Path to Transcendence

He looked down at his body, fully expecting it to be covered with black sludge, but much to his pleasant surprise, there was only a fine layer of black substance. Maybe, his body transformation with [Kinetic Reinforcement] had expelled the worst of it. The smell wasn\'t that bad either, it was slightly off-putting, but nothing compared to the absolutely filthy stuff he had been covered in before.

Julius still went over to the cleaning station and scrubbed the fine layer of black stuff from his body, but it only took a couple of minutes until he was sparkling clean. He did notice a few things about his physical changes. He was slightly taller now, he was probably still under six feet, but he was getting close to it. He also noticed that his muscles had slimmed out. He thought he would have looked bigger, but his muscles had compressed down instead. So while he was leaner than before, he was certain he was stronger by a good twenty percent.

The others were still patiently waiting for him to finish cleaning up. Surprisingly, even Aubrey was silent throughout the entire time, not telling Julius to hurry up or anything.

Finally, when he was finished and put on his uniform again, he walked over to the others. He saw that everyone had large grins on their face. Even Kyle was wearing a nice smile directed at Julius.

Edgar was the first one to break the silence. "See? That wasn\'t so bad wasn\'t it?"

Julius shook his head in amusement. "How long did I take?" He asked them.

"It was only around ten minutes," Derek said.

"Only that long?" Julius thought he had taken much longer than ten minutes. He felt like it had been almost an hour.

"Yep, you didn\'t have a lot of impurities to expel either. You are lucky, mine was absolutely vile," Edgar said enviously.

"Yeah, I was also surprised how little impurities there were. Did you go through any treatments or rituals when you were younger?" Aubrey asked him.

"Nope, not anything that I can think of. I did go through something similar already when I acquired a body reinforcement skill that counts," he answered.

Julius watched as the others thought about that. Surprisingly it was Derek who looked more concerned.

"You already went through a body skill metamorphosis?" Derek asked worriedly.

"Body skill metamorphosis?" Julius asked confusingly. He hadn\'t heard of something like that before. Was that what he had gone through? Or did he go through something else?

This time it was Edgar who answered him. "Typically, it happens when certain body enhancement skills reach a certain rank or evolution requirements. I have one but I got it when I reached Tier 2, not Tier 1."

"Is there a difference?" Julius asked him.

"I don\'t know, Derek might know more, but I couldn\'t say." Edgar honestly told him.

Julius turned to Derek and looked to see if he had anything else to say.

Derek frowned and took his time thinking before he answered. "I don\'t know if there is any real difference. There are so many factors that play into it, that it is hard to say even with research. I will say that it is supposedly much more painful at Tier 1. But it is also probably why you managed your Tier 2 advancement so well since you had already evolved some aspects of your body."

He was right. When Julius looked back on his previous experience. It was much more painful than what he had just experienced. He also remembered it lasting much longer than his advancement to Tier 2.

"Well, what are you sitting around for? Don\'t you want to test it out?" Aubrey came up to him very excited.

He did want to try out his skills with his new body. Julius had heard that after Tier 2 his body would be much better adapted to mana and his skills would see great improvements. So he couldn\'t wait to see how it would change.

Julius and the others found themselves standing outside another room, this one was more like the one they had used yesterday. Unlike the advancement room, they had to wait a little bit for this room, before it opened up.

When it was finally their turn, they saw a group of third-years walk out of the room. There were two girls and two guys, all were sweating heavily and still out of breath from their training. However, when they saw Derek, Edgar, Lily, Aubrey, and Kyle, they all froze like deer in headlights.

The four of them stared at their group for longer than was comfortable, before Derek finally said, "Excuse us," and tried to squeeze by them. Eventually, one of the guys seemed to have found his nerve, because he bowed toward Derek and introduced himself.

"It\'s an honor to meet you, Mr. Derek, my name is Zachary Desmond. I am a huge fan of you, I followed all of your fights last year, it really inspired me and the others." A blind man could see that while the guy was behaving respectfully, he was practically screaming with excitement. Julius was not going to lie, it was a little alarming to see such contained enthusiasm.

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Derek much to Julius\'s surprise, took the much too formal introduction in stride, almost like he was used to it. "Ah yes, you\'re the oldest son of Lord Desmond correct?"

While Derek was addressing the guy, Julius had taken the time to look at the other people who were in his group. The other girls were also looking at Lily and Aubrey with similar looks of admiration. The last guy was looking at Edgar like Julius looked at a chocolate cake for dessert

Julius turned back to Derek. The guy nodded his head very aggressively to Derek\'s question. "You know who I am?" He asked clearly happy that Derek knew of him already. He paused for a bit, "Uhh…I know this is very sudden, but would it be possible to train with you sometime? I know I must be very underwhelming for you, but I would be eternally grateful if you could give me some tips." The guy winced after he asked, already regretting it.

Julius could tell that Derek didn\'t want to but he also didn\'t want to hurt the guy\'s feelings either. He shook his head and said, "I\'m sorry, but I am already really busy, so I can\'t promise anything," Derek rejected the guy\'s offer with a practiced grace. Julius had to respect the guy for trying though, who knows, maybe Derek might have said yes. At least he shot his shot.

The guy took the rejection well. He probably felt like it was a long shot anyway, so he wasn\'t too devastated. Zachary and his friends quickly made their leave, but not before they finally noticed that there was another person with the group of fourth-years. Their reactions ranged from surprise to curiosity as to the reason why a first-year was with them. Zachary in particular was looking at Julius with an intense gaze.

As they walked by, Julius made sure to give each of them a nice smile before following the others into the now-vacant room.

When the door shut, Julius finally spoke. "So are you guys famous or something?"

Going off of the third-year\'s reactions, you would think that they had just met their favorite rock stars. Julius hadn\'t thought about it before, but the five of them were all probably well-known across the school. Lily had told him that Derek and Edgar were two of the strongest in their class, but he almost forgot that Derek was a part of House Zenith, a terrifyingly strong ducal house with a lot of political clout. Aubrey had a mother who was Tier 6. Kyle was a Quincy. Lily was the granddaughter of one of the most wealthy families in the empire, and then there was little old Julius.

What would the other students who saw them together think of him? If he was being honest with himself, they probably thought he was the group\'s charity case. Which hurt his feelings a little bit but overall that was fine with him. He would much rather be known as that than someone of interest because of his own strength. At least this way he might be protected from anyone who wanted to cause him problems. Well… maybe except for Liam.

"No, we\'re not famous," Derek told him unconvincingly. It didn\'t even sound like Derek believed that himself.

Aubrey scoffed to the side, "Yeah, keep telling yourself that."

Lily let out a small giggle at that and said to Julius. "There\'s a lot of eyes on Derek and Edgar this year. They might even have a good chance of placing high in the Inter-School Tournament."

They left it at that and headed into the training room.

Julius and Aubrey have been training together lately so that was why it was her that Julius wanted to test his newly acquired tier on.

They activated their simulated combat devices and put up the barrier. Then Aubrey immediately used [Mirage Phantom] and [Prism Stealth] in conjunction with one another. She knew that it didn\'t really work that well on Julius, but she was still doing some training herself.

Julius on the other hand slowly cranked up his physical enhancements. First was [Kinetic Augementation], then he activated [Empowerment of Will]. He soon reached his previous limit, when he had combined the two. This time, he could already feel that he could push for more.

The last time he had used the two skills this much, he had almost torn apart his body. His new body could handle it easily though. It was fantastic. Mana control had never felt as fluid and his body had never felt so receptive to mana. He could see what the others were saying about Tier 2.

Julius felt confident that his body could go even further and he stopped holding back. Before, he could handle around fifty percent but now he was using one hundred percent of both skills with ease. He was literally surging with raw energy.

Aubrey had been waiting patiently for Julius to give the signal that he was ready, so when he put his thumb up, telling her he was good, she blitzed right out of the gate.

Unlike most of their fights, Julius didn\'t use any long-range constructs. He wanted to get a feel for his close combat effectiveness before he started to complicate things. Julius observed Aubrey as she closed the distance between them, rapidly switching between her four clones, keeping Julius on his toes.

The changes to his body were nice, but he was surprised by how much his mind had improved. [Savage Dance] wasn\'t even turned on that high, but he was still able to track Aubrey\'s movements and switches with a much higher precision than before.

This time, Julius allowed Aubrey to be on the offensive. He wanted to see if his body had become that much more robust along with the other improvements. Thus, Julius didn\'t even try to avoid Aubrey\'s attack.

This is a stupid move that I would never try in a real fight— no, I definitely would. Actually, I think I may have already done something similar before. He chuckled to himself.

Julius created thick constructs, layered with mana around his arms and braced for impact. As he saw Aubrey cover her fist with her [Diamond Skin] skill, he almost had second thoughts about it. However, it was too late, her fist crashed into him like an eighteen-wheeler. There was a little part of him that hoped that Aubrey would hold back just a touch.

She didn\'t.

She smashed her fist right into his arms without holding back. He got launched across the room and slammed against the barrier on the other side.

He groaned in pain and tried to get back to his feet, but struggled a little bit since the device\'s restrictions were already in place.

The good news was that he wasn\'t considered dead, according to the bracelets. The bad news was that it thought the attack had broken or fractured some of the bones in his back.

With that being said, his injuries were more from the impact against the barrier than anything else. The actual punch hadn\'t done that much damage, but the force behind it had tossed him like a ragdoll. Funnily enough, his arms were still in pretty good shape. They were fractured, but still usable according to the bracelets.

Julius deactivated his bracelets and then reactivated them within seconds, and jumped back up to his feet. He looked at Aubrey with a crazy smile and said, "Let\'s go again."

She smiled at him with the same crazy eyes and got ready for round two. Julius had gotten a feel for how much punishment his new body could take. It wasn\'t anything that surprising, but taking a direct hit like that last one would have most likely killed him a few days ago. It appeared that his advancement had already shown its benefits and he grinned at that thought.