The entrance to the cave was a jagged mouth in the mountainside, breathing out a foul stench of damp rock and animal musk.
It was teeming with monsters, a nest of high-level Zone D creatures. A week ago, this would have been an impossible obstacle, a place they would have marked on their map and avoided at all costs.
Now, it was just another resource node waiting to be harvested.
Dante stood before it, his arms crossed, feeling the thrum of stolen power coursing through him. He didn't need to risk his team. He didn't even need to risk himself.
He had a tool for this kind of menial labor.
He focused his will, and the ground beside him darkened. Shadows coiled and solidified, rising into the towering, brutish form of his newest puppet: the spectral echo of the Orc Champion.
It was a masterpiece of necromantic art, its violet eyes burning with a cold, controlled fury, its massive frame radiating an aura of pure physical dominance.
"Go," Dante commanded, his voice flat. "Kill everything inside. Leave nothing alive."
The Orc Champion let out a silent, psychic roar that only Dante could feel, a wave of its former battle lust now perfectly shackled to his will. It lowered its head and charged into the darkness of the cave.
Beside him, his team stood in a tense, weary silence. They didn't participate. They didn't need to. This was the new dynamic.
The massive harvest of mana from the orc horde had done more than just heal him; it had expanded the very vessel of his soul, granting him the capacity for one more puppet. His limit was now six.
He had wanted to summon his full army, to unleash all six of his spectral lieutenants and watch them tear the cave apart in a beautiful symphony of death. But the battle with Rhonda had taught him a valuable lesson.
Maintaining six powerful puppets, especially one as potent as the Orc Champion, was a severe drain on his mana. It was more efficient to use a single, powerful tool for the job.
So, his team waited, now merely spectators, while his undead slave did the heavy lifting.
The sounds from within the cave were horrific.
SHRIEK!
The high-pitched cries of giant bats echoed out, followed by the guttural yelps of dog-like kobolds. Above it all was the phantom roar of his champion.
CRUNCH!
The clash of its shadow axe against rock and flesh was a constant, percussive beat in their grim vigil. They were waiting for the screams to die down, waiting for the champion to finish its work so they could go in and collect their harvest.
This zone, which should have been a deadly challenge, had become laughably easy. They were already planning their advance into Zone C.
A weird smile touched Dante's lips. 'New zone, new adventure, huh? Sounds fun,' he murmured to himself, the irony a private, amusing joke.
Yesterday had been a strange, quiet day. The team had spent it recovering their strength. He had spent it integrating their newest, most volatile asset.
"Hey, Kael."
The Mimic, who had been nervously watching the cave entrance, flinched and turned to him. "Yes, Dante? What is it?"
"Your skill," Dante began, getting straight to the point. "The description you gave me, that you can only keep three copied skills at a time. Has that changed?"
"My own capacity for mana increased when I absorbed the power from the orcs. Has your limit increased as well?"
Kael shook his head, a look of thoughtful concentration on his face. "No, it's not increasing my capacity. I'm still limited to three skills."
"But consuming the mana cores... it's doing something else. It's making my copied skills more stable, less faulty. The 'imprint' feels stronger, more permanent."
He added quickly, "I can still erase a previous skill to make room for a new one, though."
'Interesting,' Dante thought. 'So his power grows in quality, not quantity. A balancing mechanic, but a useful one.'
'It prevents him from becoming a walking encyclopedia of every skill, but it allows him to perfect the ones he chooses. This makes his choices even more critical.'
"So, the faults you mentioned before are decreasing?" he asked aloud.
Kael hesitated, trying to find the right words. "It's like… the copy becomes a higher resolution. When I first copied Leo's Warpstep, it felt shaky, like I might lose it."
"After absorbing some mana, the skill feels solid, like it's truly mine. The distance is consistent, the mana cost is lower."
He looked down at his hands. "The 'faults' aren't with the copied skills themselves anymore. The real fault of my ability is that there are some skills I just can't copy at all."
"Like yours. Or Rina's healing. Or Edgar's Appraisal. I can see you use them, but when I try to copy them, it's like trying to grab smoke. There's nothing there for me to hold onto."
Dante nodded, the pieces clicking into place in his mind. "I figured. Our skills are bound to our core, to the very essence of who we are."
"Rina doesn't just cast a healing spell; she is a healer. My Necromancy isn't a technique; it's an extension of my soul. You can't copy that."
He looked Kael over. "But the other skills, the ones you can copy, are different. They're signature-based."
"A specific pattern of mana manipulation that you can observe and replicate. Masha's ice magic, for example. It comes from her core, but the way she shapes it into a spear is a technique."
"You don't have her core affinity for ice, but you can copy the signature of the spear spell itself."
Dante gave him a cold smile. "But you are not useless, after all. Just keep the most useful skills in your arsenal. By the way, what skills do you have stored currently?"
Kael seemed relieved that he wasn't being discarded. "I erased the Berserker Rage. It was too draining. Right now, I have Leo's Warpstep for mobility, the lightning mage's Lightning Bolt for a ranged attack, and I copied the Orc Champion's Brutal Swing before you sent it in."
"It's a simple, heavy-hitting physical enhancement."
"Perfect for now," Dante said. A teleport, a ranged attack, and a close-quarters power move. A versatile toolkit.
Just as he finished his assessment, a sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his mind. The psychic tether connecting him to his Orc Champion snapped back, receding into his soul like a broken rubber band. The puppet was gone.
"Looks like my mana ran out," Dante said, a flicker of annoyance passing over his face. The champion was more draining than he had anticipated. "But I guess he's done ninety percent of the job."
He turned to his team, who had been listening to his conversation with Kael with varying degrees of interest and fear. "Can you all clean up the rest?"
The reaction was immediate. Three pairs of eyes Talia's, Masha's, and Erica's looked at him with a shared, profound sense of boredom and irritation.
"Can't I just rest for a while?" Talia complained, leaning against a rock and massaging her sword hand. "We've been on edge for two days straight. My eyes hurt from staring into the dark."
"She has a point," Masha added, her arms crossed, her voice dripping with her signature sarcasm. "Your pet monster gets to have all the fun, and we get to go mop up the leftovers? What an honor."
Even Erica, his ever-loyal valkyrie, looked tired. "Dante, we are still recovering. Perhaps we should rest first and clear the cave in the morning."
He fixed them with a cold stare. "The mana cores inside will begin to degrade the longer the corpses sit. We are moving to Zone C tomorrow."
"I want every last drop of power we can squeeze from this place before we do. Now, go."
His tone left no room for argument. With a collective, weary sigh, the team prepared themselves.
Jin and Eric took the lead, their shields raised, and they entered the dark, monster-filled cave that his puppet had so graciously pre-cleared for them.
The girls followed, their annoyance clear in every reluctant step. Kael gave Dante a nervous glance before joining them.
Dante sat down on a rock, conserving his own energy, and listened to the sounds of the "clean-up." The fighting was brief, punctuated by the occasional flash of magic from the cave mouth.
They were finishing off the wounded, the stragglers. It was easy work, but it was still work they had to do while he rested.
A few minutes later, they emerged, dragging the corpses of giant bats and mangled kobolds behind them. The bodies were piled up, and the familiar, shimmering wisps of mana began to rise.
This time, he did not hoard it all. A king must occasionally reward his subjects to maintain order.
"Take your share," he said magnanimously. "You've earned it."
They looked at him, then at each other. There was no gratitude in their eyes, only a weary resignation.
They knelt by the corpses and began to absorb the mana, a process that was now tinged with a subtle resentment.
But as Dante watched them, he could feel the silent, unspoken truth in the air. He was their leader, their protector, their god. But he was also their tyrant.
And even the most loyal subjects will eventually grow tired of their king.