Path to Transcendence

Almost every person who was taking that class was talented in some form or the other. Even the ones who started off with zero experience were already quite skilled swordsmen. Julius didn\'t have that same itch to specialize in the sword.

He rather liked his close combat style of punching people in the face. Edwin had drilled that into him pretty well.

Since he had so much he wanted to work on already, giving up a class that he wasn\'t interested in was a good trade-off. He was now able to use that hour of class to practice with his aura, Concepts, or other skills.

He still kept hand-to-hand with Gabriel and his aura class with Professor Youma though. In fact, his class with the bald professor had just ended.

They had just finished with a class that had focused on strikes made with one\'s knee or elbows. It was quite the brutal class since they weren\'t using any bracelets to protect them. The people who sparred together ended up getting pretty beat up at the end of it.

Luckily, there were a couple of healers on the side who helped everyone after class. Gabriel must have expected this particular class to be more challenging than others.

Julius didn\'t usually spar with the others during this particular class. Gabriel made a note for everyone to spar with as many random opponents as they could within their group. Julius was stuck in the larger groups of Tier 2s, which let him trade knees and elbows with many other students. Some of them are even in their second or third years.

Thankfully, nobody was trying to hurt someone else. Gabriel made that very clear that was one of the only rules.

Julius stayed behind after the others left like he did often. While he and Gabriel hadn\'t been sparring all that much, not as much as they initially agreed on, they still got together a couple of times a week.

This time though, Julius had a surprise for the big bald professor.

They didn\'t waste any time once the rest of the students left. Both of them headed into the middle of a training area and stood in front of one another. Gabriel had the same cocky smirk on his face as looked on at Julius.

In all of their sparring, Julius had not been able to beat the baldie even a single time. Despite not using any Authority, Gabriel handled Julius very easily.

However, today Julius was hoping that his new improvements would change that. He hadn\'t shown Gabriel any of his Concept-based abilities yet. He also had [Quick Step] now. The skill might not be that helpful, considering that he hadn\'t even tested it yet. But it was at least more than he had a day ago.

Julius took off his uniform, leaving himself with only a pair of pants. He noticed that Gabriel eyed the burn scars on his arms which were almost always covered up by his long sleeves with a glance.

Julius didn\'t give any countdown or warning, he just immediately pumped kinetic energy into his legs and burst forward while simultaneously activating [Quick Step] for the first time. The new skill didn\'t magically double his speed, but it did give him a nice boost.

Gabriel\'s eyes widened slightly in surprise at Julius\'s increased speed and got into position to defend himself. Just like normal, he would allow Julius to make contact with him, using his skills to prevent most if not all the damage.

That was what was annoying about fighting against Gabriel. He fought like an immovable fortress. He was more than capable and fast enough to dodge, but the bald professor made a point to take everything Julius threw at him directly.

However, what he didn\'t know was that Julius had a surprise in store.

Just as Gabriel put up his protected forearm to block Julius\'s punch, his eyes crinkled in confusion as Julius surrounded his arm in mana.

Julius activated [Armaments of the Arcane] for the first time in a fight. And it was glorious. The speed and strength of the mana that rushed around his arm was exhilarating. The small gauntlet he made around his arm was beautiful.

It was comprised of a delicate but deceptively strong thin layer of mana woven with his new Concept of Severing Will. That wasn\'t all there was to it either. [Barrier of Severance] was activated and laid over top of the gauntlet, in a pale white light.

He could feel the razor-sharp mana radiating from its surface.

Gabriel barely managed to put more mana and his own Concept into his arm, before the blow slammed against him. Julius watched as Gabriel\'s arm was blasted out of the way, leaving the man\'s chest completely open.

He didn\'t let the opportunity go. The second he created the gauntlet, he had already been in the middle of creating a full body armor around himself. His armored left arm came underneath Gabriel\'s other arm, right in the man\'s blind spot, and shot to his chin.

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The professor hadn\'t been able to defend himself in time and took the entire payload of fire and kinetic energy to the chin. The sharpened mana tore across the man\'s skin in a frenzy.

Julius went in for another attack but was disappointed to see that Gabriel had already recovered and was wearing an acknowledging smile on his face. Before Julius\'s next strike could land, the big bald man quickly stepped to the side and delivered a brutal punch to Julius\'s side.

It was so fast, that Julius didn\'t even get a chance to avoid it. However, his armor around his midsection managed to hold up, albeit with a dent. He wasn\'t able to siphon all of the force behind it, even with the help of the construct, so he still felt like a horse kicked him in the stomach.

He stepped back using [Quick Step] and tried to escape Gabriel\'s advance, but the man grappled Julius with both arms and demonstrated exactly what they had learned in today\'s class. He sent two quick knees straight into his stomach and chest, before throwing an elbow into his helm.

Julius felt more mana than the professor had ever used in any of their spars flowing through his body in this short moment. That meant that the knees were much stronger than the punch and shattered the armor around his chest, cracking it like an eggshell.

The elbow was just mean and had smashed the helm, tearing off a section from his face. For a brief moment, Julius blacked out.

But before he could even think about it, [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] flared up all by itself. Clearing the fog in his head in a blink. Then went on to heal the broken ribs and fractured jaw right after.

Julius didn\'t hesitate for a moment. He pushed all of his mana to the remaining part of his helm, created an explosive spike, and headbutted the still-grappled Gabriel in the chest. He was unfortunately too short compared to the massive man, so that was the best he was going to get.

The second the spike dug into the chest of Gabriel, it exploded and threw both of them away from each other. It was probably not the best decision to explode a spike that was attached to his face. The explosion, even with him focused on pushing it outward still tore apart his face.

Almost half of his face was a riddled mess of disfigured flesh. However, [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] was already healing the wounds at a phenomenal rate.

Julius didn\'t get back to his feet but sat on his butt as he watched Gabriel calmly get back up. The man didn\'t come out unscathed either.

His arm had several small cuts from where he had blocked Julius\'s initial surprise attack. His chin had a nice laceration across the length of it, and his chest was riddled with small cuts and wounds from the explosion.

It was the first time that Julius had actually managed to damage Gabriel. The first time he made the man actually bleed.

Julius had a massive grin on his face and released a loud whoop before falling to his back laughing in joy.

[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 2 -> lvl 3]

[Kinetic Augmentation lvl 16 -> lvl 17]

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 15 -> lvl 16]

[Barrier of Severance lvl 9 -> lvl 10]

[Quick Step lvl 1 -> lvl 3]

He received a bunch of level increases all across the board. [Quick Step] even gained two levels surprisingly.

He sensed Gabriel walk over to Julius and stand over him with a smirk on his face.

"So you finally got a Concept and an epic skill huh?" The bald man asked with amusement.

"Don\'t forget [Quick Step]," Julius joked.

"Ah yes, how could I forget about that? When did all of this happen?" He asked Julius.

Julius sat up a little to look at the man who was standing over him. "I guess it happened about a week ago for my Concept. The skills are quite new though," he told him.

"That armor construct you made was only possible because of the skill?" Gabriel asked interested.

"Yeah, I haven\'t been able to do it until recently. It was when I finally got it down that I evolved the skill. What do you think? Pretty good right?" He asked proudly.

Gabriel just shook his head and had a smile on his face. "I was worried about you not having any defense other than that healing skill of yours. At least now you aren\'t so soft and squishy."

Julius took that as praise. Gabriel was like a steel vault when it came to approval, he had some ridiculous standards. Calling Julius less squishy was Gabriel\'s way of saying he was like a brick wall.

He did have a question he wanted to ask the big baldie though. "How did you break through my construct? I felt you use a lot of mana, but I also felt you do something that I haven\'t quite seen before. Was it a skill?" Julius asked with curious eyes.

Gabriel smirked. "Good catch. Yeah, I had to use my [Vibrational Surge] to get through your construct. Since you had infused it with your Concept of Sharpness, unless I used absurd amounts of force, I wasn\'t going to break through that without something to help me."

"[Vibrational Surge]? Wasn\'t that the skill you used on me during my practical exam? It felt way different now," Julius commented.

"It should be. I used much more mana just then. It\'s a pretty good skill for penetrating physical defenses," Gabriel said to him. "I even had to use my Body Concept as well. You should be proud."

Julius nodded at the man in gratitude for his compliment. He also saw that the small cuts on Gabriel\'s face were almost completely closed up and healed. Tier 4s had an unbelievable natural regeneration. It was practically a minor healing skill on its own.

Julius also knew that Gabriel had an aura-based recovery skill that healed him and his fatigue by small amounts. Gabriel had told him as much. He had also explained that while the skill\'s effects were not as extreme as Julius\'s own healing skill, the passive recovery required zero mana and enhanced all other healing effects. Even the ones from potions.

This meant that his evidence of victory was short-lived. In a couple of seconds, the proof of his accomplishment was replaced with fresh unblemished skin.

Gabriel saw the look on his face and laughed. He knew exactly what Julius was thinking and found it hilarious. He patted Julius on the head roughly and dragged him to his feet.

They still had time left before Gabriel needed to leave. With a sigh, Julius prepared himself for another round of sparring. However, this time he knew that Gabriel wasn\'t going to let him injure him again. He would be fighting Julius with a little more seriousness.

However, that also demonstrated that Julius was improving quickly. So while he knew the next few rounds would involve him getting his face punched in, he tried to encourage himself that he was at least making progress.