it; she wanted to be punished.
As their home grew, so to did his control to a rapid degree. Dante knew he would never be a magical powerhouse without some significant changes to his spell formula's, so he became dangerous in other ways.
Control was his motto in body, mind, and magic. Virgo enjoyed challenging that control on a daily or hourly basis, but he wasn't complaining.
Knowledge was a tool, one he made use of as he studied the theory of magic in depth and how he used it.
He slowly developed his pathways under Virgo's guidance, increasing the number of figure eights in patterns that could be built on endlessly and condensed. His mana regeneration and the speed at which his mana reacted to his wishes increased rapidly with every new pathway.
And over the last five years, as he grew, his mana reserves deepened further and further, pushed beyond the natural growth by his challenges and especially through every trip into the fog. Nothing could compare to that first trip that expanded his reserves multiple times in a short time, but every bit helped. His core was like a piece of coal that had to be pressured and put through great stress without harming its structure to turn it into a diamond without shattering along the way. It was a delicate balance but one he willingly went through to progress rapidly.
These days his pure mana reserves were mid S-class in the amount held and still growing. But thanks to Virgo's strict teaching from a time when his reserves were small, his control was always ahead of his reserves. He didn't waste mana and used his spells for precisely what he wanted them to do, expanding the possibilities of his basic spells.
Dante finished his calisthenics stretches and exercises with a long planche pushup before flipping up and moving into his spells.
Magic circles blossomed in the palms of his hand rather than large and showy ones as his spells actualized.
Burner flames burned through a corona of colors as he directed them in various ways. Whips of flames curved through the air from the direction of his pointer and middle finger as he snapped his wrist in patterns with gentle applications of Telekinesis, pressurized spiked cones of flame extended from his fist as he struck the air, knives of burning heat sung through the air attached to his fists, and bursts of burner flames from beneath his feet propelled him through the air in an aerodynamic display that would make Iron Man envious.
With a gesture of his fingers and will, flames shot up around him like rune traps ignited with pillars of condensed flame. Nothing was out of control; no tree was set aflame outside the courtyard, and no leaf turned brown. Every flame went exactly as far and as hot as he desired.
Everything was controlled as he squeezed every drop from his mana without waste. He couldn't afford to waste. Overcharging his basic spells would burn him out in quick order, and he would be useless mana-wise. But he didn't need to be large and flashy to be deadly.
Fire transitioned into pure water; globes of water birthed in a dozen slowly rotating spheres around his form. A gesture of his hand slowly gripping into a fist condensed the balls into various shapes.
A water whip extended from one sphere, sharpened pointed needles ejected from another, jets of cutting focused pressure that could pierce diamond launched from a third, a gentle mist that obscured vision left a fourth, and a mana-fueled fog that confounded the senses left a sixth. The last one was a trick he picked up from studying the fog and learning how the ethernano-infused water caused illusions. He couldn't absorb another's mana, but he could slowly drain them as he trapped them in their own minds as their internal mana was dispersed into the air.
Water vanished into droplets that watered the roots of the home behind him.
Perfectly sized stones in the same shape shot out from a pile beneath the roots into his telekinetic grasp. Rotating slowly and assuredly before moving into various patterns.
Sweat dripped from his brow as he concentrated on two dozen stones at once. The flames already had thrust, and the water spheres from his Pure Water spell floated on their own accord once actualized, but anything telekinetically held needed his concentrated focus. It was an area he wasn't specialized in and often mentally praised Erza for as he realized how difficult a branch of magic it truly was. If it weren't native to his magic, he was sure he would never manage it with any success.
But if there was anything Dante believed in, it was that repetition was the path to success. Specifically, repetition backed by knowledge and experience rather than blindly punching something repeatedly and hoping to get better. He learned early on that spells also worked on repetition; the more a mage performed a spell in specific ways, the easier it was to form the mental image and final result.
Dante's drive and desire to learn never stopped over the years. He devoured knowledge of magic theory like a machine, producing his own conclusions that he discussed with Virgo for hours on end long into the night. He tossed away the confusing and often incorrect conflicting knowledge of magic and developed his own understanding of a simple and to-the-point system of how magic worked in the world.
That wasn't to say no one else knew this information, but just that it was much less confusing in his mind when put into simple terms.
Ethernano was within everything in the world. No stone or lifeform didn't have a trace of the tiny gas particle energy flowing through it. Mages were mages because they had a mana core. A mana core turned the gas-like ethernano into liquid mana for a mage to use.
Magic came in two primary forms. Caster and Holder magic. And was further branched into Lost and Ancient magic.
Caster magic came from a mage being born with an affinity to a single style of magic. Their natural affinity that connected with the world on their creation. Or, as scholars put it, every caster had a seed within their core. The seed was their connection to a branch of magic formed at their birth.
The seed gave every mage access to knowledge on the fundamental knowledge and spells of their magic, just as Dante received knowledge from his own. And not only that but the seed was further used to automatically process a mage's neutral base mana into the elements needed for the spell as it passed from their core.
But every magic style was different, and no two seeds were the same. Magic power, magic resistance, spells, constitution, utility, and more were traits that every magic style specialized.
Two people born with caster magic for fire would have very different results. For example, Natsu's fire dragon slayer magic, Bora's fire magic, and Macao's fire magic. All three were fire magic, but with wildly different focuses.
Natsu's magic focused heavily on things like magic power, resistance, instincts, and constitution. While Dante's magic focused heavily on utility, not aimed toward combat but crafting.
With enough training, everyone can develop all the characteristics involved, but every magic style will always have a preference it leads toward. Going along with that preference can lead a mage to greater heights rather than wasting time trying to be good at everything.
Dante had to put in five times the effort of a combat focused mage like Natsu to have traits that came naturally to them, but even with that, his basic spells would always limit him being a power type mage. He could pump more mana into a fire spell, but it would be an overpowered fireball in comparison to less mana spent on a fire missile.
He learned how to control his spells to an extremely fine degree to get the most out of them without wasting mana or collapsing the spell formula entirely, but his power per spell just couldn't exceed a certain level without more advanced formulas.
Every caster was required to train their magical control and develop their reserves to delve deeper into the possibilities of their magic, although only some ever truly did. The seed was simply a tier limiter, but the possibilities of a branch of magic within each tier were up to the mage to explore and develop on their own. The path of growth was riddled with danger and challenge, and only the few had the drive to push on. The stages of seed tiers were termed into three phases. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Awakening.
Every caster who develops enough mana naturally begins the 1st Awakening at some point. But around 85% of mages worldwide settle with the first stage of their knowledge without pushing on. Not every mage needed to be combat capable or specialized. Magic has an endless amount of applications, and many passions bring mages to different results. But they will never rise further without the pressure and challenge that pushes their reserves to expand and delve deeper into mastery.
The 2nd Awakening granted a mage further knowledge of their magic through theory, knowledge, and more advanced spells. What every magic style focuses on specifically is always different. Unlocking the 2nd Awakening is not just about mana reserves but delving deeper into the core of a magic style and proving your understanding.
How that proof was accomplished was a widely debated topic but in essence, you had to grasp the purpose of your magic style. For someone like Natsu, that could be delving deeper into his dragon aspects, causing destruction, eating specific fires, or any kind of thing. For someone like Dante, he obviously needed to make a potion. A potion that showed the heights his skills and understanding had reached.
Virgo also heavily advised him that mastery of his spells would be critical to the next stage. Dante assumed that he needed to be able use his mastery of all six spells to create a potion that proved his understanding of potion creation.
14% of the rest of mages make it to the 2nd Awakening and are forced to stop for various reasons. Injuries, contentment with their place, change of passions, age, forming a family, the list goes on and on. At the 2nd Awakening, they discover new spells and further knowledge of the inner workings of their magic, allowing for more potential usage.
These mages often go on to become the aces of guilds, guild masters, popular S class mages, and wizard saints. 2nd stage mages were also able to write tomes with their knowledge for others to learn and earn large profits. It is the reason why hundreds of uncategorized spells littered the world.
Reaching 3rd Awakening was incredibly vague. The books held only speculations and all Virgo shared with Dante was that it required 'deep understanding of your core'. He took that to being something like a wuxia novel in understanding the Dao. Dante was unclear on this just yet.
Only a bare 1% ever reach the 3rd Awakening. These people are the true elites who often go on to form kingdoms, S-class mages who embark on century-grade quests, or mages who disappear into danger zones on their pursuits for whatever they seek.
Reaching an awakening doesn't magically make a carp a dragon; it just gives a mage more tools and knowledge. It's up to the mage in question to actually make use of said knowledge and tools, which results in various levels of strength even among the different stages of mages.
Those at their 1st Awakening often range between F to A class mages. The range is very wide as every mage can learn to make the most out of their magic.
At 2nd Awakening, mages are often in the S-class range. This range can go from a fresh S-class all the way till the low rank of wizard saints. Many guild masters and aces are in this range.
At 3rd Awakening, mages become monsters. On the lower scale you have people like Gildarts and the four gods of Ishgar, on a higher level would be the Spriggans, and at the apex would be people like Acnologia and Zeref.
Of course, exceptions always exist. Forbidden spells, magic constructs, or even just ingenious uses of a particular branch of magic could fell anyone. After all, no matter how strong a mage becomes, in most cases anyway, a knife through the eye could still kill you. A 1st stage Awakened mage could still challenge a 3rd stage awakened mage and win, but the odds were very small.
The seed was not a source of direct power. It was the path to further understanding and removing limiters as it pushed to the apex of what its style sought. So no matter what Dante did, his magic would always, always, focus on potion creation before anything else.
Holder mages were mages born with a core but without an internal seed. They were mages who had to pick up tomes on magic and actually study the technical parts of a magic path and be able to retain that knowledge for use. They also had to learn how to become familiar with the mana used for a branch of magic through meditation, exposure to it from another source, or enlightenment.
Holder combat specialized mages often experienced a form of trauma or rare interaction that resulted in them experiencing a type of mana they could later learn to harness. They had to convert their neutral mana to the element being used to actualized spells.
Non-combat specialists often learned through paying others or friends or family helping them and usually never went far as a mage.
Mediums were another tool used by holder mages as they could inscribe their spell formulas onto objects to take the burden of the mental aspect required to cast magic. But the mediums in question needed to be able to handle the strain of the magic type being used. Trying to use simple wood for a fire spell wasn't going to work.
Holder mages had it the hardest, but the ones that pushed through often shined brightly.
A final example of Holder magic was when a mage got a feel for a different mana type, but instead of casting a new spell, they added the mana onto their own spell. An example of this would be how Natsu ate Laxus's lightning magic and later learned how to add lightning to his fire. He was unable to utilize lightning alone without a spell formula, but he could funnel lightning into his fire for additive effects.
Lost magic mages were a danger to themselves for a simple reason. Lost magic was termed 'lost' because it results in users losing themselves to the magic.
Lost magic was a holder magic that attempted to force the process of caster magic. It created a fake seed within the user's mana core that held no understanding and was used to funnel their mana through to skip the process of learning how to get a feel and wield the mana type needed for the branch of magic spells.
An example was Ultear and her time magic. The ability for a mortal to understand and convert their mana into the type that deals with time would require incredibly specific and rare circumstances that Ultear didn't have. So instead, she learned a Lost magic that created a fake seed in her core to covert her neutral mana into the type needed for time magic. The fact that she already had a caster magic related to ice was ignored in her pursuit.
Lost magic was like trying to create a manmade connection to a branch of magic. Receiving no support from the branch in knowledge, spells, or understanding. What a mage could even use the mana of the branch for was entirely up to whatever spells they found in the tome.
But once a mage loses control through traumatic situations, their medium being destroyed, spell backlash, or becoming drained of mana and damaging their mana core, their seed becomes unstable and can immediately collapse resulting in the mana that was not yours lashing out in a body not born to handle it.
Time will age you. Puppet magic will turn your body into a puppet. Water to water, dust to dust. Lost magic was a danger to the user and often locked away and forgotten.
Slayer magic is a branch of Lost magic that is corruptive in nature. It will alter your biology into the things you slay, slowly converting a mage's sanity and morality to the nature of the slayed creatures. Virgo had told him of ancient wars fought between god slayers and the hundreds of divine beings felled by their own creations as the god slayers lost their minds as their minds couldn't handle the change and often self-destructed, bringing great destruction to the world as their mana ran rampant. The surviving gods pulling back from the world into their own realms without being seen for centuries.
It brought to Dante's mind what the dragon slayer's parents actually did. How they gave up their bodies to invade their children's cores and stop the seeds from corrupting the users. His respect for those self-sacrificing parents grew considerably that day, and he decided that if he could help them, he would.
Finally, Ancient magic was simply that, ancient. Magic that had simply not been seen for prolonged periods of time because no one was born with the aptitude to be a caster of it. Dante fell under this category with his Potions Magic.
Lost and Ancient magic can often be mixed up, but the distinction was important.
Any being with a mana core could learn a wide variety of spells from various branches of magic with time, knowledge, talent, and skill, but it would never be the same as the instinctual quality of caster magic.
Dante himself was able to use a few styles aside from his own caster type. One style he learned only thanks to Virgo helping him along with understanding space attributed mana. A tattoo of his symbol of the ouroboros wrapped around his left forearm, masking the formula underneath and acting as the medium for his Requip space.
A simple input of space mana into the tattoo and Dante could be holding anything held inside his space. Although due to the nature of the tattoo, the size of the space inside was static and would remain that way, being a space only 20 x 20 x 20 big.
But that was leagues better than having to always mentally shape the spell formula every time he wanted to use the spell.
The tattoo wasn't a simple tattoo but a magic tattoo. Despite its very…basic name, Dante wanted to coin a new term for it, but no one ever took his side, so he dropped it. A magic tattoo was an excruciating and precise process done by ink mages to make medium tattoos with various effects. The mages in question were no scholars and only inked on the exact image given to them.
One mess up, and the whole thing was ruined. It was permanent, and no two magic tattoos could ever cross over or be overwritten. You had one chance per spot. And a mage couldn't make the wording smaller to save space; it was a spell formula, not a sticker. It needed to be big enough to take effect.
The process was not one he enjoyed, and it required a healing period, but it was one he planned to return to for a second time in the near future. Virgo didn't stop him, but she wouldn't let him out of her sight during his recovery, as a mage couldn't use mana until the wound healed and connected with the mana pathways.
Dante's Requip space was limited, so he designed an organizer that allowed him to keep his potions secure and separated so he could remove precisely what he wanted, when he needed it. He also kept spare money, clothes, and a few other items in there. It was a cozy and valuable item box style of Requip space.
He learned the Requip spell formula from the tome he got from Everlue years ago. Most of the tomes were on magic styles Virgo couldn't help him with, and frankly, he had enough on his plate, so he kept them squirreled away in his study for use if they ever became necessary. And because he liked hoarding things.
He only managed to learn two other types of singular effect spells thanks to Virgo's help.
Celestial magic was not one of them as he was not a natural celestial mage. Any celestial spirit could form a contract with anyone with an energy source, but only a natural born celestial mage could channel celestial energy that spirits use.
The first spell he learned was a Transformation magic spell that gave him superficial changes to his face, body, and clothes on application. It was helpful for recon and remaining hidden when he wanted but not useful for direct combat as he had to form the spell formula mentally every time he wanted to use it, which took precious time. Thankfully, once cast, he just had to feed it a steady supply of mana to keep it going.
Ironically, it was only after spending over two months learning the single basic spell that he developed a potion with the same effect. Virgo laughed hard that day and Dante was to stubborn to admit he wasted his time so he kept using the annoying spell.
The second was the magic spell for Dispel. A spell that was quite direct in dispelling another spell. The magic was complex as it required the user to either overpower the other spell in terms of mana or understand the formula of a spell and erase a piece, making it collapse in on itself. Dante learned it because far too many spells were a danger to his mind, and he wanted a sure way to dispel any effects. Status effects on the body could be solved with potions, but ones that targeted the mind were insidious.
You only had to look at Jellal or Seliah from canon to understand. Neither spell was part of his combat potential but valuable for a variety of situations.
From his own caster magic, the other three spells were useful if direct in application.
For Basic Herb Sense, Dante kept it turned down whenever he was home, so he wasn't bothered by the hundreds of pings from his potions lab. He could turn it up in the woods like now to sense general herbs. The ones with more mana in his vicinity pinging him much louder than others.
It was never off, which could be annoying, but it helped in cases where being mobile resulted in him coming into contact with poisoned food, from food poisoning to others. His sense pinged on the food to warn him, and he only had to take a look to understand what he was dealing with from his own expertise of knowledge.
The passive spell was handy in his searches as once he found an herb, he could get a sense for it in the range of his spell. A range that grew depending on the size of his mana reserves. At the current rate, he could push his sense out to a kilometer around his body in a circle, but the farther out, the less clear the effect and the more mana he has to expend.
Dante was sure he had reached the barrier of the basic formula for his spell and couldn't develop its range further as it was. He would either need to discover a new formula or unlock further knowledge from his seed.
The last two spells were the actual brunt of his profession. Basic Cauldron Creation and Basic Vial Creation.
The reason they were titled 'Basic' was not that the spell was simple but that the material he could create was 'Basic.' And even then, what he could create with just a 'basic' spell was so varied.
For vials, the materials of Stone, Glass, and Quartz limited him. No matter what he did, no other material could be made by his spell. And using premade vials of others didn't have his mana imbued, lowering the final product of his potion when he stored it.
He needed the raw materials that made up the final product, and he could make permanent, perfectly sized vials for all his needs. With just mana, he could make temporary ones that lasted as long as the mana put into them lasted.
For years Dante was stumped on how to progress the spell, every other spell he had was making progress outside the basic formula he got for free from his seed, but Vial and Cauldron creation was seemingly stuck in place. The only thing he could manage was to create them faster and with far greater detail as his mana control grew.
But one day, after learning about Requip magic, he played around with raw materials and accidentally channeled the formula for Requip with one hand while creating a vial with the other. He was in the middle of creating vials en mass for storage when he just wanted a book in his Requip space.
The next thing he knew, he was holding something new, and no book was anywhere in sight. Dante discovered that day what composite magic was.
Magic that combined two spells into one. His Requip formula for a small pocket dimension was engraved onto the potion vial and made a {Spatial Quartz Vial}. A vial made of quartz that held a space of 5 by 5 by 5 inside it.The space seemingly having reached a hard limit when placed on a vial and shrunk from the 20 x 20 x 20 his tattoo could handle to what the vial could contain.
He tried it further with Stone and Glass, and the results weren't great. The stone shattered on creation, and the glass had a space of barel 1. It helped for sure, but it wasn't ideal. Quartz was his best bet at making the spatial vials, and he could only do it on the formation of the vial, not add spatial qualities to existing vials.
Fortunately, quartz was a relatively inexpensive material on the market. Unfortunately, it had a low demand outside cheap jewelry, seeing as there were better materials out there for enchanting and crafting. Thankfully, Dante lived in a location rich in diverse ecosystems, one of which he had mapped contained a crystal forest full of quartz in dozens of colors.
It was safe to say he was well stocked on raw materials and made Spatial Vials his main go-to vial when he could help it. Some potion recipes simply worked better with glass vials, so he couldn't phase them out completely.
Glass vials could contain nothing but liquids with their size expansion, but quartz could store solid ones. It was handy for storing magic beast parts in the wild and keeping them in perfect condition until he could manage them properly at home.
They were a tad fragile however as if he pushed the size limitations, things could get….explosive. Virgo was not amused the day he blew up his lab and had shrapnel embedded in his torso. She was not amused at all. It was also the same day that he learned Quartz Spatial Vials were not meant to hold spells launched at you. They were also explosive. It was a bad day for Dante. Thankfully, he had health potions.
He was, however, excited to learn the following materials when he unlocked his 2nd Awakening.
Basic Cauldron Creation was much the same as the vials, except here, instead of his Requip spell, he managed to infuse his formula for his Dispel spell. The use of it was tremendous in his eyes as it allowed a cauldron to become one hundred percent clean of mana residue from previous potions, meaning every potion he made wasn't diluted, no matter how many he made.
It took him years to realize the issue even happened and was lowering the quality of his potions, and a year more to stop going through materials making a new cauldron every week. Some of his potions were very finicky. Unfortunately, he had no source of copper, was not skilled in mining, and didn't want to bother Virgo every time to go out and get raw copper on top of all her other duties, so he just threw money at it and burned up hundreds of thousands of Jewels on the ore.
The current cauldron in his lab was the best he had made so far in detail and enchantment. A bonus to this discovery was that he could use his Dispel spell through the medium of a cauldron, so if there was an active spell effect on a person or item, he just had to throw them in a Dispel Cauldron and overpower the magic effect with his own mana.
For whatever reason, the spells that originated from his potion magic couldn't be mixed with composite magic. Fire and water could not work with any of the materials he could create, and Dante was curious if it were due to the nature of his magic or the nature of the materials he was currently able to work with.
He could only find the answer to that after his 2nd Awakening.
The actual result of his magic, being the potions themselves, required thousands of repetitions for Dante to make genuine progress.
He worked on his potion creation every chance he got for the first few years while on the move but only truly was able to sit down and focus once his home was built. Thousands of herbs and resources were trashed as he fumbled his way through, but he improved one day at a time.
His magic didn't hold his hand. It gave him the basics, the tools, and a few recipes to work with; the rest was all on him. Slowly but surely, he developed until he mastered the first three essential potions of minor stamina, mana, and health.
He could only develop his own potion recipes, find premade ones, or go through his 2nd Awakening to progress from there.
The first was challenging but manageable the more familiar he became with the process. The second was gambling, as there were thousands of counterfeits with useless information on them. And the third wasn't ready yet.
He improvised with the first and second. Hundreds of pages in his journal were dedicated to potion creation, and his information network and connections helped with finding recipes. Often, the people who actually had usable recipes were rich and powerful, so he made them the focus of his business sales.
After five years, Ouroboros Potions were a premium product only sold through auctions and custom orders from filtered clients. To say Dante had his hand in many pies was an understatement of the decade.
Every day he combined his spells with physical movements to keep pushing himself, often trying to find new ways to mix things up and push his reserves. 'Although that's reaching its limits.' It took him almost two hours of working through his three spells before he called his workout to an end.
Dante hummed to himself in the clearing, using gentle applications of his three spells to clean the courtyard around him from his workout. 'I've hit a wall in what I'm capable of inside the limit of my spell formulas. I have to find a way to push toward my 2nd Awakening or branch out but the potion I'm developing for my awakening isn't ready and branching out isn't ideal since I don't want to have too many options.'
One might think having multiple powers would be a good thing, but those were the dreams of unrealistic children speaking. If you have two fire spells that did more or less the same thing, you had to know which one to use when a situation called for it. Freezing up in the moment to think is how you get killed. Not to mention he didn't have the time to spend on hours of research and basic training to get more spells up to his standard of control.
It took him years just to be able to use his existing three combat spells in harmony with physical combat. And those came from his own caster magic. Not even mentioning his personal weapon, which added an entire new dimension of complexity to his style. If he wanted to rise to the top, he needed to focus on the core of his skills.
Dante took inspiration from Keanu Reaves and his Gun-Foo style. He combined his magic with martial arts and knife fighting in a style that was more about combat than showmanship since he learned through repetition while in combat. He held a grace to his steps like a predator and was able to use his large mana reserves to significant effect with basic spells.
A basic spell formula had limits, overcharging them would result in a bad return for massive costs of mana whereas a stronger spell could be charged three times as high for cheaper with better effects.
Besides his hands, he only really fought with knives of steel or fire, or his personal weapon, but that area wasn't helpful for his base abilities.
His fighting style, spells, and personal weapon were powerful in close and mid-range combat. He was also powerful in mana reserves and mana regeneration. Long range, durability, magic resistance, spells capable of more magic power, and his healing factor were his weak areas. He was forced to use the environment to his advantage in long-range combat, as some magic beasts preferred that style.
He twisted his fingers, causing a ball of water to form with a flame underneath and a stone hovering above the two. It was a casual use of focus to do all three at once.
'Being realistic, my best options are simple. Increase my mana reserves, keep refining my control since control has no limit as the love of my life often described in great detail, reach my 2nd Awakening, or focus on using potions to enhance my weaker areas.' He thought about the four paths he could take, and after a minute, he dropped the stone into the water and vaporized it and the water with a flash of fire. "I'm a potions master; I should obviously just solve my problems with drugs."
Feeling satisfied with his decision, he jumped up to his second-floor balcony and plopped down into a lounge chair while pulling out his journal and getting to work developing new recipes.
It was only a few minutes later when a shadow blotted out the sunlight, and he looked up to see two intense cold blue eyes staring down at him with their own force of gravity. He froze out of habit rather than fear and dropped his pen. He knew that look. "Um…love? Babe? Muffin? Whatever I did, it wasn't me."
Virgo's voice could freeze glaciers in place. "My love, did you clean yourself off before sitting on the furniture?" Dante sweat dropped as a cold beat of sweat went down his back, idly noticing the dirt, soot, and grass stains on his clothes. "Aha…ha...ha….ha…..right. Want a massage?" The growing intensity of her gaze was her answer, and well, he tried.
A stone fist materialized and shot him off the balcony into the distance faster than he could blink.
It didn't so much as hurt ,as she wasn't actually trying to hurt him, as it got off the point of her annoyance. Virgo didn't ever try to take out real anger on him physically unless it was a spar, although that didn't stop her from being a disgruntled partner who tried to keep things clean.
Thankfully, he landed near some flowers. The glowing eyes of a magic beast a few feet away didn't change his optimism. Not at all.
Chapter end.
AN: Thoughts? More Virgo? Next chapter brings the kids! Oh, and a little fight scene for Dante. And more Virgo because it's a crime to not add more Virgo.
Oh and soon there will be more character interactions, I believe chapter 6 is where that really kicks off. I love foundation building if you couldn't tell. Chap 5 is for the family time.
Response to reviews:
Trixuny – It's not that I don't get your point, but I don't know how I feel about such things just yet. For the moment, I'm doing my best to keep things simple. More celestial spirits is not simple on top of everything else. I stripped a lot of random stuff from the OLD version that was pointless. Maybe at a later point in the story I can look into more keys, but ONLY silver keys. No other zodiacs are joining Dante and Virgo.
Diabolos Aides – Thanks :)
RexKnight – I can consider Alchemy much farther down the line of this story, but for now nothing like that is happening. Its straight potions and nothing but potions so help me fluff.
Aku no Kotei – Thanks! I tried a lot to make the bond shine. I'm sure I made it to wordy in areas but I like to try and cover bases when I can. I took out Celestial spirit magic in this chapter if you noticed those sentences as while they are powerful, it still isn't what I'm looking for. I want Dante forced to advance through ways unique to him. Potions have so much potential to be nerfed by giving him more magic styles.
dragonfighter11 – Ikr. I fell in love with Virgo as I wrote her.