The endless stars illuminating the sky of the Dream World were brightly burning, their light making the golden sand look even more beautiful than precious stones. Everything in Dream World looked straight out of a fairy tale, unfortunately, the peacefulness of this heavenly place had been violently disturbed for the past six days.
BANG!!!
"Aaaargh!!!"
CRASH!!!
"Get up!! What's the deal with you screaming at every hit?! Are you trying to earn the pity of your enemy?! Eh?!"
BOOM!!!
"SH-"
BOOOOM!!!
"AT LEAST LET ME BREATH!!!"
BOOM!!! BOOM!! BOOM!!
"Oi, weren't you the one who said 'don't show mercy, train me like you would train your son'? Eh?! What's with this pathetic display then?! If you were Baki, I would have killed you for showing me something so unsightly!!"
BANG!!!
"YA-YAROoo!!"
BANG!!
As the grunts, groans, and curses suggested, Dante was currently working on his hand-to-hand combat technique with Yujiro Hanma, and as one could tell, he wasn't having a great time. It had now been seven days since Dante entered Dream World and started his training, it had now been seven days that he lived in hell!
After Dante explained his vision for this Dream World, his teachers decided to start his training the very same day. Soon, Dante realized that he had made a grave mistake regarding his teachers.
'Telling them that we can't die here was a mistake! Now they are attacking me with the intent to kill!'
Unlike in most of the fighting mangas, there was no adaptation period for Dante's training, his teachers immediately started with Diablo's Torment difficulty, making our poor main character's life a real hell.
Dante's training took place on a structure he specifically created to facilitate his training. The place was something that many anime and manga lovers would have recognized were they given the chance to see it. To describe it simply, the whole place was an upside-down pyramid floating high up in the sky. The lower part had a shape similar to a square pyramid flipped upside-down, and the top was made of a giant thick dead tree with several buildings on it. Several buildings of a temple were located on the giant tree and around the temple was a gigantic lake. That's right, Dante had recreated God of Destruction Beerus's planet.
Just as Dante was training with Yujiro near the grand lake, the rest of his teachers were only three hundred meters away from them, all sitting comfortably on a bunch of sofas.
"Sheesh! Look at how Yujirou is showing no mercy to the kid, he sure is intense hahaha!"
Earing Roger's words, it was Mihawk who answered him.
"He is right to do so since we can't die here, we should raise the difficulty of the training as much as we can as long as it is in the realm of reason. After all, it's a question of survival."
Mihawk and the others were not stupid, although they may be immortal in this world, that was only as long as Dante stayed alive in the real world, that's why they were so harsh with their training, they wanted to ensure his survival.
"His biggest enemy is his own power. It took me years to create my sun breathing technique, and it's the process itself that allowed me to reach my current level of power. He, on the other hand, can have anything he wishes without having to work hard for it. I fear that he may decide to neglect his training."
"That would be a problem indeed. The real meaning of repetitive training is to build character and train the mind, we can't have him miss on it."
Just as they were discussing, Dante, who seemed to have just finished his training with Yujiro, joined the conversation.
"Well, you all are right, nothing beats a good training session haha! Plus, as I said before, using my dream to learn power isn't cost-efficient. Fully mastering a power is costly in terms of dream energy, why do it if I can just train it normally? Plus, it's not fun! I mean, the reason I wanted to reincarnate was to experience new things, working hard and seeing my strength rise is a pleasing feeling I must say!"
The truth was that there were multiple ways for Dante to use Dream World to become stronger and we would have to brainstorm multiple reasons for Dante not to use them. But it was simpler than that, he just wanted to have fun! When you play a video game, would you rather start the game at level 100 or grind your way up there? Some will probably say the first option. Then, tell us, which scenario gives you more satisfaction in the long term? That's right, option one, no game will let you start at level one hundred because the player's interest in the game would quickly disappear, it was the same for Dante, he wanted to grind his way up!
"I understand that you want to train your way up, and I respect it... Just, don't let your thirst for amusement put your life at risk, if you are in a dangerous situation, you should not hesitate to use your powers, they are a part of you too."
Hearing the advice from his teachers put a smile on his face, it was good to know that people were worried about him.
"Still, I have to say it is pretty frustrating that we can't help you in your battles other than by training you."
Roger wasn't the only one thinking that way, they all wanted to be able to help Dante if he ever were to meet a foe too powerful for him to defeat by himself.
"Well, that's just how it is. Giving up the ability to summon things from Dream World into the real world was the only way for me to make Dream World as crazy as it is right now. And unfortunately, that's something that even my power can't change because it's 'tied to the fundamentals rules of existence' if I remember God's words correctly."
Although he could not summon his teachers in the real world, there were still some ways for him to make something similar happen.
'I can always temporarily summon a copy of one of them with the same memories and all that, that way, it would be the same as having them by my side, although that would cost me quite a lot of energy.'
"Anyway guys, it has now been a week since I started training with you all so it's time for me to return to the other world, I will be back soon though."
That's right, it had already been a week since Dante started his hellish training, and it was finally time for him to wake up.
During this one week, Dante had been training seriously. Since he did not need to sleep in Dream World, Dante decided to train twenty hours a day, giving himself only four hours each day to consolidate what he learned during the day, before resuming his training.
Unlike a lot of Chinese novels in which the mc miraculously becomes someone extremely disciplined after getting his golden finger, Dante had to dream of himself being someone disciplined and mentally strong just so that he could endure the hell he went through. This was a blessing in disguise because it made him think more about how he wanted to dream his body and his mind. The body is the foundation of everything, a strong body would lead to better training results. One could look at it like the Super Saiyan transformation, the body being Goku's normal form and the training results being the super Saiyan transformation. The more powerful the base form, the stronger the transformation would be, so the stronger the body, the more powerful the haki would be for example.
At the end of his pondering, here was what Dante concluded.
What are the important components of a perfect body: The skin, brain, nerves, muscles, bones, and organs.
Resistant skin can offer better resistance against physical attacks.
A performant brain can process information faster and in greater quantities, which leads to better decision-making and allows one to memorize more information.
A better nervous system leads to a shorter reaction time, better reflexes, and faster movements.
Stronger muscles give more power and greater defense.
Strong and elastic bones give a better defense, they can support the muscle mass of the body better and can generate more blood.
Strong organs mean an overall better body. For example, better lungs mean more stamina, a better heart means more efficient blood circulation, better eyes mean better eyesight, etc.
Based on these parameters, Dante then started to design with the help of his teachers the best body he could hope to build his foundation.
At the end of the process, Dante ended up with a brain as powerful as a supercomputer, skin, and bones as hard as diamond and as elastic as rubber, better muscle density and elasticity, overall stronger organs, and finally a way better nervous system. Although such a body would have been perfect, such an idea was hard to implement. Simply enhancing his body throughout the year every time he had enough energy to do so would simply cost him too much energy in the long run, stopping him from dreaming other projects of him. That's why Dante decided to pay a big price in one go that would allow him to enhance his body without having to spend dream energy every few months, years, etc... that's right, Dante decided to dream of his body capable of getting better in all these aspects just by letting time pass, a body that did not need to work out.
Although still expansive, Dante would only have to gather dream energy for one year before he could have enough to make that dream a reality, leaving him to focus on the mental aspect. The mind aspect being something more abstruse, Dante knew that every change to it would cost a lot, so he again had to take the long route, choosing to give himself a mind that would become stronger with each trauma, a mind that would devour traumas to become stronger. That way, if Dante were to ever suffer from a violent experience, he would see his mind get stronger over time! Dante estimated he would need another year of accumulation to be able to make this dream a reality, showing how the aspect of the mind was even more important than the aspect of the body.
Although it took him a lot of time to design, Dante was nonetheless satisfied with the result. Since the changes in his body in the Dream World would not affect his real body, Dante had to estimate how strong his real body would be in the future. He estimated that he would get his ever-evolving body at the age of five, and from then, his body would evolve ceaselessly. Dante planned to keep accumulating energy until the UA exam entrance, where he would finally give himself the powers he was working on with his teachers. That way, after some calculations, Dante gave himself in Dream World a body equivalent to what his real body would be in eleven years, that way his training would reflect the power he would have at the start of the plot.
'Well, it's not like I will ever need my powers before right? I plan to just stay chill in the orphanage and wait for the start of the plot, I don't want any smoke!'
He probably didn't realize it, but a part of Dante still considered this world as an anime, to him, everything had a predetermined path, and as long as he did nothing, then troubles would not come his way... In a sense, he was naive, but that's a story for later.
After adjusting his body, Dante then went on with his training for the next seven days. Since he had twenty hours of training per day and five skills to work on, Dante and his teacher decided to work on each skill for four hours a day.
Thanks to the intensity of the training, the quality of his teachers, and dreaming himself talented in those skills, Dante's progress during his first week were plenty. During the week, he learned how to use total concentration breathing of the sun breathing technique and made some progress with the rokushiki. Unfortunately for him, when it came to his swordsmanship and his hand-to-hand combat, those were skills that he could not rush. Honestly, he was starting to think that his hand-to-hand combat training was just a pretext for Yujiro to beat him up since that was all that happened in those sessions. At least his sword training was simpler as Mihawk only instructed him to work on his form by swinging his sword nonstop for the entirety of the four hours, although he made sure to raise the weight of Dante's sword if the latter showed ease while doing it.
Finally, when it came to his haki, he honestly made no progress, one of the disadvantages of having a strong body was that one would become reliant on it. A strong body was a good thing for armament haki, unfortunately, Dante was working on observation haki, which required focusing more on the intent of the opponent, causing Dante to struggle a bit since his reflexes were out of this world and he tended to react based on them. Regarding his haoshoku, he already started to train it too, but he showed no progress on the coating part. Dante put a lot of importance on this skill because he considered it his main weapon against beings he would not be able to touch easily like Shigaraki or Overhaul.
After he was done evaluating the gains he made during the week, Dante was finally ready to do something he had planned to do from the beginning before he left.
"Alright guys, I'm about to add a bit more life here, let's get down a bit."
Hearing this, all the teachers became curious, all wondering what or who he would create. What they did not know though, was that the 'bit more' in Dante's mind was far from what they imagined.
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Even though he was the one to design it that way, Dante could not stop being mesmerized by the endless golden desert and the starry sky of the Dream World. This boundless world was like a white canvas, he could transform it in any way he wanted... and he was about to do just that.
Currently, Dante and his teachers had left the training ground, aka Beerus planet, and were now standing at the top of a thirty-meter tall dune, the biggest one in a ten-kilometer radius.
"Alright, guys, time to start... but before that!"
Before Roger and the others could understand anything, Dante's eyes started to shine brightly!
FLASH!! FLASH!!
Dante then aimed his two arms in front of him, both palms stretched!
BZZZT!!! BZZZT!!! BZZZT!!!
Before the curious eyes of the teachers, space started to swirl, then twist and suddenly three portals appeared in front of everybody!
SHUA!! SHUA!! SHUA!!
After the portals stabilized, three young figures slowly came out of them. One of them was a young boy with blue hair and blue eyes with an aura of warmth emanating from him. The second figure was that of another young boy with brown skin and black curly hair, an aura of carefreeness was oozing out of him. The last figure belonged to a young girl, with long black hair, bangs covering her eyes, with a dark and gloomy aura coming from her.
That's right, Dante summoned his three friends... his family... into the Dream World.
How is that possible you ask? Well, don't you remember? One of the functions of Endless Dream was to allow Dante the ability to grant access to Dream World to anyone he wanted!
BOOM!!
"Mmmh... W-Where are we?"
"*Yawwwwwn*, let me sleep, Ren..."
"..."
Since they were sleeping just a moment ago, the trio took a few moments to realize what was happening, but the moment they saw their friend Dante...
"Oh! Dante! What is going on? Oh! Ren and Kioko are here too! What a nice dream hahaha!"
"Hayato! Kioko! Andre! So cool! What kind of dream is this!"
"Dante-kun... this is not a dream."
Loyal to her character, Kioko was the first one to find the situation abnormal.
"Hahaha! Welcome, guys! How are you doing!"
Focusing their attention on Dante, it was Kioko who started to speak.
"Dante-kun... What is happening? This... is too real... not a dream."
Hearing her, Dante could not help but smile.
"You are right Kioko-chan! As insightful as always hahaha! That's right, this isn't a dream... well, it is a dream but... Aaaargh, alright, let me explain!"
Dante then went on and explained to his three little friends what the Dream World was and what his quirk was, of course without mentioning the reincarnation part.
"Wow... so your quirk lets you do anything you want!"
"That's so cool!"
"..."
The person who had the most interesting reaction was none other than the one who spoke the least, Kioko. Right now, Dante could see stars in her eyes, making him smile even more.
"Yes, this place exists thanks to my quirk."
Kioko who was downright fidgeting at this point asked him a question that was bugging her mind and probably the mind of her two other friends.
"Why did you bring us here Dante-kun?"
For a moment, Dante was so shocked that he became mute for a moment.
'She spoke a full sentence!'
After he calmed down, Dante answered her question.
"You see guys, this place is an infinite dimension in which we can do everything we want. This place will now be our headquarters! I want this place to be where we will take our most important decisions starting from today!"
After saying this, Dante waved his hand grandly, sending the golden sand around them in a frenzy.
RUMBLE!!!
SHAA!! SHAA!! SHAA!!
Before the eyes of the trio and his teachers who were now close to them, the environment around them started to change dramatically!
BOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!
Soon, buildings started to appear, soon these buildings turned into cities!
Around the cities, giant mystical mountains started to appear!
After that, lakes and rivers started to appear here and there!
After even more creations, what was a beautiful golden desert before, soon became a magnificent world similar to those breathtaking ones you see in high-quality animated movies!
"Crazy..."
Be it the three children or the teachers, they were all stunned by the scene before them, after all, an entire region had just been created before them.
SHAA!! SHAA!! SHAA!!
Before they could recover from the shock and started to gather again into many, many, many whirlwinds all around them!
SWISH!! SWISH!! SWISH!! SWISH!!
After they stabilized, figures started to exit the whirlwinds. The said figures in question came in all shapes, forms, and sizes, some were even bigger than planets!
When he looked at them, Dante started to call the name of some of them.
"Isaac Netero, Harishem The Judge, Starscourge Radan, Kaido, Aizen Sosuke, Rick Sanchez, Gojo Satoru, Hakaishin Beerus, Doom Slayer, Kratos, Superman, The Living Tribunal..."
Dante continued to call many names, they were so many that Dante would have needed hours to name them all. The more he named, the more he felt like crying... Seeing all these legendary beings was a dream that became reality!
Among the teachers, some of them could even see people they knew.
"R-Rouge..."
"Mugiwara no Luffy!"
"Baki."
"Roronoa!"
"Michikatsu..."
One after the other, they started to recognize people among the droves of new arrivals.
That's right, Dante went bonkers and summoned every character he knew from animes, mangas, comics, cartoons, and all fiction he knew!
BOOM!!!!!!!!!
After everything calmed down, Dante's body flew high into the sky and looked at all the beings he just summoned, every single one of them looking back at him.
"Welcome my friends... Welcome to our new home!"
RUMBLE!!! RUMBLE!!! RUMBLE!!!
The entire Dream World started to tremble as if the world itself was happy to not be empty anymore.
"I know that all of you have a lot of questions, but before anything..."
Dante then waved his arm again and this time all the beings before him started to shine!
"Here is my gift to you!"
SHINE!!!!!!!!!!!
What Dante had just done was simple... He had shared a bit of his authority in Dream World with them all! What does that mean? It meant that now, they could also create things within Dream World!
BOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
"Now my friends... let's truly make this place OUR HOME!!!"
RUMBLE!!! RUMBLE!!!! RUMBLE!!!
Alright!!!
Almost all the pieces are on the board, just need a couple others and the plot will finally start!