A Warlock at the Laboratory

The following afternoon, Dante and Megan met with Camille in her office before going to the underground laboratory, where Paige was patiently waiting for the warlock.

The stoic scientist's eyes gleamed any time that she saw Dante, but her feelings had nothing to do with love, as she simply was morbidly curious about the warlock's powers.

Inside the lab, they had an expansive white room that was used for different tests, separated by a bulletproof glass for spectators to watch.

Camille asked Dante what he needed for his training, and the warlock stated that he just needed targets to practice with.

Not even a minute passed, and Camille's lackeys were entering the testing room, quickly organizing tables and stands with different kinds of targets—from bullseyes to tin cans.

There were also a few ballistic dummies, which governmental institutions used to test their weaponry and study their effects on the human body.

Ballistic dummies were made of a clear gel for the tissue, imitation bones, and fake organs with fake blood. It was the closest copy to a human body that scientists could use in their experiments.

Paige had personally asked for the ballistic dummies to be added to the room as she wanted to see the effects of Dante's magic on a person's body.

"I'll start with a weak spell…" Dante muttered, pointing his palm at the ballistic dummy.

"Shadow bolt," he said, generating a black mist around his palm that encircled it.

Camille and Megan seemed surprised, but the scientist's eyes were wide open as she stuck her hands against the glass with admiration.

When the warlock slightly clenched his fingers, the black mist encircling his palm accumulated into a sphere and shot out, leaving a trail of black mist behind it.

As soon as the bolt hit the dummy in the shoulder, it showed that the gel had burnt a little, but the damage wasn't significant.

Megan, who had seen the warlock using much more powerful attacks, wondered if Dante was holding back.

The dummy was pouring out a little bit of fake blood from the wound, but they understood that it wouldn't be a spell that would instantly kill their opponents, such as "Destro."

However, the warlock interjected in their conversation, saying that "shadow bolt" wasn't meant to do much damage, as the most crucial part was the after-effect.

"What do you mean? What's the effect?" Paige asked.

"Getting hit by a shadow bolt hurts, but it leaves an excruciating pain on the point of impact…" he explained.

They couldn't know if the spell was producing the desired effect since the dummy wasn't a living being. Still, Dante could see the umbra from his spell flowing from the target's shoulder, so he knew that it was working.

Next, he clasped his hands together and aimed them at the same dummy. "Shadow whip," he said, generating multiple black mist strings that released between his two palms.

A few of the lashes managed to reach the target while the others flailed around Dante, leaving marks on the stone-hard ground, prompting him to separate his hands to stop the spell's rampage.

When the spectators looked at the ballistic dummy, they were surprised to see that the couple of lashes that hit it almost sliced it completely in half, making the fake blood and organs pour out from the wound.

However, when they switched their gazes to Dante, he didn't seem happy with his performance.

"I'm not trying to create multiple whips…" he said, his voice laced with a hint of annoyance.

Paige, who was having a blast taking notes and witnessing the warlock's training, asked him the reason for his umbra manipulation being out of control.

"It's the umbra from this world. It's very dense since the population is much larger than any city I had ever been before…" Dante replied.

He elaborated by saying that it wasn't a huge problem, as he only needed to get used to the amount of umbra he needed to cast his spells.

After spending a few hours in the testing room attacking the target dummies, Paige kept attentively watching and taking notes.

Camille and Megan would come and go, as the handler had different meetings to attend throughout the day and took the brunette with her any time she could.

At one point, they returned to the testing room with Zac and Sophia, who were done with their college lessons for the day and were also curious to watch the training.

Dante had left a tin can target for last, as it was the smallest one, and he wanted to use it to practice his precision.

Lifting his arm to the front, the warlock made a finger gun gesture and aimed directly at the tin can atop a table, which was a mere 15 feet away from him.

Dante had learned about the gesture from the movies he had been watching, and thinking that it looked pretty cool, he decided to copy it.

Taking a deep breath, Dante aimed his index finger at the can, using his thumb like a crosshair, and the testing room fell wholly silent.

"Destro," he muttered.

In the blink of an eye, the area around the target imploded with an invisible force, producing a wake of dust and smoke that covered the vision from those behind the reinforced window.

The scientist quickly pressed a button to extract the dirty air from the testing room, and when she was able to see the target, it wasn't just the tin can that had been destroyed.

Dante's spell ended up erasing the table and a small part of the ground under it, and while Paige took notes of it with enthusiasm, the warlock let out a slight smirk.

"It's not perfect, but it's much better than last time… I should be ready in one more day," Dante commented. 

Knowing that he would have to infiltrate another base, he thought that it would be useful to summon a helper who could help him detect demons faster.

The density of the umbra in the city made it difficult for Dante to search for demonic activity, but he knew of someone who would be able to detect them nonetheless.

'I should be able to summon him with this level of umbra control…' the warlock thought.