Path to Transcendence

Chapter 5: The Baptism

The second the Patriarch said to begin, Julius felt a warm sensation suffuse his entire body. However, just as quickly as it came, it slowly went away. The mana started to congregate towards the center of his chest. No… not towards his chest, deeper, more like it was heading directly into his soul.

A part of himself that Julius never knew existed appeared within him. He could sense the mana from the orb start to collect within this chamber. The mana was like water vapor, slowly filling up the room.

When the entire room was filled with this mist, it stopped filling on its own. The mana coming from the orb was slowing to a trickle.

This is what Edwin meant by determining talent, Julius realized.

So, it became the challenge of how much mana Julius could fit inside before stopping. Instead of just allowing the mana to fill up on its own, he began to try to shove in as much as he could into it. However, that stopped working too. He was letting more and more slip through his fingers, and most of it wasn’t going to him but getting lost.

Panicking slightly, he decided to change methods. What if he didn’t shove the mana? What if he sucked it in, like air through his lungs? Visualizing what he imagined, he began to take deep breaths, trying to suck in as much mana with each breath. It started to fill up rapidly, and the pace increased noticeably. The room started to fill up with a thick fog rather than a fine mist.

Julius began to understand that the more mana it held, the harder it was to bring in more. It didn’t matter how much you wanted to continue. In the end, it became more about how much you can stuff into a limited space.

With that being said, Julius had a random thought. He knew from his previous memories that condensed mist was just water. Therefore, it should be theoretically possible to fill it up until it is all liquid. He was curious what his core would look like if he accumulated as much mana as he could within himself. Goal in mind, he renewed his focus and tried to condense all the mana even denser, using the momentum of what he was taking in to compress what mana he already had into one side of the room.

For a moment, nothing happened. It looked like he was just exerting himself unnecessarily. For a second, he felt a little give. It was a sign that it was possible.

However, the rate at which he was bringing in new mana was slowing down. It became similar to breathing through a thin straw. No matter how hard he pulled in, there was a hard limit. But what if he didn’t try to breathe it in? Why would he try to suck it in when he could pull it?

Julius thought about what he could adjust, and after a moment, he realized. Just like the vortex of a whirlpool, he would rip mana and pull it into himself, constantly gaining more and more momentum. Not stopping until he was entirely filled to the brim.

Image in mind, Julius started to spin the mana, mimicking a vortex. It was extremely difficult. On top of trying to continue to compress his mana into liquid form, his brain was on fire, and his soul felt like it was being wrung like a dish towel. However, it started to work. Mana now started to flood into him, wave after wave crashing against the mana already inside, making condensing it even easier. Once the vortex was spinning at a ridiculous speed, he didn’t even need to focus on it anymore. It was sustaining itself without much input from him.

Unfortunately, he started to run into a different problem. The walls of the room started to show signs of wear, and small hairline cracks appeared. Understanding that the walls containing his mana could not endure the pressure he was generating by compressing it, he started to enforce the walls themselves. He imagined his entire will infusing into the walls, smothering the mana inside, not allowing even a drop to get out.

Eventually, he noticed a pool of mana—a small pool of liquid mana in the center of the room, radiating a sense of power that was incomparable to its prior form. However, Julius was at his limit—hell, he was way beyond his limits. Only sheer stubbornness kept him going. He didn’t even try to focus on anything other than keeping it contained.

When Julius came to this world, he was given a chance, and he would not take it for granted. He had promised himself that he would never give up. He remembered what it felt like to give up, to fall to his death, to be okay with dying without a fight. Not again. He would fight for every inch, every second. He would fight.

To that end, Julius didn’t let up, not even as his soul was screaming in pain and his mind was in complete delusion. However, not even he could keep it up forever, and the comforts of darkness soon welcomed him.

***

Lukas POV

Lukas Von Hyperius was speechless. His nephew, Julius, was an unexpected addition to his family. When his youngest brother came home bearing a baby boy in his arms, he didn’t know what to think. The others thought it was well beyond the point of return for his brother.

Lukas didn’t necessarily disagree with them either. He loved his brother. Gregor was his youngest sibling and held a special place in his heart. With that said, Lukas knew he was irrational when it came to his brother. Gregor was given every chance to show the family he had changed for the better, but he failed to prove it over and over.

Despite that, he continued to act like an arrogant fool, flaunting his status at every turn. He had no sense of responsibility. Instead, he spent his time out drinking and whoring around. It was an embarrassment as a member of a Marquis house. It was only by Lukas’s word that he had managed to stay attached to the house.

However, when Lukas saw his brother bring home a child of his own, he thought it might be a sign that he would change. Except it didn’t. Gregor remained a boastful, conceited, self-important noble.

Naturally, Lukas was curious about the circumstances of Julius’s birth. Thus, he investigated what had happened. Lukas wasn’t stupid; he knew that Gregor probably had dozens of spawns running around the empire. He just didn’t know what made him decide to bring Julius home instead.

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According to everything Lukas had managed to find out, the mother was just some commoner who had caught his brother’s eye. However, with her passing, she requested that Gregor take care of their son. Lukas was surprised Gregor actually followed through, expecting him to drop the child off at some orphanage and forget about him.

When Gregor brought young Julius back to the estate, many of the Elders wanted to expel him immediately. Elder Samuel, who had a particular dislike for Gregor, was especially adamant. Fortunately for his brother and his child, Lukas managed to convince the others to allow them to remain in the family. However, Samuel put a stipulation in place, agreeing that they could, as long as they could reevaluate the situation once Julius’s baptism had passed.

Lukas was frustrated; he understood Samuel’s dislike for his brother, but he disagreed with taking it out on Julius. Who was, by all accounts, still his nephew and innocent. Lukas didn’t believe in punishing a child for his father’s crimes, but the agreement was set nonetheless. Gregor had gotten worse over the years, and the decision about him had already been made. As the Patriarch, he had prepared himself for what had to be done.

As the years went by, Lukas always maintained an eye on Julius. Other than one freak accident that occurred when Julius was seven, he was a perfectly healthy young boy. Lukas found himself enjoying hearing about his young nephew’s antics and unusual behaviors. It was often a highlight of his day when Edwin came in to give a recent report.

However, in Edwinʼs opinion, he thought the boy had a developmental disorder. He backed it up by noting his antisocial behavior, above-average intelligence, obsessive habits, and overall odd behavior, which were all signs that it was true.

While Lukas understood some of the truth behind Edwinʼs claims, he couldn’t help but feel attached to Julius. Lukas wasn’t happy keeping his distance from his nephew all these years; he had to maintain his neutrality to avoid angering other family members. Unlike many of the other spoiled rotten kids running around, Julius seemed like a kind young man who treated everyone around him with respect and consideration. However, kindness and patience did not necessarily relate to talent, and if he wasn’t talented enough, he would be expelled from House Hyperius.

As such, he had already decided that if the baptism didn’t go well, he would find him a loving home fit with anything he would need for his entire life. That was the least Lukas could do for Julius after being absent for many years.

That said, he did not expect the current situation at all. Edwin had previously mentioned that the boy had a good chance of failing to meet the requirements to be considered a natural talent.

When Julius first started absorbing the mana inside the orb, it was slow but predictable. So when Lukas noticed the rate of mana being absorbed slowing down, he was ready to end the test.

Despite that, against all expectations, he felt the rate increase dramatically. Before, it was like raindrops accumulating, but now it felt like a faucet rapidly filling up a bucket. At this rate, he believed Julius would pass the test. Lukas took a quick glance at Edwin standing in the crowd. Edwin wasn’t surprised. No, he had a shit-eating grin all over his face. Lukas was confused. Why would Edwin say he didn’t think Julius would pass, but now was not even mildly shocked at the outcome?

He pulled his attention back to Julius. The flow of mana was still impressive. However, Lukas ascertained that he would be slowing down any second.

Sure enough, a few moments later, mana started to slow down. This was already an amount that exceeded the general average, which meant that the others arguing for his expulsion would find it difficult to do so.

I guess this means that—

Lukasʼs thoughts were interrupted as he felt a massive surge of mana, dwarfing the previous amount, erupt from the pedestal. Just as he thought Julius was done, he once again figured out how to increase the rate of flow. Everyone present, except for Edwin, was in undisguised shock at this turn of events. Even Samuel had a sour look on his face.

After several moments, the amount of mana being drained from the orb was enough to fill several average cores. However, he could sense a lot of it was being wasted, dissipating into the surroundings. Therefore, it was difficult to predict how much mana Julius was retaining. Regardless, he had already proven his talent enough.

At this point, Lukas could see that Julius’s face was screwed tight in pain and concentration. Grinding his teeth so hard, Lukas swore he heard some of them crack. After a bit of time, trickles of blood started to drip out of Julius’s nose and eyes. Alarmed, Lukas was just about to put a stop to it. However, just as he was about to interrupt, Julius passed out, falling to the floor.

The rapid flow of mana was slowly dwindling, and Lukas noticed that Edwin immediately went over to tend to Julius while the others took time to process what had just occurred.

The entire crowd was quiet for what seemed like an eternity. Not a single person spoke, in shock at what happened.

Finally, Abigail, one of his cousins who oversaw the day-to-day operations of the house, such as scheduling and maintenance, spoke up.

“What in the god’s name just happened?”

Nobody answered her. They didn’t know themselves. However, after a bit, it seemed like Samuel had something he wanted to say.

“It seemed like the child managed to drain mana out of the device with a surprising level of force. However, I found it odd that although the amount of mana being drained was massive, most of it was being wasted. If the child had indeed been successful in absorbing even a small amount of that mana, he would have easily formed his core several times over. Therefore, since he is evidently still untiered, I believe we can explain this as just an anomaly. Maybe the device has malfunctioned in a way, releasing way too much mana for a child such as Julius to handle.”

The people around took time to digest this information. Everyone knew that Samuel was one of the only ones with an advanced mana-sensing skill amongst them. Most of the people around the estate were not the most skilled users in the family, bottlenecking around Tier 3. Most of their remaining elites were off doing more important missions or tasks. But Samuel was a powerful Tier 5, with over a century of experience. Thus, his statement convinced many of them. In their view, what Samuel proposed was way more realistic than the option that a child just turned twelve could somehow manipulate such an incredible amount of mana. An amount that many of them could not do on their own.

Lukas decided to speak up. “I agree. It is possible that it was a malfunction, and most of the mana towards the end was unabsorbed. With that being said, that doesn’t mean the child didn’t absorb any of it. By my accounts, young Julius was able to absorb much more than what most are capable of during their baptism. He has very likely filled almost all of his core. This means that by all standards, he is a talent we cannot afford to lose. Do you disagree, Samuel?” Lukas looked directly at Samuel.

Samuel grimaced briefly, then nodded in agreement; he knew Lukasʼs assessment was accurate. While his opinion was biased, he couldn’t ignore the facts. Samuel was extremely loyal to his house and wouldn’t deprive it of a potential talent just out of spite.

Now that people got their composure back, several questions were thrown around at once, while the person of their inquiry lay passed out on the floor.

However, something surprised Lukas. He didn’t know if Samuel had managed to catch it, but he had. Lukas couldn’t quite tell what Julius was doing with the mana he absorbed. It was a weird technique similar to what you would do to condense your core, but it differed in some ways that made it very intriguing. He also didn’t miss the fact that this interesting technique wasn’t released even after Julius passed out.