Dante’s practice and progress with the Primal Ape technique were pretty rapid. By the time he had spent about 10 hours practicing, he was already at the peak of the Beginner Knight level.

He stopped here and didn’t bother to start meditating because that would take time. He simply planted a Quantum Aetherium Conduit into his avatar that would allow it to passively absorb Astral Energy to generate spiritual essence.

After doing this, he brought his main body onto the clone and felt the true power and familiarity course through him. Interestingly, his AI chip instantly received a ping from the subordinate chip in his protagonist that immediately filled Dante in with the details of the fellow’s actions during this time as well as a few requests.

Dante did not take long to parse this information and when he did, he was thoroughly speechless.

To summarize, Jameson, who thought he was the reincarnated family man, Mark Thompson, had completely changed his ways. He stopped with his sexual overindulgence in non-consensual intercourse and began to practice one of the best Meditation techniques that the AI chip gave him which was called the Primal Chaos technique.

It allowed him to generate higher quality spiritual cores using the Astral Energy he absorbed using the Quantum Aetherium Conduit which he thought was his ‘natural’ talent. This allowed him to grow far faster than the average wizard, reaching the peak of the 3rd Rank Advanced Wizard, the same realm as Dante.

Of course, this was only because of Dante’s elitist behavior with his condensation of 500-point intelligence spiritual cores, not to mention he practiced his meditation technique practically never, unlike Jameson who had it running passively at all times.

His knight’s progress was much slower, being at around the peak of the 1st Rank Beginner Knight because Jameson focused on that less, just like Dante. The Knight system was tempting to people with no power, but anyone who could practice the Magus system would not take it too seriously because they could see how flawed and limited it was.

Not to mention that Dante did not allow Jameson to access or use Quantum Vitality Serums. This was only his test-run protagonist, why would he give him such benefits? Not to mention that Dante did not have the ability to anyway.

He had no way to link his subordinate AI chip to his quantum depository to use it like a store. So the ‘system shop’ that had been promised Jameson actually never opened because the subordinate AI chip gave him an impossible first task.

If Dante took the Quantum Imprint ability, this wouldn’t be a problem, but he definitely was not going to invest much into his first round of MCs any time soon.

Jameson had reached his limit, and it was time to get rid of him. After all, if he became a 4th Rank Elite Wizard, he would be able to detect his ‘special talent’ which was the Quantum Aetherium Conduit and that was not acceptable.

After all, once he did so, he would begin to have some doubts about everything. Right now, Jameson was a typical MC, distrusting his system but fully reliant on it and believing it was from a higher power.

If he knew that the talent he was given after ‘transmigration’ was simply a strange device, he would begin to doubt heavily. After all, the original Jameson would not know what it was, but ‘Mark Thompson’ who came from Earth knew about technology and could make some guesses.

Dante shook his head and cut off the rest of the information. Jameson had actually accomplished much; he had turned around his public perception to that of a ‘born-again’ genius while he even created a hidden faction that obeyed only him through his Tradeskills.

To make up for the lack of a system shop, the AI chip allowed Jameson to acquire the best potioneering and forging skills, among others. With its meticulous help, his technique was naturally godly, and he had made a lot of money behind the scenes.

He had even gone through the usual scenes of being followed by the buyer, killing the goons in an alley, then meeting the beautiful young miss of the faction who was in a disadvantage against her brother who mysteriously believed in him as her savior, then supported her to win, and she was now yandere for him who led his faction in the shadows.

This was why Dante was speechless. There was a lot more to Jameson’s story and what he had done, but Dante did not bother to care because if he invested himself in it, he would feel heavy-hearted when the time came for him to be ‘deleted’.

Dante did not do that right away though because Jameson was currently not in the city. He was out doing the task that was impossible, which was to find the location of the Nirvana Fire of a Phoenix.

Dante did not want to interrupt him since if Jameson was successful, it would benefit Dante. He might have been previously worried and scared about taking on 9th Rank mages, but Dante did not care much anymore.

With his current base SDI, he had the same Intelligence as a peak 9th Rank mage, which meant that, putting aside all his other methods, his illusions could easily work on them. You needed to have at least twice the intelligence value of Dante to be completely immune to the Eyes of Illusion, not to mention Dante could boost himself to 20,000 using his Psionics.

Not to mention that he was now less worried about bringing in the ‘big guns’ in the form of powered-up androids from outside due to the growth of his personal power.

Anyway, Dante first walked to Master Elandor’s office. The elderly half-elf sage was poring over documents as usual and glanced at Dante who arrived with a hint of surprise. Usually, he could detect everyone who came over from miles away, but sensing Dante felt similar to trying to scan another 9th Rank mage, which should be impossible. 𝘰𝑣𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

He put his documents down and smiled at Dante. “Well, well, how are you doing, my apprentice?”

Dante bowed respectfully before sitting down at the behest of Master Elandor. He then smiled and replied to the greeting.

“I’m actually doing more than great, Master Elandor. I came here today to let you know that I have advanced to the 3rd Rank,” Dante revealed casually.

Master Elandor nodded and couldn’t help but give Dante an appreciative glance. In less than a year, he had blasted through 4 levels, from the unranked Apprentice Wizard to the 3rd Rank Advanced Wizard.

“Not only that, but I am about to break through to the 4th Rank,” Dante added on.

At this point, what could Master Elandor say? He simply glanced at Dante as if he was looking at a humanoid beast, then remembered that Dante was ‘half-demon,’ which probably explained everything.

“Do you need anything from me?” Master Elandor asked as he nodded his head.

Dante pondered and nodded. “I need some combat experience. I want to go on a slaughter of our foes, the Underworld Magisters.”

Master Elandor smiled strangely. “It’s great that you spoke about this because there is something that has been bothering us which we have no idea how to deal with.”

“The Underworld Magisters seem to have unearthed a talent of your caliber among their ranks, a previous wastrel known as Jameson Arthur. His growth, while not as great as yours, is almost on par and it has left us old guys pulling our beards all day,” Master Elandor stated with distress.

Dante’s eyes narrowed as he listened to Master Elandor’s words. This was exactly what he was hinting at when he said those words to Master Elandor because he wanted to officiate a fight between himself and Jameson so he could take him out overtly.

After all, while Dante may have created the so-called protagonist and recorded every action he made with the subordinate AI chip, he was not foolish enough to be wholly confident in it.

Just like in the book about mages he read where that bloodline warlock tricked the serpent ancestor of his bloodline due to her overconfidence in her ability to control him and eventually broke through the bloodline shackle and freed himself, who knew what plans Jameson had hidden by the side to protect himself?

It was difficult to kill a protagonist? Not really. If you fought them head-on in a competition-like manner and acted like a typical antagonist, they would typically lower their guard because they could fight above their level.

Unfortunately, Dante was not at his level. When Jameson’s guard was at its lowest, he would strike. Alternatively, Dante could just go guns blazing and execute the fellow using his full power which Jameson definitely couldn’t resist, but that was a last resort though it was easier.

Dante wanted to use the harder and more cautious way first, so no one could say he was a brash idiot if something went wrong. If something did go wrong, it was not too late for the easy and domineering way.