Path to Transcendence

The first thing Julius attempted was the mana layering Orus had talked about. It was a more mage-focused technique so neither Declan nor Orus were able to explain that much to him. But Julius got an idea from the name alone.

The main issue for him was how to connect multiple layers in a construct. He had tried it before, but every time the construct would fall apart or turn into two instead of one. He needed to find a way to merge multiple layers into a single construct. He might not find a way tonight but he believed that the act of practicing might be enough of a challenge to evolve his skill.

He tried and tried for hours, but didn't make any progress. It was only after he unraveled two layers and tried to weave the separate layers together did it work. He had been trying to combine two completely finished layers seamlessly, while in reality, it would only work if both layers were incomplete.

Julius needed to leave room in each layer so that the other one could intertwine with the other. It was a simple answer but it took him stepping back for a few minutes and backtracking his process to find it.

It seemed that his skill had approved of his success as well because it finally reached level 10.

[Mana Manipulation lvl 9 -> lvl 10]

It had only been a few days, but he was already able to evolve the skill. All of his hard work had paid off and he was very interested in what some of his choices might be.

Skill [Mana Manipulation] has reached level 10. Would you like to evolve [Mana Manipulation]?

He mentally accepted.

Skill [Mana Manipulation] is evolving… possible advancements: [Advanced Mana Manipulation], [Mana Hardening], [Mana Overload], [Mana Weaving], [Mana Absorption], [Mana Saturation], and [Mana Layering]

Damn! That's a lot of options, Julius thought to himself.

Way more than any other skill. Was it because of his own various uses of mana, or do most people get a lot of options? He recognized and understood many of the options, they were skills that Julius had been able to do on his own for a while now.

[Advanced Mana Manipulation] was the typical direct upgrade, but unlike other skills, he felt like it might be a good decision for him. He was already good at a lot of the options on the list, if he were someone else who got the skill early he probably wouldn't have considered it. But a general enhancement on all of his manipulations was tempting.

[Mana Hardening] was a nice-sounding skill. He assumed it was from when he first was able to harden mana and create a physical construct. Very useful, but he didn't think he had a problem of hardness. His constructs were hard, but they were also brittle. So he eliminated that one.

[Mana Overload] was interesting. From the name Julius assumed that the skill would allow him to use more mana than he could otherwise control. It sounded nice if he wanted to use techniques like the kinetically enhanced fire that used so much mana that he couldn't control it. But was he going to get a skill for a single technique? He wasn't exactly lacking in offense, he would rather have something that would help him comprehensively. But he was still tempted by the allure of bigger and more powerful explosions.

[Mana Weaving] didn't sound very powerful based on the name, but Julius understood how much weaving mana had helped him. If he hadn't learned to weave mana, he would have never been able to replicate the troll's healing skill. Weaving mana saved him a lot of mana, not requiring him to compress a massive amount of mana to do more damage. For that reason, that skill was high on his mental list.

[Mana Absorption] sounded cool as hell too. He figured that recycling his mana like he did was what allowed him to get this option. It was honestly something that he did automatically at this point. Whenever he used a technique, he would subconsciously keep control of any excess mana to use for another technique. He wasn't able to reabsorb into his core, but as long as he kept it under control he would still be able to use it. Maybe this skill would allow him to absorb mana into his core or something similar. It was tempting because he already had a huge capacity and wondered how his future opponents might feel when he was able to bombard them with mana and then quickly regenerate it and keep on doing it.

[Mana Saturation] was probably similar to [Kinetic Augmentation] except for all mana types. He was guessing that he would be able to saturate mana into objects or his constructs to make them stronger. He was already thinking of the possibilities. Once he could create armor constructs he would be able to reinforce them with mana to make them even stronger. This was another top contender for sure.

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[Mana Layering] was a weird one. He only just did it several minutes ago so he didn't really know much about it. Also, he didn't know if it was smart to get it because he hadn't gotten good with it yet and wanted to at least be proficient before he relied on the skill to do it for him. Or if it would save him a lot of time down the road. It was a complicated process and he could see how it being done automatically be a useful tool. But he realized after practicing mana control without a skill for so long, how much more he was getting out of the skill because he was already able to do it without the skill.

In the end, he didn't make a decision yet. He thought it would be better to wait and see if Declan might have an opinion tomorrow when Julius asked him.

In the meantime, he still had several more hours until morning and wanted to see if he could evolve [Fighter's Will] as well. He quietly made his way downstairs and entered the courtyard. There wasn't anyone else there but Julius tried to be as quiet as possible and didn't turn on any lights, there were sound-dampening runes around the training yard, so nobody sleeping should get woken by the noise. But they might still be awoken by the lights. He would rather nobody come out here in the middle of the night and see him training, they might tell Orus or Declan and Julius didn't want them to worry about him.

It was dark out but with [Spatial Perception] Julius could still find his way around and set up the training dummy in the back corner. This spot had become Julius's nightly training area and was tucked away from the other areas.

Julius took a moment to focus himself and then got to work. He forgot about everything else other than training his aura and evolving [Fighter's Will]. He was smashing the dummy, not with just punches this time but using every part of his body, using it to cover his sword strikes as well. He even started to cover his head in aura and headbutt the dummy. Not a single body part was left unused and unlike during the day, he liberally used [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] to heal his fatigue and minor bumps and scrapes.

He tried so hard to get the skill over the edge to use aura in as flexible and challenging ways but to no avail. Even after the morning sun started to creep up, he didn't see that level increase. He did see some other skills make some progress.

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 11 -> lvl 12]

[Swordsmanship lvl 4 -> lvl 5]

He was close, so close, he could taste it. He was tempted to keep on going, but he was running out of juice. [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewa] was an amazing skill but even it had limits, Julius had been going without sleep for too long already and he wanted to be in tip-top shape before his exam. He wanted to give himself at least an hour of rest before Declan took him.

He was annoyed that he had failed and a little disappointed too. He had spent every second, for over six hours training and didn't achieve his goal. He knew it was ambitious, but it still stung when he didn't accomplish it.

Shaking his head and beating himself up, he forced himself back up to his room. He took a quick shower and climbed into bed. A bed for that was seeing some use for the first time since he had been there. It was funny, he had been so eager to climb in when he first got here but had forgotten all about it when he got enraptured with his training.

He felt the plush mattress contour around his body, snuggling him within its soft embrace, lulling him to sleep within seconds.

When he awoke, it was to the sound of someone banging on his door. Then he heard Orus's voice through the wooden door ask, "Hey Julius you up yet?"

Julius was still a little groggy, but a quick application of [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] and he was wide awake. "Yeah, I'm up. I will be right down Orus."

Julius gave a big cat-like stretch and rolled out of bed. He must have slept much longer than he had planned. He didn't mind that though. He felt like he needed it. Just because he didn't technically didn't need sleep anymore, didn't mean it wasn't good for his mental health. Sometimes a good rest could do a lot of good for someone psychologically.

Before going to bed, he was feeling a bit stressed and disappointed. Now, while he was still bummed out about not evolving his skill, he was feeling much better and didn't worry about it that much. He had time to evolve it after the exam after all.

Julius met with Orus down in the common room after he fed his spirit seed and they had breakfast together. Orus seemed more worried about Julius's exam than Julius was about it himself. Orus kept reassuring Julius that he would pass and they would be stupid not to accept him.

Julius just smiled as Orus anxiously talked about what might be on the exam and how Julius might want to handle it. It made Julius feel cared for when Orus was so worried for his sake, it was a nice feeling. Afterward, they went to the courtyard to practice some, but they didn't go as hard as usual. Orus wanted Julius to be fresh for his exam, Julius tried to argue that his healing skill would revitalize him before then but Orus wasn't having any of it. If only he knew that Julius had been staying up all night to practice, he would be appalled.

Soon after Declan showed up to take Julius to the exam location. He had switched things around so that he had some time to take Julius himself. It was very considerate of him to do so for Julius, and he let Declan know he appreciated it.

"Don't even worry about it. Most of the time, it is pretty boring as vice-captain, more paperwork than anything else. It was the least I could do for you," Declan smiled as he reassured Julius.

They were walking down the carefully maintained city streets, taking their time. Declan made sure they left early just in case there might be any large crowds and also for Julius to experience parts of the city that he hadn't seen yet.

District 7 where Julius had been staying was colorful, vibrant, and had a lot of character in each building. However, as they made their way deeper into the city, many of the buildings became more monolithic in structure. There were some impressive feats of architecture but instead of the warm welcoming atmosphere of District 7, District 4 was feeling more intimidating, it was still very beautiful, just different.