Path to Transcendence

Lily watched as Julius paused for a moment, probably thinking about sharing his Concepts. He finally seemed to come to a decision and answered Alice. "I have three. I have a Sharpness Concept, a Will Concept, and a Fire Concept," he told them.

Say again…? Lily couldn\'t have heard that correctly. She distinctly remembered that he had only gotten his first one not that long ago. The fact that he already had two more was equally impressive and alarming.

Alice however, didn\'t seem to miss a beat. It was like she had already expected a similar answer.

She could probably already sense his Concepts with her Domain, Lily reasoned to herself.

Lily still couldn\'t believe that Alice was here at the moment. The normally recluse and secretive woman was someone Lily had known for most of her life. Alice was a person that Lily had seen at home on occasions for celebrations or when she was doing a job for her grandfather.

Since her family was pretty much a mercantile family, they always had a use for a powerful space mage like Alice. It just so happened that her family liked Alice and were good friends with her.

But what were the odds that Julius would meet her?

However, Lily was just grateful that he did. Without Alice, who knew how long it would have taken Julius to talk with her or the others. He could have gone through so much worse if nobody intervened.

She was still very angry with the younger boy. She could not believe how badly Alice had described the condition of his soul. She knew that Julius could be single-minded and sometimes stupid, but she never would have thought that he would literally train until his soul couldn\'t take it.

She had heard stories of scions being forced to train since they could walk. It never ended well. The pressure on a soul that young from acquiring many skills would normally kill the child. Not to mention the children who got a Concept before Tier 2 always died. Their souls couldn\'t handle the strain.

Noble families quickly stopped this cruel practice and it became common sense to wait until your child became Tier 1 until they could really train.

And yet, Julius didn\'t seem to fit that same mold. Not only did he have an astonishing three Concepts, but she knew that he had several very high-ranked skills if her and Aubrey\'s estimate was correct.

Ironically, that was another one of Alice\'s questions.

"How many skills do you have and where are they at in terms of rank"

Julius put a hand on his chin in thought. His cute boyish features frowning in concentration. "I have eight skills. Two at Epic and the rest at rare," he told them.

Lily tried not to feel that surprised by that admission. She had already suspected it, but it was still surprising to hear that he didn\'t have a single uncommon skill. Even Lily herself had two skills still at uncommon. Granted both of them weren\'t staple skills but nonetheless, it was already impressive for Lily to only have two uncommon skills at her age.

Alice continued to question Julius and each time he answered her questions, Lily felt less surprised and more confused. She was starting to see how Julius\'s soul was falling apart. How strong was his soul in the first place to handle this level of improvement? There was no way he had made all of this progress after he got to Tier 2, she remembered that he was already strong before he reached it.

It just seemed like she didn\'t really understand how strong Julius was. It was no wonder why he was able to beat Aubrey, even with his advantage over the other girl\'s skills. Three Concepts, two epic skills, three superior skills all at the later stage of rare, and three more rare skills that all except for one, were at their final level.

It was becoming abundantly clear that the boy was holding back against Edgar during their spars. Just like Edgar had told Lily and Aubrey one day after Julius had left their session.

Her large friend seemed to understand Julius\'s real ability more than they did. Lily didn\'t believe Edgar at the time, she thought he was just excited for Julius, but now she was seriously reconsidering the validity of his opinion.

She wasn\'t going to lie, a part of her was jealous. She was jealous of Julius\'s talent. While she didn\'t care about combat strength like some of the others did, she understood that she was the cream of the crop when it came to people her age. But hearing Julius explain all of the details of his abilities to Alice, made her feel a little bit envious of him. He was a Tier 2, yet there was no doubt that in a straight-up fight, Julius would win nine times out of ten.

It kind of stung, to realize that that someone a full tier below her was that much stronger. But her envy was overwhelmed by her concern for the person she had quickly come to treat as one of her closest friends.

***

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Julius POV

When he was done answering all of Alice\'s questions, he had to take a deep breath. The lady was thorough. However, she had been particularly interested in his healing skill and his Concept of Will. When he had mentioned the name of his healing skill, she had gotten a brilliant gleam in her eyes.

"I think I have an idea about how I am going to help you," Alice finally said.

"Really?" He asked with a smile.

"Yep, but I am still worried about how well your soul is going to hold up," she said a little uncertain.

"Why? Does it involve me learning another skill or Concept?"

"Yes, it will revolve around you learning another skill. You won\'t necessarily need to learn another Concept, but you will have to evolve your Fire Concept as well," she said tentatively.

"Well let\'s do it!" Julius said excitedly.

Alice gave him a disapproving look. "It\'s not as simple as that," she said to him, dowsing his excitement.

"What do you mean?" He asked with sad puppy eyes.

"Do you not understand how precarious of a position your soul is in right now?" Alice asked him slowly.

He sighed and stopped pretending to be so childish, giving her a calm and serious look. "Of course I do."

She chewed on her lip. "And do you understand that the only reason your soul hasn\'t imploded is because of your Concept?"

He paused at that. That he hadn\'t realized. However, it weirdly made sense.

Alice nodded her head. "See what I mean? If you aren\'t able to hold your soul together with the introduction of additional stress, then even with my assistance, your soul with shatter and you will die."

He chuckled with genuine mirth. He saw Alice and Lily give him an odd look like he was insane.

When he stopped laughing he looked at Alice with absolutely confident eyes. "So that just means I have to keep it together with pure willpower?"

"Yes…" Alice said slowly, unsure of what he found so amusing.

"Well, that\'s simple then. I just can\'t fail," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Julius loved this solution. It didn\'t revolve around luck or chance, it was a solution that purely relied on his own effort. The only way he would die is if his will wasn\'t up to the task and if there was anything he was confident about it was his Inexorable Resolve.

Lily looked at him like he had officially lost his mind. But Alice was looking at him with an amused look. She chuckled lightly at him, "You\'re right. It\'s that simple," she agreed with him.

"What?!" Lily interrupted, baffled at the two of them. "How is that simple? You will die if you fail Julius. Why can\'t you just wait? Considering Drasil\'s ability, I do not doubt that in a year or two you will be up and running like new."

Julius smiled at the young girl, appreciating her concern. However, Alice laid her hand on Lily\'s shoulder, preventing her from saying any more.

"You\'re sure about this?" She asked Julius.

He just nodded at her with a grin.

She gave him a matching grin in return. "Okay. You\'re going to need that confidence. I wouldn\'t have allowed you to if you didn\'t have at least that much confidence," she admitted to him with a shrug.

"The first step you are going to have to do is to learn a specific skill. The skill is called [Soul Resistance]. Honestly, considering your soul\'s condition, you would have learned it in a year or so as your soul naturally healed. However, that just means we have to accelerate the progress."

"Is that all?" Julius asked, expecting more.

Alice smirked at him. "That\'s just the first step, and it will also probably be the most annoying. You are going to have to go through a cycle of lightly damaging your soul and healing it afterward. While this would normally be simple, your soul is quite damaged, so this light damage will be quite painful. If you can\'t keep your soul together during this process, you will die," she said casually as if it wasn\'t a big deal.

"Why can\'t I just heal the damage that is already there to heal my soul and get the skill that way?"

"Because you have already damaged your soul, scarring a good portion of it. The skill requires you to put your soul under frequent but low-intensity stress. What you have done is similar to ripping a stretchy piece of dough in an instant. What we want is to slowly stretch out the dough, while healing the soul so it can continue to extend without breaking apart," Alice explained in terms he would understand, impressively already knowing that food examples were the best way to do so.

"Okay, that makes sense. But how will we do that?" He asked curiously.

"Dante is going to make you an item that works similar to a suppression device. The device should put enough stress on your soul that it will stretch out your soul, while your familiar along with a soul nourishing potion I give you, will handle the healing. It is also important for you to get enough sleep, your soul heals faster during sleep," she explained.

Dante who had been pretending to ignore everyone else as he tinkered with a bracelet he was making, looked up when he heard his name mentioned. "Hold up! Who said I agreed to make something for the brat?"

Alice looked at him with a knowing smirk. "You did when you offered to take the vow alongside me. You would only do that if you were interested, don\'t play coy, it doesn\'t suit an old man like you."

"You make it sound like you are that much younger than me," Dante grumbled softly.

"Well, I look significantly younger than you," Alice pointed out haughtily.

"Only because you advanced younger than me!" he argued.

"Which just means you are less talented than me," she laughed, making the older man glare at her and grumble something about Alice being from a wealthy family, under his breath. But it was loud enough that Julius could hear, which meant that Alice definitely heard it as well.

She didn\'t say anything in response and turned back to Julius. "So as I was saying Dante will create an item for you, and your job is to use it throughout the day for as long as you think you can handle it," she said with a twinkle in her eyes. Which was an actual twinkle, her magical eyes literally sparkled at him.

"That\'s stupid. You already know he is going to use it too much," Lily said from the side.

Hey! That\'s hurtful coming from you Lily. I mean, it\'s probably true, but still hurtful.

"I know, that\'s why you are going to monitor him to make sure he is getting enough sleep," Alice said to her. "There will be a backup device that can shut off the device at your discretion."

Lily nodded at that, somewhat appeased by that addition.

Why do I feel like I am being treated like some troublemaking toddler? I have my own nanny and baby monitor now, he thought to himself, a little embarrassed.