Path to Transcendence

He didn\'t want to get in trouble for wrecking the facilities, more than what he had already done. There was still a part of him that was nervous about someone from the school tracking him down and demanding an explanation from him.

The others didn\'t end up sparring with him. They had a rift when they were preparing for this week for their Applied Combat class. Unlike first-years, the upperclassmen were allowed to delve into rifts even though the school year started not too long ago.

Edgar had explained to Julius that the rift they were going into was a Tier 3 rift that focused heavily on evasive species of bird monsters. Apparently, rifts like them were always a big pain to deal with.

Their homework was to study the details of the rift beforehand. The professors and assistants would still keep an eye on the students while they were in the rift. But the general plan and execution of their strategy would be their responsibility.

As students got older and into their third and fourth years, most have already established groups that they have been working with. There were still solo students or small pairs, but most of the time, it was groups of four or five. The five of them had been the top group of their class for the past couple of years at this point.

It certainly helped that they had two of the strongest fighters in the school in their group. Not to mention that Lily, Aubrey, and Kyle were no slouches either. All of them had their role and did them well.

According to Edgar, these specific bird monsters had skill sets similar to Air Elementals. They had small evasive bodies with speed that was on par with the best that Tier 3 had to offer. While their defensive skills lacked in comparison, they also had a very tricky ability.

It was an ability that allowed the birds to turn intangible for a set period of time, allowing them to become untouchable for that moment. The most worrisome part of that skill, is just because you couldn\'t touch them, didn\'t mean they couldn\'t deal damage in that state to you. They used this ability along with another one of theirs to attack adventurers while in their intangible state, mimicking a divebomb strike. It made for a dangerous and potent combo.

A monster who is extraordinarily fast and who can turn themselves into an intangible bullet was not something very easy to handle.

Luckily for them, Lily\'s psychic attacks and Derek\'s lightning were quite effective against them. Or at least that was what the group had told Julius. They hadn\'t quite tested it yet, but they were confident that based on their research the birds shouldn\'t pose that much of a problem.

The more pressing issue in Kyle\'s opinion was the fact that the rift was in a foggy environment. The fog had properties that made perception skills such as [Mana Sense] and [Detection] based skills more difficult to use. That was the reason why they headed off to the library after dinner.

They wanted to see if there was something they could find that might help them later. Whether that was an item or an application of mana.

Julius on the other hand was working on his epic skill acquisition. The others were very much not helpful.

He had asked them for some tips, but they didn\'t share many. They had just told him that combining skills and a Concept to create an epic skill relied heavily on oneself. There wasn\'t a set way or established method unless you were following a predetermined path created by another user.

Even in that case, since Concepts were related to the person\'s own revelations, that also meant that they would need to find a way to combine them on their own.

In Julius\'s circumstances, combining three separate skills was already difficult. However, he also needed to combine the Concept along with them. That was the way he would be able to create an epic skill.

So he got to work. For the entire night and all the way until morning, he worked on creating his epic skill.

He made sure to exclusively use [Arcane Construct], [Pure Compression], and [Composite Mana]. He didn\'t even use [Spatial Perception] or [Savage Dance] beyond the normal passive effects they had. Julius wanted to feel comfortable that whatever epic skill he got, would not be influenced or heavily influenced by those two skills.

The problem that he ended up running into was using his Severing Will Concept without using [Barrier of Severance]. It was ironic. Julius had been so set on using the evolved version of [Mana Slash] to combine with his other skills. However, now he fervently attempted to prevent the new skill from combining with the others.

That also meant he couldn\'t have the skill to facilitate his Concept usage. And Julius had to be honest. That made using his new Concept multitudes harder. It was like he was trying to drive a car without a steering wheel.

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He knew in his heart that if he wanted to combine [Barrier of Severance] with the other three skills, it would go pretty well. However, he didn\'t want that. Not only was his new skill a rare+ skill, but it also had so much potential that Julius felt would be lost by combining them.

So he spent the entire night until morning learning how to leverage his Concept without a skill as a medium. It was frustrating work. It was like knowing how to ride a bike your entire life and then suddenly one day you find yourself unable to even place your feet on the pedals.

It didn\'t just take him the entire night and early morning to learn how to finally do it either. It took him days of diligent and obsessive practice. Whenever he wasn\'t in a training room, he was practicing in other aspects.

In class, he found himself creating random constructs of mana instead of focusing on the lecture. Though, to be fair, that was mostly in his Intro to Mana class where Professor Stewart went off on her boring structured magic lecture. The other classes weren\'t so bad, he actually learned a few interesting tidbits from them.

Still, that didn\'t stop him from creating things such as a pencil, a book with pages made of thin layers of mana, and even simple objects like a ball. After he would do that, he would try to connect with his Concept and infuse his constructs with the Sharpness Concept.

The one thing he noticed right away was that unlike when he used [Barrier of Severance], he wasn\'t able to cover objects that didn\'t have innate sharpness of their own as easily. However, things such as knives or other objects with an edge were more straightforward to infuse with Severing Will.

Which is the exact reason why he was focused on doing the opposite. He put most of his energy into using his Concept on things that directly opposed the obvious definition of sharpness. Things such as a soft and smooth ball.

That didn\'t mean that he didn\'t use it on sharp things. He found himself using it on non-standard things such as the paper of his mana-constructed book. Something that would give a nasty mana-paper cut to whoever was unfortunate enough to slice their finger on it.

It was Thursday already and Julius found himself so close to achieving his new skill. Originally, he had thought the process of learning an epic skill would be much simpler once he had a Concept, but he was wrong. Perhaps if he had learned a Fire Concept instead of a Sharpness Concept it would be simpler.

His nights have been spent completely focused on creating as many various constructs as he could. He mainly concentrated on constructs that acted as armor or weapons but he wanted to practice creating other things as well. He didn\'t want his entire skill set to revolve around violence. He would like it if his epic skill also allowed him to create things such as comfortable chairs as well.

The only problem he had with that, was that chairs weren\'t supposed to be sharp. So when he added Severing Will to his chair or other furniture constructs, he had to use the Concept in flexible and creative ways. Ways that wouldn\'t cut his butt cheeks apart when he sat down on them.

On the bright side, all of the unorthodox training paid off and it showed. He was now able to infuse his constructs with much more ease than several days ago. He could even replicate [Barrier of Severance] to a very admirable degree.

An unexpected benefit from his obsessive practice was the fact that it served as amazing willpower training. Having to use his Concept for hours on hours every day without a break pushed his willpower to the limit.

He even found himself taking a couple of naps throughout the week, in order to recover more easily. A proof of his dedication.

He was so close though. He could practically taste it.

It was like a sharp coppery taste covered his tongue…

…Wait a second. That\'s blood. I\'m tasting blood, Julius realized.

Julius licked his upper lip and sure enough, it was his. He shook himself out of the daze he was stuck in and saw a hand waving in front of his face.

It was Joshua\'s hand and he had a worried look on his face. "Julius, are you alright?" he asked again for the fifth time.

Oh, I remember. Joshua, James, and I were sparring in Professor Rowe\'s class. One of us is supposed to be on offense and the other is strictly on defense. I must have started daydreaming during it. Did Joshua punch me in the face, is that why I\'m bleeding? Julius thought to himself.

"Are you alright? You just stopped moving." Joshua said frantically.

Julius shook the cobwebs out of his head and wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand. "Yeah, sorry about that. I got distracted," he assured Joshua with a smile.

Joshua sighed in relief. "Okay, good. You have been spacing out a lot this week. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, the entire week you have been completely out of it," James added from the side as he waited his turn to switch in.

Julius shook his head with a grin. "Sorry about that. I got some things I am working on and it\'s taking longer than expected."

Both of them had items that hid their aura, but Julius could tell from their faces that they thought he was hiding something from them.

To be fair, he was, but he didn\'t feel comfortable talking about his skills with them quite yet. He had been spending more time with them and while they weren\'t as close as the others, Julius enjoyed their company. They were kind people with good hearts.

"So what are you planning to do this weekend?" James asked Julius, switching the topic.

Julius took the olive branch. "Me and the others have some plans to head to the city this weekend. They wanted to take me to some fancy pants restaurant."

"Oh? What\'s it called? Maybe I have heard of it," Joshua said.

"Golden something. I don\'t remember the exact name but Derek recommended it," Julius said with a shrug.

"Golden Wheel?" Joshua asked, amazed.

Yeah, that might have been it, Julius thought to himself. He nodded at the tall first-year. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Why? Have you been there?"

Joshua chuckled and shook his head. "No, sadly I haven\'t. But I heard amazing things. The only thing is that it is practically impossible to get reservations. How did you manage to get a seat?"

"I don\'t know. I let the others handle it," Julius confessed.

"Speaking of the others, you still haven\'t told me about these other friends of yours. Will we ever get to meet them?" Joshua asked interestingly.

Julius shrugged his shoulders. "I don\'t know. I can\'t see why you wouldn\'t see them eventually, but also they are always busy doing something, so I can\'t say for certain. They are fourth years after all."

Joshua nodded his head in understanding. "Well, I hope I get to meet them soon, they sound great."