NOVPUB
Chapter 1098: Development and Learning
Six months after entering the Hell for the first time, Vicente was in one of his diabolical palaces, at the core of the territory he had expanded after fleeing the area in current conflict-the former territory of Devil Abby.
Undead and guardians were all around the territory, doing their patrol and surveillance as usual over the last few weeks, during which time Vicente had been dedicated to this post.
This wasn’t the first time he had stopped for weeks to stay in one place in Hell. Ever since he started learning about the Hell and paying attention to the news of the developing war, Vicente had been making strategic stops in different parts of his domain.
Now with 33 Wheels of Reincarnation in his grasp and a 4-Star Sorcerer stage cultivation, he was more confident and better-informed than ever!
At this very moment, while he could feel his entire domain calm and tranquil through his crown, Vicente was underground in his palace, testing something.
Sitting on a cushion, the light-skinned, black-haired boy-his appearance completely identical to the one he had when he entered Hell the first time-was manipulating a small spatial distortion.
This small distortion was no bigger than a stereographic pen, but Vicente had a wide, satisfied smile on his lips. 𝘯𝑜𝑣𝑝𝑢𝘣.𝑐𝑜𝑚
How could he not be pleased and excited by what was happening? In a place where space was so stable and difficult to affect, the little manipulation in front of him was an impressive sign!
Vicente was sweating significantly, putting almost all his mana into this activity, but he put his fatigue aside to look at what would be his escape route from this dimension.
Having reached his limit for the day, he moved his hands, using his pentagrams to deactivate the formation he had been working daily to refine and make it stronger for his purpose.
The distortion in front of him disappeared and the darkness of the area diminished, with the flames of the torches on the outskirts of this underground area gaining strength and illuminating the place.
With a long sigh, Vicente opened a flask and drank its bright green contents, then stood up as the ambient mana entered his unaltered body from the infernal black liquid.
Vicente had realized as soon as he arrived in Hell that, like Minos, he was different from the creatures of this dimension. His body did not change with the infernal crown and the black liquid, known as Hell Drops. He didn’t know if his case was the same as Minos’, but in his case, the black liquid in him was divided between the crown and the Throne of Darkness.
There was nothing left for his soul to expose the diabolical appearance of the Hell beings, leaving him with his human appearance untouched.
Meanwhile, Vicente felt stronger than ever, even ignoring his cultivation. All his negative pentagrams that were not yet of the violet grade seemed to be on the threshold of evolving—one of the things he would like to complete before attempting his escape from the Hell.
For all that, Vicente was very satisfied when he left his training chamber that day, returning to the surface where his Hell minions were.
"Master." Said in a low voice an old enemy Vicente had subdued in recent weeks, one of the few truly living beings from the Hell he had met after Minos’ group.
Most of the Hell’s inhabitants were undead and guardians. But neither could be considered living. The few living beings in the dimension were foreigners, like Vicente himself, and a few local natives, creatures with special life originating from the Hell’s own power.
Vicente nodded in the direction of that subordinate, already aware of a series of the Hell’s common knowledge and information to understand the local dynamics and make a local his subordinate.
The Hell, on the one hand, was an important dimension for the continuity of life on all planes of existence, a common and critical link for the existence of life. But on the other hand, the dimension was a grand stage of combat in which all those with rights-Devils-battled and fought each other politically for dominance of the dimension, or rather, for the Throne of Hell.
From this reality came all the problems of the Hell and the problems of the planes of existence, which Vicente had already discovered was also related to the end of the Nine Paths.
From the Hell’s point of view, the Nine Paths was the ethereal, spiritual structure that kept the planes of existence, including the Hell itself and Argardus, invisibly connected. It was like a boundless net, reaching out in all directions and covering every possible destination of existence.
This network had been damaged, deliberately or not, by a conflict between the strongest Transcendents of the two supreme planes—Hell and Argardus—generating not only the disconnection of many planes but also the incorrect progression in the afterlife of creatures from all planes.
Because of this, ghosts and spectres existed.
Would it be possible to repair what the Transcendents’ disputes had done? Vicente had no idea and wasn’t worried about it now. Aware of the differences in powers between him and his opponents, he was now more concerned with finishing his preparations to return to Anicane and continue his growth in a more ’peaceful’ place.
The Inviting Isles and, later, the Red Enclave, were his plans for hunting down his next pentagrams. As much as they wouldn’t give him level advancements like the Hell, in them he would hardly have to deal with Transcendents and would get better information from the other side, Argardus.
Vicente naturally didn’t trust 100% what he had discovered in the Hell. There were certainly reasons why the knowledge available there wasn’t impartial and true to the facts.
Vicente knew that he would have to return to the Hell to protect his domains and continue to strengthen himself, but he first wanted to make this trip to Anicane and get information from the other side. After that, he imagined he would be better able to deal with his infernal growth.
He said to his subordinate following him, "Let’s continue with our expansion. I want to improve one more level before I do my experiment."
"Certainly, master. You’ll definitely make it."
"Just watch out for signs of enemies. I’ve been very lucky in recent months, but this shouldn’t last forever." Vicente said soberly as his troops prepared to march once again.
