In a courtyard, a 10-year-old boy, who had the appearance of a 13-year-old, was standing with his spear in hand, in front of 5 puppets. These artifact puppets were used to train military personnel on many-vs-many fighting but this boy was using them for 1-vs-many training.
Seeing the 5 puppets charge at him, the boys charged as well and met them halfway.
The puppet in the front, put up his shield in order to block his comrades, while the 2 right behind it readied their spears to meet the boy.
Behind the two spear puppets, the last two began casting spells at the boy.
{Fireball}
{Ice Shard}
The puppets spoke in a robotic voice, devoid of life, and sent their respective spells at him.
Instead of contesting the spells with another spell like most people, the boy channeled his attribute into his spear, causing it to glow a white/blue color, similar to his body. He then used his spear to pierce the core of both of the spells before they hit him, with almost inhuman speeds.
After piercing the cores of the spells, the white/blue glow consumed the spells supply of mana causing it to fade out and leaving the boy unhurt.
Taking this opportunity, the boy dashed to the three frontline puppets and engaged them.
Pushing his attribute into his arms, the boy directly clashed with the shield puppet. The force of their clash caused the two spear puppets to stumble for a second.
Not willing to let that chance go, the boy lodged his spear into the ground and used it to vault over the shield. Arriving behind the shield puppet, he cut him down first before turning towards the two spears and cut them down as well.
The only puppets left were the two mage puppets, so the boy dashed towards them and made quick work of them.
Just as the boy finished his training, he heard the voice of a maid behind him
"Young master, Dante. The duchess wanted me to inform you that it's time for lunch"
"Okay, tell mother that i'll be there in one moment." Replied Dante, causing the maid to head back to tell the Duchess what he said.
That's right, the boy training was Dante. After hearing the offer from Duchess Astaril about adopting him, he came to the conclusion that being adopted by her would bring him more pros than cons so he accepted.
Since then a year has passed and he quickly became a true part of the Astral family. He has learned a lot throughout the past year, first he decided to pick up the spear. Originally, he wanted to choose the sword because that was the weapon of choice for the Astaril family and someone could train him, but he remembered the spear he saw in his dreams and changed his mind to the spear. The downside to this though was that he had to teach himself how to use a spear, but after some time he became quite confident with it.
Another thing he learned was magic!…that he can't use…
The reason behind this is his attribute!
To use magic you have to use mana to connect your attribute to the outside attributes, your attribute then commands the outside attributes to activate, this causes magic. Most attributes can connect to more than just their matching outside attribute but they don't have as much authority over them so the magic isn't as strong and it uses more mana.
But Dante on the other hand, the outside attributes refuse to connect to his attribute. They even seem scared every time he tries to connect with them, this usually leads to his attribute getting mad and devouring them.
It isn't like he cant use any magic though, he can still use null magic. Null magic is magic that you only have to use your mana to cast, but null magic is mostly utility spells. The most common spell that Dante uses is mana sense, it spreads your mana out around you to sense your surroundings, even this is barely usable for him because the amount of mana it uses is ridiculous.
This caused Dante to develop his own way of fighting against magic. Using his special attribute, which has the ability to empower and devour, he coats his weapon in it and perices the core of the spell, devouring the mana which causes the spell to go poof.
To do this he had to go through many trials and finally succeeded after about 7 months!
But this isn't always something that works, for example if someone was using the basic spell {Earth Wall} and Dante wasn't strong enough to pierce through to the spell's core then he wouldn't be able to stop the spell and that would lead to making himself very vulnerable to other attacks.
Heading towards the dining room, Dante received many glances from the maids. To this day he still has his innocent charm, hell, it grew even stronger over the past year but Dante learned to ignore the looks.
Entering the dining room, Dante was greeted by his two "older" sisters.
"Dante! Over here! Let big sis, spoil you!" teased Eva. She was now 13 and was starting to mature into a beautiful woman, with curves in all the right places. Dante also couldn't act like her looks were not effective on him.
[Eva Von Astaril
Intimacy: 200(Romantic) ]
"Brother… Over here please."
Aria spoke, while looking at Dante with puppy dog eyes.
[Aria Von Astaril
Intimacy: 175(Romantic) ]
It took Aria a little while to get used to Dante's presence but once she did, she quickly grew close to him. Unlike Eva who "tried" to act like a big sister, Aria felt more like a little sister. She wanted to be spoiled and it became one of Dante's favorite things to do in the past year.
Next to speak was Alice.
"Hmm, my daughters are trying to hog you again, sit with me sweetie." she said, putting on a pitiful expression.
[Alice Von Astaril
Intimacy: 200(Familial maybe?) ]
Alice almost immediately started to treat Dante as her son. But some of the things she did were questionable if a mother should do that with her son. Like she bathes with him everyday, sleeps with him and more… Of course, Dante didn't mind because Alice was a very gorgeous woman and seeing her curves in the bath was a feast for his eyes. He even started to become attracted to her.
After looking through his options, Dante decided to sit by Alice. The fights between his two sisters were brutal, so his best bet was to sit by his adopted mother.
Sitting down, his mother quickly pulled his head into a hug causing his face to become buried in her bosom.
Looking at her two daughters who now had a jealous expression, Alice spoke.
"See, he should prioritize his mother!"
Eva and Aria didn't take that too well.
"Mom! He's your son, you shouldn't do things like that!" Yelled Eva.
"Yeah, you pervert mother!" Shouted Aria.
"Fufu, you two are sore losers and my sweetie seems happy🖤" Replied Alice, looking down at Dante
Knowing he got found out that he was enjoying being smothered in her bosom, he awkwardly coughed.
"Ahem, what's for lunch?"
"Oh my, are you shy~ If my bosom is that comfortable then all you have to do is ask, sweetie🖤" Alice said teasingly.
""Mom!" Both of the sisters yelled.
"Okay, Okay. I'll stop…for now. Anyway, lunch is Bulldeer stew today."
Alice's words caused Dante's mouth to salivate.
Ever since becoming a member of the Astaril family Dante has become something akin to a food junkie. This world had all kinds of food that his previous one didn't and they were all so good! He liked this world's food so much that he even asked the mansion chef to teach him how to cook.
Bulldeer was on top of his list of new favorite foods, but sadly it was rather rare. So, hearing that they were eating it for lunch, he couldn't help but hug Alice once more because she decided what they eat.
"Thanks mom!" He said, not missing the chance to bury himself in her heaven once again.
Hugging him back, she turned her eyes to her daughters.
"As they say, the way to a man's heart is through food🖤"
The two sisters couldn't say anything this time because Dante initiated the hug, causing them to bore their jealous gazes into him.
Soon the food came and was placed in front of them. Through the past year Dante had learned proper noble etiquette and could easily pass as a born noble, but in front of his family he let himself loose so he just started eating without care.
While eating they enjoyed one another's company. When approaching the end of the meal Alice coughed to gain her children's attention.
"Ahem, there is something I need to discuss really quickly."
Stopping their chatting, her three children look towards her, becoming quiet.
Seeing that she had their attention, Alice spoke.
"In 3 days there is a banquet being held in the imperial capital for the 1st princesses birthday and you two were invited." She said while looking at her daughters, then she continued.
"But I would also like you to go, sweetie."
"Why me?" Dante replied.
"Since you joined our family you haven't attended any noble gatherings, so this is an opportunity to introduce you to some people and tell people that you are a part of the Astaril family."