Path to Transcendence

The man leaned back and looked at Julius with an odd look. He didn\'t know what was going through the scarred man\'s mind, but it didn\'t seem like he had expected that answer.

"Perception, not awareness?" He asked Julius for clarification.

Julius nodded. "Why? Is that weird?"

"Yeah. I have only heard of [Spatial Awareness]. It is an evolved skill for people who have some sort of general ranked perception skill and also have a spatial affinity," Dante explained to him.

"So how is it different?" Julius asked excitedly.

The man looked at him with a baffled expression. "How am I supposed to know? It\'s not my skill. I don\'t know what kind of skills you evolved it from or combined it with."

Oh. That makes sense.

"What if I hypothetically combined several skills?" Julius shared with the man. It was all hypothetical of course. He could neither confirm nor deny how accurate his information was. Still, Julius watched as the man got another interested look on his face.

Suddenly the man disappeared and reappeared to the side of Julius with no warning. Julius whipped himself to turn and look at the man who was staring intently at him. Then Dante disappeared again and reappeared back where he was before. This time though Julius thought that he felt something.

Interesting, he thought to himself.

He had a feeling that it wasn\'t just sheer speed the man was using. He might be actually teleporting. The man was doing something very similar to what Julius had seen Gabriel do with his [Instantaneous Step]. Julius paid close attention as the man started to teleport frequently around Julius. Never in the same position and always changing the distance and timing.

What is he doing? Is he testing my skill? He asked himself.

He still couldn\'t feel the man\'s presence with [Spatial Perception] even though he was standing right in front of Julius. It was just an empty void where the man was supposed to be. However, that in itself was a sign. Just like with aura suppressing, sometimes displaying nothing was just as alerting as shining a bright light in a dark room. Now that he knew what to look for, the empty space was more peculiar than what a normal person would feel like.

It took a while for him to get used to it. He even got lost in the moment and forgot about the time. Completely forgetting that Declan was still frozen in place not far away. The man tested out Julius\'s skill as if Julius was his personal guinea pig. However, Julius didn\'t mind in the least. He was a willing participant and even went as far as to close his eyes to focus fully on the skill.

With his eyes closed and [Savage Dance] activated to its limit with [Empowement of Will] occasionally boosting his focus skill, he concentrated on finding Dante\'s new location. He started to get used to it at an unprecedented speed. Whenever he would notice a new void in the space of his skill, he would immediately lock onto Dante.

Furthermore, Julius noticed that the man grinned devilishly the moment Julius started to lock on to him. It was like he knew exactly when Julius noticed him, which was new to Julius. In the past whenever he had been using the skill, nobody had been able to detect him using it on them. Yet, Dante definitely did.

Every time Julius would catch a whiff and zero in on Dante, the man disappeared again. However, it wasn\'t only Julius who was improving. He could sense the void that man left every time started to get smaller and more blurry. He was no longer like a spotlight in the middle of the dark. He was a light bug flying around in the backyard of a house. He started to feel another thing on top of it. It was almost as if every time Dante teleported, he could feel the warping of space. It was like space was folding over itself. Still, he couldn\'t quite be confident, the teleportation was much too fast for him to catch a good look.

Unfortunately, Dante stopped teleporting around once the two of them stopped making as much progress. He wasn\'t exactly smiling, but his eyes were lit up excitedly. From Julius\'s perspective, this was the most genuine joy he had seen from the man.

"Who would have thought." The man mused quietly to himself.

"Pardon?" Julius asked.

"Who would have thought that some snot-nosed Tier 2 was able to help me level up a skill I haven\'t increased in many years."

"Hey, I take offense to that," Julius complained.

The man ignored his protest. "What level is your perception skill? I don\'t sense any Concepts on you, but I assume that the skill is at the precipice or really close to level 20 correct?"

"..." Julius didn\'t answer. But it seemed that he didn\'t have to because the man just nodded his head as if that had answered his question. He teleported again and Julius was able to sense space distorting again before the man showed up next to him. Dante patted his shoulder like they were best buds. A far cry from how he initially treated him.

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"This is what you are going to do. In two months, I want you to come back here. I will have something for you then."

"Huh?" Julius gave Dante a disbelieving look.

"You heard me, I\'m not going to repeat myself."

"Why would I do that?" Julius asked defiantly. He wasn\'t appreciating the tone of the man\'s voice. Dante made it sound as if Julius didn\'t have a choice in the matter.

"Because I told you to do so. That\'s why. If you don\'t I will personally kidnap you and bring you here after I beat you unconscious," the man leaked out some of his aura to pressure him. Julius felt as if an elephant was sitting on his chest with a bazooka pointed at his forehead. He quickly nodded his head at the man, agreeing that he would be here in two months.

Dante let go of Julius and pretended as if nothing had just happened.

Julius gasped for air. Jeez, there was no need to get violent, he thought to himself.

"It\'s good that you understand," the man said to him.

Not that I had any choice, crazy old shit. Julius glared at the man offended at his treatment.

The man patted him on the back really hard, almost knocking him right off of his feet and onto the ground. "Oh don\'t be like that. You will thank me later."

Julius stared daggers at the man. "Somehow I seriously doubt that."

The man just shrugged in return and walked back to his house, passing the still-frozen Declan. "Remember two months! Don\'t forget!" He yelled out with his back to Julius and entered his home, closing the door behind him.

Julius threw his hands up in the air in defeat. That was it? No other explanation? He felt like the man could have explained what had just happened a little more clearly. He turned to Declan to complain. But quickly saw that he was still frozen with his hand outstretched.

Oops, I completely forgot about him. Julius inwardly winced.

He didn\'t see any sign of whatever Dante did to him wearing off anytime soon. He walked up to Declan and tried to move him. Surprisingly, he wasn\'t even able to do that. He was stuck in place like he was glued there. At least Declan seemed like he was still conscious, he didn\'t know if he was aware of his surroundings though.

Seeing that nothing Julius was doing, was able to free him, he yelled out to the cabin.

"Hey, old man! You forgot to let him go!"

A second later, whatever that was holding Declan was released, and the man dropped to the ground.

"You couldn\'t have done that earlier before you went back inside!?" He berated the older man, knowing that he could hear exactly what he was saying. There was no way the man hadn\'t done that on purpose.

He was going to say more, but Declan with frantic eyes quickly put his hand over Julius\'s mouth. "Stop it," he told Julius. "That man is exceptionally dangerous. Do not anger him."

Declan was extremely nervous and scared. More than Julius had ever seen from him before. It was like he had just seen the devil himself.

Julius smiled at Declan and tried to reassure him. "Don\'t worry. He\'s mostly harmless. Just more old than anything else." Julius was saying this out loud on purpose. Dante hadn\'t explained anything else other than his demand to come back in two months. This was Julius\'s way of getting one back on the old man.

Was it petty? Absolutely, but against someone as strong as him, there weren\'t many other options for retribution. Teasing was really his only option.

Clearly, Declan didn\'t feel the same way that Julius did and froze still again as he heard Julius talk about the man like that. He waited as if he was expecting something to happen to Julius at any moment. Yet, nothing came his way and Julius was perfectly fine.

Julius spread his arms out. "See? He won\'t do anything. I just think he is a bit lonely and not very good with people." He laughed at that and the next thing he knew he felt something wrap around him and squeeze him like a tub of toothpaste.

One moment he was standing there and the next he was chin-deep in the ground. His entire body was now stuck in the hard-packed dirt with only his face above the surface.

Ah, that\'s his limit I guess. Good to know. Julius thought to himself. While he wanted to tease Dante and get one back on the man, Julius also wanted to see how far Dante\'s patience ran. He wanted to see how far he could push Dante before the old monster got annoyed.

And well… I think I found it.

Declan just looked at Julius who had in less than a blink of an eye seemingly teleported into the ground with a weird look. Julius got the sense that the man didn\'t know whether to be scared of Dante or grateful for putting Julius in his place for his rude behavior. Maybe it was a little bit of both.

Declan didn\'t make any moves to help Julius either. He just observed him as Julius tried to wiggle out of the ground. To his annoyance, the ground was much more solid than Julius would have thought. No matter what he did, he wasn\'t able to move a single inch. He had a feeling that Dante was doing something that prevented him from escaping.

It was annoying.

Though he could understand that he kind of deserved it. He had been purposefully pushing the man\'s buttons, especially at the end. He just wanted to see what the man would do. Julius was sure that he wouldn\'t kill him, otherwise telling him to meet him in two months wouldn\'t have made sense.

Julius tried everything he could to escape. He used large amounts of kinetic energy to try to blast himself out. He tried to create thin layers of mana over his skin and push them out. He even tried more drastic methods.

He used a lot of fire mana to practically liquify the earth, creating superheated molten rock. He stopped that pretty quickly after realizing he was just going to cook himself alive if he continued. His innate fire resistance was good but it wasn\'t good enough for him to take a swim in molten lava. At least not yet anyway.

He quickly used [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] to heal whatever burn damage he took. Then after some thought, he created a construct that basically resembled a big-ass excavator. Using the same skills he used for his newly improved spikes he molded mana into a sharp bucket and dug the dirt around him out of the ground.

To his surprise, it worked wonderfully. He was able to get a perfect scoop. [Mana Slash] was able to sharpen the edges enough that it was like scooping half-melted ice cream. However, he still wasn\'t able to escape. Instead, he was stuck rolling around in a big ball of dirt on his side with only his little head poking out.

Though, there was some good news at least. Ironically he had finally managed to push [Mana Slash] over the edge because of his efforts.

[Mana Slash lvl 14 -> lvl 15]