Chapter 26

Three years had passed since the beginning of the training, both physically and spiritually.

A lot has happened in the last three years, but only two things are important enough to talk about.

The first was Dio's magical training with Zatanna.

When she told him they would start studying a bit of everything, she wasn't kidding. He spent literally a year just reading about various branches of magical spells.

In the beginning, he agreed with Zatanna that a magician should have a lot of knowledge, but his patience was truly tested during that year.

He almost went against her orders to try to improve his magic on his own, but he didn't do it, or else he would have failed another of Zatanna's tests.

Finally, after a year buried in books, they began to study what he could do, which wasn't easy.

Dio started by learning mystical arts similar to his power, such as necromancy, voodoo, and curses.

It was hard to learn necromancy and voodoo as they are so different from each other. He found studying curses to be rather easy because they are extremely similar to necromancy.

He had already mentioned that he found necromancy to be pretty dark for him.

He learned a lot of spells, but he never tried to use any of them.

The same is true of voodoo; it's not a dark art, but it depends on the Loá deities, and at the moment, he's not particularly confident in negotiating with gods right now.

Now, curses were a nice and pleasant surprise. He could now curse someone to die, or he could simply curse them with bad luck.

However, he needed to make an offering of equal value in order to make a curse strong enough to kill.

It's only the cost of small curses that he can handle without feeling guilty about them.

He had learned enough about the dark arts by the end of the second year, so they started trying his abilities with what he had learned.

He had a big surprise when he began training. He was glad he had spent the last two years learning new things.

When he started creating his own spells, they came easily to him.

When he learned that he could make his own spells, he wasn't sure which path to follow.

Dio has to focus on one path and follow it.

He can train and create only long-range spells, becoming a true RPG-style magician.

He could also take a more assassin-like path by focusing on shadow magic to hide and attack by turning into a shadow, or he could just focus on conjuration and summon multiple skeletons to fight for him.

This didn't seem like a good choice for him.

He wouldn't get any use out of the training he got from Diana if he became a long-range magician or an assassin, since they use very different fighting styles.

He knew how conjuration or summoning could be used, but it could also be seen as a form of long-range attack.

There are good choices, and each has its own benefits and drawbacks.

So why not work on the benefits of all of them?

The result would be a combat mage, but that description still wasn't quite right.

So he started working on it.

In the future, he'll have more than enough time to study and create more spells in other areas.

While his magical training was progressing well, he didn't forget the importance of physical training with Diana.

Over the years, Dio's physical stats have grown. It wasn't as explosive as the first time he awakened his powers, so he didn't need time to adjust.

After three years, Dio's strength, speed, endurance, and senses had almost tripled.

There is no way to be sure of this number, but this is how he felt.

A.R.G.U.S. didn't have any equipment to check Diana's and my strength, but it was fun for him to easily lift cars around and over his head.

The fun part was watching the truck drivers think they had been robbed.

It wasn't just Diana and Zatanna who taught him.

Dr. Johnny Peril gave him several lessons on occultism, and Dr. Victoria October gave him some lessons on genetics and biology in exchange for a few vials of my blood.

Etta Candy and Steve Trevor gave him lessons on military weaponry and tactics. Dio got really close to both of them.

Dio believes this can summarize his progress in training over these three years without going into too many details.

It's easy to train compared to his social life. There were no problems during the first year.

Julia went on vacation with Vanessa during all of the school breaks, leaving the house to Diana, Etta, Steve, Diana, and Dio.

They took turns taking care of him.

The trip seemed to have accomplished its purpose when they got back. The mother and daughter were very close.

Dio doesn't know if Vanessa forced herself to learn about history to get closer to her mother, but it did help them get along better.

She kept her promise and didn't work from the museum for a while, but she got bored and started working from home while Vanessa was at school.

They would have plenty of time to spend the rest of the day this way. There's nothing wrong with Julia working.

What's important is that she learned how to balance her work and her time with her daughter. It seemed like she had finally learned that.

She also stopped talking too much about Diana or him, which helped her daughter's confidence heal as well.

Diana was also staying away and only showed up sometimes.

After five months, Julia went back to her bad habits.

She was called to excavate some ancient ruins recently found in Greece, and she accepted.

Dio knew she wasn't going to be there for a month, but she told her daughter that was the explanation.

Dio saw hope and happiness fade from Vanessa's face when one month turned into two and three.

He tried to help the girl; they got a bit closer during the time her mother was at home, but she pushed him away again, just like the first time.

The situation worsened over time. It reached a point that made Dio act as a hero for the first time.

...

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