Path to Transcendence

Chapter 126: Celebratory Cake

It was the middle of the night. Tomorrow was their planned day and the six of them had already decided to leave earlier in the day to walk around the city before dinner. Therefore, Julius wanted to get his skill tonight by any means necessary.

He should be able to as well. He could feel it. For the past couple of days, he had been so close, it was teetering on the edge. All it needed was a little push and he would be able to learn an epic skill.

His ability to use his Severing Will Concept was leaps and bounds better than when he first got it. It was starting to feel as natural as using his mana and he could see why people who had a Concept were considered more powerful than those who didn’t.

The main advantage that Julius found out was the Concept’s ability to be used in conjunction with all of Julius’s abilities, not just his skills. Even his aura took on some aspects of Severing Will. It felt sharper and from some perspectives, more harsh. When he cranked up his aura, it felt like someone was holding a giant broadsword over another person’s head.

There was an undeniable feeling of intimidation looming over whoever was subjugated to it. Julius could see how it could be a good deterrent in the future.

At the current moment, Julius was concentrating on covering his entire body with constructs. He had always had a troubling time creating an armor-like construct that covered his entire body while still maintaining flexibility.

However, the time that he spent practicing making chairs and other furniture helped him focus on the softer applications of mana. He was then able to transfer this ability and apply it to his armor construct.

He looked down at his hands which were covered in dark red hardened mana. They resembled something closer to gloves. There was barely any additional thickness around his fingers and they looked too delicate to be of practical use.

However, that was exactly what Julius had been practicing to make. His old gauntlets were more like big pistons attached to his hands. They were mainly meant for punching things and delivering a payload of energy.

To his pride, he was now able to create something a little more elegant and a little more practical for various other uses. He made sure to create softened sections of mana, specifically around the joints and where his fingers would curl. Thanks to [Composite Mana], there weren’t any cracks or separate layers either. It was one single piece of mana that was reinforced with [Arcane Construct] and [Pure Compression].

These gloves were strong. They hummed with the power that was held within them. Not to mention they literally vibrated from the sharpened mana Julius was able to add due to getting better with his Concept.

The gloves were the hard part. The follow-up parts of the armor were much easier. The chest plate was shockingly the simplest to create. It was pretty much just a really dense and strong layer of mana. The most difficult was creating a mechanism for him to absorb and store kinetic energy from impacts from his opponents.

Slowly but surely Julius was able to wrap his entire upper body with rippling red mana. Woven fibers of mana wrapped around his limbs. He was able to create the lower half of the armor without any issues as well. The armor around his feet took a little longer to find a comfortable configuration, but with the generous application of softened mana, his feet were soon surrounded by little mana clouds. They became one of the most comfortable shoes he ever had.

That just left the helmet. The helmet was a little more complicated than what he had been expecting. It wasn’t like he needed more complex or intricate control, but he did need to work on the aesthetics. The rest of his armor had a rugged edge to it. It had sharp but tasteful angles around the chest plate, greaves, and shoulders, but the joints were flawless and smooth.

The faceplate took him longer to decide on the look he wanted to go for. Finally, he decided on a helmet that had sharp spikes adorned all across the top, making it look like a crown of thorns. The helm looked vicious and way over the top.

It’s perfect, Julius smiled to himself.

It was intimidating and completely dark crimson red. He looked more like a villain than anything else.

Just like his gloves, the entire suit of armor was thrumming with a pale white light of sharpened mana. The light felt like it was cutting apart everything that got even remotely close to its vicinity, even the air.

It was everything he could have hoped for when he first got the idea of a suit of construction armor. It took a lot of mana, even for his standards, but he didn’t feel like it was a waste.

It wasn’t easy to hold together though. It took a lot of concentration and willpower to keep it up. He felt as if any second he could lose control of it and the construct would slowly start to fall apart. It would most likely take a while, but it would crumble away eventually if he allowed it.

Once he had the entire construct armor up and going he didn’t stop there. Julius pulled as much mana as he could and began creating a spike of mana.

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However, this spike wasn’t like his usual constructs. This time he was going to use the blue fire that he had been wary of since the day he first used it.

A big part of why he wanted to create a mana construct epic skill was to use this dangerous kinetically enhanced fire. He never felt like he had been able to control it in the past. It had only been due to extreme circumstances and luck that he hadn’t killed himself when using it.

However, he truly believed that once he had an epic skill, he would be able to handle it with more confidence.

He used [Arcane Construct] to create the framework of the skill. Then he used [Pure Compression] to pack in as much mana and his Concept of Severing Will. Once he had that all set, he used [Composite Mana] to intertwine the various energies together into one homogeneous mass.

Once he had that all set, he got to work on using the kinetic energy to feed fuel into the existing fire mana. Like normal, he felt himself barely keeping it from blowing up in his face. It was only due to his increased skills, experience, and willpower that held it together.

However, Julius was happily surprised to observe that [Composite Mana] helped out the process by a significant margin. The way the skill helped facilitate the two different mana types into a singular one made a massive difference in how well it went.

Previously, it felt like he was trying to balance on a wire a thousand feet in the air while also trying to wrangle a cat that didn’t want to be held. Now, it felt like he was just balancing on a wire. It was much less stressful.

Which is why he was glad that he was able to create a glowing spike of deep blue mana. It was blistering hot, even from his perspective with his innate resistance.

He took the time to observe this new construct. It was different than the ones he had made before. This time he had created something that he believed would actually pose a threat to Gabriel.

The two of them whenever they sparred, focused on hand-to-hand combat. Julius tended to not use his constructs other than as a gauntlet or other physical enhancement. This led to Julius becoming much more proficient in close combat. But he had also not been able to cause Gabriel any real damage yet. His resistance skills and durable body were one thing. But then if you added Gabriel’s Authority, it became next to impossible for Julius to hurt him.

With that being said, Julius might be able to leave a bruise now. If he were to shoot this spike at Gabriel’s forehead, he had some confidence that it would at least tickle the bald monster.

Then again, he would have to wait and see it for himself when he got the opportunity to test it out on Gabriel.

He started to feel a little strained holding the mass of energy together and so he launched it at the furthest target against the wall. Much like his other attempt with sharpened mana, the spike didn’t create a single sound as it pierced the air.

One second it was blistering through the air and the next it was smashing into the stone target with a deafening boom. A huge vortex of fire spiraled out of the point of explosion and left a man-sized crater in the stone target.

Thankfully, he had been practicing in the more advanced facilities where the enchantments were made for stronger students. Because he had a feeling that if he had done the same thing in the first-year training rooms, he might have blown a hole into the next room.

Julius released the deep breath he was holding and admired his work with an excited smile. It was certainly more potent than anything else he could use at the moment. It was kind of satisfying to blow things up and he had become a little addicted to it.

As he was patting himself on the back, he became aware of the pending notifications in the back of his mind and he smiled even wider, before laughing manically.

Synergy detected…

Appraising requirements…

Congratulations. Skills requirement met.

Congratulations. Concept requirement met.

Congratulations. Soul requirement met.

Would you like to evolve [Arcane Construct], [Pure Compression], and [Composite Mana] into a single skill?

Soul requirement? I didn’t know that there was a soul requirement, nobody mentioned that, Julius contemplatively thought to himself. He put it aside for later to think about and focused back on his skill evolution.

He didn’t have to wait or think about this decision like some of his other skills and immediately accepted the prompt.

Skill evolution commencing…

Congratulations, skill [Armaments of the Arcane] (Epic) acquired.

[Armaments of the Arcane] huh? Sounds fancy, Julius joked to himself.

He was excited, truly excited. After all that training and time he spent, he finally had an epic skill of his own. It was a monumental achievement for any person. Most people went their entire lives without touching upon a Concept, nevertheless an epic skill.

He took out a specialty cake that he had been saving for this exact moment. It was a chocolate espresso cake with a chocolate buttercream frosting and a glazed chocolate ganache on top. It was a delicious cake that he had been keeping in his spatial ring for the past week.

He took out a plate and silverware as well, before pouring himself an ice-cold glass of milk and cutting himself a thick slice of the cake. He warmed up the cake just a bit, just so the cake was slightly steaming, but made sure to keep the frosting nice and cold.

Julius got so excited that he forgot that he was wearing an entire helmet with a faceplate and when he tried to put the fork in his mouth, he ended up clanging the fork against the helm.

He quickly dissipated his entire armor with a thought. Once he did that, he dug in and moaned from the sensation that hit his tongue. He didn’t know what tasted better. The taste of succeeding after so much effort or the bliss of a perfectly moist cake that was both sweet and a little bitter from the espresso.

After his bite, he took a large sip of the cold milk to wash everything down, letting out a satisfied sigh of happiness. He couldn’t help but want to use his new skill, so he activated [Armaments of the Arcane] and attempted to create a reclining chair.

Much to his surprise, the skill worked seamlessly. Not only was the skill able to create a chair similar to one he had been creating for the past several weeks, but it was more comfortable and easier to make.

He barely had to concentrate, he only needed to focus on imagining what he wanted and the skill did the rest, filling in the gaps on its own.

He sat down in the chair with a big smile and continued eating his cake.

But as he did, another notification popped up in his head.