Path to Transcendence

Julius found Declan and Orus exactly where he left them. They were both sitting down on a bench watching Julius approach. Orus was looking at Julius with a large grin spread across his face while Declan was more reserved, a neutral expression on his face.

"Okay, I am all cleaned up now. What now?" Julius asked once he got within earshot of the other two.

Julius observed as Declan glanced at Orus before talking, "I want to talk about some personal things. But if you are not comfortable talking around Orus, he will understand and give us some space."

Julius must've had a confused expression plastered over his face because Declan continued explaining. "I want to talk about some of your skills and it might digress into some of the things that we talked about earlier. I won't share them with Orus, but I do think that he is very trustworthy, I am preparing him to take over as Vice-Captain once I vacate the position. He also knows more than most about kinetic affinities, he is from the Valsi Region and they have more experience than anyone with the northern warrior clans. He might have some useful insights."

Julius thought about what Declan said. Truthfully, as long as he didn't mention some of the more secretive stuff like the details regarding his house, he didn't mind Orus participating in the conversation. He didn't necessarily think his skills needed to be kept absolutely secret, he needed to learn about too many things to expect total secrecy. He would need to share some details about his skills if he wanted to know how to progress them.

Also, he knew that Orus went to Western Hills Academy, which now that he remembered, was near the Valsi Region and quite a renowned academy in the northwestern part of the Empire where many of its students were front liners and close combat fighters. The northern warrior clans were the same people Julius remembered Edwin discussing with him a while ago. He said that they were a brutal warrior culture that had many warriors with kinetic affinities.

He agreed with Declan that Orus might be able to give Julius some pointers about how these warriors use kinetic energy that he might not have thought of. It just came down to how much he wanted to share, even with Declan, as much as Julius was finding himself respecting and liking the man.

"I'm okay with Orus knowing some of my skills. I believe in your judgment and aura sense. I would just prefer if some of the more secretive things could be kept just between us," Julius told Declan.

"Not a problem, Orus won't press for anything you don't feel comfortable talking about, he's sometimes too timid for his own good," Declan responded. Orus was nodding his head in agreement before hearing that last statement and stopped before looking at Declan, offended.

Julius smiled at that, before looking toward Declan with expectation, wanting to hear what he had to say.

"Okay, the good news is that I do not think you will have any problems getting into Goldencrest," Declan told him.

It was nice to hear it confirmed but not that surprising. "And the bad news?" Julius asked.

"You might draw some unwanted attention along the way," Declan said.

Just as Julius expected. "What sort of attention?"

Declan paused and scratched his head, "Are you aware how much kinetic energy you were using throughout your body during our spar?"

"Too much?" Julius asked.

"Way too much for anyone below Tier 2. Anyone at Tier 3 or with good perception will immediately see the ridiculous amounts of energy you are using at Tier 1, this will lead them to assume you have some sort of bloodline ability, like Orus here, or think you are purposefully hiding your Tier with some sort of expensive device." Declan explained.

Julius hadn't thought about that, and he also hadn't heard of bloodline abilities before. "Bloodline ability?" He asked.

Orus was the one who answered. "Bloodline abilities are traits that are passed down from generation to generation, originating from a powerful ancestor. For example, the current Imperial Family has a unique bloodline ability that allows them to harness large amounts of light to increase their strength far beyond what their tier is. It is a trait that has been passed down for many generations."

"So if people see me using kinetic energy like that they might assume I have some sort of bloodline and come from a prestigious lineage," Julius stated.

Declan nodded, "Yes, they might think you have some sort of body-enhancing bloodline that allows your body to handle more energy than normal. There are a few bloodlines like that out there in the Empire but I am more worried that it will just draw unwanted attention to you."

Julius thought that bloodline abilities sounded unfair. So if a child came from a family with a powerful ancestor thousands of years ago they could inherit a bloodline ability and will have a massive advantage over others.

Not that he could say anything about unfair advantages, but he could at least complain on behalf of the common people. That sounded rigged.

"So how much kinetic energy could I use and still stay under the radar?" Julius asked.

"Radar?" Declan asked confusingly.

"Sorry, I meant to say how much should I use to avoid that kind of attention," Julius said forgetting that common Earth sayings didn't make sense here.

"Around half of what you were pulling. You should still be able to pass the entrance exam but it won't be as guaranteed. But there was another thing I wanted to ask you. Do you have other affinities?" Declan asked Julius.

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Julius didn't care that Declan knew, but he was more curious about how Declan knew that he had other affinities. Most likely using his aura ability knowing Declan. I really need to figure out how to control my aura better and figure out how to use it like Declan, it's very useful.

Still, Julius didn't decide to hide his affinities from the two of them. "Yeah, I have a fire and life affinity as well."

Orus was surprised to hear this. "Wait, you have three affinities? Why would you split your attention when you have so much of your core dedicated to kinetic mana?"

"I have a lot of mana. Also, they were all affinities of similar quality and I didn't want to give up any of them." Julius tried to explain.

Declan wasn't saying anything for the moment, he was just quietly thinking to himself. It was only after a minute that he spoke up. "Do you have a healing skill?" he directed at Julius.

Julius just nodded his head in response. "What kind of healing skill? Is it [Heal], [Refresh], or maybe something like [Regeneration]?" Declan asked him. "You don't need to answer if you don't want to. Skills are supposed to be quite private and you usually don't share them with anyone other than a close friend."

Julius didn't mind telling them that he had a healing skill but didn't know if he wanted to share its exact name. On the other hand, he still didn't know what (Rare+) meant and maybe Declan or Orus knew. Eventually, his curiosity took priority over his cautiousness.

"I have an evolved healing skill and it is pretty good in my opinion but it has a plus sign next to its rank, do either of you know what that means?" Julius asked the two of them.

He saw both men freeze and simultaneously look at him. Orus broke the silence first, "You have a superior skill? But that would mean your skill is at least of the rare rank." He said with enthusiasm.

So the plus meant that the skill was a superior skill. It was nice to finally find out the name for it and it seemed that it only appeared in rare-ranked skills. Julius turned to Orus, "Yes, I evolved it to rare, but that also leads to some of my other questions. Like what is a superior skill and what is the difference between evolving a skill by leveling it up to the required threshold and evolving it by synergizing multiple skills."

Declan decided to answer those questions for him. "A superior skill is a skill that has reached the pinnacle of that rank, they are always more powerful or more versatile than other skills of the same rank. As for the difference between evolving through leveling up and synergy, it comes down to what someone is trying to do with a specific skill. If you want to specialize and add a property to a skill then evolving the traditional way is best, you will receive many options that relate to how you have used that skill up to that point."

Declan paused, letting Julius take in that information before continuing. "Synergy is a more complicated matter. There are many arguments about how it works but in short, synergy will grant you a skill combining multiple skills that resonate with each other and yourself. A common example is the [Weapon Mastery] skill, which takes several skills such as [Swordsmanship], [Unarmed Combat], and another weapon-based skill to create a generalized version of them. This skill may not be as powerful or as specialized as just a raw sword skill but it allows you to save two skill slots."

That was a lot of information at once. But it made sense when he thought about how his skills evolved. [Spatial Perception], [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal], and [Savage Dance] were skills that came from synergy evolutions, which was why they had many various aspects attached to them. Then there were skills like [Pure Compression] and [Kinetic Augmentation] that were extremely focused on a single aspect.

Julius had kind of pieced some of that together himself, but having someone explain it helped reaffirm many of his own deductions.

He looked at both of the men, Declan was his stoic self but it was quite amusing to see Orus's face at the moment. It appeared he was still in disbelief that Julius had a (Rare+) healing skill.

"I would like to keep my healing affinity a secret at least while I am at the academy, I was thinking about portraying myself as a kinetic fighter with some fire affinity capabilities. Would you think that would work?" Julius asked Declan.

"It should work out. Most test examiners are Tier 3 and won't be able to investigate your aura like I can." Declan told him. "However, you might be losing out on potential healing classes you could learn from if you don't share your life affinity."

"That's fine with me," Julius reassured him. Julius was planning on doing most of his life mana training on his own and would find some resources in the school library. He wasn't planning to become a dedicated healer, it would primarily be for personal use.

"What about your fire abilities? Do they supplement your close combat abilities or are they longer-range skills?" Orus asked Julius.

"Right now they lean more toward range attacks, but I was thinking that I could focus more on constructs that would help me in close combat situations while I'm at Goldencrest," Julius responded.

"I know kinetic is very difficult to create any constructs with, I have mainly seen only Tier 3 or 4's with kinetic affinities who have been able to create physical constructs with kinetic mana. Fire mana on the other hand would be a solid path if you want to support close combat. It takes a lot of practice to make them sufficiently strong to hold up under attacks but you could definitely create some armor constructs in the future. If you have time you should research Justin Emberhold, he was a Tier 6 who dominated the battlefield with fire construct armor," Orus said with an excited look.

"Yeah I have been able to harden them, but I have found that they shatter quite easily when subject to enough force. Do you know how I could fix that?" Julius curiously asked.

Orus put a hand under his chin, thinking for a bit. "I know it has something to do with mana layering techniques. I have a blood affinity that I mainly use to increase my physical strength also blood is much easier to create physical constructs with than fire so I never learned it in much depth. But the academy should have plenty of courses or books that will go into detail about it better than either I or Declan could." Orus said.

Julius hadn't heard of mana layering before but by the name, it sounds a lot like what he needed. His constructs felt a bit like glass at the moment. He could harden and compress the shell as much as he could, but no matter how much he condensed it, it would still be just a thin layer that would shatter once the integrity was broken. Maybe the answer lay in creating several layers that reinforced each other, kinda like an onion in a way. Built layer upon layer until he had a solid construct. He wanted to test that out.

As Julius was thinking about the possibilities Declan interrupted his thoughts. "I think that displaying your kinetic affinity with fire constructs to supplement you will be a good choice to enter the academy with. If your abilities with fire are anything close to your kinetic or life affinities then you should easily make it even when handicapping yourself. You will be able to maintain a subtle profile and then in your spare time train your other skill sets."

Julius agreed with him and Orus. The idea of punching things with kinetic energy while covered in an armor of mana was enticing.

"Oh and one more thing," Declan added. "If you haven't already managed to evolve [Mana Manipulation] I would recommend you wait. Some amazing evolutions come once you reach rare rank."

Julius froze as he heard Declan's last words.