Path to Transcendence

However, he quickly eliminated that possibility as well. Her entire form was different. Grace had black hair, was a little bit taller, and had a totally different body shape. Even if she was covered in some type of illusion magic, he was confident that he would have been able to see through it with [Spatial Perception].

Not to mention that their entire demeanor was different. The princess was always calm, collected, and poised. The very way she walked demanded respect. In comparison, Grace was shy and a little bit awkward.

He had been able to see through Aubrey\'s skills easily enough. Also, he was able to sense Amelia as well. Which gave him some measure of confidence in the skill\'s ability to detect what was really there and what really wasn\'t.

Still, that didn\'t leave him with much. The only thing he could really think of was if the princess had been around the restaurant the other night. Or if she spotted him when the six of them were going around town last Saturday.

It was very confusing and he would like to find out what had gotten her attention. The last thing he wanted was some spoiled princess\'s attention on him. He was trying to avoid standing out for a reason. Admittedly, he hadn\'t been the best at it so far, but he was doing his best.

Julius shifted his thoughts away from the princess. There wasn\'t anything he could do about it for now, but he would keep an eye on her in the future.

Because he had been too focused on the princess, he ended up missing what kind of questions the professor had answered from other students. Now they were being placed in their groups, spread out all around the arena.

The person who was their main supervisor for this exercise was a young man who looked around Edgar\'s age. However, he was also Tier 3, so that could mean he was twice his age and Julius would have no idea.

He was high Tier 3 though. That much Julius could sense through whatever aura lingered around the guy.

There were seven people in their group and once they got in line as they were instructed the professor\'s assistant spoke to them.

"Okay. This is how it is going to go. One of you at a time will enter that ring over there," he pointed at a decently sized sectioned-off part of the arena. "After that, you will activate your bracelets. Once they are activated, I will send the signal for the summoner to send in a monster. At that point, the fight has already begun. You are free to attack it whenever you wish. You will be assessed on how well you deal with it and how well you handle yourself. Is that clear?"

Julius along with the other six students all nodded their heads. He noticed that a couple of students were more anxious than others. One boy in their group had a confident look on his face.

As for Julius, he remained impassive. He wasn\'t worried about losing to some Tier 2 monster. The only thing he was thinking about was how much he was going to use to put it down.

While he was tempted to use his new skill, he held off on that idea. He had a feeling that it wouldn\'t be a good idea for him to show his fancy new skill to everyone yet.

The reasonable thing to do would be to work on his [Kinetic Augmentation] skill. He was still technically a physical fighter at first glance. He rarely used mana during the spars held in class.

He heard the male assistant ask if anyone wanted to volunteer to go first. Unsurprisingly, it was the confident boy who raised his hand. When there was nobody else who raised their hand, their supervisor beckoned the volunteer over to the sectioned-off arena.

As Julius was still standing there thinking about how he was going to approach this exercise, he finally had an idea of what he was going to do.

After he and Lily were done with aura training, Julius spent the rest of his night trying to acquire [Quick Step]. Gabriel showed him the general steps he needed to do. He was even helpful enough to demonstrate specific activities Julius could do in order to hasten the acquirement of the skill.

The only thing that had been holding Julius back, was just how much time he had. Each day there seemed to be more and more things he wanted or needed to get done. Despite not sleeping for days at a time, he still found himself taking more time than he should have to get the skill.

It has been many weeks at this point since he learned of the skill\'s existence, and he still hasn\'t gotten it yet.

He was close though. He felt like all it would take was a push to take it over the edge.

Maybe today would be the day for that. He wouldn\'t be showing off his new skill to everyone. He still didn\'t want to cause too much commotion.

With a decisive nod. He made a decision. I will get [Quick Step] today, he resolved to himself.

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He looked up in time to see that the boy who had volunteered was already inside of the enchanted area.

A bright circle of complex runic symbols etched its way into the floor on the other end of the area. Soft white light with a bluish hue lit up the entire arena from every other area where various groups were.

He was able to feel just how much mana was being released by all of these works of magic. There were the summoning circles, the enchantments that protected and separated the students, and then the bracelets, all being powered by mana.

He didn\'t even think he would be able to power a single student group area by himself with his entire mana pool. And he knew how ridiculous his mana capacity was for his tier. However, that was also just what it was. For his tier.

When it came to true Tier 4s, he couldn\'t compare.

He imagined that Gabriel, even with his pitiful reserves for a Tier 4 would be able to handle a few enchantment areas himself.

At the center of light appeared a deer-like monster. It just stood there still as a statue as it took in its surroundings. There were small antlers nested on top of its head, like a small tiara of branches. All things considered, it was admittedly a very cute monster.

Julius would barely call it a monster in the first place either.

Even Julius\'s swift observation could see that there was more intelligence in these so-called summons than what the professor or the assistants had mentioned. If anything they had downplayed it and made it seem like the monsters would be feral.

It was only after a couple of fast seconds, that the deer immediately zeroed in on the only target in the room and took off at the boy.

The boy to his credit wasn\'t shaken from this sudden attack. While his grip around a dagger was a touch too firm, he wasn\'t panicking. The deer was Tier 2 just like the boy and had activated some sort of physical enhancement skill.

Nothing appeared around its body, but Julius could sense a good amount of mana pumping through the deer\'s body.

The boy lifted his dagger toward the incoming deer. Julius could feel a flow flowing into the dagger from the boy. Julius was interested in it immediately. It was the first thing he had seen that resembled a conduit of some sort in action.

The boy was able to just push mana through the dagger and use that as a kind of battery to store and control any excess mana.

He would also be able to expel it all at once as well. It was the solution to Julius\'s biggest problem when it came to mana manipulation in the earliest days. He still had that problem but it wasn\'t so bad as he continued to improve.

He was still learning how to grab larger amounts of mana at one time. It was slow, but bit by bit, he was able to use larger amounts at a time compared to a few months ago.

However, this little dagger that wasn\'t really a dagger had the capability to do exactly what Julius had been learning. He knew that conduits existed, but he hadn\'t really seen one up close yet. The only people who used conduits in his friend group were Lily and Kyle. There was also Derek, who used his spear as a conduit but he was still primarily a spear user.

Julius observed as five dark blue spears of ice mana appeared around the boy.

However, Julius was being honest. They resembled more closely to rugged icicles than spears, but he was being picky.

The creation of them was crude, but he felt that it was due to whatever skill that boy had. Julius could barely feel the boy attempt to control the mana himself. Each process of the creation of the spears was robotic.

It was like the difference between an artist and a printer machine creating the exact same picture. The printer would have a constant speed, with little to zero fluctuation. However, the artist would take his time on it. There might be a couple of sections that he took more care of or other sections that were easier for him. There was a certain rhythm to their creation.

While the printer could replicate the artist\'s picture perfectly, it wasn\'t able to replicate the creative journey of the artwork. The rhythm of the song was off. That was how Julius was able to tell that the boy was simply feeding his skill the mana, then sending it through his magic dagger. There was no variation or change in the speed of mana. He didn\'t fumble any parts, but it felt artificial. As if there was no life in his ice spears.

The boy sent all five lifeless spears flying at the deer, blocking off any angles for it to dodge. Some shattered, but two spears stuck into the deer and went a couple of inches deep before falling out as it continued its run at him.

If there was anything very useful about that dagger of his and relying on the skill, it was the sheer speed he formed the spikes.

It was comparable speed to Julius\'s own construct creation time. By the time the spears had made it halfway, there were more spears replacing them in front of the boy.

Just as the first volley hit, he released the next batch of spears. Also since the deer had been staggered by the first attack, the second attack was much more effective.

Four spears hit the deer. One of them even managed to pierce the right shoulder deeply, causing the deer to stumble and fall to the ground.

Julius was expecting another volley to come raining down and end the fight, but he was let down when nothing happened. He looked over at the boy, wondering why he was waiting.

However, to Julius\'s surprise, the boy was slightly out of breath already. It wasn\'t a lot, but there were minor signs of exertion. It wasn\'t only him that was slightly tired either. The dagger in his hands felt almost fragile now.

Perhaps, there was only so much of it the boy could use before it had to reset or use again.

Whatever it was, it was still a shame that the boy didn\'t launch another attack while he could. Just because the dagger wasn\'t in use didn\'t mean that he could launch some spears of his own.

He at least used an enhancement skill on himself and ran closer to the deer. He tucked the mana conduit away into his spatial device and removed a longer blade from it instead. It was closer to a one-and-a-half-hand sword.

His enhancement skill was quite good. It was certainly better than the deer\'s. He closed in on the deer quickly and swung his sword down on the deer. However, the deer had enough time to get back to its feet and was able to evade just enough that it only got a long slice down its side.

Blood ran down its side as it tried to headbut the boy with its head. That was reinforced with now glowing mana.

The boy quickly backed away, avoiding the ram. And swept his blade down again, this time cutting much deeper into the left shoulder of the deer. Sending it crashing into the ground as two of its legs were crippled.

It tried to kick out with its feet as the boy got closer, trying to finish it off, but the boy just stayed his distance and chopped at the flailing legs. He even took one of them clean off with a solid strike.

After that, it wasn\'t long until the boy was able to put down the deer. Once he put one last brutal swing into its neck, Julius watched as the deer turned to particles of mana and floated back to the magic circle.