Path to Transcendence

Aubrey had finally noticed his presence next to her, coming out of her contemplation. She was a little startled to feel him feeding her life mana. At first, he had gone slow, just to make sure that if anything went wrong, he could easily stop it before it got worse. However, as he saw his technique start to work, he slowly fed more life mana into the technique.

In less than a minute, Julius had rejuvenated Aubrey, and she looked ready for another round.

She turned to Julius, "That\'s your healing skill?"

Julius looked at her and responded, "No, my healing skill is a self-healing one, so I had to create a technique that resembled my old skill and a few other additions to make it work."

She looked at him like he wasn\'t making sense. However, it wasn\'t her that said anything. It was surprisingly Kyle who spoke up.

"You\'re saying that you manually constructed a spell matrix on the fly using a previous skill as a reference?" His voice had a mixture of equal parts awe and skepticism.

"Yeah, is that not normal?" Julius asked genuinely curious.

Kyle shook his head, "Many warriors or mages who fight can adapt their skills on the fly, using them in flexible ways for specific situations. But for healing skills, you don\'t usually do that. Healing skills are always more complex than say [Mana Strike], so for you to do it is impressive and interesting."

Julius hadn\'t thought about that before. He knew that his healing skills had always been more complicated, but he hadn\'t really thought of the reasons why. He had mainly only been able to figure out a healing skill thanks to his experimentation with the troll.

"How did you learn your healing skill? I know most commoners don\'t have access to healing techniques before they go to an academy unless they join a guild or other type of association." Derek was the one who asked him that.

"Derek, you should know better," Lily admonished him and then turned to Julius. "You don\'t have to answer that, you don\'t have to answer anything that you don\'t feel comfortable with sharing."

Julius didn\'t mind telling them, maybe Kyle or someone would be able to share with him some information that might be useful if he did.

He smiled at her, "Thanks, Lily, but I don\'t mind sharing. It isn\'t a big secret anyways." Then he turned to Derek, "I actually learned it from a monster who had a healing skill themselves," Julius told Derek.

"From a monster?" Derek looked like he hadn\'t been expecting that answer.

"Yep. Well at first I had [Heal] which took me a while to figure out on my own. However, after that, I learned a healing skill from a monster. I examined how its healing skill worked and then I made a technique based on it and then combined it with [Heal]."

"How does that even work? What\'s your life affinity rating?" Derek asked.

"It\'s the same as my others," Julius told him.

Julius saw Derek and the others look baffled at his admission. He didn\'t know why though. He had expected it to be slightly unusual but he didn\'t think it would be enough for this type of reaction.

"What\'s wrong?" He inquired.

"You don\'t understand how crazy that sounds?" Lily asked Julius

"No, why would that be crazy, I was able to observe how the monster used its life mana to heal itself and then copied it," Julius said confused.

"Can you tell us what kind of monster it was?" Derek asked him.

"It was a troll, it had a very good healing skill so I wanted to see if I could learn it," Julius explained.

Julius noticed they all of them were surprised at that.

"Where the hell did you encounter a troll?" Aubrey exclaimed loudly.

Julius didn\'t know how to answer that. If he said he encountered it in a rift, then they would ask how he managed to find himself in a rift. If he lied and said he found it in the woods, then they might be suspicious about why he was alone in the woods. He didn\'t see a way to explain it without having to explain other things that he wasn\'t quite sure he wanted to share yet.

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Lily must\'ve seen the hesitation on his face or in his aura because she intervened and patted his shoulder. "It\'s okay, you don\'t have to answer."

"What?" Why not? He is saying that he encountered a Tier 3 monster, and somehow was able to not only get close but close enough to examine its healing skill. That is kind of an important explanation," Aubrey stated.

Edgar laid a hand on her shoulder, preventing her from escalating the situation. "Everyone is entitled to their secrets, he has already shared more than enough as is. Leave him be, he can tell us when he wants."

Julius still didn\'t know if he wanted to share the entire truth yet, but he felt like he could compromise a little bit.

"It\'s not that I don\'t want to share, but I do have some secrets that I don\'t know if I should tell you guys about. I want to trust you guys, but we have only known each other for a week," Julius truthfully explained to them.

Luckily, it seemed they all seemed to understand where Julius was coming from. Even Aubrey was now quietly thinking to herself.

However, it was Lily who spoke up first. "If you are worried about us sharing your secrets, I might have a solution to that."

Solution? What kind of solution?

"What do you mean?" Julius was intrigued.

"There a ritual that I know of that places a geas on both parties. But it is honestly, quite painful," Lily said after a moment of thought.

"I didn\'t know you could do a contractual vow ritual," Derek commented to Lily from the side.

She turned to him with a smile. "I learned it over the break. My father thought it would be a good idea to be able to use it once I graduate and take over more business responsibilities," Lily told Derek.

Julius thought upon hearing that. He had heard of a geas from stories in his old world. From what he understood, they were a form of a magical vow that was protected by some sort of magic that ensured nobody violated the terms of the agreement.

However, he wanted to make sure that it was a similar concept here. "What is a geas?" Julius asked Lily.

"It is a form of magical contract that prevents the parties from reneging on the deal. In this case, we could use it so that we can\'t speak of your secrets," Lily carefully explained.

"That sounds pretty useful, why haven\'t I heard it being used before?" Julius thought that having a ritual in place that prevented lying or backstabbing would be a very important and useful tool to have.

It was Derek who answered him. "Geas rituals are notoriously dangerous to create and perform. Only select mind mages have the required skill and ability to do so. Anyone who can, is usually contracted with a powerful house or is very expensive to hire."

Julius turned back to Lily, "And you can perform this ritual, safely?"

"I have only done it several times before, but all of the times went smoothly. The participants went through extreme pain though," Lily admitted with a wince.

Julius didn\'t mind the pain. The peace of mind, knowing that his secrets were protected was definitely worth it. However, he couldn\'t ask the others to go through that just so he could share his secrets. It wasn\'t like they were getting anything out of it.

"Let\'s do it," Aubrey said confidently. "I don\'t mind a little pain. But it better be worth it Julius. If we go through this and your "secret" was something dumb like you\'re a noble then I will stab you."

Huh. Maybe I shouldn\'t share. Julius winced to himself.

Aubrey saw his reaction and threw her hands up. "Really?"

"So you are a noble?" Lily asked him.

Julius nodded.

"I knew it. That bow was too practiced, even as a joke," Lily sounded pleased with herself.

"What\'s your house\'s name?" Derek asked.

"If we can get a geas or this ritual thing set up I will tell you guys everything. But until then you will just have to wait," Julius told them.

Aubrey looked at Lily, "How long will it take you to set everything up?"

Lily thought about it for a bit, "I should be able to get it all prepared before dinner. It might take longer the more people who are taking part, but there should be plenty of time."

"Okay, what should we do in the meantime?"

"You guys might as well spar with each other while I do this, we have the room and I will just be off in the corner getting it ready," Lily said.

Aubrey then looked over at Julius and poked him in the shoulder. "Hey, do you want to go again?"

Julius looked at her. Aubrey had a competitive look on her face and was ready for another round. Julius then looked at Lily who was already manipulating mana off to the side preparing the ritual. He also wanted to fight her again, just to see if there was a better way to break through her defenses.

Julius quickly smiled at her and they began to spar once more.

They didn\'t go as hard as they did before. This time they both practiced several things they wanted to try. Aubrey wanted to see if she could make her clones more convincing. She continually asked Julius what he thought and if he could notice a difference. He was still able to precisely tell which one was the real her, but he did notice that the clones were slightly more convincing. He didn\'t know what she did, but the clones felt less like particles of light and mana, and more like actual figures.

There were still some noticeable differences, like the physical mass of the clones, but it was amazing progress for such a short amount of time.

Julius also wanted to try out something new. He had taken [Mana Layering] to create his own construct armor that he could use in fights. There hasn\'t been much progress with that yet, but he was able to make smaller pieces of equipment.

At the moment, he was trying to create pieces that lay over his arms and legs. In their last fight, he had broken his leg and fists trying to break through her diamond-like skin. Since he was going to be using the simulated combat devices more often, he would need to find a way to hit her without crippling himself.

That was why he had formed a pair of bracers and gauntlets over his arms, as well as a pair of knee guards. He had created as many layers of compact woven fire mana as he could, but he still didn\'t think it would hold up against Aubrey.

They were certainly stronger than anything else he had created, but they were still lacking something. Aubrey allowed Julius to test them out on her, just staying still like a punching bag, but it only resulted in Julius breaking his constructs instead.

They also made it harder to transfer kinetic energy to his target. It wasn\'t much but Julius could barely notice it. However, he kept it up, continually refining the process and his skills. He would figure out how to break her defenses even if it meant having to fail over and over again. He had to admit, he was having fun though.