Path to Transcendence

They didn\'t give him a second look, but their eyes did land on Declan for a long while. One guy in particular seemed to recognize Declan.

After they exited the portal, he and Declan were free to enter whenever they wished. He saw some envious glances from the group on the other side of the room, but he didn\'t pay them much care.

He didn\'t say anything when he walked by but Julius noticed the two men instantly went more on guard when they strode past them, toward a section where another guard was waiting for them.

He walked over and touched the rift with his palm.

Notice: Would you like to enter the rift?

He mentally selected yes, and was dragged through the rift along with Declan.

In a bright flash of blue light, he found himself standing on a craggy rock surface. However, what really caught his attention was the large breezes of wind that smashed into him. Since he wasn\'t expecting such a welcome, he almost was tossed right off his feet.

He looked around and saw that he was somewhere with large canyon walls. The rocky material was sleek gray and had a lot of flora growing out of the rock.

Off in the distance, he could see a waterfall crashing down the side of the canyon, where it opened up to a large field.

According to the information about the rift, the natural environment changed a lot depending on which area you entered. It also mentioned that, unlike the rifts that Julius had done already, this rift doesn\'t only have one monster species.

Many varieties of species came together to form an actual ecosystem. Whether that came to be because of the amount of time that this rift had been cultivated or whether it was just random chance, he didn\'t know.

He did know, however, that there would be a snake-like creature that used camouflage to hide in the gray slate rock. In fact, he had already spotted one hiding a hundred paces ahead.

However, he ignored it for now and turned to Declan who was standing next to him with a questioning look.

"So what\'s the plan?" He asked.

***

Declan POV

Declan scratched his chin and gave Julius an assessing look. To be honest, he didn\'t really know what he was going to do. The logical side of him wanted to safely test Julius one monster at a time, making sure that the boy had a good grasp on vigilance.

However, there was nothing logical about Julius. The boy was a walking contradiction. Proof of a person who went against all norms.

Otherwise, what kind of person would be as powerful as Julius was as a Tier 2? Not only that, but Declan was able to sense a subtle weight to Julius\'s soul that hadn\'t been there when he last saw him. It almost felt like the weight of a Tier 3 soul. If he didn\'t know better, he would have guessed that Julius had gone through his soul evolution already.

However, that was ridiculous, he knew that Julius was working toward an epic skill, but even if he were to achieve that, there was no way that would have been enough. Despite the plethora of rare skills Julius undoubtedly had, the only way he should have been able to go through a soul evolution, was if he already had a powerful soul.

Declan paused at that thought. Ah, that\'s it, he realized.

It was then that he remembered that he had made that same observation when he first met Julius.

Now that he was beginning to put together the pieces, he was pretty confident that Julius had already gone through his soul evolution.

That changed things a lot. He admittedly already had a plan, but that plan was for the Julius he believed he was going to see. This Julius was different. More powerful, despite it only being a couple of weeks since he last saw him.

On top of that, he picked up on something that stood out to him. He felt a sense of resoluteness and perseverance come off of Julius which was dense and unyielding.

Was it another Concept? Perhaps, a Concept of Will? I wouldn\'t be surprised, the boy\'s seemingly endless drive to improve is the perfect catalyst to acquire a Concept of Will, Declan thought to himself. His own Concept of Will seemingly resonated with something inside of Julius.

"Earth to Declan?" Julius asked while waving his hand in front of Declan\'s face.

He looked down at the short crazy boy. "I\'m still thinking. Don\'t be so impatient," he told him.

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He heard a humph from Julius, but the boy remained silent.

Finally, Declan made some adjustments to how they would proceed. He would try to see how well Julius could handle this rift all on his own. At first, he had been planning to help out in the initial stages and step in when he thought it was getting dicey.

But now that Julius was stronger than a few weeks ago, he wanted to see where the boy was at.

He turned to Julius who was still staring at him with expectant eyes. "Do what you want. I will just follow behind. Your overall goal is to take down as many monsters as safely as possible."

He saw a really excited grin emerge on Julius\'s face, but it was quickly hidden with a thought. "So my only rules are to be to take down as many monsters while remaining safe?" He asked carefully.

Declan nodded his head at him.

"And I can start whenever?"

"Yes, whenever you are ready, go ahead," Declan said.

Julius turned around and with a lot more life in his step, began to walk down the canyon, softly humming to himself.

Declan almost caught himself about to scold Julius about his carelessness and remind him that he needed to keep an eye on his surroundings. But he also knew that the boy was likely more aware of what was around them than Declan was.

He had never seen the boy caught off guard yet. He wouldn\'t be surprised if Julius already noticed the snake that was hiding on the rocky surface just up ahead.

And he was quickly proven right. Declan watched as Julius created a mana construct over his shoulder with casual ease. It was almost terrifying seeing the process of the construct\'s creation. That was undoubtedly the epic skill that Julius had been working on.

There was so much power within the finger-sized spike. It wasn\'t even that, but unlike previously, the construct wasn\'t red, it was a soft violet-blue hue. He could immediately tell that the heat was much hotter than Julius\'s typical fire.

Without even looking at the snake camouflage on the wall, he sent the attack tearing through the air at the snake.

It wasn\'t fair to the snake. It was exploded into two pieces before it even knew what hit it. The remaining top half of its body flailed around, trying to see who had attacked it. The vitality of a Tier 3 monster was on a completely different level though. Although it had been blasted into two pieces, it was still alive.

However, that didn\'t last for long when Julius sent another similar small spike that exploded the rest of it.

As they were walking by the corpse of the snake, Declan felt Julius use a bit of aura to grab ahold of it, bringing it over to him. Then he watched as Julius proceeded to cover his hand with a thin layer of mana and reach into the split skull of the snake, pulling out its core.

Julius calmly pocketed the core into his pocket and resumed his walk down the canyon as if nothing happened. Like he hadn\'t just eviscerated a monster an entire Tier above him without a care.

Damn, I knew after the golem dungeon that Julius had the power to back his confidence up, but seeing it on actual Tier 3s was a lot different, Declan told himself.

At the very end of the canyon, they ran into another snake that was hidden away. This one was a little smaller than the last one, but it was more aware as well.

It was able to sense Julius\'s attack before it reached it and moved out of the way with a burst of speed. Declan looked over to Julius who was frowning at his missed attack.

The snake wasn\'t trying to attack Julius right away but was slithering across the canyon\'s wall. Not staying still for a single second. It was pretty fast, which on top of its smaller size, made it difficult to shoot from a distance.

However, that didn\'t deter Julius. Declan watched as Julius created dozens of small needles of mana around. He could see where Julius was going with it. He was planning to use weaker but a larger number of needles to pin down the snake.

Declan watched as over two dozen needles flew from Julius\'s shoulder and rained down on the snake. Only three of the needles managed to hit the snake, but that was enough.

He sensed an influx of mana and the needles detonated while still lodged in the snake. It wasn\'t as potent as the spike had been, but the needles still put nice-sized holes into the snake\'s scales.

It slowed it down just enough for Julius to hit it again with a dozen more needles. This time almost all of the needles stuck into their target. Two of them even lodged themselves into the back of the snake\'s neck and blew off its head.

Julius retrieved the core just like last time and exited the canyon with a look around at his surroundings.

Declan joined him and looked around as well. They were in a field of tall grass and rolling hills. There were a couple of grouped-up trees scattered around, but the most noticeable thing to Declan was the large group of monsters he sensed in the distance.

With his [Eyes of the Hunter] skill, he was able to see that the monsters were a wolf variant that was common in this rift. They were wind-attributed wolves that used their superior speed and smell to hunt in the tall grass.

Declan wasn\'t worried about the sneaking-up part. Julius would be able to sense them long before they could ambush. However, he was worried about the sheer number of the group of wolves. He had only seen Julius handle a group of goblins so far. And that wasn\'t exactly a good test of skill for fighting against a larger number of opponents. Yet, there were well over a dozen wolves in this group.

He wanted to see how Julius would react when he was pressured by a large number of opponents who closed the distance before he could use his constructs.

And he wasn\'t disappointed.

The moment the wolves started to dash toward Julius, the boy already created over a dozen spikes and sent them hurdling at the wolves. The wolves\' superior senses were able to recognize the attack before it reached them. They tried to dodge them, but since Julius had smartly layered the spikes in an all-encompassing attack, a few wolves still got clipped by the exploding spikes.

Julius tried to blast himself away to give him more time to create more constructs. He also controlled the spikes that missed to shoot around and do another volley along with his newly created spikes.

Still, the wolves were fast. Their skill gave them so much speed that they must have looked like a blur of motion to Julius\'s vision.

Declan watched as Julius recognized he wouldn\'t be able to ignore close combat with a frown. I guess it was too much to expect a Tier 2 to take on so many Tier 3 wolves who specialized in speed.

However, just as he was about to step in, he froze when he saw the completely calm look on the boy\'s face. There wasn\'t even an ounce of panic. Suddenly, mana swirled around Julius in a complicated weave. In a matter of a second, Julius was completely covered in a set of constructed armor. From head to toe, he wore an elegant armor of hardened red mana.

Before the wolves reached Julius, the boy shockingly dashed forward with a swift step that had him appear in the mix of them with a loud bang. Then Julius\'s armored fist crashed into the lead wolve with an earth-shattering crack.

Declan watched on stunned as the boy took apart the wolves with alarming brutality. However, he then started to become a little concerned when he heard the boy laugh maniacally.