Path to Transcendence

However, when he began to tell her about his nonstop training at night and recent Concept acquisitions, she got furious.

He had a feeling that if he wasn\'t "injured" at the moment, she would have given him an ass whooping or his mind a good blending. And honestly, he wouldn\'t have blamed her. He had been stupid. It was his own fault that his soul was even in this condition in the first place.

He should just be thankful that Alice said there might be a way to fix it. While he didn\'t know how she was going to go about it yet, she seemed confident that it was at least a possibility.

"I told you that it was important for you to get some actual rest," Lily scolded him for the tenth time within several minutes. She was currently following Julius back to where Alice had dropped him off in front of the gates but was giving him a tongue lashing as she did.

"I can\'t believe you weren\'t getting any sleep whatsoever! We all know that you trained like a freak, but I didn\'t know you were that stupid. You should have told us!" Lily continued to vent at him.

Julius tried to calm her down. "I technically did tell Aubrey about my sleep schedule," he reasoned.

However, that didn\'t calm the irate blonde in any capacity. If anything he just made it worse. He saw her purple eyes glow dangerously for a moment and felt her aura go slightly out of control, which was completely out of the norm for her. Lily had some of the best aura control he had seen outside of Declan and Professor Youma.

She calmly turned to face Julius. "You\'re saying that Aubrey knew about your training?"

He winced. "Not everything," he backtracked his previous statement.

"But she knew that you were forgoing sleep?" Lily asked very softly.

He didn\'t have the courage to reply with words, so he just slowly nodded his head.

She saw his answer and nodded her head as well. "I see," she said vaguely.

I\'m sorry Aubrey! Julius apologized to Aubrey, wherever she might be. He had just unleashed an angry Lily and pointed her toward the other girl. It almost made him feel bad, but then he remembered all of Aubrey\'s teasing and he felt a little less guilty about it.

Eh, could be worse, he told himself.

"Are you sure you\'re okay with doing this?" Julius asked her, trying to change to subject slightly.

He had told Lily what he needed of her already but wasn\'t really able to explain the complete reason for it. He himself didn\'t know the exact reasons either. He just knew that Alice wanted to him to share all of his skills and that he didn\'t feel comfortable unless there was some sort of protection.

She turned to look at him with a frown. "Of course I am. If you think that I am not going to help you out just because I am mad at you, then you are dumber than I thought."

Julius looked down and hid the smile that inched to his face.

***

When they finally got to the front gates, Alice was there standing at the same place Julius had left her.

He still couldn\'t sense her with [Spatial Perception] much to his frustration. He hated that he had to rely on his eyes.

Is this how normal people have to see the world? I kind of feel bad for them now.

However, it was surprising when he saw Lily start walking a little bit faster toward Alice. There was a smile on the young girl\'s face. Which was reciprocated by Alice.

The two women met together in a big friendly hug. When he got to them, he heard them talking animately to each other.

Huh, odd.

"Alice! What are you doing here?" Lily asked enthusiastically.

"Lily!? You\'re the person that boy was bringing?" Alice asked at the same time.

"Yeah, he came to my dorm asking me for help setting up a ritual for him. Are you the person he was talking about?" Lily asked Alice.

"You guys know each other?" Julius interrupted the two of them when he got there.

Lily turned to him. "Of course! Alice is one of my family\'s good friends. I\'ve known her for most of my life!" she happily said to Julius. "You should have told me it was her that was helping you."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"I had no idea that you two knew each other," Julius commented. It actually made him feel a lot better about sharing his "secrets" even under a vow to Alice. Lily was in his opinion, an excellent judge of character.

"Yep, Alice here is the spatial magic consultant my family relies on for some of our projects. She is one of the foremost experts in her field," Lily announced proudly.

"Hush, you are going to make this old lady blush. There are many other people who are much more knowledgeable about spatial theory than me. I would hardly call myself an expert," Alice added with a grin.

"Old?" Julius muttered out loud confused. He was surprised that she would refer to herself as old.

Alice snapped her head to him and gave him a glare that stopped him from saying anything more. He put his hands up in mock surrender.

"Stop it, Alice. My grandfather wouldn\'t rely on you if you weren\'t the best," Lily praised the woman.

"Oh, you little minx!" Alice said joyfully while tugging Lily in for another hug. "How\'s your mother doing?"

"She doing well, there\'s been a few issues popping up lately, so she\'s a bit more busy than normal. You should go and see her though, she deserves a break," Lily told the older woman.

Julius watched as the two of them caught up like two old friends. He had no idea that it would end up like this. He just awkwardly stood there, not knowing what he should do.

***

"It\'s that bad?" Lily asked worriedly.

"Yes. It\'s one of the more severe cases I have seen in a Tier 2. Luckily, he has a couple of advantages that might make it possible to help him. However, I will need to know his abilities before I move forward. And he didn\'t feel comfortable without having a contract in place," Alice explained a little exasperated, giving him an annoyed side eye.

The three of them were back at Dante\'s. This time they were sitting out on the porch. Dante thoughtfully brought out some refreshments and snacks for them to enjoy as well. The old man went back inside to work on some projects while the three of them discussed the particulars.

As he had said before, he wasn\'t very knowledgeable about soul-related abilities or cared very much about them either. However, he surprisingly did offer to go through with a vow himself. He said that it wouldn\'t be a big deal and played it off very cool.

But Julius had a feeling that the grumpy old man was more interested in knowing some of Julius\'s skills than he let on.

The tea was good, but Alice was giving Julius an expectant look. He sighed and nodded his head at her. He brought out three mugs of hot chocolate, one for each of them.

Lily gave an excited cheer as he did so, she had been the recipient of the beverage many times before and loved it. She was also finishing up the final steps of the ritual as well. She had found herself a section of the porch that would work out perfectly for it and quickly got to work on it.

It actually didn\'t take that long for her to complete it either. And when she was done, Dante came out and the four of them all gathered within the circle. However, unlike Julius\'s last experience, this ritual had much more power to it.

Large brilliant lines of pulsing mana funneled into the magic circle with a dangerous surge of mana. He didn\'t know how Lily was able to create something that was able to withstand that much energy, but she did, much to his astonishment.

Furthermore, since it involved two Tier 6s, it meant that it also required a higher source of energy to run it.

Luckily, Dante had offered a Tier 5 core that was able to fulfill the conditions easily. It was kind of surreal to see such an expensive item handed over with such casual ease. Then again, Alice had mentioned that the man had given a Tier 5 core away for a bowl of noodles before, so he shouldn\'t be that surprised.

Fortunately, the ritual itself didn\'t put that much pressure on Julius\'s soul, otherwise, it would not have been possible to do it. It did, however, attach another strand of his soul to the three of them, just like how it had been the first time he went through this ritual.

Once, it was over, Alice gave a disgusted grunt. "Gah! I hate those rituals!" She yelled out.

"Stop being such a whiner. It\'s not that bad," Dante told her.

"Says you! You don\'t have dozens of vows attached to your soul. Each one makes it a little bit it a bit more uncomfortable," she pointed out.

Dante shrugged in response, not arguing her point.

"It\'s that bad?" Julius asked. As far as he knew there weren\'t too many downsides of using the ritual.

Alice dropped her shoulders. "No, it\'s not that bad. It\'s more annoying than anything. The more connections you make the more apparent they become. It\'s like having sand in your pants. A few grains you won\'t notice, but once you start getting dozens of them, you start to feel itchy down there.

"Huh. That does sound annoying," Julius commented.

"I know right!? It sucks!" Alice said upsettingly.

He gave her an understanding nod and pulled something out of his pocket. "Here this might make it feel better," he said to her. He passed the piece of paper to her along with a few jars of dark brown liquid.

Alice looked at him confused but took the piece of paper from him gently. She unfolded the paper and read the contents before smiling very widely. "And this is the exact recipe that you used to make it?" She asked excitedly.

He nodded confidently. "Yep, I even added the exact place where I bought the chocolate. I don\'t know if he\'s still there, but you can always check it out. I gave you the rest of my stock just in case he isn\'t there," he said.

"Thank you," she said softly.

He just nodded his head at her with a smile of his own. Truthfully, he was a bit shocked to see someone who was one of the most powerful people in the Empire look at a jar of chocolate syrup as if it were some Tier 6 treasure.

Then again, powerful or not, it was just a reminder that these people were still human. They still loved things, regardless of their monetary value. It was a good reminder for him that not everything in the world was about power. Sometimes, a jar of chocolate could be more effective than all the power in the world.

"What was that?" He heard Lily ask shocked at what had just transpired.

"I promised to give the recipe to my hot chocolate in exchange for her doing the ritual," he explained to the confused girl.

Lily turned to Alice with wide eyes. "He really gave it to you? I haven\'t been able to get it from him for so long!" Then she turned to look at Julius with betrayal clear in her eyes.

He gave her an apologetic shrug. "That was her only condition," he told her.

Lily just gave him a frown and turned back to Alice. "You better plan on sharing that recipe," she said demandingly.

"Huh!? No way! Get your own!" Alice said petulantly.

Julius just laughed at the two women fighting over the chocolate.