Path to Transcendence

There was no fire, blast of air, or big boom. But the damage was undeniable. The sharpened mana that the barrier was made up of was a potent weapon regardless of the form it took.

Therefore, Julius forgot about the rest of the pebbles in his hands for now. He quickly dropped them back to the ground and focused on the pebbles that were already lodged inside the golem\'s body. He tried to control the barrier of a pebble that had found its way inside one of the golem\'s arms.

While he was doing that the golem wasn\'t just standing by and letting Julius attack it. The big chunk of rock was continuously staggering toward him while throwing beams of mana and big stones at him. Some did get pretty close, but Julius was able to avoid any real damage so far.

He did spot Declan off to the side who was looking on with a very excited expression. The man had a big grin on his face that didn\'t seem close to coming off of his face. Julius felt like he was some entertainment match in the gladiator days in ancient Rome and Declan was like the spectators who happily watched.

Julius didn\'t know if Declan was more amused to see Julius trying to take down a golem with only small pebbles or if he was more amused to see that the skill was showing some use already.

The first explosion had been an accident and he didn\'t know exactly how to recreate it. However, he had plenty of time to experiment with different methods.

It took longer than he had expected, but he finally managed to recreate the explosion after ruining over a dozen barrier-covered pebbles. Sometimes instead of an explosion, he ended up with an ineffective barrier that just dissipated like steam. Other times he ended up with a barrier that shattered like glass.

The trick was to simultaneously hold together the barrier with his will for as long as he could, while also adding more sharpened mana to the pebble. Then once it was about to blow, he just needed to concentrate on making sure the sharpened mana was as explosive as he could possibly manage, shredding everything in its path.

The first purposeful explosion of the [Barrier of Severance] was much more effective than the last one. Instead of taking out a small chunk of stone, Julius managed to tear out almost the thing\'s entire limb.

He got a notification for his troubles.

[Barrier of Severance lvl 1 -> lvl 3]

Not only that but he managed to feel something. It was different from his usual mana manipulations. This was something different. It was more ethereal. More like catching a whiff of something in the air but not quite putting a finger on it.

He swiftly paused from what he was doing and sat down to meditate. He tried to chase down what he had perceived and see if he could grab ahold of it in order to decipher its purpose.

It took some fumbling around in the dark, but he thought he felt something.

This might be it, Julius thought excitedly.

Away from Julius\'s daydreaming, the golem didn\'t seem to understand that Julius was no longer interested in it and continued its assault on him. Julius looked on as the big lump of rock ran at him. He took a brief second away from his focus, concentrated on the pebbles that were nearest to the golem\'s core, and ignited them. Using them as mediums to send rippling explosions of sharp mana. The golem was torn apart and destroyed within the blink of an eye.

Don\'t interrupt me. I\'m busy, Julius said, a little annoyed at the disruption, and gave one last glance at the now falling mundane mound of rock.

After that was taken care of, he got back to his revelation. He was deep in concentration, using an empowered [Savage Dance] to get deeper and deeper. Until all that was before him was sharpness.

What is sharpness?

No, that\'s not quite it. What is sharpness to me? What do I want out of it? Julius thought to himself.

He had been going on about sharpness from the wrong angle. He had been so focused on the logical side of things and the science behind sharpness that he could remember from his old world that he had forgotten that he was in a world of magic.

Science didn\'t hold as much importance as it did back in his old world. The most important part he realized the longer he lived here, was that intent often mattered more than simple science. One\'s emotions, hopes, dreams, and intent play a significant factor in magic.

Learning a Concept didn\'t just revolve around how sharpness worked.

Sure, knowing about cells getting cut apart and scientific principles of sharpness was good to know. But what he really needed to do was to realize what he wanted to use the Concept for. What was the purpose of learning the Concept and what was his intent in acquiring it?

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Once he understood that difference. It all became crystal clear.

That was all he needed, it felt so simple. After hours on hours of constant meditation, it all seemed so easy. He felt the world spin around him and then stop, before flooding him with energy and power he hadn\'t quite felt before. He felt connected to a deeper plane and realization than ever before.

He wanted sharpness to cut through all of his enemies who would dare to harm him or the ones he cared about. He wanted sharpness to tear through the chains that would attempt to bind him and restrict his freedom. He wanted sharpness to sever the binds of his mortality.

Congratulations. You have acquired the Concept of Sharpness: Severing Will.

Julius opened his eyes and gasped as new information flooded into his brain and energy flowed through his body. It was a lot, the new connection he had to the world was staggering. And he didn\'t know if his body could handle it.

As he came apart at the seams, he held his body together by sheer will and determination. Julius had to pump [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] to heal himself and keep him in one piece. Additionally, [Empowerment of Will] worked in overdrive to empower his body.

He grunted and yelled in exertion, digging deeper than he had ever before.

He didn\'t know how long it lasted, but when he was done, he was more tired than he had ever felt before. It was a weariness that went deep in his soul. [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] seemed to help a little bit, but the effects were negligible.

It wasn\'t until he felt Drasil start to get restless within his core that something changed. Julius didn\'t know what the little spirit was doing, but he could feel Drasil start to glow within his core with a brilliant verdant green. Julius could feel a warm energy suffuse into his soul, and start to heal it.

He sighed at the relaxing and soothing nature of the energy. It cooled down the pain that had been inflicted on his soul. Whatever Drasil was doing, it was healing his soul and nourishing it.

Once it was over, Julius noticed that Drasil looked much more pale than he did before. The soft luminous green is now just a pale shade of green. The little spirit looked exhausted and proceeded to curl up into a tiny little ball and fall asleep in the confines of Julius\'s core.

Seeing his familiar in such a state worried Julius greatly. Although whatever Drasil did had helped Julius immensely, he didn\'t wish to see the little life spirit hurt because of it. He tried to feed even more life mana to Drasil who was already absorbing Julius\'s life mana like a black hole.

Julius could only wait and see if Drasil would be okay in time. He would make sure to keep a close eye on his familiar\'s activities.

When he came back to the real world he noticed that Declan was standing over him. He also noticed that there were a couple more bodies of golems that weren\'t there previously.

Declan saw that Julius was awake right away and crouched down next to Julius with a smile. "Did you get it?" He asked very animated, even by the standards of the normally stern man.

Julius nodded with a grin of his own. "I got it."

"Atta boy. Congratulations. It was more rough than I expected from your first Concept, but you came out of it alive, so there\'s that. On the bright side, you are pretty much guaranteed to advance to Tier 4 now."

"So… what\'s it called?" Declan asked very interested after a small pause.

"It\'s a Concept of Sharpness called Severing Will," Julius told him. In all honesty, Julius was very curious about what that meant and if there were any ramifications.

"Severing Will?" Declan asked as his eyes widened perceptively.

"Yeah, ever heard of it?" Julius asked.

Declan shook his head. "No. But I am not surprised. Most people\'s Concepts are unique to them. The names themselves are more descriptors, but the kind of Concept is typically more important."

Julius thought about what Severing Will might mean. Did it allude to the possibility of severing other\'s skills? Or perhaps the potential to cut through one\'s aura or will?

He got excited when he thought about the different and various ways he could use this new ability. Not to mention, that he would be finally able to learn an epic skill now.

First, he wanted to test out what the Concept could do. Specifically, with what it could do with his recently acquired skill. Luckily, he was in a rift where monsters were abundant. Therefore, he went off searching for the nearest golem who would become his next victim.

He grabbed a few extra pebbles along the way. He wanted to use the same method to have a better comparison and since he had been using pebbles before, it made sense to use them again.

Julius looked at the pebble that he was rolling in between his fingers. It wasn\'t anything special but with a slight thought, he was able to activate [Barrier of Severance] and surround the pebble in a white glow.

The most interesting thing that he noticed right away was the amount of mana he used was a fraction of what he had been using before. The skill before was a bit of a mana-hungry technique, but now it used as much mana as one of his needle constructs did, maybe even less than that.

Another thing that he noticed was how much more connected he felt to the skill and how much he could manipulate it. He could feel that he didn\'t even need a medium to activate the barrier anymore. He could tell that he could create a barrier around something that wasn\'t touching him.

He was getting too far ahead of himself. He still wanted to test out how much sharper the skill had gotten first. [Spatial Perception] picked up a golem that was trudging along and Julius shouted at it, hoping to gain its attention. It worked and the golem soon turned around to look at Julius before running in his direction.

Julius tossed the pebble in his hand in the air as he waited for the golem to get closer. He sensed that the core of this golem was in its head, something he hadn\'t seen yet. He took time to aim and once he felt comfortable he threw the tiny rock at the golem\'s head.

Unfortunately, the golem decided to tilt its head to the side right as it was about to hit and the pebble nicked the side of its temple. Julius frowned, reloaded another pebble, and fired it promptly. This time he controlled the flight of the pebble using the barrier as a sort of steering wheel.

This time when the golem decided to tilt its head again, Julius made sure to track it. The golem didn\'t stand a chance. Much to Julius\'s surprise, the pebble didn\'t just lodge itself into the golem\'s head. It completely burrowed deep into the head and out the back. A second later the entire head crumbled apart, core included.

Julius froze in shock at seeing the dramatic difference in power. Was this the difference in having a Concept? No wonder the power difference between Tiers and having an epic skill is so large.