Path to Transcendence

It made him regret not going to the others or Declan for help earlier. Once again it was his goddamn pride that got in his way. That and maybe his focus skill. In hindsight, his focus skill allowed him to put aside pain and concentrate on his goals maybe a bit too well.

He would have to do better to handle that particular aspect of the skill in the future.

Regardless, he still couldn\'t help but be skeptical of their analysis of his soul. With that being said, he was very aware that this skepticism mainly came from the fact that he didn\'t want to believe them.

Because what if they were right? What if he did have something wrong with his soul? Something that would severely hamper his ability to continue improving?

That was what truly scared him. It was the thought of stagnating because of his own bullheadedness. He had rushed through these past several months without any care for his health. He had forgone sleep and single-mindedly pushed forward.

It wasn\'t like he had torn apart his body, this was his soul that he was talking about. It wasn\'t something that he could just regenerate like he could with one of his limbs. Even with Drasil\'s help, the rejuvenation of his soul had been slow over these past few days.

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] wasn\'t able to heal his soul, at least not at its current stage. It was definitely possible for it to gain that ability once he ranked it up to epic. However, that led to another problem.

If what Alice said was correct and the rapid acquisition and growth of skills were causing some of the damage, what would it mean if he gained another epic skill?

He turned to look at Alice right into her radiant eyes. "Is there anything I can do to fix it?" He tried to hide the nervousness out of his voice, but he only semi-succeeded.

She looked at him with pity, like he was some poor animal that she found on the side of the road. "The important thing is that you are alive. That means you have a chance to recover from this. However, in order to heal your soul, it\'s going to take some time."

"How much time?" Julius asked.

"Depends. Your familiar might be able to help out with the process. But soul healing is always a weird thing to predict. You have already gone through your soul evolution so that means it will be a little more difficult to heal your soul. Luckily, you haven\'t actually advanced to Tier 3, that would have made it close to impossible to fix, so be grateful for that," she told him.

"What do you mean by that?" Julius frowned and chewed his lip anxiously.

"Well, once a person advances to Tier 3 their soul, core, and body all meld together. That also means that healing the soul becomes a much more complicated endeavor," she explained.

"So how long?" Julius asked again.

"I\'m telling you I don\'t know. It could be a few months or it could be several decades. I don\'t know enough about you and your abilities to gauge it properly." Before Julius could respond she cut him off. "I know you have some type of life-based healing skill, but it won\'t be able to heal your soul."

"How did you know I have a healing skill?"

"It\'s obvious to anyone with a domain. You\'re constantly pumping a little bit of mana into it at every moment. I could sense it the moment I got near to you," she told him like it was obvious.

He paused at that. He quickly checked it out and almost immediately noticed what she was talking about. It had been such a natural thing that he didn\'t realize he was even doing it. "Are there any healing skills that you know of that heal the soul?" He asked curiously.

"Of course there are, but they are also some of the hardest healing skills to get, just the base requirement is epic rank," she explained.

That\'s not good news.

"Are there any people in Heston who could heal my soul for me? Or any other ways to get better quickly?"

Even if the shortest amount of time that it would take to heal his soul was a few months, that was still too long. He couldn\'t stagnate for that long. However, if he could find someone who had a soul-healing skill, perhaps he could hire them to heal him.

Alice laughed loudly. "I\'m starting to understand how you got yourself into this position." She shook her head. "Most soul-healing skills are limited to healing surface-level soul damage, nothing that would be able to heal a soul with your extensive damage. The only people who would be able to heal your soul are the best Tier 5 healers who specialize in soul damage. Good luck trying to afford one of them to heal you."

"How much are they?" Julius asked, a little afraid of hearing the price.

"Way more than you could afford. At that point, you are better off just waiting for it to heal naturally," she said casually with a chuckle.

Julius frowned and didn\'t say anything for a moment.

"What if I can\'t wait?" He finally asked softly.

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Alice stopped chuckling and looked at him with an odd look. "You do know that your impatience is what caused this whole incident right?"

Julius calmly nodded his head. He knew better than anyone that this situation only happened because of his own actions. He could have taken it slower. He could have chosen not to try to get a Fire Concept after he got the Will Concept. There were a lot of things he could have done.

His mind was trying to process this bad news as quickly as he could and thankfully [Sage of Savagery] was helping him control the influx of emotions. But he also knew that there wasn\'t any taking back those decisions at this point.

Alice saw his solemn expression and realized that he might actually understand his situation. He saw her reevaluate her opinion of him slightly.

"Why do you believe you can\'t wait?" She asked him.

Julius shrugged his shoulders at her. "I need to get stronger," he said simply. He didn\'t want to fully explain his reasons to her.

"Everyone wants to get stronger. But not everyone trains so hard that they cripple their souls," she retorted with a scoff.

"I have my reasons," he assured her.

Alice shook her head in exasperation. "It doesn\'t matter. Either way, It is absolutely important that you don\'t train during this time."

"No training at all?" Julius asked with wide eyes. That would be a problem for him. He had been planning to stop all Concept training and put a halt to evolving any more skills to epic, but no training at all would be an issue. That he couldn\'t accept so easily.

He heard a gruff rumble from Dante, who had been silent until now. "You really want to die that bad boy?"

Julius turned to look at Dante. "It\'s not about wanting to die. It\'s about how much time I will be wasting as I have to wait for who knows how long to heal."

Alice turned to look at him with sympathetic eyes. "You really want to train that much huh?"

"Yes," he nodded at her immediately.

"Who do you want revenge on?" She asked suddenly out of the blue.

How did she know?

"What do you mean by that?" He asked her, not confirming nor denying her question.

"There are only a small number of reasons why someone like yourself would want to get stronger so fast. One of the most common ones is revenge. So I will ask again, who do you want to get revenge on?" This time Julius felt a little pressure from her.

In the short time that he had met this woman, he had not gotten any real sense of power from her. He knew instinctively that she was strong, but she did a phenomenal job at hiding her strength. It was only because she neatly avoided his perception skill that he suspected there was more to her than meets the eye. Otherwise, he would have thought she was some random Tier 2.

This was different though. It was like she had released her control over her aura and was using something to pressure Julius. It felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest. And he subconsciously wanted to spill his secrets to this unknown woman.

However, he luckily had [Sage of Savagery] still active and it was able to prevent him from being influenced by whatever skill or ability she was using against him. Unluckily, his defiance just made her crank up the strength of what she was doing.

It was as if he was getting pulled into a whirlpool and he was hanging on to a single rope. That rope being his focus skill.

He fought tooth and nail, preventing the ability from prying open his secrets. It was only when he finally felt the woman pull back her control and pack it away again, that he relaxed. It was as if nothing happened, she displayed that Tier 2 aura again like it was no big deal.

She looked at him with a disgruntled expression. As if she couldn\'t believe he actually defied her.

"And you called me old. Looks like you also lost a step," Dante laughed after he witnessed what had just happened.

"Shut up, Dante. I can\'t risk pushing him any further without putting his soul under any more stress," Alice snapped back.

Dante chuckled again, he clearly enjoyed seeing her struggle against someone much much weaker than her.

"Still, it must be some skill and willpower that held you off," he said still snickering.

Alice gave Dante the evil eye and turned back to Julius with a calculating gaze. "Indeed. It\'s a really good Concept you have there," she commented to Julius.

He preened at the compliment. He didn\'t always need someone to acknowledge his achievements, but he still liked when people did. It made him feel good inside and gave himself a mental pat on the back.

"Too bad it\'s wasted on a masochist like you," she added.

He quickly retracted his pat on the back with a dejected pout.

She turned away from Julius and started to pace around the front yard of Dante\'s cabin. She ignored the confused stares from both Dante and Julius. She had a thoughtful look as she walked back and forth.

Finally, she turned to look at Julius with a curious look. "Do you know why I am here?"

Julius gave her a confused look. "I don\'t follow," he said slowly.

"I came here on behalf of Dante. He told me that you had a perception skill that I would find very intriguing. That\'s the reason why I am here. And for some reason, it has developed into this," she said frustratingly while giving Dante an angry glare.

Julius didn\'t think she was looking for a response for him at this point. It just sounded like she was venting. He turned to give Dante an anxious look. The older man also had an awkward look on him. His eyes met Julius\'s and the two of them shared a look only two people who were stuck in similar situations could share.

Eventually, she turned back to Julius and Dante with an annoyed look on her face. "You are absolutely sure that you don\'t want to wait for your soul to heal on its own?"

Julius had another look of confusion on his face. He looked behind him and at Dante, then back at Alice while pointing a questioning finger at himself.

She sighed loudly. "Yes, you!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Is there a way?"

"There might," she begrudgingly admitted.

Julius didn\'t need to hear anymore after that, he just aggressively nodded his head at her.

"Yeah, I thought so," she said in a defeated tone before continuing. "You are a unique case so there might be a potential way that could hasten it, but I will require several things from you. One of which is for you to give me all of the answers that I ask of you. Is that understood?" She asked him seriously.

He paused at that. "All of the answers? No matter if they are relevant or not?"

"Yes. Otherwise, you can either fork over a fortune to the nearest Tier 5 soul healer, that is if you can even find one to work for you considering that most of them are under contract for other organizations, so that\'s very unlikely. Or you can die because I have no doubt that you will eventually attempt to improve some of your skills at one point," she said matter of factly.

"Why do you make it sound like those are my only options?" He asked her a little offended.

"What? You\'re going to tell me that you are going to wait for your soul to heal naturally?" She asked sarcastically.

He was about to say he would, but he bit his tongue when he saw the expectant look on her face. Instead, he just looked down with a sulking expression and nodded his head conceding her point.

She scoffed. "That\'s what I thought. Now, do we have an agreement?"