Path to Transcendence

That one single detail automatically made the rift much more dangerous than the last rift they had been delving into.

Labyrinth-type rifts were pretty rare. Out of a hundred rifts, you would only see a handful of labyrinth types among them. With that being said, they weren\'t unheard of and if you planned to delve many rifts in the future, you were bound to encounter at least one.

The goal of delving into this labyrinth rift was to get the students some experience before they were caught unprepared later in their lives.

He had come prepared at least. On top of the several assignments that the professor assigned, he had read up on several books in the library during the past several weeks. In his findings, he realized that the most dangerous elements of these types of rifts were several main things.

One was the unpredictable nature of these rifts. Some labyrinths were monster-focused rifts, whereas some other ones were puzzle or trap-centric ones. This made properly investigating a rift that much more important.

The second dangerous element was the close quarters of the rift. There were times when a team would be stuck in a labyrinth with very narrow walls and sharp corners. This made mages and other fighters who relied on open space to be severely limited by these conditions.

The third was that many perception-based skills were restricted by the walls of the labyrinth. Even his own skill might not be safe from the rift\'s effects. He would still be able to use it, but estimating how much it would before he could test it out for himself was hard to say.

The fourth and final dangerous element was the randomness of where you might enter and how the rift might have changed since the last delve. Most rifts had certain predetermined sections where people enter. Labyrinths didn\'t have that. You could spawn anywhere, with no rhyme or reason to it.

The only way out was to either find an exit or destroy the core of the rift. Destroying the core could sometimes be next to impossible so finding an exit was almost always the solution.

That extra level of danger was also the reason why the class would not be entering as a whole group. Professor Rowe was going to personally escort each group through the rift. That way there was no risk of a group getting stuck inside of it. Each class a total of two groups would be able to enter.

The rest of them would be going through some exercises with the assistants or could choose to practice with their teams. Unfortunately, their group wasn\'t one of the lucky ones, so that meant they had to watch as the other students disappeared with Professor Rowe.

"Aw, man. That\'s not fair," Nessa said disappointedly.

"It\'s just the luck of the draw," Joshua tried to cheer her up.

"I know that, but I guess I kind of felt that we have done a good job as a team so far, which might have given us an extra privilege. You know what I mean?" Nessa said with a frown.

"I feel the same way," Tia added. "I really thought that we might have been chosen instead."

"Don\'t worry guys, we have tomorrow\'s slot. We shouldn\'t be complaining that much," James calmly said.

Polux slapped Tia on her back, surprising the young girl. "Yeah, look on the bright side. We have more time to figure out how we are going to deal with the rift. Maybe the other teams will give us some helpful information."

"I doubt it," Nessa said, sounding unsure. "If the professors allowed that, the later teams would have a much larger advantage. They will most likely prohibit the other teams and individuals from sharing too much."

"Yeah, that\'s probably true," Polux said with a conceding nod and a thoughtful look.

Instead of thinking about it too much, Julius and the others decided to practice their new maneuver that the others were trying out last week before the weekend. The others had spent a few hours over the weekend refining it and believed it could actually work.

Now the next step was implementing Julius and Polux into it.

***

The next day could not arrive soon enough. Julius was pretty excited and his early classes before Applied Combat went by even slower than normal. The entire time during Intro to Mana was spent fidgeting as he anxiously awaited to experience a labyrinth rift.

It wasn\'t just the labyrinth either. This morning Grace had told him that she wanted to talk to him later tonight after they were done with all of their classes. He was a little nervous that she had noticed what he had done yesterday.

If she had, he was just hoping that she wasn\'t too upset and was trying to figure out some sort of excuse he could tell her.

However, he put that out of his mind for later. A labyrinth type rift was interesting to him. It wasn\'t a rift he was familiar with yet, and even though it was a Tier 2 rift, the change was very welcome. He was tempted to use [Sage of Savagery] to temper his emotions but he kind of enjoyed the rippling waves that flowed through his stomach. It made it much more exciting.

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He wasn\'t alone either. When he arrived and saw the others he noticed that they all were slightly nervous and excited as well. He kind of wished they had the first delve of the day, instead of the second one because the wait would be excruciating.

However, their little group of six used this time to prepare themselves and by the time their time came around, they were locked in. There weren\'t any signs of nervousness on their faces like there had been earlier.

Julius looked over to see who would be joining them. There was a team of three guys who Julius had seen often hanging out. He assumed they were all good friends, and they were pretty good from what little Julius had seen from them. Two of them were close combat fighters while the last one was a fire mage like James. However, unlike James\'s more disruptive build, this guy was a pure offense build.

All Julius had seen from him was large swaths of flame and fireballs. He wondered how that would work in a rift of this type and if his friends would need to step up and help him.

The last person who accompanied them was a surprise. It was the princess herself.

Julius was a bit surprised to see that the princess had chosen to delve by herself. He knew that there were plenty of people who would gladly give up their current teams to join hers. Hell, Julius suspected that even some of his team members would be tempted, and he wouldn\'t blame them either.

As scions of noble houses, getting closer to a princess would bring many benefits beyond school. However, that also made sense as to why Reinera didn\'t choose to have a team. Perhaps, the political repercussions would be too complicated.

Julius wasn\'t experienced nor did he really care about such things, so he put it to the back of his mind. He did notice though that Joshua, James, and Nessa were all looking at their prominent group member with focused gazes.

Polux and Tia didn\'t seem to care that much. They only gave her a quick look before focusing on their own team.

Professor Rowe had just finished explaining to the latest group what they were to do, when he waved his hand at them, beckoning them forward.

"Okay, there are a few rules I want to go over. The first and really the only main one is to stay within close distance of me at all times. This rift has been specially curated for students but there are still some dangers and if you get lost then that could be very bad. Almost every student that has died or gotten seriously injured in the past did because they left their professor."

Professor Rowe gave each of them a serious glare, his normal jolly behavior nowhere to be seen. "Secondly, I expect you all to follow my orders promptly and without question. Thirdly, you do not purposefully harm or interfere with another team. Anyone who does will be severely punished by me personally. Not even your family will be able to save you. Understood?"

They all gave him serious nods of acknowledgement which seemed to satisfy him. Professor Rowe nodded. "Okay, let\'s go."

They all walked up to the rift portal and placed their hands on its blue swirling depths.

Notice: Would you like to enter the rift?

***

The first thing Julius noticed about the rift was how dim it was. There was a small smattering of lamps adorned around them.

The area where they appeared seemed to be larger than what he had been expecting. It was more like a big open cavern than a tight hallway. The ceiling loomed several stories high and there were at least a hundred feet from wall to wall.

"Get together now!" He heard Professor Rowe bark out loudly.

Why does he sound so tense? What\'s going on?

Julius sent out large pulses of [Spatial Perception] but came up with nothing. Luckily, his skill still seemed to work, but it didn\'t appear to be able to sense through the stone walls surrounding them.

The group of students were all confused by the professor\'s behavior but followed his directions. They all gathered closer together and immediately afterward, a large barrier of white light surrounded them.

"Professor, what\'s going on?" Joshua asked loudly.

Julius didn\'t see when, but Professor Rowe had taken out a shield and sword from his storage ring. "This area shouldn\'t be here," Professor Rowe said to them.

"What does that mean?" One of the boys of the other team asked nervously.

"It means that something is wrong," Professor Rowe stated in a calm but grave tone. Julius could see the professor\'s eyes constantly darting around, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Something wrong?"

"Yes, something very wrong. But I don\'t get it, we went through all of the protocols this morning and nothing was amiss. I hope I am worrying for nothing, but stay within the barrier, nothing should be able to hurt you through it," Professor Rowe commanded.

Just as the boy was going to ask another question, he was interrupted by a large gathering of mana that surrounded them.

Julius threw out his mana senses and tried to figure out what was it for. He quickly found where the mana was channeling toward. There was something on the ceiling of the cavern, scripted on the stone.

It was like a ritual circle, but one very large. It kind of reminded him of the one from the chamber where the teleportation circle was in.

A very bad feeling started to bloom in his stomach. Professor Rowe seemed to have identified it as well. He had a very dreary look on his face. "Everyone, prepare yourselves," was all he said to them.

The moment he finished saying that, Julius felt ripples much like the spatial ripples he had felt before from Alice exploding from the ceiling and a solid cylindrical tower of mana encasing the entire room.

What the hell is going on? He thought to himself worryingly. The rest of the students had very panicked expressions on their faces. It was like they had just realized what deep shit they had found themselves in.

Julius immediately started to activate [Sage of Savagery] with more intensity. That calmed him down enough to think properly and the first thing he did once he was more calm, was to deactivate his suppression device. He had a feeling that he would not be able to afford to not be at his best for what was to come.

A part of him wanted nothing more than to launch a massive constructed spike at the circle above, but he remembered what happened when the attacker at the estate had done that and refrained. He didn\'t need to take the chance of killing all of them. This teleportation thing was taking them somewhere else, he didn\'t really get the sense that it was supposed to kill them.

As he waited, he started to prepare for the worst.

However, just as he felt the entire circle activate he felt someone grab ahold of his hand. The palm was sweaty and the person was clearly scared, he didn\'t have time to check who it was but instead, he gave it a reaffirming squeeze.

Then the mana detonated and everyone was whisked away like getting flushed down a toilet.