Abilities.
They are innate powers. Some abilities were fixed, while others could be altered and improved.
Some of them were always active—which were called passive abilities—while others needed the holder's will to be activated.
Just as Dante knew how to activate his spiritual eye, he had knowledge and mysterious understanding of every active ability he had. Still, an ability's description could be useful.
Especially when realising that the passive abilities couldn't be understood by *activating* them.
Some of these abilities also provided their holders with a kind of an instinctive understanding, while others, like Dante's misfortune, wouldn't give their holders even a hint.
If someone didn't have anything to show them their runes, they would have to rely on luck to notice what they have.
Fafnir himself was completely clueless about nearly all his passive abilities. If not for the runes, he wouldn't have known about them.
But here, there was an exception. Among Dante's passive abilities—there was one that wasn't clear from its description. It was the complete opposite.
Not only was the ability's description unclear, but the ability's effect itself was pure knowledge.
Dance of Greed.
It wasn't a magical ability—unlike his other ones, it was the knowledge of a sword technique.
It manifested itself as pure knowledge that was inscribed in Dante's mind, which he now had to absorb.
Yes, a full technique that was made for only his relic, which wasn't a normal sword at all.
That was a segmented longsword with six forms, and the technique had a style for each one of them.
Other than the sixth and third styles, every other one was simple and easy to learn. But for now, Dante had to only focus on the first style.
The first style needed the sword to be in its base form, just a simple longsword that could be expanded.
Swish!
Dante swung his new sword swiftly, getting used to its light weight. The longsword was sharp and slender, attached tightly to his hand and almost impossible to lose. It won't be an exaggeration to say it was a part of him now.
He could still rotate the sword, but losing contact with it wasn't possible unless he cut his own hand.
Focusing on his new knowledge, Dante took a mid stance. It took a few tries for him to adjust himself perfectly. Although he had the knowledge, he still needed practice, or else he wouldn't have hesitated to fight the barbarian and run.
Dante took a deep breath and pointed his left index at one of the skeleton's toes: 'Let's do it.'
Bang!
A mana bullet hit the skeleton and woke it up. The skeleton gripped its sword tightly before starting to move.
Dante waited patiently until the skeleton stood on its feet. When it moved forward, Dante brought his left hand to his back and swung.
Without moving or using any energy, his slender sword moved gracefully. Swinging from left to right, Dante cut the rusty sword with ease.
Taking a low stance, Dante slashed in a black arc from right to left and sliced the skeleton's legs.
Returning to a mid stance, the sword extended as he thrust the skeleton's skull while it was falling.
Thud!
The skeleton fell lifeless to the ground, swordless, legless, and with a hole in its skull. Dante looked at it with wide eyes.
'Why is it so easy?'
Three strikes.
With a rapid speed, he attacked the skeleton gracefully three times. That was the meaning behind its description. Multiple attacks, high accuracy, rapid speed, and deadly strikes.
The best part? He barely used his stamina and didn't use any energy!
This technique was greedy, teaching him how to use his body effectively to achieve the maximum power and speed with minimul stamina consumption.
And if all that wasn't enough, the sword was sharp, too sharp! It was capable of cutting another sword!
As Dante looked at his first relic in excitement, his emotions returning slowly, he suddenly saw crimson runes appearing directly inside his eyes.
[Your Greed Knows No Bounds]
You have slain a rankless human Skeleton. Spirit absorbed: +0
Dante's eyes widened as he read the runes. That was his second ability — Greedy Soul!
Unfortunately, the skeleton either had a weak soul or didn't have one at all, causing Dante to absorb nothing from killing it.
As Dante wondered about what he should do next, he got an idea.
'Why don't I be the one to kill this time.'
All the time, Dante only cared about running. But now, he had explored everything in these ancient ruins and only had to leave it safely.
How would he do that?
He needed to kill the barbarian or pass through her, and to do that, he had to get as strong as possible before fighting her.
To become stronger, his sword was the key. With it, he could kill the shadow monsters and even the giant skeleton, which would give him all the time he needed to see what the timer behind his age would do.
Well, assuming that the barbarian wouldn't go after him even here.
If he was lucky, they would strengthen his soul—and with it his sword as well—increasing his chances of survival.
Additionally, those monsters would be perfect for him to test everything about his sword.
Dante moved to the corridor, entering the light of the blue torch, but nothing came out of his shadow.
'Not yet?'
That made some sense. If the monster had always been in his shadow, he wouldn't have survived for an entire hour unconscious.
In other words, he now had an entire hour to practice before anything could happen.
Thinking of that, Dante took a fighting stance, and began to channel his mana into the sword.
Tsss!
All of a sudden, the sword blocked his mana with crimson lightning.
Dante was confused: 'What's wrong?'
Again, he tried to infuse it with mana.
Tsss!
'Huh?'
Puzzled with the sword's behaviour, he tried to infuse it with his demonic energy.
Surprisingly, it accepted the demonic energy and didn't try to block it.
Frowning, Dante tried to move his spiritual energy to the sword. Instantly, the sword turned inky-black with traces of crimson.
'So, there is no way to infuse it with mana?'
That was a problem.
His demonic energy had been weak earlier, so he wasn't affected too much by it. But now, he didn't dare to use it recklessly after it got doubled and surpassed both his vitality and mind.
'I should be more cautious.'
Dante inhaled deeply then sliced the air.
Swish!
¢¢¢
'Where is that little dragon? There is no way that little boy passed through all the traps.'
The barbarian re-examined the room, trying to find any traces of Dante, or in her mind, Fafnir.
After seeing all the traps, she came to the conclusion that Fafnir couldn't have passed and he was hiding somewhere.
She saw him teleporting before, but while running from her, he only made three short blinks before becoming exhausted. He should have had mana and spiritual energy for only one more blink at best.
'Is it related to this magical formation?'
The barbarian crouched and scanned the blood formation, seeing it turning slowly into dust. She couldn't understand what it was used for or how he learnt it. Maybe it was a draconic formation?
The barbarian smiled sweetly as she took a notebook out of her pocket and started copying the formation.
'Anything from a heavenly race must be valuable~ Maybe I will be able to buy a good staff for Adrian after this. He should return in a month.'
After copying the formation and scanning the place for a long time, she gave up and started moving carefully into the gate.
After all, she might find something better than the dragon boy.
¢¢¢
Swish! Swish!
Swing after swing, Dante got used rapidly to his new technique. His movements were still flawed, but they were far better than Fafnir's self-created technique.
From how he had to use his muscles perfectly with every swing, Dante realized that he would have needed weeks or months to learn this technique without the knowledge inside his head.
'I wonder… who made this technique? And who killed him and turned him into a relic?'
Judging by the other styles, he knew that they should have been really strong. The real form of that centipede was definitely strong enough to kill the barbarian with one move.
He also didn't forget about the ether chains. Either the one who killed that centipede, or the centipede himself, had or got help from someone with a similar bond to him, and used that ether to block that door.
Dante really wanted to test that silver ether, but he still couldn't feel it.
'Maybe I'm lacking something.'
Finally, Dante let out a hot breath and looked at his runes to check the time. He had two hours left before the timer end, which meant that one hour had already passed.
Dante glanced at his right arm and infused it with demonic energy, testing the thing he just discovered while training.
A moment later, he stopped the enhancement, but no marks appeared on his arm.
'How did I never notice that it's immune to the physical corruption?'
Both of his new eye and arm weren't affected by his demonic energy. Well, maybe because they were literally demonic!
Of course, he still had to be careful of the mental corruption, but it felt good to have to focus on only one corruption.
'Oh, is this the monster?'
Squinting his eyes sharply, Dante looked at the dark room, and with his new eye, he noticed a small shadow darker than the darkness surrounding it, taking the shape of a circle.
'Found you.'
Dante enhanced his body with mana and covered his slender longsword in demonic shadows. Without hesitation, he charged swiftly at the monster.
The shadow monster, noticing that it was exposed, tried to run to the wall, but it was too late as Dante's sword cut it in half.
Tang!
A small, black gem emerged from the dead shadow monster and fell on the ground.
The next moment, the crimson runes returned.
[Your Greed Knows No Bounds]
You have slain a Rank 1 Shadow Fragment. Spirit absorbed: +0.1
"...."
Seeing this, Dante unconsciously opened his mouth:
"Why is it so fucking easy?"