Path to Transcendence

Chapter 286: Some Things Are Irreplacable

Before the vice headmaster could begin to ask questions, Lily spoke up.

“I don’t believe it is necessary for all of these people to be here,” she said with a meaningful look at the crowd of staff members who were sitting there.

“With all due respect young lady, you don’t tell us what is necessary or not,” a man close to the head of the table said with disdain.

“Then I guess this is over,” Lily said while standing up and grabbing Julius by the armpit.

He didn’t bother arguing because he agreed with her. This amount of people felt completely unnecessary. Marcus didn’t hesitate for a moment and followed his lady’s actions, already going over to the door to hold it for her.

“You can’t just leave,” the Kelsa woman said sternly.

Lily stopped suddenly and turned to face the woman with narrowed eyes and pinched lips. “Are you going to stop us?”

At her question, Julius felt both Marcus and Stella tense up and a surge of mana flowed through them. The two of them then released some of their aura in warning, as if daring one of the staff members to try and stop them.

He was sure that the other people at the table could understand the message too, because almost all of them paled at the sight.

“I don’t think we need to go that far. Please, Mr. Avery and Ms. Stella, pull back your auras. You are terrifying some of the people here,” Gabriel chuckled placatingly, still looking at ease.

If Julius had to guess, he would say that the massive baldy was enjoying this. Something he wouldnʼt be surprised by either.

Kelsa looked unhappy, but she also looked over at Lucien who placed a calming hand on her shoulder.

“It’s fine. If it makes Mr. Snow more comfortable sharing, then I don’t mind,” Lucien said before addressing the rest of the room. Please give us some privacy. I am sure we won’t be too long.”

Some people seemed more than happy to leave while others seemed a bit more bitter. Julius was guessing that some of their egos were bruised from being kicked out. The lady from his examination was definitely bitter about it if the death stare was anything to go off of.

He couldn’t help but give her a smug smile when they met gazes. A flash of anger appeared on her face, giving him a weird feeling of satisfaction.

Serves her right, she was always so rude, he thought to himself. He didn’t forget her words about his ‘shit’ affinities all that time ago.

Well… actually he kinda did, but he recalled it pretty quickly, so that was all that mattered.

He was brought out of his thoughts when he saw Gabriel standing up to leave as well and interjected quickly. “I don’t mind if Gabriel stays, I would actually feel more comfortable if he did,” he said aloud.

Gabriel stopped getting up and looked at Lucien, who gave him a stiff nod before sitting back down.

Once the room emptied out, there were only a few people left. There were the people at the head of the table. Then there were Julius and the others, as well as Gabriel who was still looking mighty pleased with himself.

“Okay, can we start now?” Kelsa asked him.

He nodded in affirmation and made sure to give Lily a squeeze of appreciation for how she was able to remove all of the peanut gallery.

The questions that followed were pretty expected. They first asked him to narrate his version of events from the day before until the time he was transported. They impressively didn’t interrupt him a single time until he was finished.

He didn’t hide anything from them. He told them about the night before and how he had been hanging out with the others. Then, he described his morning and the events that led up to the rift. There was nothing to hide; he was sure that they already knew most of what happened anyway.

He also informed them that he had not known about the assassination attempt nor did he really know anything about teleportation circles. At least not enough to help them.

However, after he was done, they had many questions.

“Would you be willing to allow us to see your memories and see what kind of runes they were?” The lady beside the vice-headmaster asked.

“Nope, he had it right,” Julius said while pointing at her boss. “Nobody is going to be entering my mind anytime soon.”

The lady didn’t seem to get the message though. “I don’t think you quite understand how important it is for us to find out who had done this, boy. If we can figure out the style or structure of how they built the circle, it can help us determine who was behind it.” She didn’t stop and kept on insisting.

Lily cut in sharply. “He said no, and if you continue to badger him or pressure him into doing anything he doesn’t consent to, you are going to find many people upset over your actions,” she warned, her voice teetering with anger.

“Is that a threat, Miss Violet? I don’t care who your parents are, I will not stand here and let a little girl threaten me,” the woman said with a frown.

“It’s not a threat. I am simply telling you what is going to happen if you continue to act like this. You might be able to pressure other students into allowing you access to their minds, but you are not going to be allowed to act like this with Julius. It is not his fault you guys have not found out who has done this,” Lily said firmly.

“We are not saying it is his fault. But he has information that would greatly help us,” Lucien interjected gently, his voice sounding equally calm and firm.

“It is not his responsibility to figure it out for you. If you don’t remember, he is a student at this school, one who you have failed to protect in the first place. The fact that he is even willing to answer your questions is enough as is. I’m sure the Royal Family and the other parents would be thrilled to learn that this whole situation was because someone from the inside allowed this to happen,” Lily ground out.

“How do you know it is someone from the inside?” The vice-headmaster asked, looking at Lily with more scrutiny.

Aubrey scoffed from the side of the room. “Well, it’s quite obvious that is the answer. If you haven’t thought about that yet, you guys are more incompetent or stupid than I thought.”

Julius stifled a chuckle of his own and he saw that Edgar, Kyle, and Derek all facepalm at Aubrey’s words. While Lily and he had been argumentative, they didn’t outright insult the staff. It would seem that Aubrey didn’t have any compunctions about speaking her mind.

Kelsa stood up angrily and stared at Aubrey. “You better watch how you speak to us.”

Julius suspected she would have said more, but Stella and Marcus both leaned forward in their chairs, prepared to get up. He had to admit, they both looked pretty intimidating, and the lady seemed to think so because she backed down.

Gabriel was the one who interrupted.

“You mentioned you were taken to a rift, but what kind was it? Was it a Tier 3 rift?”

Julius had been prepared to be questioned about that and he didn’t mind answering either. It would actually help their explanation if they told other people that they were stuck inside a Tier 3 rift. Their inability to contact the outside world would also be explained this way.

“Yeah, it was a weird and massive Tier 3 rift that took us a very long time to find our way out. We also managed to advance to Tier 3 during this time period,” he shared willingly. He didn’t see a point in hiding either of their advancements since it would come out pretty soon anyhow.

However, this didn’t seem to surprise the people at the table. Either they already had a feeling that he was Tier 3 or that advancing to Tier 3 made the most sense in order to escape a Tier 3 rift.

For the next hour or so, he was asked a lot of questions. He didn’t answer all of them or even most of them, which frustrated them, but he didn’t really care about that. He shared as much as he was willing to.

***

He stretched his arms out and breathed in the familiar night sky of Heston.

He felt a whole lot better when they were finally done.

It went pretty easily, much more smoothly than he had expected when he had first entered the room. He had been grateful that Derek and the others insisted on coming along with him. He was worried that they would try to pressure him into answering some questions. While he had no intentions of doing so, he probably would not have gotten out of so easily.

Lily was a huge help. She was like his own personal lawyer and didn’t take any shit from any of the staff. Not even the vice-headmaster.

Whenever they would ask a question that didn’t fall under the purview of the incident, she would completely deny them any information and let him know that he didn’t need to answer anything.

Once again, he was thankful that he had them for friends. Because he doubted he would have gotten out of it without much issue. Using their families as protection didn’t feel as bad as he thought it would. He thought he would have felt more guilty.

As he was deep into his own thoughts, Aubrey leaned over to him and draped her arm over his shoulders, bumping into him and shaking him around.

“What do you guys say about us going down to the beach and hanging out? It’s private and we can use that time to catch up,” she said brightly.

“I’m down,” Edgar said with a grin.

“Me too, but I can’t stay out too late. I have to make adjustments to the item we tested earlier,” Kyle commented.

“Oh, come on! Julius just came back. You can take a night off to enjoy the reunion,” Aubrey said to Kyle.

Julius smiled when Kyle mumbled in agreement and turned to look at Marcus and Stella who were still with them.

“What about you two? Do you guys want to join us? I got some food in my storage ring,” Julius offered.

Stella pouted. “I wish I could, but I have to go report to Darius about the princess and probably will have a bunch to do afterward.”

“Come along with us, Stella. I will tell my father that I ordered you to,” Derek said with a sneaky smile.

Stella smiled sweetly. “Oh Derek, this is why you are my favorite out of all of Darius’s children.”

“I’m his only child,” Derek said with a frown.

“I know, but I still mean it!”

Julius and the rest of them all laughed.

“What about you Marcus? You’re coming along too, right?” Lily asked.

“If my lady wishes so, then I shall oblige,” Marcus said with a bow.

Lily reached over and swatted the big one-armed man. “Shut up with that nonsense. Why must you always tease me?”

Marcus took the swat without reacting. “I have no idea what my lady means.”

Lily gave up and ignored him, but Julius spotted the grin on Marcus’s face when she turned away.

For the rest of the night, they all enjoyed food and each otherʼs company while sharing stories of what had happened these past several months.

He told them some things about Elder Han and how they rescued some of the children. Edgar told him about how Tia kept trying to flirt with him. Whenever he went to check up on his potato garden, he found the girl waiting there for him.

Aubrey complained about Liam and how he kept on making advances toward her, she kept on swearing to Julius that she would beat his ass during the tournament if they faced each other—bragging to him that she had made some improvements to her mirages. He even said that he wouldn’t be able to perceive her location as well as he had in the past.

All in all, it was a wonderful night, and he internally slapped himself for ever thinking that he should delay coming back. There were some things you could never replace.