Chapter 34: The first meeting with your rivals
Dante handed the Vampire King's letter to Simon, who forwarded it to the people in charge of registrations. This led directly to the affinity test, which was the final exam. It might seem like a "shortcut" that he didn't need to demonstrate anything to pass, but it was one of the rules established by the rulers for each kingdom.
They could send up to three recommendation letters, and Dante was one of the nominees, after all, he still belonged to the Vampire Kingdom, despite not following the King's Rules.
Dante was now in a queue that led directly to a kind of arena, where there were several spectators and participants. Dante heard from some members that it was a common practice for people to observe future geniuses, especially some families that recruited these geniuses for future generations and created deep bonds.
The number of combatants had grown by more than 150% in the last hundred years, so it was a common practice nowadays.
Dante was calm; he was sure he would pass, even if he had to hide what he was. Dante received a spell on his Solar Ring made by Morgana. This spell would ensure that Dante's secrets never leaked to those with good observational skills. Apart from his magical core, nothing could be seen.
Morgana did this because of the Sword Dante described to her months ago, a convenient spell, but Dante couldn't help but think that she was already preparing him for this.
Returning to his reality, he saw that he was almost approaching his turn to enter the arena. He expanded his magical zone to see if anyone was watching him with ill intentions. He knew that Morgana's Witches were hidden and monitoring things, but he was still suspicious. He had felt something strange since he arrived in the city, and it has been bothering him.
Unfortunately, he felt some extraordinary people. He disguised himself and tried not to look directly at them, but they were clearly there.
He finally entered the coliseum, where he faced numerous youths from 10 to 18 years old, talking, isolating themselves, and even sleeping. It was the first time he had seen so many people his age in the last five years, in fact, in his entire life, and it excited him.
Dante looked fearlessly at some corners of the long arena and saw about eight highly developed individuals. How did he know this? Strong people have denser auras compared to weaker ones, and these people were from different races, so it was obvious who they were.
"Two more are missing." Realizing, of course, he identified all eight... This level of strength at just thirteen years old? They were undoubtedly the heirs.
"I see... they are looking for me." Dante murmured as he saw a beautiful woman with golden hair using magic in her eyes to search among all the participants.
'What desperation.' He thought as he saw a Giant walking towards the golden-haired girl.
'Son of the Giant King and possibly that's Morgana's sister... The golden eyes don't deny that.' Dante identified them quickly; the girl didn't emanate any supernatural aura, but she clearly had a lot of Mana in her reserves, like a nuclear power plant.
Dante was wearing a black cloak with golden embroidery forming a dragon, and he also wore arm armor and a Katana.
He decided to train the third weapon during school, the Sword or the Katana was his focus. But if something went wrong, he would use the lance, after all, it was his best weapon and was almost reaching the Specialist level. His longsword was also close to that, but he didn't have a decent longsword to use it.
He observed the Giant walking towards the blonde woman and just saw the scene unfold, and soon they started arguing, the woman slapped him in the face, making him fly to the other side of the Arena.
The Giant wasn't exactly giant; the word Giant doesn't always represent height but the Race, he had bluish-gray skin, but he looked like a playboy who thought highly of himself.
Dante didn't hear the conversation, but from the expression the blonde girl made, it was clearly something disrespectful that hurt her integrity or offended her.
Dante started to observe the other heirs; he clearly saw Elizabeth Tapes sitting on the ground while meditating. Dante did a few things under Valentina's eyes, and one of them was to arrange someone to gather information for him.
"Elizabeth Tapes... a prodigy in Rapier. Direct daughter of Lisa Tapes and Vlad Dracul Tapes... Son of a dragon, dragon it must be..." Dante said looking directly at the girl's body.
Dante turned his eyes and was greeted with a Western beauty, a girl with blue hair and light platinum armor accompanied by a skirt and a greatsword... "Sara Vortex... bearer of the Durandal Sword...
The sharpest sword in the world, given by the hands of an angel..." Dante said as he looked at the majestic long sword, she was with a cloth covering it, but Dante knew exactly what was in that sword; he felt its aura being called...
'Could she be a Virtue?' Dante thought as he looked at the girl while hiding his face in his hood.
"There's no point in thinking about that now," he said while watching three knights followed by mages entering from the opposite side of him.
"It must be now." He heard the voice of a person near him, so he stood up, looked at Durandal one last time, and simply pretended he hadn't seen anything.
"Everyone pay attention!" A mage used sound magic to get everyone's attention.
"Those who are already here have been approved to enter the Academy." He said, then he took out a sphere very similar to the one Morgana used years ago to awaken his magic, but it had the color of a pearl.
"We will measure your levels. Those with the best results will go to Class A, B, and C, the worst will go to E, F." "The criteria are simple, you just need to inject your mana, and the Akasha Sphere will analyze you between Silver, Gold, and Diamond." He said, putting his hands, and three different lights appeared in small flashes.
"Who will be the first?" He said as all the students wondered why they had already passed. They thought they had to do something else to be accepted, but the final test was just a pretext to make them give their all to get there.
It was as if they had already exerted themselves fully during the race and crossed the finish line without being warned.
Dante observed everything calmly and sat on the ground again. He decided to gather information about everyone first, and then he would go through the Akasha Sphere to reveal his talent, although he knew that there probably wouldn't be any talent below the Gold Level.