Path to Transcendence

"You fucking idiot. In what world does that sound like the best option," Aubrey reprimanded him while vigorously shaking him like a rag doll.

He looked over to see the other\'s reactions. Derek and Edgar both looked equally upset and slightly disappointed. Kyle and Lily on the other hand didn\'t seem particularly worried at all.

Lily even had a slight smirk on her face as she watched Aubrey shake him apart in frustration. She was most likely picking up on his emotions at the moment, so she probably knew that he was teasing them.

Kyle on the other hand had always been a good predictor of Julius\'s behaviors. He was the most perceptive person outside of Lily when it came to Julius\'s actions. It would be of no surprise that Kyle had guessed that Julius was messing with Aubrey as revenge. He even gave Julius a little amused nod when they met eyes for a moment.

Eventually, Derek seemed to pick up that Lily wasn\'t worrying like she would have if she thought Julius was telling the truth and released his tense shoulders. He walked over to Aubrey who was still shaking Julius and scolding him. "Calm down, Aubrey," Derek told the irate girl trying to pry her fingers from Julius but ultimately failing.

"Calm down? I can\'t believe he would be this stupid. I know nobody had probably explained it to him yet, but still, I would like to think that he would be smart enough to know that out of all of the options, that one was the worst. Literally, any other reward would have been better," Aubrey exclaimed loudly.

Julius turned to Lily with curious eyes. "How many options did you guys have? And how many is normal?" He asked her casually.

Lily just gave him a half-chastening look but answered him regardless. "We got four options. The skill evolution option, the soul-nourishing option, the Concept enlightenment option, and the skill slot option. Most people usually get all of these options. They are pretty standard."

"The first and last options are self-explanatory, but what about the other two? What does the soul-nourishing and Concept option do?" Julius asked still ignoring Aubrey\'s shaking.

"The lesser soul-nourishing option is really ever used for those with particularly weak or injured souls. Still most of the time you can find an expensive soul treasure to consume instead, so it\'s rarely worth it. The Concept enlightenment option is quite interesting. Some people find it very difficult to connect with a Concept and this reward allows them to get one without much issue. However, a lot of the time the Concepts acquired are much weaker than a Concept you developed naturally," Lily explained to him, also ignoring Aubrey.

"What are you guys talking about? That\'s not important right now," Aubrey said, still frantic. She turned back to Julius. "I don\'t know if there\'s a way to reverse it, but I will ask my mother. She might know of some treasure or method that might be able to fix it."

Finally, Edgar also seemed to observe that Lily, Derek, and Kyle were surprisingly calm about it. He frowned and squinted his eyes a little before he stood up straight and realization lit up in his eyes. He didn\'t say anything yet, but he just turned to look at Julius with a slight grin.

Julius saw him look at Aubrey who was still freaking out and then back at Julius. Edgar thought for a moment. Then he shrugged and decided to stay silent, but now he was sporting a smile of his own as he enjoyed the show.

Eventually, it was Lily who felt bad for Aubrey. "Aubrey, stop. He is teasing you," she said with a sigh to the wild-eyed woman.

"Huh?" Aubrey stopped shaking Julius.

"He was lying. He didn\'t choose the skill evolution option," Lily told her.

Aubrey turned back to Julius and began shaking him again but for a different reason this time. "You little shit. Why would you play games like that? You actually worried me."

"Eh, to be fair you kind of deserved it," Edgar said from the side.

Aubrey whipped her head to him. "Why? What did I do?"

Edgar shrugged his shoulders. "I don\'t know, the usual things. Being too pushy, not taking into account someone else\'s feelings, and like when you invited those girls over just to make Julius uncomfortable."

Aubrey at least had the self-awareness to take the reprimand on the chin. "Yeah, I guess I deserved it," she said with her head down.

***

Julius spent the next Sunday working on his newly found ability with his aura and his Concept. It was something he believed would be very important to him down the road. Luckily, he had someone who was very good in their own right with aura control willing to practice with him.

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Lily was a very good instructor when it came to aura. She taught him all types of exercises to help improve his control. Apparently, her family had taught her methods that weren\'t that boring. Julius had been just sitting by himself on a mat in the dark whenever he practiced his aura.

However, Lily showed him games the two of them played that trained their aura and certain aspects of it. She had even shown him a game that resembled an aura version of hide and seek that was more tricky for him than the other games she showed him. He was good at the tug-of-war game she showed him, but for anything that needed finesse, she obliterated him.

Everyone had a general tendency for how their aura was used. For Julius, it was destroying other auras and being overall strong. However, just like how his mana control had been, he was lacking the finer and more subtle arts of aura control.

His aura at the moment was like a big warhammer. It was strong enough to just smash into things, but he didn\'t want that. He didn\'t like the thought of being an uncontrolled barbarian with his aura. His pride demanded that he had some proficiency with it.

That was why she was helping him with things like detecting and feeling with aura.

To be fair, he had [Spatial Perception] to handle all of that so far. However, she told him that he would come to regret overlooking these aspects of aura control. So he followed her lead.

The one thing that she showed him that helped his aura control was that he was able to physically affect reality now with his aura. It had gotten strong enough that with enough focus he was able to pick up small objects and use them as flexibility and complex manipulation training.

In a manner that was very similar to his own training when he was learning [Spatial Perception], she made him perceive his surroundings with aura alone. He couldn\'t use [Spatial Perception] or his other senses to know where objects were.

He even used his old methods of depriving himself of his other senses. He pulled out pieces of clay and shoved them into his nose and ears. Then he took out his comfortable black face covering and wrapped it around his eyes.

It all felt very nostalgic. The only thing that was different was that he needed to also completely turn off [Spatial Perception], which was harder than he expected.

He was sure she was laughing at him when she watched him pull out his old training equipment. After all, she had broken out into hysterics when he had told her how he got his perception skill in the first place.

But even if he looked silly, he couldn\'t deny that it was very effective. Though he was flailing around with his aura, trying to feel around for Lily\'s aura hints and small objects that she placed around the training room, he felt himself improving at a noticeable rate.

The only thing he changed halfway through was changing out the clay for perfectly fitted constructs made of [Armaments of the Arcane]. Funnily enough, he even got his first skill level the moment he made them.

[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 1 -> lvl 2]

He knew he wouldn\'t become an aura expert overnight, but with Lily helping him, he felt like it wouldn\'t take him as long. At least that was what he was hoping for. Either way, he was enjoying his time with her. Whether or not he made giant leaps in improvement seemed to matter less than the fact that he was just having plain old fun.

***

His first day back to class from the weekend was quite the experience. Although many of his normal classes were boring as usual. His Applied Combat class was a breath of fresh air.

According to Professor Rowe, they were going to be doing some practical training this week. They still weren\'t going to be doing rift delving yet, but they would be fighting against monsters at least.

As far as Julius understood the professor, the students would be wearing simulated combat bracelets while fighting against captured monsters.

This way, they weren\'t actually able to get hurt if they made any mistakes. Unlike if they were in a real rift. Julius disagreed with this type of training. In his opinion, it was the equivalent of putting bubble wrap around students before letting them play.

Then again, he had a healing skill that could grow back an entire arm, so who was he to judge. However, that didn\'t mean, he didn\'t have a point. Trial by fire was a good way to desensitize the students to pain and fear of death.

With that being said, that was how the students found themselves standing in a large arena, split into several groups. Julius found himself in a group separate from Joshua and James. They were off in their own different group. He was with a bunch of students that he didn\'t recognize.

The professor\'s assistants passed out bracelets to all of the students and showed them how to activate them. They all had some familiarity with them, considering they were used during their practical exams. Once, they made sure that everybody\'s bracelets were working, the professor stood in front of the class.

"Everyone please pay attention," he instructed sternly, a very different tone compared to his usual relaxed one. "I don\'t want to have to repeat myself. If I see any of you fooling around. You will be immediately pulled from this training exercise and punished accordingly."

Professor Rowe was normally the nicest professor they had, so whenever he got serious the students all paid attention, even the ones who fooled around in class.

"In a moment you will all be split up into your respective groups. During this time each of you will have a turn fighting a monster that we have captured for you to fight. These monsters are not real rift or naturally spawned monsters. They are monsters created by our school\'s summoners. While they are technically under the control of the summoner, these monsters are commanded to try and hurt you," he took a quick pause to look around at all the students.

"I want you to pretend as if you don\'t have the simulated combat devices on. This for all other purposes is a real fight. Your goal is to either kill the monsters or survive for ten minutes. Either one will be considered a passing grade. Are there any questions before we begin?"

Julius spotted several hands shoot into the air. Professor Rowe called on one random girl.

"What kind of monsters will we be fighting against?" she asked nervously.

"They will all be monsters at the same tier as you. As for the species, that will vary," Professor Rowe answered.

More students had questions and Julius was somewhat interested to hear what they had to ask, but he was distracted because he felt someone\'s gaze frequently looking over his way the entire time.

He didn\'t turn around but he already knew who the person was. He didn\'t know why the princess was staring at him so intently, but it was making him feel very uncomfortable.