Chapter 9 Affinities

"I heard that the elven king is allowing four people to live in his private estate." Whispered a butler inside a giant mansion.

Similar whispers were taking place all over the mansion but none could verify if it were true or not.

The mansion was located in the main city of elves located on the central continent, each race had a city to maintain neutrality except for the demons and angels.

The city's name was Onyvelion and it was ridiculously over the top, which is what the elves were aiming for. Many of the cities on the central continent had ridiculous amounts of gold funneled into them to show off against the other races. Onyvelion itself was the height of luxury for elves, many nobles bought vacation homes here. Plenty of people who devoted their lives to tradecraft also lived here due to having a central location for materials, many grandmasters made it their home. Practically all the buildings in this city had gold implemented in their architecture somewhere, the mansion that the butlers and maids were whispering in had gold in the frames of all the windows along with a golden gate that protected the entire estate.

The estate covered around twenty kilometers of space which was massive due to how inflated the prices were on the continent.

As all the maids and butlers were whispering they witnessed a portal open and all began to panic. Only a handful of people had ever witnessed spatial magic so it only invoked the fear of the unknown to the workers.

Slowly Dante and his small entourage made it out and all they saw was mayhem, all the workers were fleeing out the door while the guards were beginning an encirclement around the portal.

"Stand down idiots." Yelled a black-haired elf in a white robe. His voice was enhanced by mana that made it easy to hear for everyone in the estate.

"Welcome, my name is Folas and I'll be your attendant during your stay here." Said Folas.

"Let the elven king know that I appreciate his help," Yuna said with a bright smile.

Folas was slightly off-put but smiled since he was told how she acted towards the king, but he quickly decided all of that was above his pay grade.

"Follow me to your rooms and I'll give you a tour after we eat lunch." Folas gestured for everyone to follow him.

For the next thirty minutes everyone was shown to their bedrooms, Dante was placed right next to his mother while Ryota and Aiko were placed on the other side of the mansion.

When Dante went inside his room all you could see was a huge smile on his face. The bed was king-sized along with blankets and sheets that were ridiculously soft to the touch, he had his desk and an assortment of books for general knowledge in the corner.

Dante went to jump onto the bed but right before he could a portal opened up on it and he fell through it.

As he went through it all that met him was another mouthful of dirt. He looked over and saw his mother covering her mouth trying not to laugh.

"Sorry about that, I couldn't resist." After a few seconds, she composed herself again and got serious.

"We aren't here to do what we did the last few years, from now until it's time for your academy visit you're stuck with me." The nice Yuna was gone and was replaced by a strict and overbearing one. Dante never thought he would see this side of his mom.

"Over the next few years, we're gonna form your mana core and find out what affinities you have, and we're going to refine your control and increase your mana capacity." Yuna began ranting about what her generalized plan was and it fueled Dante with happiness.

"What are affinities?" Dante only knew maybe a quarter of what she said so far.

"Affinities are basically what element you can control, my affinities are space and nature. Only elves are able to use this affinity and space affinities are one of the top three most rare." Yuna said while forming a tiny portal in her hand.

"What are the other two?" Dante asked excitedly.

"You'll figure that out right after this." Yuna walked forward and flashed her hand past both of Dante's eyes, both of which began to reveal what they were when he was a child.

"You have special eyes that give you the ability to use cosmic elements like time and gravity, but hopefully you inherited my space magic."

Dante immediately felt power swirling in his eyes, one contained more than the other but it was still significant in both.

"Why did I just find out about this?" Dante asked.

"To make sure you didn't do anything stupid, time is a very fickle affinity and I didn't want to see you erase yourself from existence by accident." Yuna laughed knowing how inquisitive her child was.

Dante couldn't refute her point, he just took it lying down.

"Under no circumstances are you to use time without my supervision, this is new territory for the both of us." Yuna switched from laughing to glaring in a split second.

"Yes, Mother," Dante said casually.

Yuna reached her hand into a portal and pulled out a weird-looking orb.

"Are you going to tell me my future?" Dante laughed.

"No idiot, I'm going to get you to prick your finger and drop blood on it. This orb is a rare artifact that shows a person's affinities, but the upside is this one also shows which ones you can learn down the line." Yuna explained.

"Down the line?"

"Some people can undergo awakenings that elevate their existence. Your father only had a light attribute but once he became a god he acquired lightning." The territory of awakening was mostly uncharted so she couldn't elaborate much.

Dante nodded his head in affirmation before biting his fingertip to draw blood.

As soon as the blood hit the orb it disappeared, after which a vortex began to form inside the orb. An image of a lightning bolt appeared but instead of its trademark blue, it was black with a red exterior. Shortly after another image formed and it was an image of space with a black hole in the center of it. All of these were changed similarly to the lightning bolt, all black and with a red exterior. But another symbol appeared which showed a gray mountain with two additional layers that were black and red.

Dante saw this and had enough intelligence to piece together what the first ones meant, but he had no idea about the weird-looking mountain and lightning bolt. He looked over at Yuna and saw that she was rubbing her chin in thought.

"Your magic has a special attribute but I'm not sure what it is, also you'll gain a metal affinity if you awaken again but I have no idea how that happened."

Dante quickly remembered his meeting with Lucifer about the book that Bahamut acquired and quickly told Yuna about it.

"Ah, I'm assuming that book changed a certain property to your magic. Oh, that could be a problem." Yuna said with a frown.

"What?"

"Hold still please." Yuna walked forward and began chanting something, slowly multiple magic circles began appearing and passed through Dante for the next few minutes.

"Okay, it'll be okay," Yuna said enthusiastically.

"And?"

"Oh yeah, you weren't awake when I infused it with you." Yuna motioned Dante to a clearing.

"Ever since you woke up from the attack, have you noticed anything peculiar about your body?

"Ever since I got this "aether heart" I feel a slight ache along with something heavy weighing me down," Dante said.

"You have an aether heart!?" Yuna said out loud.

She immediately ran up and felt his chest, and sure enough she lost it.

"Those damn idiots!" She yelled.

She grabbed Dante's shoulders and forced him to sit down with his legs crossed.

"We're doing your mana core now!"

——

"RIGHT FLANK, CHARGE!" Roared Lucifer as he was commanding a gigantic battle.

All around him were desolate plains with nothing alive except for a small army he was currently commanding. In front of them was a horde of corrupted that numbered so high that it went out of sight.

Even though they were outnumbered, the men who were following Lucifer's orders were zealous and kept charging forward into a meat grinder.

"We won't last another day Lucifer." Yog Sothoth appeared out of nowhere and whispered to Lucifer.

"I know, but we need to buy more time for our vessel to grow." Lucifer suddenly sneezed.

"I bet she's dealing with Bahamut's gift." Lucifer laughed thinking about the time bomb they dropped back onto Aevis.

"Anyways, I'm going to personally join and fight that overlord. Hopefully, that buys us a decade since they'll lose a powerhouse." Lucifer looked up and saw another winged man but he had the telltale signs of corruption with purple veins all over him and his wings being black with a purple exterior.

"Do you need help?" Yog said.

"No, Azrael deserves to be put down by a brother," Lucifer said then immediately jumped causing a crater to form where he just was.

"So hot-headed." Yog just shook his head.

He calmly gazed at the ongoing battle in front of him and just signed, that millions of people were going to die today because of this infestation of corruption. By the end of it trillions will be dead, only once it reaches Aevis should it slow down.

Suddenly a body flew at Yog and he calmly opened a portal to redirect it and force it into the ground. When he looked at the body he frowned, it was the man who held one of many titles belonging to a war-related concept.

"It's truly a pity." He said before walking back through a portal.