Path to Transcendence

It was clear that she had made him both uncomfortable and annoyed with her outburst. She regretted it and wanted to apologize to him immediately, but somehow instead of doing that, all she ended up doing was challenging him to a fight.

Some apology Aubrey, she mocked herself.

She even had the audacity to tell him not to hold back. Which by the way, might have not been the smartest move, because after she said that she watched as Julius\'s expression completely changed. His eyes went cold and he began tracking her every movement like she was his prey. She knew that he didn\'t need to do that, his perception skill was most likely already tracking every twitch she made. But it was still slightly intimidating.

He had dropped his bracelets with such a stone face and confidence that it had her worried. For a moment, she thought that he was asking her to do so as well. That was a more terrifying thought. For all of her combat experience, she knew very well how unprepared she was for a fight like that. She didn\'t think she could go into a fight with such fearlessness. All of her fights and battles have been in strictly controlled environments.

Even when she fought with no simulated combat device inside of a rift, there were still professors and carefully planned out procedures, ensuring that no student was ever in real harm\'s way. In a way, this made many of the students, including her, inexperienced in real combat.

Even when her mom had taken her out to some local rifts, she had never been in any real danger. It was hard to feel unsafe when your parent was one of the strongest people on the continent.

Yet, when she saw Julius step into the ring, she was envious. It wasn\'t just his prodigious strength as a first-year or even his relationship with Professor Keller that made her feel as such. It was his demeanor. He acted beyond his age, with a maturity that she didn\'t see from other younger students. Not to mention that he fought with zero hesitation. It was something that she wished she could do.

Sure, she could put on a brave face, a habit learned because of her exposure to so many nobles. But inside she was always a little nervous or scared whenever she fought. She never had his type of confidence. She knew it was partly due to a specific type of focus skill, but she had a good concentration type skill as well. [Crystal Thought] was a great skill, one that her mother had when she was at Tier 3 and had proved its worth a thousand times over, but it still wasn\'t enough and it didn\'t explain how Julius was like that.

She knew from their very first spar that he was different. He had fought like someone fighting for their life, clawing for every inch. Even with broken limbs and experiencing unimaginable pain, he fought on. Not giving up until the very end.

She wanted that. She wanted to emulate that. She wouldn\'t ever tell him that, but that was why she had pushed herself so hard these past few weeks.

And yet… it wasn\'t enough. She felt him pass her before she could even notice. It wasn\'t enough that she stayed up till two o\'clock training. She couldn\'t even excuse it by saying he was more talented either. His highest affinity was merely high, meaning that her skill progression should have been much faster than his.

She just had to finally admit to herself that he worked harder for it. She still couldn\'t believe that he spent entire nights in a training facility practicing. Also, trying to acquire an epic skill after just entering Tier 2 was an unbelievable goal, and yet, she didn\'t doubt that he was almost there.

It took her years of concentrated training and meditation to learn the Crystal Concept of Prismatic Light. Not to mention she had her mother teaching her every step of the way. Even with an epic skill of her own, she had lost to him.

Two weeks, that was how long he had been in isolated training. Perhaps, that was the reason why she wanted to fight him right now. She wanted to see with her own two eyes how far he had gotten within the past couple of weeks.

She could barely hear Edgar begin counting down over the sound of her own heartbeat. She was nervous, she freely admitted that to herself. But she quickly reminded herself of her plan. Julius was like Derek in a way, he had both long-range and close combat proficiencies but she needed to get him to fight her up close. That way she could use her defenses and barely superior physical abilities to beat him up. Furthermore, she thought that he was being too arrogant. Sure, she knew he had a good healing skill, but in her opinion, he was just being reckless.

She distantly heard Edgar beginning the fight and activated [Crystal Thought] and [Diamond Skin], focusing on Julius\'s movements. She predicted he would begin the fight by blasting himself backward and getting some distance for him to use his constructs. So when he slowly walked toward her, it took her by surprise.

There wasn\'t any urgency in his steps, he was just walking toward her menacingly with a cold expression. She watched as layers of mana surrounded his limbs and chest. Intricate and beautifully woven layers of hot fire mana wrapped around him, she could feel the heat from where she stood.

She activated her epic skill [Mirage Phantom], placing several clones all around the field, waiting for her to activate them. It wasn\'t like it was with Edgar, Aubrey knew that she wouldn\'t be able to fool Julius. So her strategy was to use them as escape options or as distractions.

He was still walking toward her, no rush or hurry, just calmly approaching her. I don\'t know what he is planning but if he wants to be an easy target, then I won\'t complain, she thought to herself.

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She readied a [Piercing Light], a skill she had improved a lot over these last couple of weeks. However, just as she was about to shoot it at him, she remembered that he didn\'t have his bracelets on and hesitated. She could actually injure for real him if she attacked. She slightly lowered her arm, not attacking.

Julius stopped his walking and looked at her with still cold eyes, but now he also had a teasing smile. "Don\'t forget you were the one who wanted this," he gave a little pause, "Oh… and don\'t worry about hurting me, I don\'t think you could even if you wanted to," he taunted her. She knew it was on purpose, but his arrogance still angered her a little bit and that was enough to stop her from hesitating any longer.

She sent a beam of devastating light at his chest and watched in surprise as it got sheared in half the moment it hit his layers of mana. A light blue glow radiated from the construct before flickering off.

What the hell was that? Was that what he had been working on? She asked herself. She had no idea what just happened, but it felt like something cut apart her light before it could even hit the construct as if a knife slashed away her attack.

He had resumed walking toward her and she sent out another beam of light, this time with a lot more power behind it. However, the results were pretty much the same, something reduced her attack to almost nothing and hit his layers of mana with as much force as a slap.

Realizing that it wasn\'t going to work, Aubrey created several clones around Julius and charged at him, switching multiple times as she closed in. If long-range wasn\'t going to work, then she would just beat him up like she had originally planned.

Julius had a couple dozen spikes floating around him. Usually, his spikes were already scary, filled with more mana than any Tier 2 should be casually throwing around, but now they felt downright terrifying. They had the same light blue that his defenses did. He shot them at her and her clones, shooting at least two spikes at every clone, regardless if he knew they weren\'t the real her.

She already knew that he was tracking her, even with her improvements, he knew exactly where she was, and she could see his eyes following her whenever she switched.

Her clones were destroyed as the spikes released a deadly explosion, dispersing them. She could have hardened them, and tested if they could survive the attack, but it took a lot of mana to do that and she didn\'t want to waste it. She knew what he was doing, he was draining her of mana, knowing that her skill used a lot of it.

She had to switch to a clone further out and dodge out of the way of the spikes. The rest of her clones that were near him were destroyed. Normally, she might have taken the strikes head-on with [Diamond Skin], but she was wary of whatever he had done to his constructs. She felt like they might have a chance of doing some damage.

They continued that game of cat and mouse for a little bit. She wasn\'t able to get close and he wasn\'t allowing any of her clones to enter within a certain distance. If they did, he would immediately destroy them. He must be using an extreme amount of mana, so she continued to let him. However, as a couple of minutes went by, she didn\'t see him slow down at all.

Finally, she got a little impatient and made her move. She created a complex swarm of clones almost right on top of Julius. He quickly dealt with the clones, as there were little more than images of light. However, she had sneakily hardened some of them and he hadn\'t used enough power in his attacks to destroy them, allowing Aubrey to switch in and get on top of him.

Now that she was up close she wouldn\'t let him free. She summoned another group of clones and surrounded him, constantly switching between them and trying to land an attack of her own. Unfortunately, his defenses were much better than they had been just a couple of weeks ago, and was able to fend her off. She wasn\'t able to get in a good hit no matter what she did.

However, whatever that blue light was didn\'t seem to work as well on her skin. She could feel something trying to cut her skin apart, but her defensive skill was too robust. She felt him trying to pummel her with his kinetic energy and he was now focusing on using his constructs as gauntlets of pure destructive force.

She was taken aback. He was hitting so much harder than he used to. Also, if that wasn\'t bad enough, it was annoying how he kept draining her momentum using kinetic energy. Still, it only helped him so much, he might not know but she had also gotten much stronger.

She pushed herself to the absolute limit, not giving him a second to breathe. Her onslaught was slowly overwhelming him, and then she saw it, an opening. And she didn\'t let the chance close, all thoughts of not hurting him had gone away, she was so absorbed in the fight that she forgot that he didn\'t have his bracelets on.

She landed her fist on his chest and felt that her strike shatter his ribcage. But to her shock, it was all just a fake and he had been planning on luring her in and having her overcommit herself. She found herself with no way to protect her chest as he rammed his fist into her sternum with more energy and mana than she had seen him use the entire fight.

Her chest felt like it had collapsed and she could barely suck in any air to breathe. Her only solace was that she knew that he had taken a much worse hit in return. She had also felt his arm get brutalized as he launched that last attack, it should have been nothing but a wrung-out towel.

She quickly got back to her feet only to be astonished to see a perfectly healthy Julius standing in front of her. His chest didn\'t show a single sign of damage and his arm was covered in a red fire, spirals of flame wrapped around his arm, visibly healing his flesh at an unbelievable rate. Before she could regain her composure Julius delivered a devastating front kick to her face, breaking something in her face and sending her flying into the barrier.

She was panicking and immediately switched with one of her clones to escape but Julius quickly found her and she was bombarded with over a dozen spikes of compressed mana before she could recover. These spikes were even stronger than the ones from before if that was even possible. She didn\'t have a chance.

The moment they impacted her body the simulated combat device\'s protection enchantments swiftly activated, signally the end of the fight. However, the massive explosion still rocked the barrier, shaking the entire room in its aftermath.

Aubrey laid on her back. The pain in her chest and face was no longer there, but she was still tired from the fight so she was taking time to get her breath back. She looked over at Julius who was walking toward her, looking fresh and perfectly healthy. It didn\'t even look like he had just fought, nevertheless, injured while not wearing his bracelets.

She was still taken aback at the sheer speed he had healed during their fight. His injuries were something even skilled healers would take some time to heal. However, he was somehow able to completely heal himself within a blink, before she had even gotten back up to her feet.

It was mindboggling. If he could heal himself like that, then he hadn\'t been exaggerating when he said that the bracelets were holding him back. Because of the bracelets, he had not been able to use one of his best tools at his disposal.

Aubrey didn\'t know how to feel. A part of her was frustrated at her loss. She had tried her best and still came up short. But another part was glad that she lost. She knew in her heart that at least she had been beaten fair and square.