Path to Transcendence

Both [Mana Slash] and [Aura Slash] were two skills that could evolve in so many ways, that the main decision rested on where he wanted to specialize. He had seen Declan and Professor Youma, they were both great examples of people who had specialized in aura.

Julius found himself a nice bench in one of the little gardens and sat down on one. He also made sure to bring out little Drasil, cradling the little glutton while holding out a ball of life mana for him to suck on.

It was an adorable sight, the spirit was the size of his finger and acted like the cutest thing. Julius spent several minutes just relaxing with Drasil, watching as the spirit drained the orb of mana pretty quickly. For such a little guy, he could pound down life mana like no other.

I\'m getting distracted, he gently reminded himself.

As Julius laid back and thought about his options, he opened his status sheet.

Name: Julius Von Hyperius

Tier: 2

Skills:

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 14] (Rare+)

[Empowerment of Will lvl 10] (Rare+)

[Spatial Perception lvl 19] (Rare)

[Savage Dance lvl 18] (Rare)

[Arcane Construct lvl 16] (Rare)

[Pure Compression lvl 15] (Rare)

[Kinetic Augmentation lvl 15] (Rare)

[Mana Layering lvl 13] (Uncommon)

[Swordsmanship lvl 10]

The change to his tier was a nice thing to see. If he was being honest with himself, he had expected a little more when he had reached Tier 2. He was hoping that with the power increase, he could easily beat Aubrey and maybe even Edgar, but that wasn\'t possible, at least yet.

The more he fought them, the more he began to understand the value of skill levels and their rank. He knew he had a warped view of how power worked in this world due to his upbringing, but he was starting to get a better picture.

They never told him, but as he fought Aubrey and Edgar, he was confident that they each had at least one epic-ranked skill. For Edgar, Julius suspected it was some sort of physical enhancement skill.

In all honesty, Tier 2 wasn\'t a tier that he would see a huge increase. It was simply a Tier that changed your body to better use mana, nothing too crazy. It was at Tier 3 that you saw a big difference.

However, there were still many things he could work on. He wasn\'t using his advancement to its full potential. He wasn\'t worried about the requirements for rare skills for Tier 3, he had almost every skill at or very close to rare rank. [Mana Layering] was very close to rare and he was hoping that once it was, he would see if some of his skills combined together. At least that was his plan.

If he went with [Aura Slash] he was thinking that he could acquire [Aura Strike] or something along the lines of it. He had been offered [Aura Strike] before but had chosen [Empowerment of Will].

Julius believed that [Empowerment of Will] would have good synergy with his other skills, but he didn\'t want to risk it. He liked it as is, and still felt like there was much more he could explore with it. He believed that it was a skill that had more potential if he didn\'t try to combine other skills with it. Still, who knew what might change in the future.

He was leaning toward [Mana Slash] because he thought it would have the best chance of combining with [Arcane Construct], [Pure Compression], and [Mana Layering]. The research he had done had shown that the skill made for some good combinations for mana-specific skills.

However, there was also a part of his head, that wanted both skills. He wondered what would happen if he got both of them. Would they combine together? Or would both of them work with his other skills?

He kind of liked the idea of having both skills, but he only had a single slot left and was planning to take [Quick Step] or something like it in the future.

He wanted something that would help him with his speed. That was something he felt like he was lacking the most. This was funny because he had not felt that way with the trolls, but against Edgar, he felt like he was moving through molasses.

After some thought, he decided not to rush it and take his time. He wanted to see the next evolution of [Mana Layering] when it made it to rare. If he combined with some of the other skills, he would have plenty of space for other skills.

That would also give him plenty of time to research other variations of skills in the library.

Julius picked up a small breakfast before heading off to his first class of the day. Where everyone had already gotten into their own routine. Professor Edwards wasn\'t interacting with the students much at all. He would address the class for a few minutes at the beginning but then let the students go about their training by themselves.

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Julius did notice that he wasn\'t the only student who had advanced to Tier 2 in the past couple of days. There were now almost a dozen students who were way ahead of the other students. Going off of their newfound physical abilities and the feeling of their aura, Julius felt like it was a safe bet to think that they were Tier 2.

Julius didn\'t join them quite yet. He did think about it, but he wanted to wait until more students advanced. In the meantime, he was cranking up the pressure he was putting on himself with kinetic energy.

It was a good way to push himself. He was getting in a good workout while also practicing his kinetic absorption techniques. He did find that his advancement to Tier 2 had improved his body to the point where he had to really crank up how much he was restricting himself with kinetic energy.

Against Edgar and Aubrey, he didn\'t feel that much of a difference. But now that he was running around the track with the other Tier 2s, he could get a better gauge of his actual physical strength. Julius wasn\'t saying that the other students weren\'t impressive, but he could feel that once he released his restrictions he would be running circles around them.

Even though the redheaded girl was still up in front, leading the pack, Julius was confident he could outpace her current speed. He had just been saying that he wished that he was faster, but that had been against a really good Tier 3. So, while he still wanted a movement skill like [Quick Step], he reminded himself that he was still far ahead of the others his age and tier.

His biggest advantage was how advanced most of his skills were, how much mana he had, and how dense his mana was as well. The main reason why he had superior physical abilities compared to the others was that he had already gone through a body skill metamorphosis, which Derek and the others had said was only normal for Tier 2s.

With that being said, Julius suspected that the redheaded girl and the tall guy from his swordsman class might have already gone through one as well. Now that he was paying closer attention to them, he noticed that those two were always in front, but he also noticed that they both had more in the tank.

While the others in the leading pack were sweating aggressively and pushing themselves hard, these two appeared to be much more relaxed. The redheaded girl didn\'t even seem to be breathing out of place at all. Julius couldn\'t sense any enhancement skills, but they were definitely on another level than the other Tier 2s.

He might have to edit his statement from earlier, he was still confident that he was faster than the redhead\'s current speed, but he didn\'t know how much faster she could go. For all he knew, she could be much quicker than him. He didn\'t want to get cocky.

His Applied Combat class was interesting. Professor Rowe didn\'t have them do anything other than sit at their desks, but he used the entire class to talk about various challenges when it came to rift delving.

He explained the danger rating system in better detail. E and F-ranked rifts were primarily used by non-combatants to harvest either materials or specific items. Professor Rowe mentioned that the E and F-ranked rifts that were owned by the Academy were used for general supplies for the students. Many of the students who weren\'t on a combat focus took turns using these rifts. They didn\'t get to keep any of the materials but they were good for skill levels, especially for certain builds.

Professor Rowe also talked about a few special low-danger rifts that had very valuable resources such as life-attributed herbs and Pure Mana Water. Which they would give to their alchemists or healers to either use for the school or to sell to consumers. This was a significant method of gaining money for the school.

The D and C-ranked rifts that the school owned were used for their combat students. These kinds of rifts were the most common at Goldencrest, ranging from Tier 1 to a select number of Tier 4 rifts that some of the staff used.

Julius was curious about how Goldencrest was able to have so many rifts available for use. He understood that Goldencrest Academy had existed for centuries, but the number of rifts that the school had control of could not have been all-natural.

He would not be surprised to find out that many of them were artificially created by someone or a group.

Professor Rowe said that there were Rifts for special scenarios that taught students how to handle niche situations. For example, he had just been explaining a rift that they would be delving into later on in the year, which was a D-ranked Tier 2 rift. It was a standard goblin rift that many first years went through.

It was apparently a great rift that allowed students who had never had the opportunity to enter a rift, to experience it in a controlled manner. Goblins were humanoid monsters, so many of their tendencies were predictable as long as you were careful and didn\'t act stupid.

However, Professor Rowe warned them about a more dangerous C-rank rift that held swarm-type monsters controlled by a Queen. He said it was more dangerous because the monsters didn\'t act in a way that many students would think. They were unintelligent monsters that threw themselves at students with such single-minded focus and ferocity, that many panicked during their first run, even after being warned of the dangers.

A rift that Julius was interested in was a labyrinth-type rift. It was rated as a B-rank rift, not because of the dangerous monsters, but because of the deadly traps that were scattered across the dungeon. It was one of the more deadly rifts and had the most injuries each year.

The way Professor Rowe talked about it, reminded Julius of the labyrinth from Greek mythology. He wondered if his [Spatial Perception] skill would be able to sense the hidden traps or if it would be fooled.

Unfortunately, the first years wouldn\'t go into a rift for quite some time. They would have to train a bit more until they would finally be let into one.

Julius was curious if there was a way to get access to a rift any earlier. He was seeing many of his higher-ranked skills starting to plateau and believed that rift delving would do a lot of good for him.

Julius was tempted to drop Professor Hashen\'s class. He had only taken it because he wanted to learn to use a sword, but honestly, he wasn\'t learning that much from the assistants. Most of their attention was on the older or more talented students, and he wasn\'t considered a "talented" student. He was sure that if he didn\'t hold back anymore, he would get more one-on-one attention, but he would rather not have to resort to that.

Also, in the weeks that he had been learning the sword, he realized that it probably wasn\'t his calling. He didn\'t feel the same connection to it, as he did with [Unarmed Combat] or his other skills. Plus he was ready to evolve [Swordsmanship] and wasn\'t planning to take on another sword skill at any time in the future, so he was seriously considering saving his time for something else.

He could even use that time to train his aura control, or on practically anything else. An hour was a long time, every day for five times a week. Over a year that would build up. It was something he would have to earnestly think about.