Capítulo 19: Etraverse
Of course, Dante might be overestimating himself. Just because that high-dimensional lifeform helped him once didn't mean it always had its eyes on him. It might have been a casual act of boredom before forgetting Dante's existence 0.0001 seconds later.
It could also be that a high dimension lifeform was too lofty to care about the underestimation of a mere lower-dimensional lifeform. After all, how could Dante understand the thoughts of such a being?
It was like a worm or an ant trying to guess what a human was thinking. The ant would think the human was considering grander things along the line of building a hive, expanding and storing more food, meanwhile the human was probably thinking of Tracer rule 34.
He settled down and did not cause any more trouble. After all, the words of Beatrice were easily verified with his current connection to the Etranet so he could tell that while superpowers were generally mysterious in terms of their deeper functions, some basic fundamentals had been dug out after centuries of exposure.
While they were on their way to the Eternal Academy, Beatrice told him about something he should try.
"I'm sure you've logged into the Etranet and experienced the Quantum Network of yourself right? What do you think?" She asked with a smile.
Dante pondered for a bit then gave his honest thoughts. "It's amazing, sort of like my mind exists outside my body. The Quantum Network feels as real as reality itself. It's sort of like FIVR."
Beatrice raised an eyebrow. "FIVR?"
"Fully Immersive Virtual Reality. It's a theory about how the mind can…" Dante paused as he realized that talking about this was stupid.
Beatrice was speechless. "I swear Dante, you are so weird. Sometimes you act like a native and sometimes you act like you're someone who time-traveled to the future from our ancient past."
Dante could only rub his forehead and change the subject. "So what did you want to bring up by asking about this?"
"Hm, I was going to suggest that you buy a subscription to the Etraverse," Beatrice stated with a casual glance.
Etraverse?
Dante had his AI search it up and was granted a wealth of information right off the bat. Once he understood what the Etraverse was, his eyes couldn't help but narrow and his heart beat rapidly.
The Etraverse was basically a platform that allowed creators to host their own virtual worlds so that others can explore and use them. By paying a subscription fee of 0.1 Etrans per year, you can access all the affiliated services and worlds linked to the platform itself.
Of course, there were independent worlds belonging to indie creators where you had to pay a fee set by the world creator to use. Most of the top worlds in the Etraverse were like that while the 'free' worlds were usually just entry points for newbies.
There were a variety of worlds that were styled by different categories. Anime worlds, RPG worlds, fantasy worlds, cultivation worlds, racing, slice of life, sports, everything.
The Etraverse was the most used service in the universe, with almost 99% of sentient civilizations using it almost daily. Many people worked and lived through the Etraverse and its worlds, and many economies worked around its functions.
Many schools also used it for their training and testing of students. As you could imagine, militaries of various factions also used the virtual worlds here to train their soldiers. It was very versatile and adept.
"You'll be having your entrance exam in the Etraverse, so I suggest you register for it asap," Beatrice advised sagely.
Dante glanced at her askance. "Entrance exam?"
Beatrice scoffed. "Of course. Did you think you were such hot stuff that they would let you in? You're applying for the Unique Batch, so you naturally have to prove what's unique about you. You say you have a superpower, and I know it and you know it."
"But do they know it?" Beatrice shrugged.
Dante was left speechless. It did make sense, but he really did think he would be passing some backdoor.
Also, how the fuck was he supposed to use his Quantum Entanglement in a virtual world? He would be plugged into a quantum network at the time, so would he just… pop back into the quantum network of his home universe?
How would that even work? And was it even possible? What would be the likely outcome if he used his power in such a place?
Dante couldn't sit still, because this was a very valid concern. He understood that superpowers had their own rules and were not so flawed, and he also believed somewhat that the higher dimensional being that modified it for him was not so short-sighted.
But still.
Beatrice saw Dante's uncertain expression and snickered. "What, you're scared? You think your superpower is something so special that we haven't seen something like it before?"
"Tsk, tsk, what a backwater civilization we are. How could we possibly comprehend the length, breadth, and height of almighty Dante's abilities? Why, just using it is enough to destroy the fabric of reality!" Beatrice made exaggerated gestures of remorse.
Dante calmed down and glanced at her casually before looking away. While annoying, her words did calm him down and bring rationality to his mind. He had to get it out of his head early that he was some uber-special entity that was chosen by some cosmic force to wow the universe.
He only got here through a fluke and would have become primordial soup if not for a bored 4th dimensional or higher being thinking it would be fucking funny if he survived.
Beatrice noticed Dante had settled down and smiled slightly before focusing on her holographic screen. Meanwhile, Dante closed his eyes and entered the Quantum Network.
He naturally chose to enter the Etraverse and he was brought to the front of a large mall-like building. When the pushed the glass doors opened and entered a foyer, he noticed that there were AI receptionists again.
Likewise, he was in an instanced lobby for visitors and clients, so he was quickly received and guided amongst strange looks from aliens. After all, given the ratio of pure humans to aliens, most aliens could go 3000 years without seeing a single pure human live in the flesh - or in the data - so this was quite an event for them.
However just like before, they did not come up to him nor stare too long. Not only was this due to racial tension, but even if they hadn't seen a pure human in such a location, they had either seen pictures or videos of them, so they were not too shocked.
Let's not even talk about Dante, because he felt that if he dared to act like the shocked one here, he would be the victim of a social event where everyone treated him like a white person in modern America.
Dante was led to a counter where he then spoke to a receptionist about the Etranet and its benefits. Dante skipped this because he could simply download it and this was done for those old-fashioned fellows who liked the experience of chatting with the receptionist.
Naturally, he was not interested in such a thing. Rather, he paid for the initial subscription for the first 11 years, of which the first year was free. In all, that was 1 Etran and he now had 299 remaining.
In truth, Dante felt a pain in his heart spending so much! 1 Etran might not sound like much, but one could literally compare the value of an Etran to that of a Bitcoin at its peak.
No, based on Dante's research, one Etran would be about the value of $100,000 before the whole BRICS super alliance. It was big money that most people did not see a year after working even top-end jobs.
Most Etrans were used in decimals, going as far as 0.00000X and beyond. For the Etraverse to charge 0.1 Etran per year, that was a yearly payment of $10,000!
Is there anything on this earth you would pay for with that much money?
Funny enough, if Virtual Reality did come to earth, it realistically would not be as cheap or free as people thought or as fiction presented. There would not be a benevolent billionaire or secret supernatural entity promoting VR through a game, but more likely that it would be overpriced for a select few, and heavily focused on porn.
After all, with VR real enough, one could capture all the fringe groups who had unattainable fantasies due to limited science or social/legal restrictions and grant them their dreams in the most realistic way possible.
No one was going to use it to make a game for some lucky NEET to gain a broken skill and then continually break the balance of the game as he rises to the top.
Likewise, the Etraverse captured to all of those things for the entire universe and there was money to be made. If Dante could spend his Etrans on anything, he would definitely want to buy shares in the corporation behind it.
Can you imagine the profits they were raking in?
Capítulo 20: Arriving At The Eternal Academy
Dante did not spend time exploring the Etraverse. Unfortunately, one thing that separated the Quantum Network from a digital network was that it could not be time-dilated, so everything there occurred in real-time.
Dante did not have the time to enter the Etraverse because Beatrice hurriedly informed him that they had reached the Eternal Academy. She even pulled Dante over to glance at the academy from the Observation Deck, and Dante was absolutely blasted away.
The Eternal Academy was like a giant floating plane in the cosmos. It was a huge continent-shaped mass that was made of endless buildings that sprawled across every inch of land. There were segments filled with greenery and life, as well as segments filled with rocks and mountains. There were even places with water and seas, not to mention fiery lands full of lava and active volcanoes.
Most importantly, there was a futuristic urban scene spread across the entire plane that even populated the 'natural zones'. Beneath the plane was a spinning blueish-purple nebula-like existence that looked similar to pictures of the milky way.
Above the plane, one could see hundreds of ships coming and going, as well as many interstellar cars traveling with the atmosphere of the plane. In the center was a building so tall that it was larger than anything else on the entire plane, piercing straight into space itself.
Dante was utterly awed by this sight. He had never and would never have seen something like this, not in the flesh. He couldn't help but clutch his chest and wipe his eyes as tears began to form.
He was not sad, but full of gratitude. Gratitude for the chance that brought him here, and gratitude to the higher dimensional being that allowed him to stay here.
He would be a corpse buried under the earth for thousands of years on earth before he could even hope to see something like this.
Not to mention he had access to it and was even soon going to be a part of it!
Dante could only feel gratitude to the godly forces of the universe for choosing him to enjoy this, while Beatrice by the side glanced at him with a smile. She felt that she could understand how awed he would be, for she too was moved when she first saw the academy for herself.
Soon, the Inferno docked at one of the special receiving spaceports for new students. Despite what Dante thought, there was no nepotism or separation, as their ship should have high-class rights and priority. However, they queued in the end obediently and when he came down, he noticed there were many youths like himself of varying races.
Well… for some of the aliens here, Dante could only assume they were youths because their physiology obviously couldn't tell him that unless he specifically researched how they would look at different stages of life.
They were also clad in varying attires, standing in different groups having formed cliques as they seemed to wait for something. When Dante landed, he noticed that there were only about 3 pure humans in this entire bay that had over 2000 people at least from what he could count.
While everyone was in cliques, it wasn't that they shunned each other but were just unfamiliar for now. However, there was a clear gap given to the 3 pure humans in the center, and they did not seem to care. Rather, they seemed to take pride in this separation and held their chests out.
At least, that was how they looked to Dante. As for the aliens around, they seemed to occasionally glance at the pure humans in the center with slight hostility and unfriendliness in their expressions.
Dante glanced at Beatrice askance. "I think you have severely underplayed how much strife exists between pure humans and mixed races."
Beatrice chuckled dryly. "Well, what could I say? I couldn't say we're on the brink of a cultural and political war, could I?"
Dante was surprised. "Political as well?"
"Well yeah. Mixed breeds and aliens want more representation in the upper echelon of the government, but every position with even the slightest power is held by a pure human. How do you think they would feel?" Beatrice shrugged and explained.
Dante was speechless. In that case, wasn't this universe is few steps away from a Boston Tea Party situation? Or had something like that already happened?
He followed Beatrice into the bay and naturally, all eyes turned to them. In truth, having more than 2000 peers stare at you felt exactly as you thought, but Dante wasn't a shut-in. He often visited social spaces and had some social acclaim of his own on earth, so he could force himself to be calm.
Beatrice simply did not care and like the other pure humans, seemed to swagger as she walked. Dante noted that this seemed to be sub-conscious and natural, not another ploy by her to cause trouble. It seemed like pure humans of this universe really did treat themselves as nobility, even if they didn't harp on about it.
Dante did not frown or shake his head at this. In truth, he didn't care. He had been a part of the privileged class since he was born and he wasn't the type of idiot to go on social media to virtue signal by tarnishing his own group/caste for likes and fame.
He had fully enjoyed the privilege his background brought him and continued to do so, so he would do the same here. It would only be a problem if he was obviously a part of the other side, but he wasn't, now was he?
However, not sabotaging himself was one thing, but he couldn't muster the swagger that Beatrice and the other pure humans had. He felt it was unnecessary and a bit cringe anyway.
The aliens in their path made way with cold eyes as they walked towards the pure humans in the center. When they reached them, Dante noticed that it was two older men and one young female who were also glancing at them with smiles.
Of the two older men, one was tall and burly, with bronze skin slightly darker than Dante's own and long brown hair that reached his waist. He wore a combat exosuit as identified by Dante's AI chip which was of the Army's upper echelon.
The other man was grizzled and lightly tanned, with a wide grin and two sharp blue eyes. He was slightly shorter than the other fellow and not as burly but was definitely more lithe. His combat exosuit was brownish-red, which was the same as the other man.
As for the young girl between them, she looked to be about 16 years old with a body that belonged to a 21-year-old at least in terms of physical development. It was her youthful face and aura that gave her away, but Dante could be wrong.
After all, the state of genetics in this universe made it such that trying to gauge by physical looks was extremely difficult unless you adapted to the standard here.
The girl had long blue hair that seemed watery, and her eyes were also aqua blue. She was fair-skinned and a little cute but leaned more toward being beautiful. She wore a long blue dress that complemented her hair and eyes and stood there nobly as if the world revolved around her.
Beatrice waved a hand and greeted them. "Hello, hello. It's great to see gentlemen from the 2nd Solar Corps here."
The two men nodded and smiled. "It is also great to see the Admiral and Vice Admiral from the 34th Fleet. It's our honor sir and madam!"
Dante was surprised that they could tell, but Beatrice seemed to treat this as normal. "You two are Lieutenant Generals (AN: One tier below General and the top of the army rank) so there's no need for that. We can also learn a lot from you."
Beatrice then glanced at the young woman who was sizing Dante up with interest. "Hello, beautiful young miss. May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?"
The young woman turned her eyes to Beatrice and then bowed politely with a curtsy, something Dante thought would be obsolete here. In truth, he was right since the mixed races were confused by her actions.
"I am Louisa Nicolaides, second daughter of Mikael Nicolaides, Patriarch of the Nicolaides family." She introduced herself in a calm and elegant manner.
Beatrice seemed partially surprised and then nodded. "I was wondering who could have two whole Lieutenant Generals as her protectors to the Eternal Academy. So you're the pearl of Uncle Mikael's eye. I've heard about you."
Louisa seemed surprised and then raised an eyebrow. "You sound familiar with my father. May I know how?"
Beatrice paused and then slapped her forehead. With an amused smile, she also curtsied, but it looked weird with her skin-tight admiral's uniform that displayed all her S-grade curves.
"I forgot to introduce myself. I am Beatrice Portinari, first daughter of Augeus Portinari, Patriarch of the Portinari family."
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