Dante waited patiently for Amber to understand what she was seeing inside herself.
Amber took a deep breath. Deep in her heart, she hoped that apart from this small discovery, she would find something more — something that would finally allow her to understand her own skill.
More than anything, she wanted to become useful.
Closing her eyes, Amber looked inward. Within herself she perceived two completely different kinds of mana.
The first resembled an endless ocean, vast and turbulent, flowing endlessly without any structure or shape — chaotic, untamed, raw mana.
The second was completely different — instead of flowing like water, it existed as countless neatly arranged threads woven together in organized groups.
To be more precise, what she saw were mana threads that had already been stripped apart and separated from one another.
Even so, she could instinctively tell which group of threads had once belonged to the same skill before she had unraveled it.
Each skill remained grouped together — although the threads were no longer connected, she could still naturally distinguish which collection of threads had originally formed which spell.
Amber explained everything she saw to Dante. Yet she still couldn't understand what Dante was trying to show her.
Even so, her heart was beating faster.
So was Elric's.
In merely twenty minutes, Dante had helped her understand more about her own skill than over ten years of experimentation with her family's scholars, imperial instructors, royal tutors, and countless powerful individuals. None of them had ever pointed her in this direction.
Yet Dante, in only a few minutes, had already completely changed the way she looked at her own ability.
Lexa and Elric shared exactly the same feeling.
Dante frowned slightly before consulting the System.
"What do you think?"
The System immediately replied.
[Master, it's clear she still doesn't understand the point you're trying to show her.]
Dante silently agreed. The System continued.
[Perhaps an analogy would help. Think of every skill as a sentence. For example, "I love you." Ordinary people understand only the meaning of the sentence. She can already see the sentence itself. What she needs to understand now is what the sentence is actually made of.]
Dante's eyes lit up. He understood immediately. Turning back toward Amber, he asked,
"So, you can see the mana, and you can see the structure it once formed?"
Amber nodded, although not very confidently.
"Yes..."
Dante's hand drifted from Vexion's waist, absently resting along the gentle curve of her outer thigh.
She smiled to herself, clearly enjoying the familiar affection while remaining completely focused on the conversation.
Dante continued.
"Think of every skill as a sentence. For example — 'I love you.' Normal people understand the meaning. The person speaking sees the sentence."
He looked directly at Amber. "So tell me. What makes up that sentence?"
Amber bit her lip as she thought.
"...Words?"
Dante nodded.
"Hm. Go deeper."
Amber frowned.
"...Letters?"
Dante smiled.
"Exactly."
His hand gave Vexion's thigh an absent-minded pat, much like someone slapping their knee after hearing the answer they wanted.
"Now think about it. A skill is the sentence. The skill's structure forms the words. And the mana threads — are the letters."
Amber froze, her heart beginning to pound violently.
Something clicked. Not completely, but enough.
Lexa and Elric felt exactly the same. The eighteen-year-old sitting before them felt less like a young genius and more like an ancient scholar wearing the face of a teenager.
He possessed an uncanny ability to explain concepts that should have required decades of study using examples so simple that even they could understand them. It wasn't merely combat.
It wasn't merely talent.
Dante possessed a frightening theoretical understanding as well.
The only person completely unsurprised by any of this was the beautiful woman resting comfortably on his lap, Vexion.
To her, there was nothing her Master couldn't accomplish.
People called him a genius. She didn't. In her eyes, he was simply her Master.
A man destined for greatness. Why should she be surprised whenever he proved, once again, that his brilliance extended far beyond combat? T
hat was simply who he was.
Dante looked back at Amber.
"So — now that you possess the letters, what can you do with them?"
Amber answered almost instinctively, each word feeling as though it had always been waiting inside her.
"...A new word."
Dante simply smiled. He didn't interrupt.
"And... a new sentence."
She looked up at him, her eyes widening.
"...A new skill?"
Dante nodded. Her heartbeat quickened.
"Exactly. So try. Of course, you first need to study a skill's structure. Understand it. Unravel it. Absorb it. Only then can you attempt anything else, only in that way can the dormant mana inside you have any actual use."
Amber nodded. By now, everyone in the room listened to Dante the way disciples listened to a master.
At some point, everyone had simply stopped caring that he was casually resting his hand on Vexion's ass while explaining all of this.
Compared to the knowledge he was sharing, that had somehow become the least remarkable thing about him.
Dante continued.
"Every skill possesses a structure. And every structure contains a certain number of mana threads." He looked toward Amber.
"When you compare Lexa's skill to one of the Epic-tier skills you've unconsciously stored inside yourself, what do you notice?"
Amber immediately closed her eyes. Moments later she answered.
"High-tier skills contain an absurd number of mana threads. Their structures are unimaginably dense. Intricate. Complex. It feels almost impossible to understand."
Dante nodded.
"Exactly. That's why I asked Lexa to lower her output to only five percent." He smiled. "Any higher—"
Amber instinctively finished the sentence.
"—I wouldn't even be able to comprehend the structure. Never mind unraveling it."
Dante chuckled.
"Correct. Your brain would simply overload, and you'd probably go boom."
Amber visibly shivered.
Just imagining it terrified her.
If even a Level 1 skill could contain hundreds of mana threads, a Level 30 skill might contain tens of thousands.
Then what about extremely high level Legendary skills? Or Mythical ones? Her breathing slowed.
She didn't even dare imagine it.
The mana threads inside Master's Mythical Skill — they must be beyond counting.