Chapter 173 Exploring The Virtual Zero Gate World
Hm? What was that? How was it possible for these termites to control the earth element?
Brother, you must be joking. These fellows originate from the world in which superpowers were born; of course, they had superpowers themselves. Otherwise, how could they even be a threat to the students or even Headmistress Lara?
Dante's expression became serious. Without his AI chip, he could not identify them using the database or gauge their stats, but had to do it manually using his own estimation. He found this quite refreshing and interesting, but his face changed slightly when a group of 10 giant termites rushed towards his location.
They broke out of the earth and then faced Dante with their mandibles clacking with amusement and malice. Dante's expression changed slightly when he felt a wave of earth begin to climb up his feet rapidly and try to trap him.
He exploded with hellfire that surged into the area 15,000 meters around him wantonly, burning the ground and vegetation in the entire radius without scruples.
Because he had unlocked Gluttonous Inferno, his fire immediately 'devoured' anything in the range without wasting it, so when Dante retrieved it using his spirit sense, he got a huge boost of energy.
His foes, though, were not pleased. They screeched in agony as they were roasted alive, quickly covering themselves with layers of earth to suppress and douse the fire. It did not work since Dante had also unlocked the level 3 Lustful Ignition, which ignored all physical defenses and directly burned the mind.
So unless you were a being like a wizard from the Magus World who specifically refined the mind or went down the mental path, you would have your consciousness burned to a crisp.
What was interesting here, though, was the fact that by doing so, the hellfire Dante sent attached itself to the hive network that governed these termites and began spreading like a plague.
You could view the mind network to be like a typical spider's web, with various nodes, connections, and passages. Now you could picture that one or two nodes were lit on fire and then the fire began crazily spreading across the entire web, burning everything as it aimed to consume it all.
In reality, it meant that the giant termites standing before Dante had their beady black eyes light up in fire, like a cartoon rendition of a person who was 'fired up' or excited, but it actually meant that their brains were turned into ash.
They slumped to the ground, dead as you would expect. However, through an invisible connection, we couldn't see in our plane of existence, that fire spread elsewhere.
Through Dante's spirit sense, he saw the hundreds of termites below who disdained to deal with him suddenly stopped and screeched in agony as their eyes lit up in flames, their bodies slumping as smoke exited those now scorched sockets.
An entire hive was destroyed just like that, and there should have been more at their nest, including their queen, who was also affected by this. Dante suddenly understood the terrifying effect of his magical methods, but he knew that the Inferno Ascension technique should not have an effect like this normally.
Otherwise, Internal Arts would be surpassing even Immortal Cultivation techniques. To achieve this kind of kill, one needed to have Golden Core Dharma power at the least.
According to the common sense of the True Martial World, when Dante reached the 10th level and generated True Qi, he would be equivalent to a peak Foundation Establishment at best and could grow endlessly, but very slowly.
So Dante knew that this effect of 'leaping over' was probably due to the nature of Quantum Entanglement which hosted his magical and physical methods. If one thought about the nature of Quantum Entanglement and Quantum Networks, then it kinda added up.
Whatever the case, Dante had an understanding of his power. While he couldn't exactly scale the true power and hierarchy of the beings in this virtual Zero Gate world, he could tell that a person with around 30 points in SDI could not take down even one giant termite unless they had mad combat skills.
So for now, he would personally grade them at the 'F' rank in terms of danger. This ranking was not objective but was based on his ability to deal with the monster, so it was personal to him.
Dante glanced at the extremely withered 'clearing' he had created by crazily unleashing his flames and felt like an arsonist. He had to refine his combat senses a bit more and become efficient with his usage of power because he couldn't always fight like he was on the street.
Luckily, he still had his space element spells, which were easier to control since they directly used mind power and mental control. Even then, he had to be careful and factor in the fact that he was now a 3rd Rank Advanced Wizard and had three fully condensed 500-point intelligence spiritual cores full of space elements.
So even his 1st Rank Space Spells will hit like genuine 4th Rank space spells. With that in mind, Dante first cast the 2nd Rank Dimensional Shield, which formed a wave of purple slashes around him, looking similar to Ichigo's multislash when he first unlocked his bankai.
However, the ones that formed the shield moved much more slowly and stayed visible for a while before disappearing. Dante found that his movement was naturally unhindered by this and charged forward while keeping his spirit sense active continuously.
In the end, he found that there was a surprisingly high density of lifeforms around him, either in the air or in the vegetation around him. Since he was moving at speeds bordering madness.
Ever since he reached 1500 points in all fields, his comprehensive power was no longer simple. To find descriptions for them, Dante had to dig deep.
In terms of strength, Dante could use the wind from his fist to crush a diamond into dust. If a pure human of this universe had a punching power of 800-1000 pounds of force, then it meant that Dante could punch with 1,200,000 pounds of force!
No, that wasn't just a big number; its implications were serious. This was strength literally on par with Superman in modern comics, able to punch beings into outer space from earth or to create a giant dent in the crust.
Hm, it was about equivalent to Vegeta's full power at the end of the Buu Saga. That was how devastating it was.
In terms of Agility, if he took even a baby step forward, it could end up being like a full-power shunpo, with him appearing miles away. His current max speed was lying at mach 61.5, at 75,000 km/h.
Without special clothing he was given when he dropped, he would have likely burst into blazing flames and been left naked. Even more shockingly, the landscape of the Zero Gate world was not pressured by the force of his movement nor his momentum.
In terms of Dexterity, well, it was hard to give a comparison here. Basically, in the span of a second or in the eyes of a normal person with 1 point in all fields, Dante could make himself look genuinely like the thousand-armed Buddha just by moving his hands a bit.
Like the Flash, if he spun his arms in a circle, he could probably create a tornado that could wipe out half of a continent. If he spun his arm counter-clockwise, then he could create a mini-black hole area with the gravitational force of at least Jupiter.
In terms of Intelligence, Dante was not much smarter in terms of cunning or logical processing. Critical thinking, which was what most expected Intelligence in this case to refer to. His Intelligence here was basically raw computing power, meaning that his brain could do things faster.
The 'hardware' - his actual brain itself - was upgraded, but the 'software' - his IQ, common sense, and logic - was the same. So it was entirely possible to have 1 million intelligence and still be the biggest idiot in the universe.
However, a powerful brain did have great benefits because it could now use the waves it emitted to control the world around it, which formed various psychic powers. Previously, Dante only had telekinesis and telepathy, but now he could perform simple transvection if he wanted to.
In terms of Constitution, well, Dante could take a full-power massive rasengan to the gut and not even feel dizzy from the cutting and spinning force. He could also block a kamehame… okay no, that was a bit much.
If ki blasts could destroy planets, then a full-power energy wave would turn Dante into ash. However, Dante could go toe to toe with the likes of Superman and co. He could tank their punches, be sent crashing through countless buildings, and still not bleed, but he was not invincible.
As for Vitality, in this regard, he would probably be able to regenerate… well, not from a drop of blood, but with enough energy, he could return from anything outside of complete disintegration.
Even beheading was not enough, and he no longer had any fatal zones on his body.